by Dan Savage
There are some bona fide bisexuals out there who do lie about their sexual orientation, however. But they’re not lying about being bisexual. They’re lying, actively or passively, about being straight. Which brings us to another thing that is: Most bisexual men—adult bi men, not scared gay boys—wind up in opposite-sex relationships. (Most bisexual women do too.) Some chalk it up to societal pressure; others point out that, since there are more straight people in the world than lesbian, gay, or bi people, the odds of a bisexual person meeting and falling in love with an opposite-sex partner are astronomically higher. But it’s a thing that is.
“I am bisexual. Most of my friends are bisexual,” says Neal Boulton, the bisexual former editor of Genre and Men’s Health, and the creator of Bastard Life, an online magazine for gay, straight, and bi readers. “And nearly every bisexual I know has settled nicely into an opposite-sex relationship—or marriage. It’s just a fact. It’s so often just what we do. Now monogamous? That’s another story.”
Which brings us to another awkward thing that is: Many bisexual men admit to being sexually attracted to both sexes, but only romantically attracted to one sex, and that sex is usually the opposite one. The Toronto Bisexual Network tiptoes up to acknowledging this fact in its official definition of bisexuality: “Bisexuality is the potential to feel attracted to and to engage in sexual and/or romantic relationships with people of any sex or gender. A bisexual person may not be equally attracted to men and women.” (So much for falling in love with people and not genitals, huh?) This may be—just may be—another contributing factor to the whole most-bisexuals-wind-up-with-opposite-sex-partners phenomenon. And while it annoys bisexual activists when this subject is raised, gays and lesbians who were looking for love and found themselves in bed—or in relationships—with bisexuals who were only looking for sex would argue that the reality is far more annoying than the subject.5
Bi guys with opposite-sex partners may not be straight, but their relationships make ’em look straight. And unless bi men in committed, romantically exclusive (if not sexually exclusive) opposite-sex relationships make an effort to come out to everyone they meet—unless they’re very vocal about being bi—reasonable people, gay and straight (and bi!), will assume that they’re straight.
I don’t think it’s deceitful for bisexual guys in long-term opposite-sex relationships to allow others to round them down to straight (or up to straight, if you prefer). There are a lot of bisexual women in same-sex relationships who don’t go out of their way to come out to people as bi (indeed, many lesbian-identified women are bisexual), and a close friend of mine is a bi man in a same-sex relationship. He’s been with his male partner for so long that his newer friends assume he’s gay and some of his older friends have forgotten he’s bi. Sexual orientation is one thing; sexual identity—real, perceived, or asserted—is another.
Sexual orientation is relatively simple: It’s who you wanna do. Sexual identity, however, is more complicated and more nuanced. Sexual identity is a combo platter: It’s equal parts who you wanna do, who you’re actually doing, and what you wanna tell people. Sexual identity, unlike sexual orientation, involves a degree of choice. You may not be able to control who you wanna do, but you do get to decide what you’re going to tell people—yes, even if you’re Ted Haggard. (I may owe an apology to Ted Haggard, I guess, as it’s possible that his sexual identity is as complicated and nuanced as a canned ham dropped from a great height. But he sure does come across like a tormented closet case to me.)
Bisexual men with female partners should, though, at the very least be out to their female partners. But judging from the e-mails I get at Savage Love, and from the many men-seeking-men ads on Craigslist and elsewhere, an awful lot of bisexual guys aren’t out to their female partners. A half a dozen letters like this one arrive in my in-box every day:
I am a 30-year-old bi male recently engaged to a wonderful woman. I have never told my fiancée about my bi past, and didn’t think it was a big deal because I am more attracted to women, and was only in one male/male relationship…but now that we’re engaged, I am feeling guilty for keeping this quiet. Is it too late? Should I stay quiet? I don’t want to lose her.6
Closeted bi guys—those who sneak around with men (often with gay men) behind the backs of their wives and girlfriends—are another thing that is. And they’re a thing you should avoid talking about if you don’t want to be labeled bi-phobic. But I can’t avoid talking about them because they write to me all the time asking for my advice. (My advice to this particular “30-year-old bi male”: You should come out to your fiancée. Keep reading for all the reasons why.)
