Well I didn't mean it in a "combative" way... it was just a bit disappointing and mildly frustrating.

My reasons for saying that she could have managed the data for men in addition (all this information was given in the article):

- 10 yr longitudinal study
- 80 women in the study
- 2-yr intervals

That's a total of 400 individual surveys over the 10 yr period. Now even if I didn't have a computer (which she almost certainly has) to manage the data, I would think doubling it to 800 total surveys over a period of 10 yrs time would be not a back-breaking ordeal... That's six surveys per month instead of 3. I would also bet that the surveys themselves are distributed by mail or the like to be filled out by the participants in their own time, so that takes some additional weight off the researchers' workload. At the end of the 10 yr period, you've got 400 or 800 surveys to tabulate. It's maybe a few days to get it entered into the spreadsheet. And you probably want to store the physical surveys for posterity -- they should all fit neatly in a small file box.

Then there's the tone of the article, which I realize wasn't written by the researcher, so it could just be the journalist. To me at least the tone suggests a certain attitude on the part of the people involved. The first sentence in particular, which from what I understand of journalism is supposed to be the most important part of the article, hooking the reader and prepping them for what's to come: "Bisexuality in women appears to be a distinctive sexual orientation and not an experimental or transitional stage that some women adopt "on their way" to lesbianism, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association." ... What I noted in that sentence is that there are several different ways that could be phrased, for example "bisexuality is not an experimental or transitional phase that women adopt temporarily between homosexual and heterosexual periods in their life" or "bisexuality is not an experimental phase that women grow out of". To me it seemed like they were careful to place the phrase "on their way to lesbianism". Though I'm willing to admit that's just my perception and it could very well be tainted by the fact that I was disappointed that they didn't include men in the study.

My totally non-scientific guess about her "axe" would be that she was frustrated with self-identified lesbians telling her to "get off the fence", or making the same kind of comments I mentioned re: the guy at the comedy club in Austin. And so she decided to do the study and good for her! I'm glad she did. I just wish that it had been about "people" rather than about "women", because I suspect I've experienced the same sort of attitudes that prompted her to do the study. I'm not her, I don't know her, never spoken to her, so yeah, I'm just guessing here.

I could be way off-base, it just felt kind of "elitist" to me (for lack of a better word).