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You are here: Home > Forum > A Place of Safety > General Talk > Bisexuality: a Rarity or Baseline
Bisexuality: a Rarity or Baseline  [message #67385] Wed, 06 February 2013 14:16 Go to next message
IslandDweller is currently offline  IslandDweller

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Registered: February 2013
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Bisexuality[ 5 votes ]
1. Yes 4 / 80%
2. No 1 / 20%

Hello, everyone. I have been reading stuff on this site for the last four years (helped me a lot), but this is the first time I have ever posted anything on the forums. The question was based on the fact that the population percentage of admitted bisexuals is quite low; but I was thinking that maybe, based on an expression, that everyone is indeed born bi and sexual preference is acquired (not necessarily chosen, but subconsciously imprinted (either positively or negatively). Positively (not knowing a better term), meaning that the sexual preference is acquired through the example of the said preference and negatively, meaning that sexual preference is acquired through discouraging any other but the said preference. I'm sorry that this sounds a bit too stiff, but just for the record I'm just barely seventeen. Smile I'll be glad to read all of your opinions.
Re: Bisexuality: a Rarity or Baseline  [message #67386 is a reply to message #67385] Wed, 06 February 2013 14:28 Go to previous messageGo to next message
timmy

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I can't work out how to answer your poll, but I can give personal testimony.

Until I was 13 years old I expected confidently to grown up as a happy little heterosexual person. I had neither been encouraged into heterosexuality nor discouraged from it. Equally, apart from silly little schoolboy disgust about homosexuality, something I shared, I was uninterested in the subject.

When I was 13 years and six weeks old I fell in love for the first time. It was with another boy a few months older than I was, but physically my age. I had no thought about orientation, I was just in love with a boy.

During my teens I was able to perform sexually with girls. However I never found them particularly appealing physically. Friction being what it is, my penis became erect. At this stage I still did not consider the sexuality I 'owned'.

In my early twenties I attempted girlfriends. I was aroused by boys, but socially I expected to marry and raise a family. I found the occasional girl attractive, usually a boyish or impish one, but my head turned for boys, never girls

At 26 I surprised myself by falling in love for the second time. It was with a gorgeous and feminine girl, whom I married, and to whom I am still married. I still did not give a thought to my sexuality.

At 48 I realised, almost as a shock, that I was gay!

After careful thought I knew I had never been heterosexual, and that any bisexuality was happenstance. I may be in a heterosexual marriage, but I am still a gay man. I am almost exclusively attracted to males, though the occasional female gets a second look.

Now you see why I can't answer your poll Smile



Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
Re: Bisexuality: a Rarity or Baseline  [message #67387 is a reply to message #67386] Wed, 06 February 2013 14:44 Go to previous messageGo to next message
IslandDweller is currently offline  IslandDweller

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Thanks for sharing. Thinking about what you said, I may just be somehow wishing that I could be bi.
Re: Bisexuality: a Rarity or Baseline  [message #67388 is a reply to message #67387] Wed, 06 February 2013 15:23 Go to previous messageGo to next message
timmy

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As we grow up we have to play the hand of cards we are dealt. I would quite like to be heterosexual, and never to have fallen in love at 13, or in lust with so many boys and young men since then.

Your sexuality sort of fluctuates around a base point Be who and what you are and be the very best you that you can be.



Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
Re: Bisexuality: a Rarity or Baseline  [message #67392 is a reply to message #67385] Wed, 06 February 2013 18:33 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Kitzyma is currently offline  Kitzyma

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I can't answer the poll because I don't believe bisexuality is either rare or baseline.

One of the biggest problems when discussing sexuality is that it's actually a very complex interaction between physiology and psychology, to which some societies, including our own, insist on attaching nice neat labels, like homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual, etc. Furthermore, some of the words used in discussing seuality (e.g. preference) are tainted with the widely held idea that physiology (body) and psychology (mind) are separate things. That is, in my view, wrong. The existence of the placebo effect or mind-altering drugs, for example is evidence that there really is no mind-body duality.

Depending on how bisexuality is defined, the poll can be answered in different ways. If it is defined as an equal capacity to fall in love with and enjoy sex with (not necessarily the same thing) either members of the same sex or members of the other sex, then I guess it would be quite rare. If it is defined as the ability to enjoy sex with either male or female, but not necessarily equally, then my own experience with guys who self-identify as straight tells me it is quite common.

