For bisexual Dopers: are you more selective within each gender than your hetero friends?
That is, if your hetero women friends find, say, 5 out if 100 men attractive, and hetero men find, say 5 out of 100 women attractive, do you also find them attractive at the same rate, at a lower rate, or a higher rate?
What brought up this question was some second-hand information that bi’s are attracted to roughly the same number of people, total, which if true would mean that they were roughly twice as selective as heteros.
Any truth to the above? Also, can you specify your gender, in case it makes a difference?
That’s how the discussion started. I brought up Woody Allen’s “Your odds double if you’re bisexual” and my friend said that his bisexual friends had told him that this is not the case, and that they were interested in the same number of people as their hetero friends.
I found this a bit unlikely, so that’s why I decided to ask the Dope. Unfortunately no response from bi Dopers yet
How are bisexual people even supposed to know what percentage of the population their straight friends consider attractive? I don’t think I could tell you what percentage of the general population I consider attractive myself, and I certainly couldn’t tell you what percentage of the population any of my friends finds attractive. For people I know well I probably have some idea of what their “type” is, but not how many people in the world they actually consider attractive. There’s also a lot of individual variation as to how particular people are about their romantic partners.
The big problem with the “Woody Allen hypothesis” as I see it is that just because you (not you personally, a hypothetical bisexual person) are attracted to both men and women doesn’t mean that both men and women will be attracted to you. Straight people of the same sex and gay people of the opposite sex aren’t going to be interested no matter how charming and attractive you may be. Add to that negative stereotypes about bisexuals being promiscuous/dishonest/confused, and there must be a fair number of people who wouldn’t date a bisexual just because they’re bisexual.
I don’t even know how you’d quantify something like this. It’s not like I keep a running tally of everyone I meet who I find attractive, to say nothing of all the people I meet who I don’t find attractive. If I had to guess, I’d say that what you’re friend meant was something along the lines of, “Bisexual people have about the same number of intimate relationships as straight people.”
I don’t know if that’s true, either - I suspect it depends a great deal on the individual in question.
Also, a lot of bisexual people aren’t “perfectly” bisexual, and tend to favor one gender over the other.
When people start comparing numbers, I usually find out that I’ve slept with fewer people than my straight friends, and that my numbers compare better to my lesbian friends (of my age), but that’s only true when I compare myself to other women. All men, gay, straight, and bi have (or claim to have) slept with more people than I have. Bisexual men don’t claim more one-night-stands or “friends with benefits.” If memory serves, it’s actually fewer, but I haven’t had a conversation like that that included men very often.
I find a lot of people attractive, but that doesn’t mean I want to sleep with all of them.
I…don’t think so. Ignoring the bi question, some people are more selective than others, by a wide margin. I know I find more women attractive than many of my hetero friends, simply because I have very wide tastes and can find a lot of different looks attractive.
That’s called living a disorganized life. Personally I always carry a little notepad with me and make hash marks for the appropriate categories as I walk down the street.
As previously noted, the individual variation is incredibly vast. I suppose some bisexuals would date 50% of the general population & have one night stands w 90%. Other bisexuals may only be attracted to .5% of the population & would have one night stands with none.
ALso your friend’s bisexual friends are likely a very small data point, so much so that anything they told your friend is not statistically significant.