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I think I first figured out that I might be bisexual when I was in college. It's hard for me to say when or how, as various alternate tales compete in my mind as the "official" truth. The first time I saw gay porn? When I realized my masturbation fantasies involved me switching parts, being the woman, then being the man? My identification with the gay movement? All of them sound equally silly, embarrassing and worse, perhaps just a personality hiccup and not a real "truth" at all. None of them sound like anything that approaches a realization of Identity with a capital I. And that, more or less, is indicative of my entire life as a bisexual: dubious, occasionally embarrassing, obscured.
Being a bisexual guy, as the term exists at the moment, is an exercise in frustration and confusion, and while I stand by that confusion as truthful and great (get me drunk and I'll say it's everything from the basis for art that I like to what I'd like America to stand for) I think it's a basically flawed identity in sore need of some fixing.
Oh, some details might be called for here. The pertinent facts of my life are these: I am twenty-nine years old and incredibly happily married to a woman. I've dated and slept with exactly the same number of boys as girls. My feelings about the two sexes break down somewhat like this: I more easily form emotional attachments with women but because of that have found men mysterious and intriguing the way I'm sure my more hetero counterparts must find women. If I were to put it in those terms, I'd say I'm 70% into girls and 30% into boys. There. Done.
Now, back to what I was saying. Bisexuality is a disappointing, suspect, utterly chaotic identity. It seems to exist in only the foggiest regions of people's brains, like Pol Pot the geographic location of Myanmar. They're not sure what it is, but they're pretty sure it's lame and/or bad.
Gay men that I've dated in the past, the most recent being five years ago, were terribly suspicious. Aside from a few unexpected trysts with fellows, the first guy I officially dated was the president of an LGBT campus organization I decided to join. I should have known at the stunned silence on the first day when, delusioned by the supposed redemptive power of coming out, I offered that I was bi. The president of the group still decided to go out with me, but the majority of our time together consisted of long, accusatory conversations on car hoods. I broke up with him a few weeks later and was tearfully informed that I wasn't able to love, to let myself really commit to a relationship with him, which I accepted as code for my waffling, noncommittal nature as a bisexual.
A few other fellows were more explicit in their condemnations. It became clear that if I mentioned that I was bi rather than full-on gay to people in broad daylight, problems were bound to ensue. It was one thing when a person was drunk and trying to pick you up, but in the light of day, their HRC political consciences would begin to prick at
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I had to retract my gayness to date her, thereby becoming an incredibly tired hetero cliché.
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them and their eyes would narrow. Relentless questions about the exact nature of bisexuality, like "If you're with me you're gay, if you're with a woman you're straight, so what's bisexual about you? You're just afraid to admit you're gay." It's a compelling argument which is hard to argue with, except that it isn't true for me at all. I'm bisexual. Period. Which seems kind of like saying Definitely Maybe.
I know this about myself due to some inexplicable feeling that it is true, backed up by certain facts. I'm attracted to men and women, for one thing. Dating a man never felt wrong or weird, but it fit in my life in a different way than dating women. My relationships with men were much more mysterious, much more charged with all that mystery that one sees in old movies between men and women. To me, they were inexplicable creatures whom I wanted things from and feared in some way and this was the source of a lot of the sexual excitement and attraction. That mystery of what might happen.
Incidentally, I've never really felt comfortable around men as a group, any of them, which is curious. I feel fine in mixed groups, but alone things get a little tense for me, particularly if they're straight men. There's something about the absence of romantic potential that confuses me even more and leaves me without any clear signposts. For example, if I touch a lady or a gay man on the arm, I'm aware of the fourteen things that could mean. If I touch a straight man on the arm, beats the hell out of me what that means or doesn't mean.
These feelings and this excitement of dating men I could only experience in fits and starts with the gay men I dated. I simply couldn't catch a breath from being suspected to find any kind of cohesive Identity. Bisexuality just doesn't seem to realistically exist in the gay movement where, despite those optimistic Bs everywhere. It's a curiosity akin to gay republicans. Among gay people, I was Gay Until Graduation, in the closet or a sexual dilletante, taking the fun parts of gay identity and leaving off the hard part of existing in a society that hates you to run to the safety of hetero relationships.
