Back in 2002, when I was still in college, I lived in DC for a quarter in a quad dorm room that felt like the set of a queerish Adam Sandler movie. I—a semi-closeted bisexual drunk—lived with a gay guy from Beverly Hills
I’ll call Mark; James, a kind-hearted straight stoner with whom I shared a room; and Mark’s best friend, an even straighter dude who looked exactly like Corey Feldman. I had a secret crush on Mark. Sometimes the four of us would stay up late at night watching CNN and drinking. For special occasions, we went to the Cheesecake Factory. Then we’d get up and be interns, whatever that meant, for the people who ran the world because that’s how we thought we could go about saving it.
Mark hit on me the way gay men hit on straight men they’re already comfortable with, the way straight women hit on gay men. He’d go “mmmmm” when I walked by and say, “Why are you straight again?” He could tell it made me a little uncomfortable but not too uncomfortable. He could tell I liked it a little. He was tall and good looking and rich, and he’d tell me all about his trips giving road head to hot flight attendants in the Florida Keys. He might have been telling me the plot of a porn he’d watched or it might have been the truth, but I was enthralled and jealous and disgusted and turned on.
One night, the four of us went out together for drinks. Across from our dorms was a place called The Fox and The Hound where we smoked cigarette after cigarette. For three bucks, you could order a whiskey and Coke, which meant they’d bring you a bucket glass full of well whiskey and a tiny bottle of soda. We drank and gossiped. Mark’s foot brushed my leg. I don’t know if it was on purpose or if he thought it was a table leg, but I let his foot keep brushing mine, over and over, and I lost my breath for a second. He was looking at Corey Feldman, talking about some date he’d just been on. He hated straight places. “I’m bored I’m bored I’m bored,” he said, jumping out of his seat, trying to talk us into going to a gay bar. Corey Feldman wasn’t having it. “Fuck,” I said finally, “Let’s just go back up to the room.”
We stumbled across the street, made it to the apartment and sat down in the living room, all of us on the couch but Mark, who was standing. He still wanted to leave. Someone plopped on CNN.
It had been eating at me. He’d been flirting with me since I moved in. I hadn’t told many people, but this was different. He had to know, or if he found out later, he’d have a right to resent me. I didn’t want that.
“Mark,” I said, and then I mumbled at him for a bit until he rolled his eyes at me.
“Spit it out.”
“You should know that I’m bi.”
This was the part where in my imagination he smiled, maybe gave me a hug, and welcomed me to his club, where the streamers came from the ceiling and the music started blaring. Instead, he took a seat on a chair near the couch. His smile disappeared. Everyone was sober all the sudden. Corey Feldman, who was sitting next to me, said something like, “That’s my cue, bro” and went to bed. James stayed put, his eyes glued to the TV, but not a peep came from him, either.
I sighed and fell back further into the couch.
Mark looked down at the ground for a minute and shook his head. He wanted to say something and stopped himself. He picked his head up and looked me right in the eyes.
“You like men and women?”
“Yep,” I said. I hadn’t told many people yet, but I’d done it enough. I knew that the questions were coming.
“I don’t believe in that.”
I flipped him off, smiling. “I’m sitting right here.”
He recoiled a little and rubbed his hands through his hair. “No no, sorry. What I meant is, well, do you prefer one or the other?”
His whole body was turned towards me now.
“It’s just … the person. I’m attracted to the person,” I said.
He stared at me. The wrong facial expression, just a little something wrong with the curl of my lips, and he would never believe me. He could mark me off as gay but not ready or just out for attention. I had to be just the right amount of angry and the right amount of confident.
He turned the TV down.
“So why aren’t you out?” he asked.
“I want to work in politics,” I said, enunciating now like Peter fucking Jennings. “I’m lucky enough to be attracted to women, too, you know? This business isn’t easy.”
He looked back at the TV, where I’m guessing something or other was blowing up on the other side of the world, and nodded.
“That’s probably pretty smart,” he said, a little bit of edge in his voice. I took another shot and headed off to bed. James asked me if I was okay before he headed into the shower. I said, “Sure.”
Mark sat in the chair, alone now, flipping through the channels.
*
Two weeks after I came out to Mark, I met a woman named Kate in a course about drug policy we had to take while doing our internships. Our professor ranted every day about the evils of needle exchanges and medical pot. Anytime I disagreed, he’d say, “You must be from Santa Cruz.” He was right. Both Kate and I were students at Santa Cruz, but we hadn’t met until that quarter in DC. After class, I caught her eyes as she was trying to make an exit and asked, “So, do you want to hang out?” She said, “Sure,” and then ran off. But I messed up and forgot to ask for her number. I never ask anyone out, but I couldn’t get her out of my head. I waited for the next week, and then I got in the same elevator she did and asked for her number, in front of everyone, so she had to give it to me. Then—I’d never done this before either—I actually called her. And she said yes. She went out with me on date after date and every fucking second I was around her I wanted to be touching her, somewhere, anywhere, even just her wrist.
