Na’Ni Caliste
CAROLINE SAVOIE | Staff Writer
CarolineLSavoie@gmail.co
When SMU senior Na’Ni Caliste noticed that an episode of Sex and the City depicted negative attitudes toward dating bisexual people, he said, he realized that unlike other depictions of LGBTQ life on the show, that take on bisexual people still holds true today.
Driven by what he saw as the “insane” portrayal of bisexuality when Carrie dated a bisexual man in a 2000 episode of the show, Caliste, who identifies as a bisexual man, was motivated to explore current attitudes.
Caliste’s recent study at Southern Methodist University sheds light on the varying levels of acceptance towards bisexual individuals as potential dating partners among undergraduate students. Caliste said he spearheaded the research, surveyed their peers and discovered significant differences in comfort levels based on the participants’ own gender identity.
The research utilized the Alfred Kinsey scale, a way to classify sexual orientation on a continuum ranging from 0 to 6 — with 0 representing exclusively heterosexual and 6 representing exclusively homosexual — to assess comfort levels with potential partners of different gender identities.
The SMU Engaged Learning Fellowship funded the study, and researchers employed a Qualtrics survey advertised on social media for one to two months. To avoid biasing the sample, the survey’s advertising focused on investigating “romantic identities and relationships” rather than explicitly mentioning bisexuality.
“Everyone’s interested in relationships,” Caliste said. “If they don’t want to take a survey about sexuality, they’re more likely to take one about relationships.”
Caliste said one of the most striking findings was the high acceptance rate among non-binary participants, with a notable “83 percent acceptance rate” for dating a bisexual partner. In contrast, only “one in four men at SMU” reported the same comfort level.
And the study showed a preference among female participants for exclusively heterosexual partners.
“So, we learned that non-binary people will date people of any sexuality, 25 percent of men would date a bisexual partner, and women aren’t likely to date a bisexual man at all,” Caliste said.
Dr. Dustin Grabsch, Caliste’s mentor, highlighted the study’s methodology which, in utilizing the Kinsey scale, allowed participants to identify anywhere on a spectrum of orientation rather than forcing them into traditional binary categories.
This nuanced approach revealed “a higher concentration of bisexuality at SMU than what researchers would report if they forced them into those traditional boundaries,” Grabsch said.
Caliste presented the research at SMU’s Research and Innovation Week and Pride Visibility Day. The study is slated for publication in SMU’s undergraduate student journal. Grabsch expressed hope for its acceptance, calling it “a really quality paper for an undergraduate thesis.”
One potential factor influencing the lower acceptance rates among men for dating a bisexual person, according to Caliste, could be the prominent presence of Greek life at SMU.
“I think with social organizations, there can be a stigma around dating queer people, hyper-masculinity,” Caliste said, imagining how that might “play such a weight on a specific demographic, such as Greek life.”
Grabsch emphasized the need for more contemporary research on bisexuality and LGBTQ+ topics.
“Our understanding of our community in the literature is almost 25 years old, and it needs updating,” he said.
While the study offers valuable insights, it also faced some limitations, including a disproportionately female participant sample. Grabsch clarified that because the survey pool was disproportionate, more research needs to happen outside of college campuses to tell a larger story.
Despite these limitations, Grabsch said he hopes the study gives people a moment to pause and think about who they are in relation to others and hopefully inspire some more folks to pick this area of research up again and investigate.
He also speculated that the current anti-LGBTQ political climate “may drive renewed interest in LGBTQ research because when things become taboo, it often drives research.”
Caliste’s next steps include submitting the paper to SMU’s undergraduate research journal and exploring ways to expand and continue this research.
“He really lit up going to the different venues for the poster presentations and sharing it with different audience members,” Grabsch said of Calieste. “It’s rare to find someone who conducts good research and has the animated personality to bring the research to life.”