As time went on, the sense became that I was as much "in the closet" to them about liking girls as I was in the closet about liking boys to girls. Not that I made much of a secret of it to either. But over time, I did start to use shorthand. I just started saying I was
gay as I was dating boys at the time and left out the unseemly truth. In the way that these things often do, however, this stopped working when I started dating a girl I had completely fallen for. I lied to her when we first met, the same way I was lying to everyone, for simplicity's sake only, I had convinced myself. Later I had to retract my gayness in order to date her, thereby becoming an incredibly tired hetero cliché in the process.
I tried to believe the things I read in Bi/Queer Theory textbooks. I truly wanted to believe in third-sex-escaping-dual-thinking, range-of-sexuality stuff, but the reality was I could seem to do nothing but become a cliché of one group or another. A walking definitely maybe.
The reaction from straight people shared most of the same concerns and suspicions, although with a less political and more personal bent. (I say this as a male. If you're a bisexual woman, there's the added weight of the tons of semen spilt over the idea of you rather than the reality that can be an additional disappointment.) In my case, my admission of my own bisexuality to women I've dated suddenly carried the distinct possibility of AIDS that they hadn't ascribed to me when they assumed I was straight. Then there
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The bisexuals I met looked like assistant principals and thought of themselves as mystics of some sort.
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were their accumulated memories of the boys they all seemed to have taken to the prom who were curiously disinterested in kissing and later came out as gay.
I don't mean to disparage these worries or experiences, however. Regardless of one's individual feelings on the subject, social definition of heterosexuals is so old and codified that it's hard to expect anyone not to opt out of the real or perceived snickers people will have at their expense. A common nightmare of a straight person dating a bisexual, the whispers of "Oh my God, how can he not see that she is totally a lesbian! Their relationship is such a sham! Tee hee!" As I went along it became clear that, be my date gay or straight, my bisexuality seemed to elicit in everyone a groan-inducing tale of woe. Without the understandable and ever-present politics that existed in my relationships with men, however, my relationships with women tended to be more satisfying. I've always liked just being around women, hanging out with them. I can work with them more easily, spend time with them more comfortably. What my relationships lacked in mystery, they made up for in connection.
Different from my relations with straight women and gay men, were my poor experiences with the actual self-proclaimed bisexuals I've hung out with over time. I make the self-proclaimed distinction to point up the difference between being bisexual and being whatever it is Anne Heche claims to be. To be sure, this has been a small group, one which seems to unnecessarily overlap with wife-swappers, and I never managed to date one. A friend of mine and I found a Bi group in the town we lived in at the time. We had looked around on the internet and read what we could find, which was precious little in Texas, and decided to go see what these self-identified bisexuals were like at their weekly get-togethers. We were members of the group for about a year. The large
majority of these bisexuals looked like assistant principals. Boring, and perhaps with secret interests in Star Trek, they thought of themselves as mystics of some sort. Perhaps anyone who lives with the contrast between an idea of themselves as modern day avatars of some commingled god-ness and with a reality of themselves as perverts or traitors floats away to the twenty-third century after awhile.
All of this has left me as conflicted and confused as I was when I first stumbled upon the fact that I was bi, however that was. Without any smart or coherent talking points or believable characteristics, I've only been able to define myself to people by what I'm not (a traitor, indecisive, or making it up to seem cool) rather than by what I am. Complicating this is that I'm into monogamy, so there's the question of whether I can even still qualify for inclusion in the club. My bi friend asked me that very thing when I told her I was writing this article. Since I'm married and monogamous, how can I be bisexual?
The only conclusion I can come to on this is that we must have a fundamentally flawed way of self-definition. I think I would have to agree that some sort of definition is inevitable and good. Politically, one has to say that one is something, particularly if you're being defined in that way by others in order for them to politically deny you something.