After a couple dates, we went to her room. One of her roommates was always out at clubs looking for Navy guys and the other was gone. We had some drinks. I held her hand and said, “Can I kiss you?” like a fucking idiot, because I had no idea how to do this, how to be the one smitten. I kissed her cheek, then her ear, then her mouth, and she kissed back. I started shaking, my back started shaking, and I tried to figure out how to make myself stop, but I couldn’t, so I just went with it. She didn’t say anything, but she moaned back when I kissed her. We eventually made it to her bed, and even though she lived in a crappy dorm, too, it was the coziest place I’d ever been. She told me I smelled bad – getting used to DC’s humidity wasn’t easy after Santa Cruz. Instead of taking it personally and storming off or ignoring her I replaced my deodorant with antiperspirant and started putting it on every single day, which she thought was hilarious. Later, she said, “I like your smell now, but you should keep the antiperspirant on for other people’s sake.” I went around for about a day thinking, “She likes my nasty smell!” and dancing with myself.
A few weeks into it, I told her I was bi—the first time I’d ever told a girlfriend that— and she said, “Does that mean you’ll break up with me for a guy someday?”
“No, of course not,” I said.
I didn’t. Instead, we broke up because I chose to take a job working for a Congresswoman in Palo Alto instead of moving with her to Manhattan.
In the few years I spent working in politics pretending I wasn’t bi, I learned a lot of things, but the most disturbing thing I learned was how to win: What you do is find the simplest possible message that resonates with people — and when I say simple, think, “It’s the economy, Stupid” or in local races just, “Bob for State Senate” — and then you repeat it ad nauseam and get other people to repeat it ad nauseam and then ask them to get other people to repeat it until every front lawn and bulletin board and doorhanger and public space in the place you care about is filled with your message.
Somehow, in the last half century, LGBT activists have pulled off one of the biggest public relations coups in history while dealing with one of the most complex issues. It was less than forty years ago that the American Psychological Association agreed to stop saying non-straight people were sick. Today, I work at a school with a program that’s created just to train therapists to be sensitive to the needs of LGBT people. Ten years ago, in Lawrence v Texas, the Supreme Court stopped thirteen states from prosecuting people for sodomy; today, seventeen states allow gay marriage or domestic partnership.
All still isn’t good. Besides ex-gay camps, which have destroyed countless lives, LGBT people are victims of violent hate crimes at six times the overall rate, it’s legal to fire people for being gay in twenty-nine states, and being gay is illegal in seventy-six countries and punishable by execution in five. That’s the short list. I could go on for pages.
But now that we’ve had some success, now that we have a voice and a foothold, gay rights advocates who are fighting for LGBT rights—for my rights—have to choose between two different talking points:
1) Gays and lesbians are intrinsically attracted to same-sex partners.
2) Gays and lesbians do not have a choice about being attracted to same-sex partners. It is intrinsic to who they are. While no one has a choice about their sexual orientation, sometimes, not always, bisexual people are attracted to more than one gender. So those people who are born with a more fluid sexuality can choose who they sleep with, and sometimes they may be choosing between a man and a woman, but that doesn’t mean they have chosen to be attracted to both men and women.
Which talking point would you rather use?
*
I started jerking off when I was nine. I remember my favorite fantasy. I pictured everyone in my third grade class, standing at their desks. Everyone took off their clothes because they got in trouble for something. It didn’t matter what. My imagination zoomed in on some boy or girl. I wouldn’t think about sex with them, really. My knowledge of sex at that age came from watching Looks Who’s Talking. I thought you’d kiss someone and then have a baby. I’d just think of them naked, boys and girls, and maybe I’d think of kissing them, and sometimes I’d think about their butts. I’d touch myself, and it made me feel good.
It wasn’t until I’d moved in with my dad up in Boston a couple years later that I let it hit me that anything was different. I was running the mile, in gym class, and our teacher brought us over to the high school for that because there wasn’t a track at my school.
It was 1990 or 1991. My mom wanted me to look cool, but she was from LA, not Boston, so she had me dressing like some kind of weird white preppy surfer member of N.W.A, with terrible neon green shorts that went down to my knees and a bright orange hypercolor shirt that got brighter as I sweated on it. No one would talk to me, obviously, but I kept pace with two kids who would at least let me run near them.
One of their uncles had just died. “He was totally a fag,” said the nephew. The other kid said, “But that’s your uncle you’re talking about.” “Yeah, but he was a fag, and that’s what happens to fags, with AIDS, you know?” They weren’t saying it to be cruel to the uncle—there wasn’t an ounce of cruelty in their voice, even though they were saying fag. It was just the word they knew. They used the same tone I’d heard them use when they told me the story about going into that one overgrown house where there’s supposedly a hunchback inside. And it was then that it hit me, as I was jogging, even though I already knew, really, but I hadn’t let myself think about it.
“Fags like boys, so I’m a fag.”
