Brooke Bradford, Utah Valley University
Social and Behavioral Sciences
Research in the area of sexuality indicates that females tend to be more flexible in their sexual behaviors than males.(Baumeister, 2000) Studies also seem to indicate that there is a more permissive and accepting attitude towards women’s bisexual behaviors than towards men’s bisexual behaviors(Lippa, 2006; Savin-Williams, 2006) The present experiment was created in order to measure the perceptions of bisexual behavior held by Utah Valley University students. One hundred students were asked to read brief descriptions of similar sexual behaviors participated in by men and women. Participants were asked to rate these sexual behaviors on a scale and indicate if they perceive the behavior as heterosexual, questioning, bi-curious, bisexual or homosexual. The participants were then asked to rate behaviors on a scale of acceptability as well as a scale of commonality. The questions consist of similar behaviors being engaged in by males and females in order to test for changes in perceptions of the sexual activity occur based on the gender of the actor in the scenario. It is hypothesized that the results of these surveys will support current research in this area and confirm that the scenarios featuring females will be rated as more acceptable, common and placed in the bisexual categories.