Over at Sully's place, Patrick Appel is puzzled by Christian Rudder's contention that 80% of the OK Cupid users who identify as bisexual are really only interested in one gender, based on the number of messages that such users send to one gender or the other.
I get irritated by people who create their own definitions and then accuse other people of lying when they don't fit into the categories they've invented. And yes, that's exactly what Rudder is doing--the title of his post is "The Big Lies People Tell In Online Dating." For someone who claims that it's not their "intention here to call into question anyone's sexual identity," he's certainly done a piss-poor job of not calling anyone's sexual identity into question.
The implied argument is an expression of ignorance. The assumption is that if someone is not messaging to both male and female OK Cupid user at a given level of frequency, they're not "really" bisexual.
Suppose I only use OK Cupid for seeking online dates with women? Suppose, if I'm in the mood for a bit of man-to-man, I have other sites I use--say, a site specifically for same-sex contact? Furthermore, the underlying assumption that bisexuality is a fixed value is ridiculous. If I haven't been on a date with a man in five years, does that mean my bisexuality membership has expired? If I'm in a long-term relationship with a woman, does that mean I'm all paid up on my straight club fees?
This sort of crap is why I don't really lay claim to any of the three Officially Sanctioned Preferences™. Each one is loaded with its own social baggage, none of which matches, and none of which belongs to me. This isn't my attempt to adopt some kind of more-exotic-than-thou persona. Some people are perfectly happy trading on the sexual misconceptions of others, which is its own sort of delicious little game, but I've run out of patience for that sort of thing. There's always someone on either side of the fence--or directly astride it--who thinks that they've got The Way Things Are all figured out, and who will want to put you in one of their three little boxes.
I'll sort myself out, thanks very much.
OkCupid is a gay- and bi-friendly place and it's not our intention here to call into question anyone's sexual identity. But when we looked into messaging trends by sexuality, we were very surprised at what we found. People who describe themselves as bisexual overwhelmingly message either one sex or the other, not both as you might expect.Actually, what it suggests is an unrealistically rigid expectation of what a sexual preference categorization actually indicates. "Bisexual" does not indicate a 50/50 preference split. It does not indicate an absence of preference. It is not a constant.
[...]
This suggests that bisexuality is often either a hedge for gay people or a label adopted by straights to appear more sexually adventurous to their (straight) matches.
I get irritated by people who create their own definitions and then accuse other people of lying when they don't fit into the categories they've invented. And yes, that's exactly what Rudder is doing--the title of his post is "The Big Lies People Tell In Online Dating." For someone who claims that it's not their "intention here to call into question anyone's sexual identity," he's certainly done a piss-poor job of not calling anyone's sexual identity into question.
The implied argument is an expression of ignorance. The assumption is that if someone is not messaging to both male and female OK Cupid user at a given level of frequency, they're not "really" bisexual.
Suppose I only use OK Cupid for seeking online dates with women? Suppose, if I'm in the mood for a bit of man-to-man, I have other sites I use--say, a site specifically for same-sex contact? Furthermore, the underlying assumption that bisexuality is a fixed value is ridiculous. If I haven't been on a date with a man in five years, does that mean my bisexuality membership has expired? If I'm in a long-term relationship with a woman, does that mean I'm all paid up on my straight club fees?
This sort of crap is why I don't really lay claim to any of the three Officially Sanctioned Preferences™. Each one is loaded with its own social baggage, none of which matches, and none of which belongs to me. This isn't my attempt to adopt some kind of more-exotic-than-thou persona. Some people are perfectly happy trading on the sexual misconceptions of others, which is its own sort of delicious little game, but I've run out of patience for that sort of thing. There's always someone on either side of the fence--or directly astride it--who thinks that they've got The Way Things Are all figured out, and who will want to put you in one of their three little boxes.
I'll sort myself out, thanks very much.
All I can say is, "Wow". This is ridiculous that they would come to that conclusion because of who a group of individuals who share the same sexual orientation decide to contact.
Honestly, OK Cupid's remarks seem offensive to me, and I'm straight. :/
I think, also, this might be related to the make-up of the communities people spend time with. A bi woman who has a lot of gay friends might be swimming in dates with women, but want OK Cupid to connect with men. Or vice versa.
On the other hand, it is an interesting phenomenon that there are trends in contact with one gender over another. The appalling aspect of this article is, of course, the ridiculous conclusions. I would be interested to see what someone a little less myopic might say about these data...
It's certainly an interesting dataset, but yes: using it to draw conclusions about what bi men and women are "actually into" is just silly. And irritating, but that's just my own particular axe.
You know, I read that article (separately) and thought, "Hmmn, something is wrong here." But I couldn't put my finger on what. Probably because I'm not Bi. But I knew he was off. And now I know why.
Yep. Makes perfect sense. (Also, gah, doofuses. I wrote something myself recently on the desire to homogenize everything and everyone to avoid making the stretch to really understand them. This seems to be an assumption cut in that mold.)
It's posts like this that make me regret all the moolah spent on my Acme Pigeonhole Detector.
Yeah, those never work. The Rocket Skates, though...those things rock.