Lover Sexuality Preference
Lesbians (but not gay men) strongly prefer monosexuals over bisexuals; similarly, straight women have a narrower range of desire for men than straight men have for women.
Sexual Orientation Preference (or Partner Sexuality Preference)
Did you date because — or discover later?
I often get this question when discussing how I’ve mostly dated bisexual women since I was 17 years old (half of my existence & nearly half of my life).
To be clear, I never dated anyone because they were bisexual, but given previous successful relationships (despite none leading to marriage yet), a romantic auditor may consider it a plus according to research by Garelick et al. (2017) (see below). In most cases I didn’t know she was bisexual until months (or, in one case, years) after we were Facebook Official.
Given the significantly lower amount of bisexual women relative to heterosexual women in the world, the fact that more than a supermajority of women I’ve dated have been bisexual (even if only counting Facebook Official girlfriends) suggests that it’s something about me. Indeed, the ‘Taylor Swift Rule’ could be discarded into ancient folklore at this point as the odds of my dating history are far lower than hers. And her romance of 4+ years is longer than my longest with a lover at 3.5 years. Style.
Taylor Swift Rule
Research by Park & McDonald (2019) finds evidence of what is colloquially known as the Taylor Swift Rule: Individuals tend to be drawn into relationships with a particular type of person, just like as introverts are drawn to Barnes & Noble & extraverts are drawn to Coachella. Basically, if you date multiple people over time & experience similar outcomes, at some point it’s you.
Think about a bff who always seems to fall for women/men who end up cheating on them. And no matter how many red flags you see early on, those flags look pink to your friend because they still have their rose-colored glasses on.
Rose colored glasses diminish one’s capacity to accurately perceive red flags.
Despite your best efforts, your friend ends up dating someone like that again, just like an introvert randomly waking up to discover they fell asleep inside Barnes & Noble.
It is noteworthy that Taylor, whose regency is second only to Queen Beyoncé, has clearly figured things out as she’s been with Joe for over 4 years. I don’t have any bad blood with her — simply defining the phrase.
It’d be more apropos to call it the Justin Bieber Rule at this point. Sorry, sorry, not sorry.
My propensity for dating bisexuals hardly arises out of a Blank Space. Though I’ll refrain from discussing any personal romantic preferences here, the following passage is instructive 💁🏻
Garelick et al. (2017): People in InterOrientation relationships tend to show more awareness of & willingness to discuss the role of gender in a relationship & gendered behaviors compared to MonoOrientation opposite-sex relationships, which may affect common relational conflict issues such as division of household labor, which may in turn affect relationship satisfaction. Look what you made me do.
For monosexual lesbians, straights, & gays with a bisexual sexual orientation preference in who they date (or partner sexuality preference), the dating site BiCupid is made for bisexual singles. partner sexuality preference sexual orientation preference.
Lesbians’ Lover Sexuality Preference
Lesbians have a strong partner sexuality preference for lesbians over bisexual women (Rust, 1993), as they don’t feel bisexual women will be as committed to long-term relationships with someone of the same-sex (Eliason, 2001; Steinman, 2001). As such, they may pressure bisexual partners to overcompensate/prove their loyalty within a same-sex relationship in a way that isn’t true for lesbian-lesbian, gay-gay, bisexual-bisexual, or bisexual-heterosexual couples (Gonzalez et al., 2017; Israel, 2018; Stein, 2020).
Bisexual mothers in particular often felt that lesbian communities were exclusive or unwelcoming to them (Bartelt et al., 2017; Kangasvuo, 2011; Manley et al., 2018; Ross et al., 2012).
Gonzalez et al., 2017: “Bisexuals are often perceived as sexually promiscuous (Alarie & Gaudet, 2013) & not seen as suitable partners for heterosexual or LG individuals (Breno & Galupo, 2008).”
Lesbians’ beliefs about bisexual promiscuity are ironic given that bisexual women are far more likely to cheat on boyfriends than girlfriends (Hoang et al., 2011).
Hoang et al. (2011) → “Bisexual women had a higher rate of infidelity with their boyfriends (62.5%) than girlfriends (10.5%), regardless of whether the affairs were with men or with women.”
Bisexual ≠ Lesbian
It is important to investigate the preferences of bisexual women & lesbians separately “because bisexuality does appear to be a meaningful category apart from homosexuality (Loewenstein, 1985)” (Cohen & Tannenbaum, 2001). Combining bisexuals with lesbians makes as much sense as combining them with heterosexuals. Bisexuals aren’t monosexuals.
