A reader writes:
Hi Andrew and Dish team. I’m a bisexual, heteroamorous guy, and I absolutely agree with Dan Savage’s and Charles Pulliam-Moore’s call for bisexual men to be forthright with their partners. The trouble is, as a bisexual, you can’t necessarily know that you’re heteroamorous until you’ve tried and failed – perhaps multiple times – to be bi-amorous. As a younger guy just coming out as bisexual, I genuinely thought I might be romantically attracted to both sexes and that I just hadn’t found the right guy yet. I was very inexperienced with both women and men, and I ended up hurting a couple of guys that I really enjoyed being around (and hooking up with) because the romantic spark I was hoping for never materialized.
That isn’t to absolve bi guys who treat people like shit, or simply with carelessness. I’m guilty of some the latter myself. (Not the former, I hope.) But I think that the emotional scars that some gay men bear from their interactions with bi men can sometimes be attributed to youth and inexperience, rather than dishonesty or fear. Raising awareness of a more accurate definition of bisexuality – one that includes heteroamorousness – is very important, as Savage says. But if forthrightness is bi men’s special responsibility, then I think we can ask for understanding in return, especially for our youthful transgressions.
Another:
I’m a bisexual man in a gay marriage.
My (very gay) husband and I have been together for 12 monogamous years, but prior to that time I dated both men and women in high school and college. My porn and fantasy life continue to include both genders. When someone turns my head on the street, or when I crush on someone at a party, it may be either a woman or a man. I would say that I’m equally bisexual and bi-amorous.
I am definitely not one of those men with “an internal incompatibility between [his] romantic desires and his fear of social judgment,” as your reader put it. If my marriage were over tomorrow, I have no idea whether my next long-term relationship would be with a man or a woman. But either way, social judgment will have nothing to do with it. I was privileged to grow up in a time and place where I was safe and comfortable being completely open from age 16 on about my relationships with both men and women. And today I live in a state that gives my relationships equal footing under the law regardless of who I fall in love with, in a city that practically celebrates my marriage. Thanks to the activism of you and many others who broke down the closet door and showed the world that queer folk are “virtually normal,” in my daily life I experience no social judgment whatsoever about being in a gay relationship.
That makes me wonder whether the traditional-marriage rearguard left a plausible argument on the table in their legal battles. In the string of court cases in recent years, the opponents of marriage equality repeatedly came up with no rational justification whatsoever to keep marriage a heterosexual-only institution. But the argument never really acknowledged the existence of bisexuals.
If “fear of social judgment” is a major factor driving bisexuals into child-producing heterosexual marriages (or keeping them in those marriages) rather than long-term same-sex romances, isn’t it reasonable to expect that tearing down that social judgment will result in fewer child-producing marriages? If I had graduated from high school in the ’70s or ’80s, rather than the late ’90s, isn’t it likely that a bisexual, bi-amorous man like me would have kept my gay trysts secret and ended up married to a woman like the men your reader has been banging?
Excluding gays from marriage has no real rational arguments to back it up, as several courts have held and as a majority of Americans now seem to understand. But doesn’t excluding bisexuals from gay marriage leave them only one available, socially acceptable romantic option, which happens to be the option that may result in bearing children? And if we accept a bisexual, bi-amorous model of human sexuality/amorosity, isn’t that a rational reason to adhere to traditional heterosexual-only marriage?
A female perspective:
I’m a “straight” woman, but the post seemed to be talking about me. It has helped me understand an experience that has left me reeling and confused about my sexuality. I would definitely say that I am “bi-sexual but hetero-amorous.” I’m 29 and I’d never had a sexual experience with a woman, not even so much as a kiss, but I’d always been open to it. It was such a part of me that I sort of thought that everyone felt this way. How could you not want to kiss women? They are so soft and beautiful!
However, it wasn’t something that ever made me question my sexuality, because I was so obviously attracted to men and the thought of dating a woman did nothing for me. I had no desire for it whatsoever. I was perfectly romantically and physically satisfied by men.
A few weeks ago, however, I had a threesome for the first time (two girls and one guy) and it was one of the most satisfying and eye-opening experiences of my life. It was a great experience, but it left me with a lot of questions. I kept wondering: Am I bisexual now? But I have no desire to date a woman, even though having sex with one was amazing and satisfying. Am I terrible person? Someone who only wanted to have sex with women but didn’t want to date them? Reading that other people have experience this same kind of disconnect between their emotional and sexual desires has helped me put this experience in context.
The Dish 