'A Shot at Love' Explores (and Exploits) Bisexuality

Jan. 5, 2008 — -- They used to call them Peeping Toms.

But today's voyeurs have television to thank for a second season of MTV's "A Shot at Love."

The sexy reality show stars Tila Tequila, a 25-year-old former Vietnamese model who, at 4 feet, 6 inches tall, describes herself as "the baddest bitch on the block."

The Internet queen was plucked from MySpace, where she was reportedly the "most friended" in the networking site's history, according to MTV officials.

The dating game show features 16 straight men and 16 lesbians who court bisexual Tequila, nee Nguyhen, for her affection. Cavorting in her bedroom and performing puerile tasks, the suitors are ultimately whittled down to one of each sex.

"MTV is upping the ante and pushing the envelope," Kristen Fyfe, senior writer for the Culture and Media Institute, told ABC News. "What they see as cutting-edge programming is, in fact, voyeurism."

Sex clearly sells, in all varieties. But the popularity of this titillating show is the focus on the new sexual preference du jour — bisexuality.

"A Shot at Love" debuted last October at No. 1 in its time period across all of cable in the 18-34 demographic. The season finale had 6.2 million viewers, making it the network's highest-rated telecast since 2005, according to MTV.

For many of today's women in their late teens and 20s, openness to intimate physical relationships with either gender has become a way of life, rather than an "experiment."

Psychological studies on sexual orientation have burgeoned in the last decade with more open attitudes on sexual exploration. Television — in its competition for young, hip viewers — is capitalizing on the phenomenon.

Images of both gay men and women are commonplace now — Ellen DeGeneres, in her 2001 sitcom "Ellen," paved the way for the "fab five" on "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" and campy "Will and Grace."

"What was once the unspeakable and invisible has become very much a part of public discourse," according to University of Virginia psychologist Charlotte Patterson, who wrote a study titled "Sexual Orientation Across the Life Span."