That day after school I ran up straight into my room. My room had always been filthy, but I threw everything off one little section of carpet near my desk and my dresser with the trap door I would always write stories on, and I kneeled there, and said over and over to myself, “Fags like boys, so I’m a fag,” crying and crying, not once thinking about that page from a magazine hidden in my desk, three feet from my head, with the naked women sprawled in impossible positions, the one I’d been beating off to every night for the last week, and not once thinking about the girl I’d kissed on the lips, my first kiss ever, a few weeks before, when my heart went pitter-patter and did all the things hearts are supposed to do during a first kiss, the girl whose heart I later broke because I thought I was a fag. I didn’t want to bring her down with me because being a fag was this cancer that would grow inside me and eat up the straight part of me until I’d die of AIDS and never be able to do anything with my life.
A year later, I sat at my desk with a knife, poking at my wrist. I had an impossible crush on a boy. Frank Martin and I were on the same basketball team. His locker was two over from mine, and I couldn’t help it—I was twelve or thirteen years old. I had twenty boners a day. It’s just the way it was—so when he changed, I kept sneaking a peek because I just wanted to see, because I could smell him, and it was amazing, and was it too much to smell and see?
And he caught me looking. But when he caught me, he wouldn’t look right back at me. Instead, he looked at the locker in front of him, and said, quiet enough so no one would hear, “I don’t give a fuck if you’re gay. I know it’s not your fault, but you better not fucking look at me like that ever again.”
I decided that day that I would choose to grow the part of me that liked women and kill the part that liked men. I poked at little parts of my wrist until they turned bright red, then I pulled the blade up and watched my skin turn back to its normal color, and then I pressed down again harder. But I couldn’t make myself do it hard enough, because I couldn’t stand blood, because I was too afraid to die right then. I tried to spell out words with the little red dots but they disappeared too quickly. I tried to spell out “Frank.” I tried to spell out “tired.” I took out a pack of stolen Kools and snuck outside and smoked cigarette after cigarette after cigarette.
Thirteen years later, right after quitting the job with the Congresswoman, I was in the shower, jerking off, thinking about women—I’d mostly thought about women, really, since Frank, except for all the men—and then, out of nowhere, I thought about this guy I knew who hit on me all the time. I imagined going up to him and wrapping my arms around his huge bear chest and kissing his ear, nibbling and then blowing a bit on his neck. My breath came quick and fast, and my legs gave out, and I had to lay down in the shower and let the water pass over me, and I wasn’t even jerking off anymore, it was more powerful than that. I was thinking about him and floating and it wasn’t until the water got so cold I couldn’t stand it that I got up and dried off and slept better than I’d slept in thirteen years.
Soon after, I came out on Myspace. There was no coming back from that.
Here’s the thing I want to tell Human Rights Campaign and Equality California and all the gay rights groups who have done such incredible work, who now have their own buildings in Washington and are thinking in terms of talking points and “ramifications” and focus groups and public polling:
The gay rights movement has been so successful because activists like Harvey Milk encouraged people to come out and tell the truth to their families, to their friends, and to their coworkers, to be everything they were, to say “We’re here, we’re queer,” yes, but also, implicitly, to say, “We’re here, it’s complicated, and probably it’d be good if we talked about this over tea.”
*
Recently, on OKCupid, a woman messaged me: “Are you truly into ladies, and if so, what type? Finding a truly bi man is like finding a unicorn.”
If I’m a unicorn where I live now, in L.A., then I was a unicorn rocky mountain oyster when I moved to the old rustbelt city of Syracuse, New York to go to grad school and live for the first time as a fully out bi man. There was one other mythical bi man in the entire city, but try as I might, I never found him. At the gay bar, I sometimes got called a “half-breeder.” Straight people treated me just as shittily as they treat gay people. Three times, gay men hit me in the back of the head when they saw my head turn for a women. For the most part, straight women wouldn’t date me because, as one said, “You’re just gonna leave me to go suck a dick.” For the first time in my life, frat boys called me fag. My professor said, “The world just isn’t ready for gay marriage.” I emailed him “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” Then I went out with friends and my gay friends didn’t know what to do because I got drunk and flirted with a lesbian. A friend said she thought bi people didn’t exist. I said, “I’m sitting right here,” because that was my answer, but I was starting to believe her. I stopped telling people what I was. I let people think what they wanted, which was usually that I was like them.
About a year into being there, I thought, “Why don’t I just call myself gay?” I would see if I could do it before I told people, I thought. I mean, except for the occasional straight porn, and that one girl, and maybe that other one, I was only dating men. I made it a point. No more straight porn. No more thinking of women. No more dating women.
A few months later, I found myself in bed with a guy. I’d been doing well making up for lost time. No women, no women at all, except for a tiny bit of porn. I was almost ready to just say, “I’m gay. You guys were right. That bi thing was bullshit.” I was getting better at the whole blowjob thing. I was tied to the bed because I love being tied to the bed. I couldn’t move. I moaned and screamed and made all the right noises, but then it was time, and he started to expect an end because it was getting late—dogs needed to be fed and teeth brushed and homework finished—but I just couldn’t come. I just couldn’t. He was getting tired and starting to look around but he didn’t stop, thank god, because it would have ruined it, because I was right on the edge. Right there. So I did what no one admits to their lovers they do but that everyone does: I closed my eyes and let my mind wander to other people. I thought about men. I was sitting there forcing myself to think about men, only men, men men men men men men, and then it slipped in there, like when someone says don’t think about rhubarb pie and you think about rhubarb pie. I thought, for a second, about Willow from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, because I’d watched an episode earlier that day. Then I fucking erupted. I came so hard I was worried about getting enough air. I hope Alyson Hannigan doesn’t take out a restraining order on me for admitting that, but it’s important. Not because I came like that, and not because it’s ridiculous, which it totally is, but because I’d tried to make a choice to be straight but it wouldn’t work and now I’d tried to be gay and it wouldn’t work.