There we have another complication - the self identification. A guy can self-identify as bi when having sex with a man, then the following week he can find a girlfriend and tell himself he's really hetero but was just 'experimenting' with a guy. Labels like bisexual can be defined and redefined depending on circumstances. Is it defined by behaviour or self-identification? Suppose a man enjoys physical sex with men, but only when in an all-male environment (e.g. prison). However, in a mixed-sex environment, with plenty if potential female partners, he only wants sex with women. Is he bisexual, perhaps one conditioned by society to behave as a heterosexual? Is he heterosexual emotionally with some ability to enjoy homosexual physical experiences? Is he any other combination of labels.

Also, as Timmy points out, sexuality, even self-identified, can change with time as well as with circumstances, social environment, etc. The balance between emotional and physical sexuality can change. It isn't fixed even in adulthood.

Labels like 'bisexual' might sometimes be convenient and might sometimes be useful a shorthand reference to things we know to be much more complex in reality. Perhaps we say 'hoover' when it could be any make or mechanism of vacuum cleaner, but others recognise it as shorthand. However, it would be a mistake to take the labels too seriously or think that a label is an accurate representation of reality. Also, one should bear in mind that those who tend to put tidy labels on other people often do so as a way of controlling or even dehumanising them.

I'd advise people who are worried by label of sexuality to just enjoy being whatever they are at the moment and in the current circumstances. If/when their sexual feelings change, then enjoy that, too.






Re: Bisexuality: a Rarity or Baseline  [message #67395 is a reply to message #67392] Wed, 06 February 2013 20:47 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Smokr is currently offline  Smokr

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Hmmm
Well, I don't think being Bi is very common. Not truly bisexual. There are plenty of 'hipster homos' out there, guys and gals who think it's 'cool' to be open and have sex with other men or women, but they aren't actually bisexual in that they don't experience love/lust for same sex partners like they do for opposite sex partners. Many of these so-called "Bisexuals" just think they are being 'cool' and 'hip' and open-minded about sexuality, and just muck about or dabble for the sex and the 'See how cool I am?".
An actual bisexual is attracted to both men and women, and finds themselves attracted sexually and romantically to both sexes. Many find themselves confused and worried over their seeming "lack of distinction" or "inability to decide." And some bisexuals are just heterosexuals who haven't settled, or who are just very curious and experimental.
I think there are far fewer true bisexuals than there are homosexuals, in the male or female population.
I am also unsure how to answer the poll.



raysstories.com
Re: Bisexuality: a Rarity or Baseline  [message #67397 is a reply to message #67385] Wed, 06 February 2013 22:02 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Camy is currently offline  Camy

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I think of sexuality as an infinite, lubed, ruler (about 6 1/2" long). It has heterosexual at one end, homosexual at the other, and bisexual slap bang in the middle. Depending on one's state of mind, or maturity, or whatever, you can slide along the ruler in either direction. Me? I'm definitely on the gay side of the median... today. Tomorrow, most probably too.

Quote:
...as Timmy points out, sexuality, even self-identified, can change with time as well as with circumstances, social environment, etc. The balance between emotional and physical sexuality can change. It isn't fixed even in adulthood.

I couldn't put it better.

[Updated on: Wed, 06 February 2013 22:07]




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It's like Mad Max out here: guys doing guys, girls doing girls, girls turning into guys and doing girls that used to do girls and guys!
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Re: Bisexuality: a Rarity or Baseline  [message #67538 is a reply to message #67386] Fri, 08 March 2013 19:20 Go to previous messageGo to next message
kipper is currently offline  kipper

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I too went through my life almost a carbon copy of yours. What a shame I was never true to myself and admit the fact I liked boys better than girls. And I should have exposed the fact I was gay when I was young and let the cards fall as they may. But being gay back in the fifties was not easy nor safe. I guess I was more afraid of the what ifs than the chance to get into a great encounter with a nice young man and have the sex I always dreamed about every night. Those wet sheets and underwear were tough to handle sometimes. But Mom never brought it up yet I know she knew I was having those wet dreams a lot. Kind of sad isn't it?
Re: Bisexuality: a Rarity or Baseline  [message #67541 is a reply to message #67538] Fri, 08 March 2013 21:47 Go to previous message
timmy

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I never had a wet dream! I was too busy with the relentless masturbation of teenage years. I, too, missed out on "being" gay. I have simply taken the risk of coming out. I am selective to whom I mention it, but I am not secretive about it. I lost a pointless cousin over it and feel so much better that I will never see the little shit again Smile



Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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