But as I've lived as bisexual, I've come to think that a difference has to exist between a political Identity and who and what it is we really are and what we do. I have to think that you have to fight for rights and acceptance and to broaden the social landscape, but employing labels can only be a means to that end, and those definitions cannot turn around and define you by proscribing behavior or feelings.
Most of us are aware of what it's like to have accumulated assumptions ascribed to various identities weighing us down. It's been surprising to me to find that a lack of those very assumptions can make interactions and relationships just as fraught. In the same way that an identity carries
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I'd like for bisexuals to become the dangerous element in society.
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with it all these stereotypes and assumptions, the lack of a coherent identity makes people nervous. It's great that we have a society now where gayness exists in something more than a Three's Company style joke, but we only seem to broaden out to accept an identity when it has some useful and easily categorized hook. Like gay meaning Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, for example. Which is great, but ultimately it has little to do with what people actually do. Not that I think it is the job of entertainment to accurately reflect anything, but the reductive pattern at work, the patterns of political consciousness built on definition affects you. And brave is the soul who will wade out into their life with the knowledge of who they are but no societal vehicle for the expression thereof. But I think, as with all these things, it's best to go down with the ship.
What I'd like to happen would be for bisexual people to become the fulfillment of what I read John Waters wish for the gay community in a magazine, for bisexuals to become the dangerous element in society and make things interesting again. There's something great in the mystery of sexuality, to having people try to figure things out. Creating a space for confusion and being able to relax and enjoy that confusion, to be able to be happy without having to understand a thing completely. Maybe bisexuality could make a place for "definitely maybe" and score a point for freedom over security and recognizable stereotypes. Unlike Myanmar, I don't think bisexuality is something you can hold in your hand. Maybe that's what can make things interesting and dangerous, having to accept something that it is by its very nature not a solid. Maybe it can make the confusion and unanswered questions that I still have not seem so crazy when there's less emphasis on hard and fast identity.
And maybe that's the final proof that I'm bisexual, that I can believe a thing like that.
n°
©2005 Neal Medlyn and Nerve.com
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Commentarium (43 Comments)
I am a bisexual woman. You described what it feels like to be bisexual perfectly. It irks me to no end that gays insist that bisexuality just means that a person isn't admitting to themselves that they are gay. I'm turned on by men and women equally and I think that's a bunch of b.s. In fact, sometimes I wish I could either be completely hetero or completely gay; it would certainly make things less confusing for me. But I am not either. I am bisexual.
*Great Article*
Neal thank you! No one understands bisexuality, and I've long waited for Nerve to do something on the subject. We exist, we're real, and it's hard for us too. So thank you.
Very interesting... I liked this a lot. Right on!
"My Bi friend asked me that very thing when I told her I was writing this article. Since I'm married and monogamous, how can I be bisexual?" I would answer it this way - you are still bisexual in the same way that heterosexuals and homosexuals are still gay or straight when they are not in a relationship and/or having sex at all. If you cease being bi because you are with a with woman, then I cease being straight when I'm single.
This article really struck a chord in me--I am currently in grad school where sexual ambiguity feels like it's all around, and yet when I tell people I'm a bisexual male, they get these confused looks on their faces, like they're about to fart. When I first came to school there were rumors that I was gay, and that I was straight, but no one thought, "Maybe he's bi." I did myself a disservice by not being totally upfront about things, but gradually I have decided to not give a fuck and hit on whomever I want, in front of whomever. The article really captured a lot of what I'm going through. Thanks.
brilliant article, for a moment there i felt as if i were reading my own thoughts.
Thank you for a lovely article! This article struck a chord with me as well. I'm married to a man right now, but during our 5 years of dating I have always maintained that I am not straight. How can I be when I am also very much attracted to women? Bisexuality is another way to pigeonhole our sexuality, that's why I don't like saying that I am bissexual. I let people have whatever assumption they have. I love whomever I love, sex of the person is not my barrier.