I wanted to join a team so I wouldn’t have to answer any more questions, so I wouldn’t have to say that I preferred one or the other or whether I exist or if I’m a unicorn or how I can ever hope to be monogamous if I’m attracted to more than one gender. But I failed to choose a side, so now, for once, I’m going to answer all of these questions honestly:
I don’t know. I can’t speak for other bi people, but only for myself. I just don’t know.
I don’t know because I can’t get all the voices out of my head, the ones that ask all the wrong questions. The ones that tell me I must be one thing or the other—for whom, or why, I don’t know. The voices want a neat fit, but I can’t accommodate them. I’ve tried, and I can’t, and I shouldn’t.
No one will ever make this go away. No one will ever make it simple.
And maybe, just maybe, that’s how I win.
82 responses
xoxoxo Unicorns are my favorite animal. “We’re here, it’s complicated, and probably it’d be good if we talked about this over tea.â€
Ferocious and true. Human sexuality can’t be summed up any easier than humans themselves can be. <3
Are you there, Dan Savage? Meet my brave, courageous sharp bi friend, Seth.
This is the most patient, empathetic, wonderful essay I’ve ever read on being bisexual.
This is amazing – so honest, so unselfconciously powerful.
Fuck yes. This is fantastic.
I adore this–so much bravery, integrity and humanity.
Thank you so much for writing this — also a bi guy and my experience has been so similar. Beautifully written.
This is so much of what I feel about identity politics ALL THE TIME!
Truth is a kind of freedom. The best kind. Maybe the only kind. This is wonderful.
This, this right here is fantastic. Thank you, Seth.
I think I got the intertwined venus/mars bi pride symbol inked on my forearm so that I’d never be able to “pass” either way, not really. Not in short sleeves or bare-chested, anyway. But I’ve given up on using the bi label, myself. So much of other peoples’ baggage attached to it. So when asked if I’m gay, a wry smile and “Only a little bit” suffices. When asked if I’m straight, “Not entirely, no.” (No one ever seems to ask, “Are you bi?” from the get-go.) And I’ve made peace–mostly–with the “filter” aspect: chances are, anybody who can’t or doesn’t want to deal with it isn’t someone I’d want around anyway. But I’m never…entirely…sure.
Have you read Cranberry Hush by Ben Monopoli? It’s written by a gay author, but the main character is bi. I thought it was a really beautiful book, and it was the first time I ever really thought about how loving everybody (men, women) is tough to navigate. Thanks for writing — this piece moved me.
Beautiful, honest, and brave writing – thanks Seth.
Bravely written, Seth. I always romanticized being bisexual, but now I see how complex and political it can be–geesh, being a straight woman is complicated enough! After I read this I had a flashback about being a pre teen and hearing all kinds of bigotry related to gay men and AIDS. It’s really unfortunate that our generation was just starting to learn about homosexuality at a time when HIV/AIDS was being associated with gay life and culture–especially gay men. More people like you need to write about this stuff to demystify it.
Thank you for writing this. Great essay!
This essay is amazing. I love unicorns and you’re my favorite so far. I want to hug you and laugh and hug you some more. You have some great lines in this piece, Seth.
Great piece! I don’t think I’ve met anyone who was bi. But then again, I live in the suburbs of Houston where no one would say as much if they were outside the Montrose area. My uncle was gay, and he left our small cultural-vacuum of a South Texas border town right after high school. He was running away from my homophobe grandfather and the stifling judgment of the townspeople. After 1997, when the internet became mainstream, I’m happy to say things have changed. It’s now not so rare to see gay people living together in my small hometown. I did know a girl who came out after she graduated, but after she was assaulted by her girlfriend, went straight again. She’s been married now for about 8 yrs. Was she bi and choosing the easy path? WHo knows? It’s really none of my business, and I think that’s what people have to get through their heads. Everyone should work this stuff out on their own, without having to worry about fitting into the boxes that other people demand they fit into. Everything is complicated, and simplifying things just makes us go DL.
Thanks for this piece!
This is beautiful and heart-wrenching in its truth, Seth Fischer!
