how exactly do binary files work in python?

[John Salerno]

In C#, writing to a binary file wrote the actual data types into the 
file (integers, etc.). Is this not how Python binary files work? I tried 
to write integers into a file, but the write method only takes a string 
argument anyway.

Is there a way to actually store integers in a file, so that they can be 
read and used (added, compared, etc.) as integers?