Examining Undergraduate Attitudes Towards Bisexuality and Bisexual Individuals

Despite the great strides that the Lesbian and Gay (LG) community has made in the last four decades, bisexual individuals still “report a lack of validation, isolation and ostracism within both the heterosexual and homosexual communities” (Israel & Mohr, 2004, p. 119). This study focuses on undergraduate students’ attitudes towards bisexuality and bisexual individuals at Eastern Michigan University by testing the hypothesis that homosexual and heterosexual students will have a significant bias towards bisexual persons, and that male students will demonstrate bias towards bisexual persons, regardless of their own sexual orientation. The survey instrument was an 18-item questionnaire revised from the Biphobia Scale, which presented Likert scale response options paired with statements describing stereotypical bisexual traits. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted to see significance between groups, followed by a Tukey post hoc test. Recommendations will include counseling techniques for social workers and other supporting professionals who counsel bisexual persons. INTRODUCTION On May 17, 2004, Massachusetts became the first state to legalize same-sex marriage (Freedom to Marry, 2014). Since then, the perception of the LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning) community has changed dramatically, both in media representation and in policy. LGBTQ issues are being 1 London-Terry: Examining Undergraduate Attitudes Towards Bisexuality and Bisexual Individuals Published by DigitalCommons@EMU, 102 discussed on television shows, in the news, and in court cases at the state and federal levels. After the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court on June 26, 2013, seventeen states changed their policies, allowing same-sex couples to wed (Freedom to Marry, 2014). However, as the heterosexual world’s perspective towards same-sex marriage changed, the LGBTQ community was facing internal turmoil. “Bisexual individuals have reported a lack of validation, isolation and ostracism within both the heterosexual and lesbian/gay communities” (Israel & Mohr, 2004, p. 119). The U.S Department of Health and Human Services (2013) defines bisexuality as “a person who is attracted to someone of another or same gender.” Israel and Mohr (2004) noted, “Some individuals may question the legitimacy of bisexuality because of an understanding of bisexuality as a pure 50/50 split” (p. 121). The “50/50 split” refers to the assumption that bisexual persons are equally attracted to same sex and opposite sex people. In actuality, the ways in which a bisexual person could be attracted to another person are virtually unlimited. Bisexuality can be seen as “the potential to be attracted—romantically and/or sexually—to people of more than one sex and/or gender, not necessarily at the same time, not necessarily in the same way, and not necessarily to the same degree” (Ochs & Rowley, 2009, p. 8). The lack of clear understanding has caused some doubt about whether bisexuality is a “valid” sexual orientation. This could be related to how heterosexuality and homosexuality dominate the manner in which sexuality is interrupted and defined (Wilde, 2014). Thus, bisexual self-identification is not sufficient to support validity. “Insufficient social validation, including lack of bisexual role models and communities, was hypothesized to contribute to [the questioning identity stage]” (Brown, 2008, p. 76). The questioning identity stage describes the confusion people may experience when starting to realize that they are neither heterosexual nor homosexual. Firestein (2007) also noted that “it is crucial for therapists to understand how experiences with social invalidation contribute to psychological distress” (p. 212). Validation opens the doors to social awareness, thus providing the possibility for social groups/networks to form. Charae A. London-Terry 2 McNair Scholars Research Journal, Vol. 7 [], Iss. 1, Art. 10 http://commons.emich.edu/mcnair/vol7/iss1/10 103 Bisexuals often experience a series of challenges, including erasure and invisibility. Bisexual erasure refers to “invisibility, misrecognition through distortion, or condemnation through moral devaluation” (Klesse, 2011, p. 227). Bisexual invisibility refers to the “ assumption that people are either heterosexual or homosexual, or assuming people’s sexuality on the basis of their current partner” (Barker, Richards, Jones, Bowes-Catton, & Plowman, 2012, p. 4). Minorities often lack power in U.S. society and may conform to the social conventions of majority culture. Bisexuals, or those questioning their sexual orientation, may feel confused “as a result [of] the need to change to a lesbian or gay self-label in order to be accepted in homosexual communities” (Brown, 2002, p. 76). The LG community has fought for visibility and social acceptance even before the 1964 Stonewall Riots. An example of this is the Mattachine Society, an advocacy group for gay men founded in Northern California during the early 1950s (Federal Bureau of Investigation: Mattachine Society, 1953). Further, due to growing visibility, social acceptance, and empirical evidence, in 1973 the American Psychiatric Association (APA) removed the diagnosis “homosexuality” from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM; Spitzer, 1973). As Morgenstern writes: Though many bisexuals have fought on the front lines of the gay rights movement, it appears that [they] have only token representation in the community; the word ‘bisexual’ has been added to the masthead, but [they aren’t] truly included or accepted in the community (Morgenstern, 2008, p. 72). Theoretical Explanations of Bisexuality During the 19 century, the term bisexual “was used in fields of anatomy and physiology to refer to life forms” (MacDowall, 2009, p. 4) with androgynous genitalia. During the 20 century, Inversion Theory, also known as sexual inversion, was described in Freud’s work on sexuality (Freud, 1905, 1975). Examining Undergraduate Attitudes Towards Bisexuality and Bisexual Individuals 3 London-Terry: Examining Undergraduate Attitudes Towards Bisexuality and Bisexual Individuals Published by DigitalCommons@EMU, 104 Freud listed three types of “inverts”: Absolute Invert, Amphigenic Invert and the Contingent Invert. Freud proposed that Amphigenic Inverts (bisexuals) “[were] psychosexual hermaphrodites [whose] sexual objects may equally well be of their own or of the opposite sex. This kind of inversion thus lacks the characteristics of exclusiveness” (Freud, 1905, 1975, p. 2). Using Inversion Theory to explain bisexuality fuses biological sex (male or female) to sexual attraction. By this definition, “bisexual people were seen as psychologically intersex” (Eisner, 2013, p. 15). Kite and Deaux (1987), as cited by Shields and Dicicco (2011), found that stereotypes of lesbians and gay men largely reflected the inversion model – lesbians were “masculine,” gay men were “feminine” (493). After the 1981 emergence of HIV/AIDS, bisexuality was defined as both a sexual orientation and practice (MacDowall, 2009). Yoshino (2000) wrote that “HIV is often characterized as [the] ‘gay’ [male] disease” (p. 427), yet many women were also contracting the virus: In the minds of many heterosexual Americans, bisexuality has come to be strongly identified with images of married, dishonest, closeted men sneaking out on their unsuspecting wives, contracting AIDS through unsafe sex with other men, then infecting their innocent wives and children (Gelman, 1989, as cited by Yoshino, 2000). Yoshino also discusses the large number of magazine articles, such as Gelman’s, warning heterosexuals about the HIV/AIDs risk that bisexuals posed to the community (2000).