It’s funny (but not really) and unfortunate and unfair, and lots of other un-good-things how bisexuality is percieved in men vs. women within our society. On the fairly regular occasions that I have been questioned about my own orientation, the question is almost never, “Are you lesbian?”, regardless of the fact that I sport a partially shaved head, ride a motorcycle, carry a pocket knife, and played ice hockey for a decade of my youth. The question is nearly always, “So you’re bisexual?”, and even then it feels like less of a question than a statement. This is the paradox of bisexuality — that all hetero-flexible, queer, questioning, truly bisexual, or, even lipstick lesbians fall into the bisexual category, while no such thing exists for men. You can attribute it to male chauvinism, cultural climate, Girls Gone Wild or whatever else you like, but it doesn’t change the fact that this attitude exists, even in a sexually liberal haven like San Francisco!
Anyone who feels pigeonholed by answering this sort of question has come up with their own go-to answer — I like the ones Ian shared above. My own autoresponse to all questions of orientation is that I am attracted to people, not parts. Maybe the solution is not just in cultivating acceptance of bisexuality on the whole, but in placing less importance on labeling sexuality to begin with.
Whatever the outcome, thank you for sharing your own very personal, emotional, raw (and kind of steamy!) story.
Hells yes. Everyone has an opinion on whether or not it’s possible to be bi, but no one else really knows if they aren’t YOU. It looks different from anywhere you stand. And it’s not even cool anymore to say “I don’t like labels” because that’s everyone’s cop-out. High five for unicorns!!
Thank you.
Thank you for this. I feel the same way so much of the time. I’ve tried to pick a side, choose men or women, but I cannot. I feel that magnetic pull to both sexes. I’m tired of being told I’m ‘really’ one or the other because someone else is one or the other and they can’t conceive of bisexuality. I prefer my ‘and’ over their ‘or’ because it’s what works for me.
Yesterday, I went to a sit-in to protest a talk hosted by the Traditonal “Values” Club at the college where I teach. A poor, tortured soul was trying to explain to the assembled crowd (nearly all with their backs turned) how he “cured” his homosexuality away. It made me so sad.
You know what wins? Love. Thanks for this.
THANK YOU, SETH!
Fantastic essay, Seth. I like the unicorn line. I’ve also used to the “albino buffalo” for an animal simile regarding bi men. On bisexuality in general, I’ve always thought that because there’s a struggle — that we receive crap from people both gay and straight at times — we end up leaning against the door frame of the closet, not really out, but waiting to be asked the question. The semi-invisibility can be frustrating, but also, it’s tough to constantly explain and re-explain.
Anyway, thanks for this.
Thanks for this. Bi, not out except to a handful of people. This gives me hope.
Thanks for writing this, it was beautiful and brave and reminded me there are other unicorns and questions. I hope you do win, Seth. I hope we all do.
A high-five from a fellow unicorn, dear chap. Thanks for being so articulate, and for both enduring and emerging over the years in spite of all the bullshit.
Such an amazing essay, Seth. So important that people express all shades of sexuality and you did it so well. And not to get too Dan Savagey, but who says you need to strive for the straight and narrow mountaintop of monogamy! Plenty of amazing committed relationships are flexible and open to this. Sometimes magical unicorns need this. But that is a whole other battle. Thank you so much for writing this!
touching, real, thank you.
This was really lovely. Thank you.
Wonderful! Thank you. That’s as close to an explanation as any of us will be able to give.
You are great.
Poignant and topical read. Bravo for bravery.
As the LGBT community makes strides every year, a curious bi-product is segregation of the groups and rampant labelling and categorization, which is as terrifying as ostracism. Can’t we all just fucking be people or people fucking?
I’m a bi woman.
It’s funny, cause especially these days being bisexual and female is looked at as an attention-seeking behavior (club-sexual, I’ve heard it called). I’ve heard the whole “You aren’t ~really~ bi, you have to prefer one over the other!”
If asked my sexuality, I tend to respond “greedy”. When they ask what it means, I say I’m not straight, I’m not gay, I’m greedy, I want all the love. ;P
Oh, thank you for this.
So BEAUTIFUL!! Thank you, thank you! From one Unicorn to another, THANK YOU!
I especially love the part in the shower. Dan Savage said it pretty well in his definition of “Monogamish” But I prefer the term San FranSexual myself: especially the part about not being DEFINED by WHO we like to fuck. Please come and visit us in San Francisco for further Unicorn Discussion and General playtime Romps! Meow! I mean, neigh!
as much as i take issue with the term “bi”, this is a great piece. reminds me of the conversation i had with my mother, who thankfully is a reasonable person AND loves to talk about sex, when she met my first real girlfriend.
her: so, you’re a lesbian?
me: no, not necessarily.
her: both?
me: well, i just don’t mind either way, is the thing.
her: so, you’re just attracted to people, and you find a way to please each other, whatever they’ve got to work with.
me: mom, you are amazing and i love you.
Reading through the comments, there’s some on romanticizing bisexualism, or ‘not knowing’ anyone bisexual. And I think it returns to… people assuming one way or the other. I’m married to a man – and so people assume that I’m straight (of course, right?).
Reading this article really impacted me heavily, having struggled with my own bisexuality, and how it’s perceived by both sides (gay and straight). I’ve heard hatred from both sides, and in the end, there’s a select few that know I am (my partner is one of them – because he is too), mostly on the internet. I want people to know, I want to identify as that, I want to be ME in that way… but I don’t know if I can deal with it.
