My wife of 18 months hadn’t known much about bisexuality before she met me. After that her knowledge grew in leaps and bounds because we had deep conversations and also because she became the editor of my book “Bi”.  She has acquired a physical as well as intellectual understanding about bisexuality and is fascinated by the subject of how bisexual roles are almost predictably executed.

The other day we watched Brokeback Mountain and she shared her observations and insights with me. Ennis is the top boy in the movie, aggressive, emotionally detached, controlled. He has a more passionate sex life with his wife, and when she says she wants no more kids , he flips her over and enters her from behind ­ as obvious from the surprised and pained look in her face. He is a determined and willing husband albeit emotionally unavailable to his wife. Same as some heterosexual men can be.

Jack is the bottom boy, feminine, soft, emotional. He confesses that his marital relations are weak or non existent and goes off to meet male prostitutes across the border in Mexico to meet his sexual needs. What he doesn’t seem to understand is that in order to have a fulfilling sex life with his wife he would have to be a more aggressive lover. However, he likes to receive, be conquered, be more passive, play the feminine role. So his wife may assume he is not attracted to her and lay the blame on herself, withdrawing emotionally and physically and driving her husband further away. A vicious circle.

Yet there is a way out of this dilemma: honest sharing of each other’s needs. That requires trust and a willingness to make oneself vulnerable, for the  passive man to let his wife take the lead and be willing to flow into the beauty of sexual play.

Let’s see how we can achieve that. If the woman has a passive husband she may need to take the male lead role, be sexually proactive, let the man know emotionally and physically that she wants him, adores him,really enjoys their sexual encounters. Through good talk, particularly after sex,he can become more assertive and get to enjoy the foreplay as much as his wife. This is not an easy job for the wife, but if she doesn’t coach him along, she’ll be frustrated by a husband who feels more comfortable being the receiver of sex than the giver. If the man does not respond to his wife’s needs and learn to enjoy and initiate the sexual play, she may tire of the role reversal and look for other ways to make her own sex life more fulfilling, possibly through an affair with a heterosexual man.