I am still laughing out loud in public. As a bisexual female, I can relate to much of this article. I say, don't compromise.
Thank you! I don't like to "identify" as this or that, but I know what you mean about lacking an Identity. For lack of a better term I would say I was bisexual, except that because I usually date guys (girls are so much more intimidating than boys!) and I don't have any tattoos, no one ever asks. I feel like a poser in the lesbian community - or a traitor - but I know I'm not strictly hetero either. One one hand it's not anybody's business what my sexual life is, but on the other hand my sexuality is such a huge part of my self that I hate feeling like I can't express the full range. I hope more people read this and little light bulbs pop on over their homo-hetero-normative heads.
Neal,
I just sent you an e-mail and a couple pics. Hope you like them and will reply me.....Your essay is well written.
I found this article interesting and long overdue. As a bisexual male, I have also struggled with the complexities of this "identity." I think bi people (myself included) too often skip the long explanations by simply saying "yeah, I'm gay" or by implying that they're straight depending on whom they're dating or happen to be around. It would be wonderful if one day we could just be HONEST and state "I'm bisexual" without a long conversation/attack immediately following. What I always find most interesting is the idea that people use the "bisexual label" to hang on to some sort of mythical heterosexual advantages. Excuse me, but once you admit to someone that you're a cocksucker (albeit, a bi one), you're still a cocksucker . . . I don't think James Dobson and his croonies would distinguish between a gay sodomite and a bisexual sodomite - so we're really all in the same boat!
There's so much about living as bi that falls under "Definitely Maybe" for me. Men? Women? Marriage? Singlehood? Monogamy? Kids? How to deal with phases of wanting to love and fuck the gender you're not in a relationship with? What I liked about your article was the call to respect the confusion, because accepting confusion is what people find so dangerous. I also appreciated the assertion that the identity is a means to an end. I'll call myself bi to draw attention to what I am so people's minds don't seal shut (and to draw attention to myself for more fun reasons), but living this life is so much more complicated than this label! Thanks for your story.
This is a really interesting essay - to read someone clearly discovering a bit more about the thing their writing about through the very process of writng about it.
But (there's always a but), as a man who likes girls but has dabbled in what I believe is termed 'heavy petting' with the occasional bloke, and still finds the idea attractive in a kind of abstract way - I think this dude's a bit too caught up with 'identity'.
Who gives a fuck about identity, which is only of importance to those who are denied the right to it. Bi-sexuals, or whatever, are not denied the right to identity, even if the insecure claiming of such a thing by (predominantly), some gay men and macho straight guys makes them think they are.
The problem is not a lack of identity for bisexuals, who have arguably achieved the best possibl outcome of just hanging out and going with the flow. The problem is that so many ultra-gay or ultra-staight people define themselves by their sexuality in the first place, which is boring.
So I say more power to you sir for your article because it proves your not limiting yourself to an 'identity'. Don't ruin that by looking for one. Ain't no such thing as 'identity' anyway - tis a mere social construct, and a matter of choice.
Nerve, you're covering the bases! Thank you. I knew I could find myself in here. Now, just continue to work on balancing the ratio of nude women to nude men in your photography section and we're really getting somewhere!
as a woman who has often felt the need to justify dating a bisexual man to friends (and occasionally to myself), i appreciated how the writer explained how he could have a certain identity and not have it destroy his monogamous relationship.
I enjoyed your article very much. As a married bi myself its comforting to know that others share this slightly uneasy if not hugely enjoyable existance.I love to feel sexually attractive to other young guys which tends to involve hard work in the gym! However I remain in my mind totally committed to the very loving and fulfilling relationship that I have at home with my wife, whome incedentally I also suspect(know) is bi-sexual (another story!).Maybe Im not alien afterall :).