So I could connect to this. It put me in tears, honestly, seeing the struggle you’ve gone through. I wish it weren’t so, I wish it were as easy for everyone else as I… once made it in my head. Loving the -person- used to seem like such an easy concept, but somehow everything needs a definition, everything needs a box, but I have… never felt like my sexuality could fit neatly anywhere.
Can’t I just love people? Can’t I just get turned on by them? Why does it have to be so complicated?
I’m 48 years old. The first year I went off to college, some students were starting a Gay/Lesbian group on campus. I went to the first meeting. Someone gave an explanatory little talk about what they hoped could be done via this group (social, support, political, etc) and then suggested that we go around in a circle and each introduce ourselves. People talked about themselves and then about what they hoped the group could work on. One guy said that it would be nice to have this group where real Gays and Lesbians would all bind together for a common cause because all those fake Bisexuals out there were so annoying. Everyone in the group except me said “Yeah!” and “That’s right!” So when the circle came around to me, I said “I’m Bi…” and there was a big, long, humiliating silence. I never went back to another meeting. WHAT AN ISOLATING FEELING.
Wonderful piece, Seth. Just great to see honest, well-written prose that offers to expand–rather than restrict–people’s vision of the world.
Wow. I feel like I’ve been waiting to read that for most of my adult life.
Thank you for writing about my life so eloquently 🙂 After veering between trying to be straight, and gay, and then straight again, and then acknowledging to myself that I’m bi but trying to act gay, and then straight, and then gay again, I simply couldn’t anymore. It’s sex, it’s supposed to bring me joy, not all this angst. So, in my late thirties of all times, I am turning into a bit of a screaming bi – screaming, shouting,singing, broadcasting, BEING bi. And I flaunt it because when I say it, I know that it’s true. And after SO many years of saying gay or straight and knowing inside that something doesn’t gel, I get high on the feeling of truth. It’s set me free. Funny that. Thanks again.
This resonated pretty strongly with me (24 M). I have often found myself struggling with “which team” to focus on just to make life simpler.
Amazing essay. Thank you.
Good post. Love the details and all the excitement of understanding what is really going on inside your head about coming out to yourself as bi. It’s a hard road to not conform to others standards. It’s good to come out to yourself.
Bookmarked, for the next time someone gives me a hard time about being an open-minded queer.
Wow, that’s just–wow. Thank you so much.
Extraordinary. Here’s another bi guy who saying THANK YOU for so beautifully expressing the experience of being a bisexual male in this society.
What a great essay! Enjoyed this so much. Thank you.
Excellent essay, Seth! Bravo!
Yesyesyes. Love this so much. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you for sharing this. Perhaps one of the things that I love most is that you make this a level playing field for every single person who might read it — bi, gay, straight, lesbian, whatever. You highlight the grey that so many people experience, especially in a world where we pretend so much is black and white.
And like Melissa Chadburn, I too have a soft spot for the unicorn.
Seth, I love that you won’t make it fit no matter what the voices say. I love that you are true to yourself. It inspires the rest of us to do the same in all aspects of our lives, no matter what the voices say.
Thank you so much for sharing your experience on being bisexual. I found it to be very inspiring.
I’m 18 and a freshman in college and this stuff is sooo confusing.
I can relate because at one point, I did force myself to like only women, and another time to like only men.
But now I realize I just like men more than women.
But do I really?
lol, I’ll never know for sure!!! Hopefully some day i’ll figure it out.
What an awesome essay, not only do I relate to your experiences, but I too was pigeonholed as Gay because I was told not to sit on the fence!
I love the way you write! Thank you for speaking your truth and sharing such a difficult, significant part of your life.
Thank you so much for writing this. You’ve summed up a lot of my thoughts and experiences as a fellow bisexual a lot more eloquently than I ever could.
I can’t even begin to say how thrilled and honored I am by all of this, all of your kind words. I’ve heard from hundreds of people from around the world, in my email, in my facebook, on Twitter, and here. The Internet is an amazing tool. I’ve heard from people coming out for the first time, people who thought that they were the only ones who felt that way, people who have bi loved ones they just didn’t understand, but now, they think, maybe they can. I’ve answered the best I can, when I can, but I haven’t been able to respond to everyone, and for that, I’m sorry. But most most most most importantly, thank you, everyone, for reading, and for commenting, and for joining a really, really important conversation that we need to take out into the streets by telling our stories honestly, in all their complexity. You all are amazing.
Thank you, Seth. How did you know I really needed to read exactly this today? Everything just got a little better in my world.
This reminded me how lucky I was to go to a college where sexual politics and identity politics were way out there in the open. And yet the bisexual campus group was ridiculed for having their own separate place, even though they’d pretty much been ridiculed out of the LGBT center. Well done, Seth.
Wonderful essay. An ex-boyfriend of mine is bi, and it always mystified me the way people would react to him. I guess I don’t understand being invested in who somebody else sleeps with. I think you’re doing a great job highlighting the difficulties we’re experiencing as we fight for LGBT rights in identifying the places we need to be stronger – in our acceptance, our empathy, our ability to see shades of grey. It’s an absolutely necessary mirror that you’re holding up, and I think you did it in a supremely beautiful way.