I don’t hate bisexual men generally and I don’t even hate closeted bi guys specifically. I recognize that the stigma attached to male bisexuality—a stigma that I helped to promote before I saw the error of my gay ways—keeps a lot of bi guys closeted. (It’s difficult to come out to your wife or girlfriend about being bi if she’s convinced that male bisexuality is a myth, that all bi guys are secretly gay, and that you’ll eventually leave her for another man.) But hate bisexual guys? Me? No way. It would be more accurate to say that I like bisexual guys so much that I wish there were more of them. I hope, for instance, that this bi guy has the decency to come out to his fiancée before he marries her, because she deserves better and so does he. Being closeted is awful and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Hiding the truth about your sexuality from someone you love is painful and exhausting—which is why I stopped doing it when I was a teenager.
And, I’m proud to say, I’ve heard from many, many bisexual men who were inspired to come out as bi after reading my column.
Thanks to your advice I admitted I am bi, got out of a relationship with a woman who couldn’t accept it and into a relationship with one who loves it. I go to the gay bar, feeling proud and confident, she joins me, loves the show, and so far it has been fantastic. I have spent many years learning to love myself, sometimes to no avail. At first I thought that meant only loving the “good” part of myself. Slowly, I have learned that loving myself means loving and accepting all of myself—including a few strange desires and dreams. I am a proud kinky, bisexual man now and you have helped me in this process.
Not a bad day’s work for a bi-phobic asshole like me, huh?
Not only would it be great if more bisexual guys were out to their female partners, it would be great if more bisexuals in opposite-sex relationships—male and female bisexuals both—were out to their friends, families, and coworkers. Bisexual activists and bloggers complain about “bisexual invisibility” and “bisexual erasure.” The site Queers United defines the latter as “the conscious or unconscious effort by individuals and groups to ignore, remove, or alter aspects of bisexuality in an effort to diminish the idea that bisexuality is a valid sexual orientation.”
Some complaints about bisexual erasure are valid. For instance, gay people who claim—as I once did—that there’s no such thing as bisexual men are certainly guilty of bisexual erasure. Most of the other examples cited on bisexual blogs are from pop culture. Mike Manning, for instance, was a cast member on the 2009 season of MTV’s The Real World. Although Manning was bisexual and hooked up with both men and women during filming, all of his presumably numerous hookups with women—we’re talking about The Real World—were edited out. Evidence of Manning’s bisexuality was literally erased by the show’s producers. Young gay and straight MTV viewers who believed that all bi men are secretly gay had their misconceptions reinforced, while MTV’s young bisexual viewers were deprived of, well, if not a role model—again, we’re talking about The Real World—then at least a little representation.
But some accusations about bisexual erasure are deeply silly.
“Whenever, say, some prominent heterosexually married male public figure has a same-sex affair, literally everyone rolls their eyes at the ‘closeted homosexual,’” a twenty-six-year-old bi man living in Brooklyn told Salon’s terrific sex writer Tracy Clark-Flory, in a 2011 article
on bisexuality. “I’m not sure I remember ever hearing someone seriously entertain the possibility that the philanderer was bisexual.”
This seems to me an instance where bisexual erasure and bisexual invisibility—complete erasure, complete invisibility—work to the benefit of the bisexual community. No one suggested that Larry Craig might be bi after the married anti-gay Republican “family values” senator from Idaho was arrested for soliciting gay sex in a public toilet at the Minneapolis–St. Paul International Airport in June of 2007. And, if at the time, I had suggested that everyone really ought to “entertain the possibility” that Larry Craig could be a closeted bisexual Republican hypocrite, and not a closeted homosexual hypocrite, I would have been accused of invoking one of the worst stereotypes about married bisexual men: They can’t keep the monogamous commitments they make to their wives. Here’s a darker example: John Wayne Gacy married a woman—and had two children with her—before he kidnapped, raped, tortured, and murdered at least thirty-three young men and boys. I could ask people to “entertain the possibility” that Gacy was a bisexual serial killer in an effort to combat “bisexual erasure,” I suppose, but I can’t imagine the bisexual community really feels cheated every time Gacy is identified as a “gay serial killer.”
