The Ordinary Extraordinary blog
The Ordinary Extraordinary blog
Most people remain confused about the reality of bisexuality and sexual fluidity
On January 3, the New York Times published a piece entitled “Bisexual: A Label with Layers” that took a good long look at the continuing confusion most people have over the reality of bisexuality and sexual fluidity. It surveys the usual comments by the benighted crowd (things akin to “it’s just a phase until you fully commit to a sexuality and an identity”) as well as more than a few of the topic’s more nuanced elements. It takes as its starting point the recent comments by British Olympic diver Tom Daley that he’s dating a man but still fancies girls.
Of course, a huge percentage of polyamorous unions involve bisexuality. Unless a person—poly or LGBT or whatever—can fully understand the simple reality of bisexuality, all they will ever think is that polyamorous unions involving bi people are weakened by individuals who can’t “fully commit to a sexuality and an identity.” Such ideas are ludicrous.
We’re reprinting the entire article below—we recommend giving it your time. You’ll find the original at the New York Times.
The New York Times
January 3, 2014
Bisexual: A Label With Layers
By Michael Schulman
“Of course I still fancy girls.”
Those six little words, tossed off like a request to please hold the mustard, were among the most deconstructed in Tom Daley’s YouTube video last month, in which the 19-year-old British Olympic diver announced that he was dating a man.
Leaning against Union Jack pillows, he continued, “But, I mean, right now I’m dating a guy, and I couldn’t be happier.” Mr. Daley’s message was sweet and simple, and gay rights advocates seemed thrilled to welcome an out-and-proud athlete into their ranks. (The cattier comments came later, when the “guy” was reported by numerous tabloids and blogs to be the screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, who is two decades his senior.)
But the cheers were premature, or at least qualified. Despite the trending Twitter hashtag #TomGayley, Mr. Daley never used the word “gay,” and there was the matter of his still fancying girls. While many commenters embraced the ambiguity (“I don’t care if Tom Daley’s gay or bi or whatever ... He’s still fit,” one tweeted), others raised eyebrows.
Was it a disclaimer? A cop-out? A ploy to hold on to fans? Was he being greedy, as some joked? Or was he, as the video’s blushing tone suggested, simply caught up in the heady disorientation of first love, a place too intoxicating for labels?
Whatever the answer, Mr. Daley’s disclosure reignited a fraught conversation within the L.G.B.T. community, having to do with its third letter. Bisexuality, like chronic fatigue syndrome, is often assumed to be imaginary by those on the outside. The stereotypes abound: bisexuals are promiscuous, lying or in denial. They are gay men who can’t yet admit that they are gay, or “lesbians until graduation,” sowing wild oats before they find husbands.
“The reactions that you’re seeing are classic in terms of people not believing that bisexuality really exists, feeling that it’s a transitional stage or a form of being in the closet,” said Lisa Diamond, a professor at the University of Utah who studies sexual orientation.
Population-based studies, Dr. Diamond said, indicate that bisexuality is in fact more common than exclusively same-sex attraction, and that female libido is particularly open-ended. That may explain why female bisexuality is more conspicuous in popular culture, from Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl” to “The Kids Are All Right” and the Netflix series “Orange Is the New Black.” (That straight men may find it titillating doesn’t hurt.)
In a recent Modern Love essay in The New York Times revealing her relationship with another woman, the actress Maria Bello wrote, “My feelings about attachment and partnership have always been that they are fluid and evolving.” Before marrying Bill de Blasio, Chirlane McCray identified as a lesbian, which has become part of the progressive credentials of New York’s first family.
Male bisexuality, by contrast, is more vexed, and much of the skepticism comes from gay men. In the aftermath of Mr. Daley’s announcement, Ann Friedman wrote a post for New York Magazine’s The Cut blog predicting that male bisexuality would become more visible as gender mores evolved. “Traditional definitions of masculinity — which tend to go hand in hand with homophobia — are going through a real shake-up,” Ms. Friedman wrote. “More hetero men are tentatively admitting that they’re turned on by certain sex acts associated with gay men.”