This is great, Seth! From one unicorn to another.
So perfect. Thank you for writing this– every bit of it resonated with me. Thank you!
Thank you so much for writing this! It is so validating to see someone else’s experience with bisexuality reflect mine so much. I am so glad so many people are reading this and will maybe start to believe bisexual people talking about their experience instead of chalking it up to me or whoever being drunk or trying to turn guys on or whatever
Thank you do much for this. You wrote my story…. Except, I’m the female version of you. And I tried to be straight. This made me cry. I am so glad that there’s another unicorn 🙂
Thank you for sharing this Seth. It was such an act of bravery to put yourself and all your confusion out there.
I want to respond to the comment about women not wanting to date bi men because they’d leave them to go suck dick. So no straight man has ever left a woman for another woman with bigger tits? The comment seems to imply that bi men can’t control their impulses and that straight men can. Or perhaps the argument is that a bi man would have twice as much temptation. Well, a man living in Beverly Hills could hypothetically be more tempted than a man from Texarkana, right? Or a man in,say, Brazil as opposed to a man in Yemen. I don’t buy it. In any relationship, there are.constant temptations to o
I’m sorry – I’m typing this on a Kindle and I obviously touched the wrong key.
As I was saying, there are temptations in any relationship and to say a bi man is more likely to stray is not giving them enough credit (and giving the rest of us too much).
The love of my life is a woman (as am I), so everybody assumes I’m a lesbian. When I correct them and say, “Actually, I’m bisexual,” they give me blank looks. As much as they use the acronym LGBT, they completely forget or outright discount the “B.” I once saw a church which had a sign saying they welcomed everyone: democrats, republicans, white, black, gay, straight, lesbian, transgender… A list of at least 30 descriptors. Missing? Bisexual. Way to be sensitive to the lgBt community, folks.
WOW. I feel, and heart, this article so hard.
Recently it got so awful for me that I started a blog. It’s not my personal blog, but a submission based blog for and by bisexual, pansexual, not-straight-not-gay, I-like-everyone, etc identified people. Everyone who ids that way, or something like it should be encouraged to submit by writing to silenceendshere@gmail.com, after reading the submission guidelines.
Seth, I hope you don’t mind, but I linked to and propped your article because I thought it was so awesome.
The blog is at http://silenceendshere.wordpress.com
THANK YOU for your writing. It’s important.
Even more thanks to everyone! Wow. And to chacha lives, what a cool, important site. Of course I don’t mind if you link to it! Thank you for doing so.
Wow, what a fantastic article! I actually teared up a little bit, and I can relate to a lot of what you said. My attraction is more to men then to women, but people automatically discount that as me being gay. When I correct them, I’ve gotten everything from blank stares, to isolation, to being threatened. This article has given me…hope, I guess. Its shown me that I’m not some sort of super freak-show, and that I’m really not alone. Thank you so much for this gift!
Thank you for this. For being so candid and eloquent. I recently came out bi and it’s been a very complicated, exciting, and often painful few months. I can relate to everything you’re saying. From the unexpectedly negative responses of gay crushes, to girlfriends assuming that it means you’re going sneak off to suck dick, to the difficulty in finding your “community”, to all the questions and doubts from friends, acquaintances and even ones self. This is very powerful and resonates deeply with me. Again, thank you.
weird, it seems like my being straight may have contributed in the tiniest of ways to my being more tolerant, in a small area. i mean, i’ve been aware if the whole Kinsey spectrum for most of my life (I’m a 1 at most), knowing people of almost every queeritude out there, and only today (shortly prior to having come to this page) did i become acquainted with the existence of this stigma. i sort of get why it exists but yeesh. until today the label “bi” carried little baggage for me. i need to clear that out somehow…
what if people cared as much about which hair color you find attractive? after all, some people prefer blondes, some brunettes, some redheads. but if you’re attracted to two or three of those, then, sorry, excuse me, but… how the hell does that work? like, you’re just going to leave me for some black-haired chick, yes? what does it even mean to say “i like green eyes AND brown eyes” or “i’m open to dating vegetarians AND mean eaters”? what’s stopping you from MAKING UP YOUR MIND? besides, you’re probably unwilling to admit how much you love the really stigmatized groups, like geeks, so you’re tempering that by claiming to like non-geeks “at the same time” (whatever that could possibly mean).
@lenoxus
It’s not about making up ones mind. And why should anyone have to? Nor is it about balancing it for others or for an image. I like what I like and that happens to be more than most people like and I’m not going to apologize for that or try to change it or pretend otherwise to fit into yours or society’s expectations or need for categorization. It doesn’t mean I’m any less considerate of those I spend my time with, it doesn’t mean I can’t be happily monogamous with a single person. It’s not about their style, their hair color, or even their gender. It’s about the individual. If I meet someone I like, I don’t care if they’re man or woman, blond or brunette, tall or short. It’s about their personality more than anything, and yes physical attraction (of which there are endless varieties) certainly helps.
whoops. i thought my “what if” there made it clear that i was being sarcastic, but anyway… i was being sarcastic. my point is that because people don’t get confused or angry that someone has the potential to be in a relationship with anyone of those other categories, they also shouldn’t get confused or angry about bisexuality, because sex is merely one of many ways to group types of people.
