Category: Beyond Gender

Bisexual Christmas

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img_1394-1Christmas is often a tough time for anyone experiencing social anxieties and that certainly includes us bisexuals. When scouring the net I came up with gift ideas for bi’s including sweatshirts, tee-shirts and pendants.  But that’s not the real gift, is it? I suppose we could look at the Christ story and look for some kind of rebirth, but I think most of us are happy with the life we have. The key is not to wish for anything new but to enjoy and celebrate the important things we have. So here is my wish list for Christmas.

  1. The present – just to live a life free of anxiety, to enjoy the present moment regardless of where it takes me.
  2. Family time – to enjoy my children and grandchildren now and throughout the new year and to celebrate the fact that they do indeed still love me in spite of all the concern I have caused them.
  3. Love – I am thankful for the solid relationship I have with my wife of two and a half years. She knows I am bi, she encourages me to talk about my past and present gay desires, and she gives me the freedom to explore both sides of my bisexual nature. Above all, I am so thankful that we can enjoy each other’s bodies, minds, and souls.
  4. This beautiful planet – I live on Vancouver Island and we are presently moving up-island to live on a bay along the coast where I can greet the morning sun as it rises over Bayne’s Sound. I am thankful for the pairs of eagles that fly overhead and the sea lions that bark all day. I am thankful for the paths that wind through the old growth forest where I can stop and hug a giant tree and know that I am part of an awesome network of living things.
  5. And me – I am thankful for me, my bisexual nature, my masculine straight side and my feminine gay side. I am thankful for all the experiences my bisexuality have caused and yet opened up for me – the beautiful, the bad and the ugly. Without them I would not be who I am and I am proud and happy to be me.

Sex, Pleasure, and Beauty

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SHIRT & TIE [small] (final)As I am getting older, I am learning to savor the pleasures of this life with all the passion that my mind and body can muster. I have become conscious of beauty.  I seek it throughout each and every day.  As I explore the pleasures of my senses I am much more selective in how the next moment should be spent.

Sexuality has become much more than experiencing orgasm. My sexual passions meld with the other senses. Making love is no longer a ritual or a tension and anxiety release; I make love because I love life, I love the moment, and I love the person that I am with. The feelings of togetherness dominate my moments and I can focus my arousal on exploring the beauty of his/her body and soul. Sometimes this sense of attraction and oneness leads to sexual passion, but most of the time, I just want to settle into the glow.

As I continue to read Elizabeth Gilbert’s book, Eat, Pray, Love[1], slowly and thoughtfully, I am impressed with the beauty of her words. I would like to explore some of her thoughts on the topic of pleasure and beauty and apply them to bisexuality.

“In a world of disorder and disaster and fraud, sometimes only beauty can be trusted . . . .  Pleasure cannot be bargained down. And sometimes the meal (sex) is the only currency that is real.” (page 114)

This one is about forgetting about the negative aspect of gaining weight and just settling in to consciously enjoying a gourmet Italian meal in a quaint restaurant on the streets of Rome. The same thing can be said about sex. We have to learn to forget the consequences, ignore the negative feelings, and just enjoy the sensuality of touch and taste. For much of my life, perhaps due to my religious background, the beauty of sex has been watered down and devalued, at times to the point of shame and guilt. All of those thoughts imposed by well-meaning individuals have interfered with my sense of pleasure. I have come to realize that those thoughts are not to be trusted.  I will no longer bargain my right to enjoy one of the greatest pleasures of life. The only thing that is real is the pleasure and the knowledge that I can gain through my senses.

“To devote yourself to the creation and enjoyment of beauty, then, can be a serious business – not always a means of escaping reality, but sometimes a means of holding on to the real when everything else is flaking away into rhetoric and plot . . . . You were given life; it is your duty (an also your entitlement as a human being) to find something beautiful within life, no matter how slight” (page 115).