The gay conservative pundit Andrew Sullivan swiftly countered on his own blog, The Dish, saying, “I suspect, pace Friedman’s dreams, that there will always be far fewer men who transcend traditional sexual categories — because male sexuality is much cruder, simpler and more binary than female.” He called Mr. Daley’s claim about liking girls “a classic bridging mechanism to ease the transition to his real sexual identity. I know because I did it, too.”
Mr. Sullivan’s brushoff echoed the knowing disdain that many gay men show toward their bisexual counterparts, particularly younger ones. In a sense, they’re right: Plenty of gay men, especially in less tolerant decades, have used bisexuality as a “rest stop on the highway to homo,” to borrow a punch line from “Will & Grace.”
Lesbians are not immune to this kind of wariness. Even after Ms. McCray married Mr. de Blasio, some of her “lesbian-separatist friends,” as The New Yorker put it, refused to accept her new life in Park Slope.
Such thinking has irked bisexual advocates, who see bias within gay circles as evidence of “biphobia.” The claim has been lodged repeatedly at the sex columnist Dan Savage. In 2011, the blogger Chris O’Guinn accused Mr. Savage of saying “blatantly hurtful, cruel and insulting things about bisexuals,” including his remark in the documentary “Bi the Way” that “I meet somebody who’s 19 years old who tells me he’s bisexual, and I’m like: ‘Yeah, right, I doubt it. Come back when you’re 29 and we’ll see.’ ”
Besieged by such complaints, Mr. Savage made a video for The Dish last summer clarifying his views. “Acknowledging that this is a thing that happens, that people briefly identify as bi before they come out as gay often — not all bi people, but gay people do this — should not be considered biphobic,” he said, citing the British pop star Mika as a gay celebrity who originally said he was bisexual.
Part of what tripped up Mr. Savage, he explained, was a 2005 study in which researchers at Northwestern University cast doubt on whether male bisexuality truly exists, after showing subjects erotic imagery while monitoring their genital responses. Six years later, a follow-up study at Northwestern concluded the opposite: male bisexuality is real.
Why the change? Whereas the first study advertised for subjects in gay-oriented publications and included men who identified as gay, straight or bisexual, the second recruited from places catering specifically to bisexuals and selected only those who had seriously dated both men and women.
Advocates, a touch exasperated, applauded the new results, though some pointed out that physical stimulation is only one ingredient of sexual orientation, which also stems from emotional intimacy. Indeed, Mr. Daley and Ms. Bello, neither of whom used the word “bisexual,” both spoke of the overpowering ardor of a single relationship, rather than a shift in identity. (Ms. Bello was content to call herself a “whatever.”)
Only a handful of celebrities have embraced the term, and usually with footnotes. Alan Cumming, who is married to the illustrator Grant Shaffer, recently told Instinct magazine: “I still define myself as a bisexual even though I have chosen to be with Grant. I’m sexually attracted to the female form even though I am with a man, and I just feel that bisexuals have a bad rap.” Cynthia Nixon, who married a woman after having children with a man, told The Daily Beast in 2012: “I don’t pull out the ‘bisexual’ word because nobody likes the bisexuals. Everybody likes to dump on the bisexuals.”
But avoiding labels has its own baggage among gay advocates, who have relied on visibility as a weapon against intolerance. Ellyn Ruthstrom, president of the Bisexual Resource Center in Boston, said of Ms. Nixon, “She’s very accepted within the L.G.B.T. community, but she knows that it’s a big negative to walk around saying you’re bisexual.” She added: “Many people think they can’t use the B word safely. And it’s hard in our community, because we want positive examples of bi people.”
New York’s new first lady won’t be one of those examples. When an interviewer from Essence brought up the B word, Ms. McCray replied: “I am more than just a label. Why are people so driven to labeling where we fall on the sexual spectrum? Labels put people in boxes, and those boxes are shaped like coffins.”
In Mr. Daley’s case, the difference may be generational. People who have grown up in a more assimilated world may not see the value in labels like “gay” or “bisexual,” when the communities they describe are no longer as marginalized.
“Among the younger generation, I’ve seen much more openness about bisexuality in both men and women, and often a rejection of all labels,” Dr. Diamond said. “They’re more open to the idea that, ‘Hey, sexuality is complicated, and as long as I know who I want to sleep with it doesn’t matter what I call myself.’ ”
Monday, January 6, 2014