I’ve never seen a 14 year old boy who looked like a sexually mature female.

sexual abuse of children is not sex.

I’m not confused, thanks. You were claiming that sexual attraction to a certain subset of males (beardless) does not make you gay, but only a pederast. I say that’s bullshit.

Again, the “physical responses” you refer to are, I assume, bloodflow in genitals while looking at various kinds of porn? This kind of data does not interest me at all…it’s fMRI for your crotch. If it is true that there are behaviorally fewer bisexual men than women, or that men tend to cluster (again, behaviorally) more at the poles of some hetero-homo continuum, I don’t find it unreasonable to think that this may be due to a paucity of clearly defined social identities for men in the middle range. I have gay friends, but it is clear that gay male culture is very distinct from straight male culture. I don’t want to draw conclusions from that, but I don’t know why it would be particularly surprising for any psycho/social distribution to be bimodal.

People keep hammering away at the apparently accepted idea that young men look like women, or will do in a pinch. Sure they don’t have beards, so it was easier to put them in drag for Elizabethan theater. I will admit they lack many of the secondary sexual characteristics of adult men. However, they don’t have any of the sexual characteristics of women. Ever heard of your imagination and your hand? Am I the only straight guy here?

“As for clarifying my comment on moods – I think the display of bisexuality could extend not just over longer periods, but shorter ones as well. I don’t know, but it’s possible. I prefer beer, but sometimes I’ll drink wine.”: Do you ever feel an equal preference for both?

” who cares? You should read some of Bailey’s critics. I don’t go much in for psychology, but even for them he’s sloppy.”: I have read Bailey’s critics. Most of them are LGBT activists with an ax to grind.

“Razib, I agree…but I don’t think these identities exist independent of context. If you’re willingly having same-sex intercourse, you are bisexual or homosexual, whether it’s pederasty or not.”: So, an Afghan man who has sex with a 14 year old boy because he looks like a girl is, by your definition, either homosexual (despite the fact that he is not aroused by masculine looking men) or bisexual (despite the fact that it is only the appearance of femininity that excites him)?

Sorry, the “null hypothesis” thing was just a smartass joke. You’re right… but study credibility is not the problem, really, it’s sampling. There are no studies with samples from which one could derive trustworthy probabilities because they consist solely of those who have either been convicted and/or are receiving clinical treatment. I would guess that majority of child molesters are not caught or do not seek treatment, and that these might be important group differences.

This study was based on 1 year of ER visits by abused children, fewer than 1% of the abusers were gay or lesbian, but that is impossible to interpret because we don’t know what percent of adults with access to these children were homosexual.
Jenny et al. (1994). Are children at risk for sexual abuse by homosexuals? Pediatrics, 94, 41-44.

There are many other studies with negative results, which as you know are hard to interpret.

The only ones I could find explicitly supporting the gay/molester theory are Cameron’s (Psych Reports, 1985), but he simply defined all males who molested male children as homosexuals, so there goes that “conclusion.”

As for clarifying my comment on moods – I think the display of bisexuality could extend not just over longer periods, but shorter ones as well. I don’t know, but it’s possible. I prefer beer, but sometimes I’ll drink wine.

You mean, why didn’t blood flow to their genitals increase when they were in a laboratory watching pornography? Maybe the 2 or 3 in his sample had just jerked off, who cares? You should read some of Bailey’s critics. I don’t go much in for psychology, but even for them he’s sloppy.

Razib, I agree…but I don’t think these identities exist independent of context. If you’re willingly having same-sex intercourse, you are bisexual or homosexual, whether it’s pederasty or not. These aren’t Platonic states, they are operational categories that arise from GxE interactions. I am sure not all Greeks were pederasts, and some guys on the Pequod just stayed in their hammocks. There is a continuum on which everyone falls that is dependent on their brain and their environment. It doesn’t make sense to me to say that someone who derives pleasure from and seeks out same-sex intercourse is somehow not really gay/bi. You are, to some degree or other, and you are distinguishable from those who never seek it out and would not enjoy it.

I bet you’re right about heritability.

“So if men in the US are attracted to women with comically large breasts, or who are not obese, or who are young, but are not particularly attracted to most other women, then are they not truly “heterosexual”, but some sort of special-pleading subcategory?”: Miko, you seem to be confusing preference with orientation. Most men who are “turned on” by, say, big breasts, are also attracted to smaller breasted women, only to a lesser degree. In contrast, an Afghani man who has sex with a girlish looking boy will not be at all attracted to a virile looking adult male.

” I don’t find pubescent males especially dainty or at all appealing sexually. If you do–[affects stereotyped gay accent] heLLLOOO!–you are gay. Or bisexual.”: Pubescent males are a source of sexual release for heterosexual men in sex segregated cultures because they look feminine.

“I don’t have any trouble thinking up plausible-sounding reasons, but I’m not a social scientist.”: Please, enlighten us.I would like to hear your explanation for why American society can inhibit a bisexual physical response, but not a homosexual physical response.

You seem to pretty convinced that there would be no difference. Are there ‘credible’ studies showing that there are no differences? I doubt that as well.

Numbers : I agree that the numbers are low, but it is the largest scale test that I know of.Obviously, the larger the number of test subjects, the greater the degree of confidence in the results.

Percentage of Bisexuals: Please note that the 33 bisexual subjects were self-identified. They were the only group that failed to physically respond in a manner that was consistent with their self-labeling.

Moods: Could you amplify this?Are you implying that male bisexuals will display a bisexual pattern of arousal only during certain intervals in their lives?

Bisexuals lurking in the self-identified heterosexuals: If this is the case, why didn’t they respond to both the m-m and f-f scenes?

So if men in the US are attracted to women with comically large breasts, or who are not obese, or who are young, but are not particularly attracted to most other women, then are they not truly “heterosexual”, but some sort of special-pleading subcategory? I don’t find pubescent males especially dainty or at all appealing sexually. If you do–[affects stereotyped gay accent] heLLLOOO!–you are gay. Or bisexual.

“How is it that American culture can successfully inhibit a bisexual physical response, but not a homosexual physical response?”

I don’t have any trouble thinking up plausible-sounding reasons, but I’m not a social scientist.

Is that irrefutable? Can’t say I’ve come across a convincing argument one way or the other.
Of course it’s refutable, it’s the null hypothesis. I am unaware of any credible refutations, but I do know that molesters are generally straight male family members, and that the general clinical consensus is that pedophilia and homosexuality are unrelated, as one might expect from observing the differences between adults and children in terms of secondary sexual characteristics.