Excellent exploration, and a fine conclusion. I am a late-blooming bi. I considered myself "straight but not narrow" for most of my life. A few years ago, I fell in love with my best friend without falling OUT of love with my wife. Instead of opting for the traditional outcomes -- divorce or denial -- we became three. Our triad has been embraced by nearly everyone we've told, including my 83-year old father and our church community. But we are definitely challenging the status quo....
This artical seems to sum up everything that i have been trying to say in a recent debate about bisexuality i have been involved in.
i am a bisexual woman, and i'm proud of my identity but it frustrates me where people seem so set in their perspectives that they refuse to understand that being bisexual isnt synonimous with being confused, faking it, taking te easy route or being a love rat.
thankyou for the clarity and accuracy of this piece!
Oh, GOD< I needed to read this! I am a VERY bisexual female, I've been married and had kids (now single), but have had more intense, sexual relationships with women than men. I have had in internal struggle about "bisexuality" for YEARS! What I like to say about my "identity" is, 'gender is irrelevant'. I am attracted to people based on their personality, chemistry, charisma, etc. Their 'parts' are insignificant, but on a quasi-statistical scale, I am usually attracted to more women than men, and have many more crushes on women than men. I feel comfortable with this myself, but have a hard time explaining things to others, having married and had children, but I date women. It is a quandary indeed, but for THEM, not ME. ;)
" Society's categories and the relationships between them change over time, often in response to the attempts of individuals to fit themselves within categories. Categories of identity are cultural abstractions that are never met by any single person or any sum of individual life experiences; identity categories are always inadequate when individuals try them on." - Henry Rubin, "Self Made Men"... (i know you said its hard to find comfort in academic queerbo third wave philosophizing, but this seemed so very apt. thanks for the insights)
As a bisexual man in his fifties I feel that there is now some respect for bisexuals. Before it was always no one trust a bi. There is an other side to the issue of with long term partners in that want to stay in a monogamous relationship there is a challenge in how you build your interaction with one anther. Your partner needs to feel that they can feed your sexual pallet it has made it an interesting 20 years so far.
As someone who really enjoys my own bisexuality, including its inherent confusions and contradictions, I do have to admit that for practical purposes it can be difficult for partners who are completely straight or gay or who are somewhere in between but have "made their choice". My own experience is that partners can never feel fully confident about being able to enjoy a meaningful part of any human relationship in that they are "special" in an overall sense and are also the only focus of one's sexuality. Although I also acknowledge the benefits of feeling secure and comfortable in a relationship, it seems that such an aspect of a relationship can be just as much as a variable to be either valued or deemphasized as the various things that someone enjoys sexually. The mystery of our sexual feelings will apparently always be such that we will never completely understand the sexuality of anyone that we are "partnering" with at any given time as we will also probably never completely understand our partners need for security and commitment. Still, as someone who is visually attracted to women but who has also enjoyed being attractive to men and who has found that sex with men has just as broad an array of sensual delights as sex with women, and who seems to really enjoy the shared bond of a partner experiencing an orgasm, it does seem irrelevent at the time what sort of genitals my mouth might be exploring or who might be inside who as two people enjoy intimacy together. So, maybe I am also being as intolerant as others by feeling that my own bisexuality is what is "normal" but it does seem to be a much broader experience of all of one's possible feelings but then I guess it is up to an individual as to how much that might be of value to them.
Neal - great essay. Summarizes much of what I've thought and experienced myself.
skg's comment is also spot on. I'm a bi man in a relationship with a bi woman, but that doesn't make either of us - or our relationship - heterosexual.
i may be a breeder (a fabulous breeder?), but this article is better than most recent ones on nerve. harkens back to the nerve of yore, when there was true searching and discussion about sexuality. i especially like how this article and much of the comments on it fly in the face of this perverse need by many to make sexuality either/or.
i'm gonna be that guy--pol pot terrorized cambodia, not burma/myanmar (burma is called mynamar by the current military regime there.)
i got a chuckle out of the "HRC political consciousness" line! too true. HRC may have drag queens and kings at their functions, but how much have they really done for TG folks? while what HRC does is important, they seem to leave behind those in the queer community who are not "just like you hets". i'm being harsh, but i dislike heteronormativity and am not interested in seeing a homonormativity be established; both must be destroyed.