Thank you so much for writing this. I have struggled with this for over a decade, I get tired of not fitting in anywhere, and I get tired of minorities discriminating within minorities. I want all bisexuals to be out and proud. Normalize it. It’s not always a “stepping stone”, it’s not because we are confused, it really does exist and I want the world to know about it.
“I’m sitting right here.” I love that. I’m sitting right here, too.
Wait… I’m lost, did you ever get to hook-up with Mark???
I was left wondering the same thing as Javier…More seriously, without sounding too earnest, you helped me understand the bi view better than all the politically correct rhetoric I have read or heard over the years. Have a seat – wherever you like.
Yes! Thank you thank you. Wonderfully written and truthful. I related so much to it. I’ve tried to make myself one or the other, I’ve been asked if I’ve made up my mind yet, I’ve definitely let people make assumptions, I’ve had people ask me “so how bi are you?” which… I don’t even know what that means or what they’re looking for as an answer, I’ve been asked if it’s “just a sexual thing with girls?” I’ve had people, gay and straight, tell me that bisexuals are greedy which doesn’t make sense to me, and they always say it like they’re the first person to think of it when it’s this idea floating around that, when really looked at, doesn’t make any sense.
Shout out for bi guys- it was indirectly because of a bi guy that I discovered there even was something to be besides gay or straight. I was raised in a very conservative evangelical home, confused and scared of my own feelings, and rather sheltered. So in high school when my friend told me that the guy who had a crush on me was bi I said “what’s that?” and when she told me it was like a curtain being drawn back… whoa! you CAN be that? It’s weird how I knew my own desires but until I learned there was a word for them I didn’t realize they could be…. possible? legitimate? I was still worried about the religious stuff and anxiously closeted, but my world shifted in a big way with just that one little micro-conversation which my friend probably doesn’t even remember.
Thank you for this. I’ve never read anything as honest as this before, and it really made me feel less alone.
yes, thank you, Seth. as mentioned here by so many others, i often feel so alone being bi. ironic, isn’t it? =)
Here is something i wrote recently for my local weekly paper as part of a bigger piece on LGBT issues.
B Not Silent
In the term LGBT, the B is too often silent. In other words, the problem with being bisexual is that we are often invisible, because both homosexual and heterosexual folks deny our existence.
In college I recognized that I was bisexual, though it was theoretical, as I had never dated anyone. In my early 20s I had my first crush on a woman. Michelle was a friend of my housemate’s who one night stayed over at our house due to some small crisis. I so wanted to find a way to invite her into my room, but I was too shy. Later, after she’d moved away, I heard Michelle had been interested in me and even hoped something would happen that night. Ah, the giddiness I felt, laced with disappointment.
A year later, still never having had a romantic relationship, I met an older woman, an artist and established lesbian, who was not shy in expressing her interest in me. I liked and admired her, and was flattered and curious. We dated for a short time, and in the throes of this infatuation, believing myself to be a lesbian, I came out to my mom on the phone. I will always remember her words: “It’s not the path I would have chosen for you, but I just want you to be happy.â€
Quickly it became apparent that the relationship was not working for me. I assumed the problem was that I really wasn’t into women after all. It was very difficult to break it off with her, as she didn’t accept my decision. When she would show up late at night at my door with flowers and moony eyes, it didn’t help that, more than once, I decided to give it “just one more chance.†I cringe at the memory, but it was never malicious, only naive. Just the same, I was vilified by her circle of close lesbian friends as the “straight girl who broke her heart.â€
A few years ago I met a woman with whom I had instant chemistry. I was well on my way to falling for her when she broke my heart by informing me she didn’t want an emotional relationship but would be interested if I just wanted to keep it physical. Damn, I thought only men did that sort of thing.
Now, single in my mid-40s, I have had long-term relationships with two men and briefly dated these two women. I identify as bisexual, and am open to dating either gender.
I think straight society feels uncomfortable with bisexuality because it immediately bring to mind promiscuity. The idea of openness to both genders seems to translate to “sleeping with everyone, all the time.†There are bisexuals who commit to be with only their partner, man or woman, just as there are lots of straight people who are not dedicated to monogamy. What is even more disturbing to me is the attitude of mistrust among gays and lesbians. I have often heard from them that bisexuals should just “pick a side.†Isn’t the whole point that gays and lesbians have been struggling to make about sexuality is that it isn’t a choice?
and ps–lenoxus, i got your sarcasm, and appreciated it!
Seth-I think you wrote a very good story. Ashley really wanted me to read it, so I did. BTW, if women could go both ways and I personally know people from both sexes find it hot than why do people get on men about it.It seems like double standards if you ask me. Great story.Parts of it made me laugh. I wish I would’ve spoken to you when I did my research paper on a subject that had part of this.
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