In Search of Something Our Study Was Not About: Response to Bailey, Rieger, and Rosenthal (2011)

Abstract

Bailey, Rieger, and Rosenthal (2011) go at great lengths to try and convince readers that our study (Cerny & Janssen, 2011) failed to demonstrate what it set out to do. However, our study did not set out to do what they claim it set out to do. In fact, Bailey et al. misrepresent the goals, analyses, and conclusions of our study. The goal of our study was not to demonstrate that bisexual men respond with substantial genital arousal to both maleandfemalestimuli. Thepurposeofourstudywas todetermine if men with different sexual orientations show differential genital and subjective arousal patterns to video presentations of bisexual, heterosexual, and homosexual sexual interactions. The genital response analyses did not consist of‘‘two main analyses’’but of one single mixed-model analysis. And our conclusions were not about something Bailey et al. like to refer to as‘‘bisexual arousal.’’Instead, we concluded that bisexuality in men was associated with a unique and specific pattern of sexual arousal. This was based on the finding that the bisexual and other men responded similarly to some and differently to other stimuli—most critically, the bisexual men responded with greater penile tumescence to a video depicting a man engaged in sex with both a man and a woman than both the homosexual or heterosexual men. The Long of It