By now it’s probably a well-known fact that in addition to gays, lesbians and transgendered people, there is a whole other group called bisexuals. There are a lot of misconceptions surrounding bisexuals, because they’re not nearly as present in the media as gays and lesbians. Bisexual people are attracted to both men and women, but most are not equally attracted to both genders.
There are people who thought that they were straight who have fallen for a person of their same sex, and there have been homosexual people who have fallen for a member of the opposite sex. Many of the bisexual women I know prefer men, but also are attracted to women. A man who I could have sworn was gay is actually bisexual. Alfred Kinsey was right when he set up sexuality along a gradient, with zero being exclusively heterosexual and six being exclusively homosexual. Most people fall within those two extremes, and bisexuals rarely fall directly in the middle.
A fairly large issue for bisexuals is that because they straddle the gay/straight line, they are simultaneously members of the heterosexual community at large and of the gay community, and we don’t really fit in either place. Many people are still not comfortable with the idea of homosexuality. But in the gay community there is often a feeling that bisexuals are not “gay enough.” In the gay community, there is an idea that bisexuality is a stepping-stone from straight to gay – that someone who says “I’m bisexual” is really saying, “I’m gay, but I’m not ready to admit it yet.” That’s a silly point of view, and rarely true.
There are also issues of loyalty – for example, a bisexual woman may be ostracized from the lesbian community for falling in love with a man, after being a lesbian for years. The lesbian community may feel like the now-bisexual woman has betrayed them by choosing to be in a heterosexual relationship.
One myth surrounding bisexuals is that they’re sex-crazed and will have sex with anything that moves – man, woman or animal. Most bisexuals that I know are very picky about their of partners and prefer to have a significant other, with interludes with the other sex to spice things up. They don’t need to carry on simultaneous relationships with both sexes to make them happy.
Bisexuals love people, regardless of sex. They may like their partners more feminine, and others may be all over the board in their tastes, not having a “type.” Bisexuals can’t control their desires any more than a straight, gay or lesbian person can control theirs. It’s who we are.
We just get to have more varied sex than the rest of the population.
Baker can be reached at abaker@campustimes.org.