Another deeply silly example of “bisexual erasure”: Imagine you’ve just met a man at a party. The man introduces you to a woman. “This is my wife,” the man says. If you thought, “straight man, straight couple,” some bisexual activists—the unhinged ones—would accuse you of engaging in bisexual erasure, because the man you met could be bisexual. I’ve gotten into arguments with readers who insist that the onus isn’t on the bisexual man with the wife to come out to you as bi. The onus is on you, me, and everyone else at the party to refrain from making assumptions. While it’s true that the overwhelming majority of men are straight, and while this man’s female spouse is solid, if not conclusive, evidence that he could be straight, it’s bi-phobic of you to assume the man is straight just because he has a wife. “I’m not going to assume this man is straight,” you should’ve told yourself when you thought, “straight guy,” after meeting his wife. “There’s a chance he could be bisexual. Furthermore, I’m not going to assume that his failure to identify himself as bisexual is evidence that he is comfortable being perceived as straight. I’m going to draw no conclusions whatsoever. He’s a man with a wife, and he could be anything.”
Human beings make assumptions about other human beings all the time, and so long as our assumptions aren’t warped bigotry—all gays are sluts, all Muslims are terrorists, all blonds are dumb, all bisexuals are closet cases—they’re harmless. If you wouldn’t think less of the married man you met at the party if you found out later that he was bisexual, there’s nothing bi-phobic about the reasonable assumption you made. I’m a gay parent and I can’t count the number of times when I’ve been out with my son by myself—particularly when he was an infant—that well-meaning, well-intentioned people asked where my wife was. Another perfectly reasonable assumption: Most men wearing wedding rings (on their fingers) and small children (on their backs) are married to women. This assumption—that I was straight and married and my wife had to be somewhere—was entirely reasonable, and so long as the people who made it didn’t throw up on my shoes after I told them that my wife had a dick, I didn’t feel invisible, erased, or offended.
But the truly shameful erasure from the conversation here is that no one contributes more to this problem than bisexuals do. No one erases bisexuals quite as effectively as bisexuals do. While I recognize that the reluctance of many bisexuals to be out is a reaction to the hostility they face from non-bisexuals—the fear and loathing of so many prejudiced monosexuals—cowering in the closet isn’t the solution. More and more people have come to accept gays and lesbians because we came out. But with most bisexuals winding up in opposite-sex relationships, and with most allowing people to assume they’re straight (including their own friends, family members, and even spouses), millions of people who know bisexuals don’t know they know bisexuals because the bisexuals they know aren’t out to them.
A. J. Walkley is a “monogamous, bisexual, cisgender female…in a relationship with a cisgender male” who, with Lauren Michelle Kinsey (“a monogamous, bisexual, cisgender female…in a relationship with a cisgender female”) cowrites the Bi the Bi blog for the Gay Voices section of The Huffington Post. (Gay Voices? That’s an example of bisexual erasure right there, isn’t it?) Walkley, in a joint post written with Kinsey, debated some of the issues I’ve raised about bisexual responsibility for bisexual invisibility. After she trashes me in one long, butt-covering paragraph, Walkley grudgingly concedes that I may be right:
However, I would be remiss to fail to acknowledge the fact that, on some level, Savage has a point. I do believe that bisexual people make up a significant part of the global population, and we are most likely the majority of the LGB population. You would never know it, though, because most of us are still closeted for, as you acknowledged, Lauren, a whole slew of reasons. It’s almost a “chicken or the egg” question: Does society and the LGBT community at large need to become more accepting before bisexuals come out en masse, or do bisexuals need to come out before more acceptance is possible? [Emphasis added.]