Sidenotes.
Bisexual Men ‘s Infidelity Concerns When Dating Women vs. Men
Whether a bisexual guy is more concerned with sexual or emotional infidelity depends on whether he’s dating a man or a woman.
“Men tend to worry about sexual infidelity, because they want to know that their female partners’ children are their own, and women tend to worry about emotional infidelity, stemming from a time when they had to worry about men allocating resources to their relationship.
Under this theory, it makes sense that bisexual men dating women would be more worried about sexual infidelity than bisexual men dating men, who can’t get pregnant.”
HOWEVER → “A post hoc comparison between women dating women and women dating men was conducted on the proportion of women who chose emotional infidelity as more distressing and was found to be nonsignificant.”
Bisexual Men Dating Men → Participants in a same-sex relationship showed no sex difference (M-M = W-W on sexual infidelity concerns).
Bisexual Men Dating Women → For participants in an opposite sex relationship, the traditional sex difference emerged: bisexual men cared more about sexual infidelity than bisexual women (Scherer et al., 2013).
Scherer, C. R., Akers, E. G., & Kolbe, K. L. (2013). Bisexuals and the sex differences in jealousy hypothesis. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 30(8), 1064–1071
(the content below may eventually be relocated to a solitary piece)
Proving your Womanhood in MMORPG
…isn’t as challenging as it may sound.
Given the stereotype that videogames are male-dominated (something that was truer 20+ years ago than it is today), a female identity has to be ‘proven’ in a way that a male identity doesn’t. A male avatar’s presumed corporeal manhood is safe from being questioned whereas a female avatar’s presumed corporeal womanhood requires greater performativity for validation (Butler, 1999).
Several lines of research have found that avatars can lead to behavioral changes in users such that gender swapping male players tend to behave as more feminine, display more socially amiable behaviors, create a feminine aesthetic, and perform more feminine communication (Huh & Williams, 2010; Lehdonvirta et al., 2012; Lou et al., 2013; Martey et al., 2014; Yee & Bailenson, 2007; Yee et al., 2009). Female avatars (including men playing as women) are more likely to purchase decorative, functionless items for self-presentation (Kim et al., 2012).
When women play as men, however, they “exhibited a rather drastic transformation into a “male-like” aggressive, achievement-oriented character” (Lou et al., 2019; p. 832).
Consistent with this is a finding from machine-learning research in which the Ai made more errors classifying men playing as women as actual women (7.22% error rate) than in erroneously classifying women playing as men as actual men (4.36% error rate) (Kennedy et al., 2014).
There are also several customization choices that are necessary to ensure other gamers don’t discover you’re a male:
- your name
- breast size (smaller = more believable; A or B > D)
- height (shorter = more believable)
- hairstyle (bisexual bob, ponytail)
- punctuation usage (!!!!)
- word usage (omg that npc is so handsome; this dragon is mean please halp)
- toggling your helmet on/off (so males can see your face & makeup)
- toggling your weapon into hidden outside of combat
- clothing style & color (for games that allow dyes), & shoes
- muscle tone & avoiding extreme thinness
There are behavioral indicators of gamer gender as well. For instance:
How frequently you jump → Males playing as female avatars aren’t used to being shorter, so they tend to press the jump button more often to increase what they perceive they can see.
Showing visible deference in dungeons → as in your avatar stopping & even backing up until a male avatar comes and charges forth at the boss/enemies).
Walking slower → women walk slower than men in real life (Polus et al. 1983; Tarawneh, 2001; Finnis & Walton, 2008), so moving more slowly while in dungeon groups increases believability that you’re a woman.
Gardening/ tending to things around the guild house, waving, showing a lot of expressiveness at events like weddings, etc.
Who is most open to dating bisexuals?
Straight men are more open to dating bisexual women than straight women are to dating bisexual men, but the second poll suggests that romantic openness may not indicate that straight men are bi allies. Indeed, most votes leaned towards the notion that straight men would be less interested in dating a straight woman if she previously dated a bisexual male. Moreover, most voted that bisexual men would be least likely to lose their virginity to someone of the same-sex.
GamerGirl Bisexuality Quiz Results
There will be bad blood if anyone expresses bi-erasure in this house.
You need to shake it off & calm down.
……Lemonade.
The Taylor Swift Rule (walkthrough)
Piper has 4 exes & a new boyfriend.
There is a higher personality correlation between Piper’s exes AND new boyfriend than between Piper’s personality & anyone she has dated.
We tend to date similar people over time.