One thing that seems to be missing in this discussion is the IQ aspect of bisexuals. The only true Bi's that I have met have had above-average IQ's. This I have found to be essential in my interaction with both gay men and straight women. I simply cannot tollerate a "dumb fuck" and have found that my desires are much better accommodated by truly bisexual members of both sexes. Bisexuality is the final evolvement of the species leading to pure pleasure and the ability to procreate. Having aspects of both sexes is essential for the planet to evolve beyond its current state.
jah, sorry dude, but the whole IQ/progress of the human species thing makes no sense. It's not like gay sex correlates with sex for pleasure or straight sex correlates with sex for reproduction. Please, since contraception always seems to have existed (and also lesbian and gay sex) people- hetero or homo- have been having sex for pleasure. The hetero's also for reproduction.
I know everybody likes to think that they are smarter than the average, but come on. There are plenty of dumb people in the world, their dumbness independent of their sexual orientation. Same with smart people.
signed, someone who is bi, just to make that clear.
i can relate to virtually everyone's comments on bisexuality. One thing I get annoyed about is the fact that often times we are overlooked because we are not gay or straight so many people tend to think of us as horny bypassers. That is so far from the truth. I have known all my life that I love women and love them as much as a man; however, I enjoy the love of a man, I just have the sexual stamina and appreciation for a woman as a man does. Does that mean I'm going to run off with a woman? No. They just fullfill me in a place that a man cannot, but at the same time can never fill the place of a man. This is hard to live with. So many people do not understand. Therefore, it is even more difficult to have relationships and understanding because people want to impose labels on humanity and it just doesn't work that way with us....so we are left to try to convince mates that we love them but still want to have experiences with the same sex, although it is non-commital...it is so difficult to convince someone of that. They just don't see it that way. I finally came out and told my family and as open minded as they are they tried to suggest that it was some passing phase when from the start I've been this way. I know it has to be easier for me because women being together is some sort of kinky turn on, but it has never been that for me. In fact, I never went for that scene, I know when a woman really wants me and has no reservations. I appreciate a sexy self-assured female rather than some chick trying to have an audience. It scares some people sometimes but I could care less because this is who I am and when I finally realized it and stopped pretending, that is when I truly knew who I was and felt comfortable about who I was. I spent so many years denying it and that time sucked. I used to live a secret life full of guilt and shame and that is how I know anybody living an alternative lifestyle feels. It sucks. You always have hidden desires and until you fully accept who you are, you can never be free of that and live as the "real" you, even if it means telling your family, because ultimately it is you and the masks and bullshit silence isn't going to make you happy in life. Instead, you just become some phony mask of a person, who you want them to see and be, but it destroys you in the end because you know that you are someone else and pretending to be that other person breaks you down. My family may not be totally accepting but at the same time I feel better not living the lie anymore. I ran away from it for so long by self-destuctive patterns of abuse of myself, drugs, life in general. It felt good to come clean even though some were not happy. Fuck it in the end, they appreciate the fact that I came out a decent person and better than any heterosexual fucking materialistic bitch who don't give a damn about anything. I'm special and I know that now, but I spent so many years as a child especially feeling like I was going to hell for what I felt. It wasn't until later in life that I realized the God I serve now doesn't care about that and accepts me for who I am. But looking back on that religion part, it was hard to live with the guilt and shame of liking the same sex and feeling guilty for acting on what I know now was natural. I love who I am and that feels so great after years of denial and shame, but yet I am a hypocrite because a lot of my family still doesn't know and if it came down to it I would tell them but they just don't understand. I love them but they are still caught up in the rules of religion and it's not right... they send me emails about gays in the military and so forth...if only they knew. But it's better this way. Because they will never understand...even though deep down inside I know they have had tendencies too. I kind of like being