BEHAVIOR PATTERNS AND SEXUAL IDENTITY OF BISEXUAL MALES

Bisexuality may be measured in,terms of bisexual behavior or bisexual self-identity. The relationship between the two is poorly understood. Data from a 1982 survey of readers of Playboy magazine are used to examine the identity and behavior of 6,982 men who acknowledged adult sexual experiences with both men and women. Of these, 29 percent described themselves as bisexual, 2 percent as homosexual, and 69 percent as heterosexual in identification. Those with a bisexual identity were more likely to have had homosexual experiences as adolescents and to describe their adult sexual behavior as predominantly or sometimes homosexual rather than predominantly heterosexual. The sexual behaviors reported by bisexual men would place them at intermediate risk of acquiring or transmitting sexually transmitted diseases-higher than exclusively heterosexual but lower than exclusively homosexual men. Results suggest that a definition of bisexuality based exclusively on identity would fail to capture most men with adult bisexual experience.