The Redding Record-Searchlight (or Wretched Flashlight, as I called it when I was a kid and it was my local paper) reports a finding by a study conducted by University of Guelph psychology professor Michael Peters in which he notes a correlation between ambidextrousness and bisexuality.
For example, among men, only 4 percent of right-handers and 4.5 percent of left-handers reported that they were bisexual.
But among those who wrote with both hands that number was 9.2 percent.
Among women, 6.2 percent of right-handers and 6.3 percent of left-handers reported they were bisexual, compared to 15.6 percent among the more ambidextrous volunteers.
At first glance, Peters’ study suffers from problems. His methodology is described as
The study involved 255,000 people who answered questions on the BBC Science and Nature web site. Participants were asked 150 questions about demographics, personality, sexuality, social attitudes and behavior.
I think it is pretty obvious that people who answer questions on a website are not representative of the population as a whole. When you restrict your sample to those persons who answer questions on a science and nature website, you further skew your results.
I don’t know that nature-loving web surfers are any more or less likely to be bisexual or ambidextrous, but the results seem contradictory from other better surveys. To find that at least 4 percent of men and 6.2 percent of women are bisexual is rather aggressive. The CDC found about half that number.
Also Peters’ study found that there was no correlation between nonright-handedness and homosexuality, Simon LeVay’s excellent summary of studies on the Biology of Sexual Orientation reports
Handedness. There seems to be little or no difference in the handedness of heterosexual men and women (Lippa 2003), but most studies have found that gay men and/or lesbians are significantly more likely to be non-righthanded (i.e. left-handed or mixed-handed) than straight people of the same sex (Lalumiere, Blanchard et al. 2000; Mustanski, Bailey et al. 2002; Lippa 2003).
While I think Peters’ study is poorly executed and non-conclusive, it does add to the growing mountain of evidence that supports an interconnectivity between sexual orientation and biology.
I just have to love all these “studies” about sexuality. They are all so accurate, right? When I daily run into men who say, “I’m straight, but I’d really like to have sex with {a daddy-type, a jock… or another “straight” guy}.”, I find it a little difficult to believe ANY numbers from ANY group. The fact of the matter is that until it stops being such an issue and people are no longer afraid of the terminology, we won’t have any idea that remotely reflects the exact numbers of gay, bisexual OR straight people.