the face of reality for those people...the truth...the real side of what people are about instead of some bullshit sorry excuse for a family who is "Christian." I'm the most Christian person I know. I love everybody and forgive everybody and accept anyone in my life...and few of them represent that. They all think denying real natural human feelings and experiences means being a Christian but it is far from that...that is such a sorry myth and I feel sorry for those who buy into that. Loving God and being a good person naturally is the greatest devotion to religion and so much better than someone's interpretation of the Bible...it makes me ill to think of people living by this sorry brainwashed facade. And to think all along I am one of the people who figured that out when so many are still searching and clinging to some stupid white man's version of what it's about...it makes me sad to think about it. It's all about being a decent humand being and having respect for others...instead they impose rules and ugliness to it and make it an undesirable way of life...when it should be so good. It should be exciting because you connect with the desire to be that kind of human being, not because you disagree with someone's decision to have an abortion or do drugs...who are we to judge? That makes me feel sad that religion has turned into that....I'm a liberal I guess if their has to be labels but I believe I represent a party that believes in treating people with humanity and dignity and not imposing my own morality on others...why don't the majority of others feel the same way? Oh well I'm done with my rant...I just love life but at the same time people scare me.
I know this article is not new, but I've just stumbled upon it and I wanted to say THANK YOU for writing it. There is not nearly enough out there that expresses even a small part of my experience as bisexual. I read this article and found myself holding my breath because I was identifying so hard with you. (Somehow that sounded dirty, although I didn't mean it to!)
I am a female-to-male transexual who identifies as bisexual. My sexuality has 'changed' a few times too without actually changing. Rather, I've changed and my levels of disclosure have changed but underneath it all, I've always been queer no matter how you cut it. When I was a little girl I wanted to look up other girl's skirts. When I was a teenager, I fantasized about circle jerks. As an adult male, I kind of like the idea of hosting a circle jerk in skirts. Is that wrong?
Every person I have ever been with has been uncomfortable with my bisexuality. I'm not. I love it. And I love that there's someone else out there who recognizes the weird vibes people have for bifolk. I don't know why it's so threatening.
Anyway, longwinded and not pointy. Apologies. And THANK YOU AGAIN.
realize this was posted last year but i just read it and it rocks, and you rock and thank you. and i've copied it to a word doc so i can read and memorize it as a manifesto. i'm a film maker and my solemn promise is to make a kicky fun movie that puts all that you have said--and which is written down the bones of my own life--front and center--and dangerous for all to see. way to go neal.
id rather have a women than a man. men dont feel love all that much. i love females but not really males.
that waz an amazing article.I feel so understood for once in my life.i am a younger,rather,"undecided" male and i feel as if my reason for this confusion is because there is a lack of mystery when it comes to me and women that I still hold with men. Which I feel could be due to the fact that my relationship with my fathers havent ever been the best.And my mother has always been a good friend of mine.i have never had alot guy friends either.i think I could be searching for in men what I didn't receive as a younger child.love.i have always felt rejected by other men.my father was a workoholic and had no time for me as my step dad always hungout with his real son.i feel as if that could be cause of homosexuality.a mans search to find acceptance,love,and confirmation that they never quite received.the search to find out if they have wat it takes.but instead we confuse these feeling with our sexuality.overall I feel as if bisexiality and homosexuality is just our way of
replacing our puzzle peice we could
never find.lost?- baykrboitwin1@aol.com
thank you thank you thank you!
I know this essay is a little old but i just happened to tumble upon it at just the right time.
My boyfriend just told me that he was bisexual. i had always thought of myself as a pretty progessive, open minded girl but i have to admit i was unsure how to proceed. The phrase "bi now, gay later" kept coming to mind. I didn't want to be that girl that was too blind to see she was dating a homosexual.
But, we've talked about it and he explained his feeling to me and now, with the addition of this article, i feel i can finally understand.
Just.
Wow.
I almost felt like I wrote that. I can relate to it on so many levels.
