The Problem With 'Behavioral Bisexuality': Assessing Sexual Orientation in Survey Research

Researchers often use survey items on sexual behavior to classify respondents' sexual orientation. Such measures require two sex partners (one male, one female) within a specified period for classification as bisexual, but only one for classification as homosexual or heterosexual. Using 2002 U.S. National Survey of Family Growth data, this proof-of-concept analysis demonstrates that observed effects of 'behavioral bisexuality'on substance use and sexual health outcomes may thus be tautologically due to encoded differentials in sex partner number, rather than a function of bisexuality as typically defined or practiced. Effects were largely and consistently attenuated when a floor value of two sex partners was consistently applied to all orientation groups. Past-year behavioral bisexuality performed poorly as a proxy measure for either bisexual identity or lifetime bisexual behavioral history. Research using such measures must be interpreted with caution, and researchers are urged to consider alternate coding strategies or conduct sensitivity analyses.