Bisexuality is not a point on a spectrum that has
heterosexuality on one end and homosexuality at the other. It’s more like the flip-side of a coin with monosexuality,
which includes both of those other sexual orientations that in truth have more
in common with each other than either alone do with bisexuality, on its reverse. Yes, heterosexuals who only have sexual
attraction toward the individuals of the opposite sex and homosexuals who only
have sexual attraction toward individuals of the same sex share many
characteristics, but less so in both cases with bisexuals.
Although sexual attraction may be slightly influenced by
culture, society, and advertising, sexual attraction itself occurs due to
biochemical physiology that is beyond the control of the individual caught in
its throws. This is true whether you’re
straight, gay, or bi. For bisexuals
either predominantly gynephiliac or androphiliac, an intense attraction toward
someone of the other gender often comes by surprise and sometimes at the most
inconvenient of times.
I’ve known I’m bisexual at least since I was fifteen years
old. My attraction to females is so
strong, however, that it makes that easy to forget frequently. believe it or
not. Of course, that’s aided by the fact
that bisexuality is misunderstood and often ridiculed not only among straights
but among gays (male and female) as well.
Many straights thinks of us as crypto-gays and many gays
think of us as cowards passing as wannabe-straights the way many light-skinned
blacks once often passed as white to avoid legal or extralegal discrimination, and
as some still do. If it were a choice, I
would choose to be monosexual of either variety, straight or gay. But it’s not.
As I said, I first became aware of my occasional sexual
attraction toward males when I was fifteen, and I was really confused because,
like most adolescents (and adults), I was caught up in the dichotomy of
straight versus gay and had not ceased being intensely attracted to girls and
women (still haven’t, in case you’re wondering), so I was just confused and
decided to put off dealing with it till later.
As if normal teenage angst weren’t enough to worry about.
Fortunately at the time, I was just getting involved in the
youth activities of the Episcopal Church’s Diocese of Tennessee. We had a very active chapter at our parish
and I got very involved at the diocesan level also. The atmosphere was very open and egalitarian
and non-judgmental. Boys and girls were
equal, no one was bullied, outsiders were accepted as they came, and if they
chose to remain the same, still accepted.
Outside of official activities, we smoked, drank, toked, and had sex
like any other teenage group.
Then came university, where I joined a fraternity. The culture of the Greek system was radically
different, more traditional, with rigidly defined roles. The second-class status to which women were
relegated within the system overall disturbed me. I felt like there was something wrong with me
because I actually liked women. Saw them as something other than to fuck or
help out with bake sales. To be fair,
not all frat guys are like that, but, at least at the time, that view
dominated. And nearly all the Greek
women, sorority girls and fraternity little sisters, accepted their role as
second-class members of Greek society.
NOTE: I’m talking about “Greek” as in the
collegiate fraternities and sororities in the United States that identify
themselves with Greek letters. Like DTX
in “Animal House”, only with better grades (usually) and not as much fun
(usually). No relation to the country of
Greece.
To add to my sense of psychological dislocation, those
drives I’d first experienced in adolescence burst forth shouting to be
heard. They weren’t in response to any
one person in particular, and may have risen because of the repressive nature
of the Greek subculture. The fact that I
also became even more attracted towards women made it even worse.
Things reached a crisis point spring semester that year,
after the expectation of being an associate member had ended and initiation finished. I underwent severe emotional turmoil and
would have killed myself were it not for my best friend in the fraternity. Even though I was still attracted to women,
those other feelings made me afraid I was gay.
I almost killed myself because if I were gay I couldn’t go out with
women anymore.
Yes, I know how stupid that sounds. When I told that to my friend at the time, he
laughed his ass off, and after being offended for a moment, I started laughing
too.
I made it through university in four years, though I ceased
being active in the fraternity after my sophomore years. Six months after graduating, I enlisted in
the Navy the very day the USS Challenger
blew up shortly after take-off.
It wasn’t until I got to my duty-station in the Philippines
and began having lots of casual sex with lots of women with whom I had little
emotional connection that those urges appeared again. I never followed through on them, but the
more random fucking I did, the stronger they got. It reminded of a couple of times during
university when I’d been the only (outwardly) straight person in a group and
felt an equally intense urge to be with a woman.
I should add here that had it not been for AIDS, I probably
would have been just as promiscuous when I was at UTC. But I had a sense of foreboding as soon as I
read the article about the cluster of Karposi’s sarcoma cases that appeared in
June 1981 and followed the explosion of the epidemic closely. I figured out long before the CDC admitted it
that sex was a primary vector of infection and that it didn’t matter one fucking bit
about your orientation. Had AIDS arrived
a couple of years earlier, before the Great Herpes Crisis that killed swinging
at the end of the 1970’s, AIDS might have come to be known as the Straight
Disease rather than stigmatizing further the already stigmatized.
During the NIS investigation of me on suspicion of
espionage, one of the issues was whether or not I was homosexual or had any
sexual experiences with other males.
Lengthy sessions with the base psychologist and a battery of
psychological tests showed I wasn’t, and the polygraph didn’t even blink when
the question came up. Both the extremely
thorough investigation and the polygraph cleared me of espionage, incidentally,
otherwise I’d be communicating from Leavenworth instead of my apartment in
Chattanooga.
By that time, I was dating the woman who would become my
second fiancée, whom I later married. I
never got those other urges with either her or my previous fiancée. Nor, I should add, during my relationship
with my girlfriend in Paris.
My ex-wife and divorced six years later, and after lots more
random fucking, sometimes even with married women, I quit having sex. About a year later, in my late 30’s, I
finally tried sex with men, a few times anyway.
Maybe it was because the sex was casual, but emotionally I felt
nothing. That doesn’t mean I got no
physical pleasure from it; I did. But I
knew that continuing to have sex with other guys knowing that I could never
have the kind of emotional connection that I could achieve with a woman was not
good for me and unfair to them.
So, I’m bisexual. But
I’m also monogamous. I will not get
involved sexually with anyone with whom I do not have a solid connection emotionally,
spiritually, and intellectually as well as physically. If that were to happen with a man, it would
be by accident over a long period of time, but then that would probably be the
same case with a woman (isn’t falling in love always an accident?). This is the case, I believe, with most
bisexuals, at least after they have adjusted to what they have either
discovered or can no longer deny about themselves.
In truth, labels such as “heterosexual”, “homosexual”, “bisexual”,
“androphiliac”, “gynephiliac”, etc., should be stricken from our language. Labels are not about accuracy, they’re about
definition, and definition in this case is about limitations and control, or
rather hate, just as much as it is in the case of defining God, where the first
step in trying to dominate God is belief.
If someone is anti-gay, anti-lesbian, anti-bi, anti-trans, even anti-straight,
what you are really is anti-human, As a human, I object to that. No matter
how human your anti-human feeling is. If
someone has found another human to share their life with, ideally for a
lifetime but in the absence of the ideal at least for a long time, who the hell
is anyone outside of that relationship to do anything but be happy for and envy
them? Certainly not I.
2 comments:
I just had to read this one when I saw the title. Very honest, and quite relatable. Thx
You're welcome, and thank you.
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