Walkley has a point—but it’s a self-serving, self-defeating one. Yes, society needs to become more accepting of bisexuals. But that’s not going to happen until the millions of bisexuals who’ve disappeared into opposite-sex relationships come out to their family, friends, and coworkers. If gays and lesbians had waited for society to become more accepting before we started coming out en masse, no gay or lesbian person would ever have come out at all. It’s ridiculous to suggest that bisexuals coming out in 2013 face greater levels of hostility than gays and lesbians did coming out in 1969.
And if bisexuals did come out en masse they could rule the—well, not the world. But bisexuals could definitely rule the parallel LGBT universe. In 2012, a researcher at the Williams Institute at the University of California released the results of a study that attempted to estimate the LGBT population of the United States. Some of the numbers that “Gary J. Gates, Williams Distinguished Scholar” came up with were disputed—just 3.5 percent of the population is LGBT? There are only eleven million LGBT people in the whole United States?—but the most interesting finding was that there are more bisexual adults (1.8 percent of the population) than gay and lesbian adults combined (1.7 percent of the population). Not only do bisexuals exist, they outnumber us homosexuals.
I’m sorry, bisexual activists, but you’re doing it all wrong. Instead of berating me for my alleged bi-phobia—and if I’m the enemy, you’re in real trouble—berate your closeted compatriots.
If bisexuals came out en masse, you could run the LGBT movement. And if you concluded that my inability to pretend that some things that are, aren’t, proved that I was irredeemably, hopelessly bi-phobic, well, then you could kick my ass out.
Okay, let’s get back to science—science!—and the study that finally proved that bisexual men do, in fact, exist.
“In an unusual scientific about-face,” The New York Times reported in August of 2011, “researchers at Northwestern University have found evidence that at least some men who identify themselves as bisexual are, in fact, sexually aroused by both women and men.”
So what did researchers at Northwestern do differently the second time around? How did they demonstrate that bisexual arousal patterns exist in males? They controlled for something researchers failed to control for in the past: Not all guys who claim they’re bisexual are telling the truth. They controlled for liars.
“Past research not finding bisexual genital arousal patterns among bisexual men may have been affected by recruitment techniques,” A. M. Rosenthal, the lead author for the new study, concluded. “For example, bisexual men in those studies needed only to identify as bisexual and to self-report bisexual attractions (e.g., Rieger et al., 2005). Thus, the bisexual sample
s of previous studies may have been populated by men who had never or rarely behaved bisexually and perhaps identified as bisexual for reasons other than strong arousal to both sexes.” [Emphasis added.]
Let me translate that into English: Most of the bisexually identified guys in earlier studies—almost all of them college-age guys, most barely out of high school—were gay guys. They were bisexual like I was bisexual, bisexual like Bryce was bisexual, bisexual like Mika was bisexual. Which is to say, they weren’t bisexual at all. Or, as the 2011 study’s authors put it, “past studies may have unintentionally oversampled bisexual-identified men with homosexual arousal patterns.” But instead of doubting their subjects’ bisexual identities—which, remember, is a terribly bi-phobic thing to do—researchers wound up casting doubt on bisexuality.
This time researchers didn’t recruit subjects from gay and alternative newspapers, but from sources “likely to be frequented by men with bisexual erotic interests.” Researchers trawled online sex ads for men who were seeking “to have sex with both members of heterosexual couples.” They only accepted men who “had at least two sexual partners of each sex and a romantic relationship of at least three months’ duration with at least one person of each sex. These inclusion criteria were employed to increase the probability of finding men with a bisexual genital arousal pattern (rather than those who identify as bisexual for other reasons).” Despite the added effort to find actual bisexual guys this time out, in the end Northwestern researchers dropped men that had been recruited for the study because they didn’t believe them to be bisexual.
And how many of the guys with “bisexual erotic interests” found in places “likely to be frequented by men with bisexual erotic interests” did researchers wind up cutting? Nearly half.