New study shows whether a bisexual man is more concerned with emotional or sexual infidelity depends on whether he is dating a girl or a guy. The research provides the idea that jealousy is evolutionarily designed: guys tend to worry about sexual infidelity, while they want to know that their girlfriends’ children are their own, and girls tend to worry about emotional infidelity, regarding the times when they had to worry about guys allocating resources to their relationship.

According to this theory, it makes sense that bisexual guys dating girls would be more worried about sexual infidelity than bisexual guys dating men, who cannot get pregnant, said study researcher Cory Scherer, a social psychologist at Pennsylvania State University. Previous study provides the idea that persons in same-gender relationships tend to worry more about the emotional factors of cheating than the sexual ones, Scherer said. Bisexual people kind of fit both factors of this jealousy, he added. You can make predictions of what sort of jealousy they may be distressed by depending on whom they are dating.

Cheating pals

Together with his colleagues Scherer recruited 134 self-identified bisexual persons from gay, lesbian, bisexual and transsexual communities across the state to fill out a web poll. The survey asked the participants to imaging being cheated on and to identify the sex of the cheating sexual partner. Then they had to choose whether they would be more frustrated about the emotional aspects of the cheating or the sexual ones. 48 of the participants were bisexual girls dating guys, 36 were bisexual girls dating women, 27 were bisexual guys dating girls and 23 were bisexual men dating guys.

The answers displayed that the guys dating girls were far more likely than other groups to be most stressed by sexual cheating. Among bisexual guys dating girls, 49% confessed they would be most worried about sex affair. To compare with, only 16% of guys dating guys told that the sex would bother them more than the emotional cheating. Girls’ concerns about cheating were not as affected by their partner’s sex. Of girls dating girls, 25% said the sex would hurt them more than the emotional cheating, the same answer given by 17% of girls dating guys. The scientists reported the results on the Internet on April 9 in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.

Reproductive danger

Emotional and sexual jealousy aren’t mutually exclusive, for sure – that would bring to a world where girls didn’t mind at all that guys spent all days having intercourse with other girls as long as they came home at night, Scherer said. Making people choose what bothers them more can illuminate intriguing sex differences, though, he added.

The answers of the bisexual people prove the idea that a danger to reproduction helped lead to the evolution of jealousy, Scherer told. A guy dating a guy doesn’t have to be bothered with accidentally raising another guy’s child if his sexual partner gets pregnant. But in case the same guy is dating a girl, he cannot be totally sure that any child she has is his, which could have brought to more anxiety about sexual cheating.

One limitation of the research is that it didn’t take into account the sex of the individual the partner was cheating with, Scherer said. The individual’s sex could complicate the whole thing – for instance, a guy whose girlfriend cheated with another girl wouldn’t have to worry about a sudden pregnancy, so probably emotional jealousy would get more important.

Scherer also added he wants to extend the study over time. In case the reproductive danger idea is right, a bisexual guy dating a guy will be more concerned about emotional fidelity, but in case he breaks up with his boyfriend and starts dating a girl, his concerns should flip, with sexual jealousy getting more prominent.

Other study has lent credence to the hypothesis that jealousy depends on the kind of the relationship. Couples in polyamorous relationships, in which non-monogamy is consensual, are rather happy for their sexual partners than jealous when they find others to love. And researches display that in those relationships, guys and girls don’t show the typical sex schism between emotional and sexual jealousy.