Bisexual Men are More Jealous When Dating Women, Stems from Evolutionary Theory

A new study alleges that bisexual men are more jealous of their partners when dating women.

The study supports the idea that jealousy is evolutionarily designed. Therefore, men tend to worry about sexual infidelity because they want to know that their partner's children are their own. On the other hand, women worry more about emotional infidelity, which stems from a time when they might have had to worry about men allocating resources to their relationship.

This theory makes sense that bisexual men would be more concerned when dating women regarding sexual infidelity simply from the fact that men can't get pregnant, according to study researcher Cory Scherer, a social psychologist at Pennsylvania State University Schuylkill. Previous research also suggests that people in same-sex relationships tend to worry more about the emotional aspects of cheating than the sexual aspects, according to Scherer.

"Bisexuals kind of fit both aspects of this jealousy," Scherer said, according to LiveScience. "You can make predictions of what kind of jealousy they may be distressed by depending on whom they're dating."

One hundred and thirty-four self-identified bisexuals from lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender organizations across the country filled out an Internet questionnaire, asking participants to imagine being cheated on and identify the gender of the cheating partner. They then had to determine if they would be more upset about the sexual or emotional aspects of the cheating.

Forty-eight of the participants were bisexual women dating men, 36 were bisexual women dating women, 27 were bisexual men dating women and 23 were bisexual men dating men.

The answers showed that the men dating women were far more likely than other groups to be most stressed by sexual infidelity. Among bisexual men dating women, 49 percent said they would be most bothered by the sex. For comparison, only 16 percent of men dating men said that the sex would bother them more than the emotional betrayal.

Women's concerns about infidelity weren't as affected by their partner's gender. Of women dating women, 25 percent said the sex would bother them more than the emotional infidelity, the same answer given by 17 percent of women dating men. The researchers reported the results online April 9 in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.