Thank you.
So very much.
I thought reading this was like breathing out. Thank you for having the insight to say who you are. My husband and I are both bi sexual and have had a bit of grief from the groups who identify as gay or straight. I like saying what I am not also. I am not confused or a traiter. My husband and I are also hard of hearing which gives us the same conflict in the deaf and hearing world. Are you deaf or hearing? I sign and speak. Im hard of hearing and the response I get back is , why? much like being bi.
Lori
so? would you recommend "marrying a bisexual" to your young daughter ??
I love this article. It's very confusing the be a bi girl but "passing" in a monogamous relationship with a fella. My partner is also bi but extremely closeted--no one in his family and almost no one in his life knows that his relationship before me (a decade ago) was with a man. He and I both take tremendous joy in our sex life, but have no doubts that the sex is good with other genders too. Bisexuality exists for both of us, and it's not a choice but a reality have experienced with particular past attractions.
Why can't you just accept yourself as you are and To "H" with what others have to say. Once the type of sex that one engaged in was tantamount to who you were upon that confused ladder of human-sexuality. But now I see that doing oral or anal isn't just confined to any one gender, but seem to be coming the norm in any or all relationships
I love this article.. My husband and I have been married for 3 years and I recently found out that he is bisexual. It hurt at first not that he is bisexual but because he lied to me. He is the love of my life and I would never ask him to be someone he is not. :)
Eloquent and illuminating. Thank you so much for writing this essay.
I've always identified myself as straight, but have spent all my life admiring beauty in all its forms and that includes that of the female body and personality. Dated girls a few times, and none yet has made me.. well, fall for them. For now, I think I am straight, but am completely open to the other "side". People are people, beauty is beauty, period.
But still, I believe in bisexuality, and feel bad when my gay friends say they don't believe in bi men. I do.
And honestly if I end up marrying someone I hope it is a bisexual man.
I was society straight As a younger male into my twenty's. I had sex with women until I had my first sex with periods with a man, Which blew my shoes off my feet. Now i am fully sexually with men yet I have experienced women. I call myself gay now, but certainly understand your point of view. I have never felt that bisexual people need to identify is either gay or straight. I really want you guys to feel comfortable with just the way you are. Youd think gays and straight to act like bigots would know better, especially gays because theyve known discrimination. Thanks So much for this article. Is the first time I've been in bisexuals heads And heard of your struggles.
My UCC pastor introduced me to Kinsey when I was 13 and immidiately I said that's me. I then came out to my football team when I was 16. My short visit to the gay community was met with ridicule (and worse), but when I was 19 I went to art school and found many open bisexual women and few open bisexual men. I then became a member of a theater where the majority of men and women identified as bisexual. So the first ten years of my adult life was affirming. However now, I went to grad school as openly bisexual and get from gay faculty "oh your one of those", I had a lesbian woman walk into my place of employment demanding I come out of the closet as gay, and an even weirder event with a gay faculty member who pulled me aside to say it's alright if your gay. Online dating recently I received harassing emails from gay men and straight women. The list goes on and on. But why is it that I receive acceptance from my straight male friends but little acceptance from my gay friends? What is really going on here? One thing I have noticed is in someway the very idea of male bisexuality threatens straight women. And as far as gay men, they harass each other to get out of the closet that they need to pass on the abuse to a scapegoat including bisexual men who have been out for the majority of their lives.
I also want to add that most of my relationships have been with women (and mostly bi women). And my experience with dating men usually vizzles out - it starts of just as passionate as with a woman but then we become "friends" after a few months. While the women I dated lasted for years monogomously. When I break up with a woman I am usually in devastating grief, and when I break up with a man we usually look at each other and say "well it was fun while it lasted." It is indeed odd, when I read the diversity of what people call "bisexual". Every experience I read or is told to me is so wildly different it is difficult to identify with"bi". Because I talk to a bi man recently who has had mostly LTR's with men and only a few partnerships with women that did not last long.
Now you say something