I am leaning to see beauty in everything, especially in the act and art of making love. Seeing the beauty of my own body, mind, and soul has been like coming out of Plato’s cave and seeing life the way it really is. I am beautiful.  My feelings and sensations are beautiful.  I can reach emotional orgasm smelling a flower or seeing a doe curled up in my flower bed, but best of all by experiencing the love that comes from the exchange of touch. Holding my partner consciously and sensuously is the greatest pleasure I know.  She/he is beautiful. I am beautiful. We are beautiful.

”And I will leave with the hope that the expansion of one person – the magnification of one’s life – is indeed an act of worth in this world. Even if that life, just this one time, happens to be nobody’s but my own” (page 116).

My sole purpose is to see myself as I really am and to expand into the most beautiful person that I can be. I have learned to live selfishly.  My own personal pleasure and my own pursuit of beauty is the purpose of my life, but it is a purpose I can share with another human being. By exploring another’s beauty sensuously, sexually, and consciously and reflecting it back  to them,  I provide the divine energy that enables that person to expand and grow individually. And when we perform this act of love together, living and growing itself becomes something beautiful and the source of ultimate pleasure.This is a pleasure that I have chosen to experience with one person because of the intensity of the feelings we can share.  I have become monogamous not because of any restrictions on my mind but because of the expansion of my soul.

[1] Gilbert, Elizabeth. Eat Pray Love. Penguin Books. London, England. 2006.

Bisexuality – the Search for Intimacy

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SHIRT & TIE [small] (final)I am sitting at my writer’s desk, getting ready for my next entry in my Bisexual Blog, my next book on bisexuality, and thinking of the loves of my life. My bisexuality has made it difficult for me at times, because I have not been able to give my whole self to the pursuit of love with one man or one woman. On the other hand, I have had the soul filling opportunity to experience intense feelings of genuine bonding with some truly wonderful people. And is that not the true and only meaningful purpose of life?

As bisexuals, our primary pathway to intimacy is essentially sexual in nature. For heterosexual men and women, even in the workplace, they are always subconsciously and sometime consciously aware of the attractiveness of someone from the opposite sex.  As bisexuals we come from a different planet than heterosexuals and even our close cousins the gays and lesbians.  We are totally oversexed. We are wired so that everyone and everything is sexual in nature. All our perceptions are channeled through our limbic system. Our brains are wired so that we directly respond, absorbing the energies and pheromones of both men and women. Everyone is potentially a sexual partner. The truth is that we hunger intensely for touch, connection, and bonding with both men and women. We hunger for intimacy.

For us bisexuals, who often find early same-sex exploration psychologically disturbing and painful, we are often led to a heterosexual relationship where as women we are pursued hotly by lustful males, and as men, we are urged into a committed and permanent relationship by women. For both bisexual men and women this gives us a sense of worthiness (which we desperately seek), love, belonging, and that terrible word – normalcy.

But because of our bisexual nature we somehow never feel complete.  Eventually that relationship is not enough.  The search for wholeness drives us from the safety of a heterosexual relationship to seek out something more with another man or woman. This need cannot be filled with just friendship, and it cannot be filled with chance encounters. The only thing that will complete us is intimacy; and that intimacy is though touch, and that touch is primarily sexual.

This places us at the crossroads in our lives and our relationships. We have to get past the “sexuality” in bisexuality and focus on the “bi”.  We have to have intimate relationships with both men and women. It does not have to be orgasmic, but it has to be more than a hug, much more. The search of sexual connection ultimately has to lead to deeper emotional satisfaction.

At his point we have to make choices, hard choices, choices that involve others, choices that require honesty with ourselves and with those we love. This requires boundaries that are sometimes difficult to maintain. In my case, I seek intimate and sexual satisfaction with my heterosexual mate, and intimate but non-sexual relationships with my male friends.  It has been a long journey, one that I am not sure I would have been able to make when I was younger and hormone driven. But regardless of the path taken,  I have come to a place of comfort with my male friends where we are aware that we are gay or bisexual; we are aware that we are potential sexual partners; we flirt and banter much like married heterosexuals do with other men or women, but we know that our relationship is too important to let it become sexual. We have moved on to the greater satisfaction of intimacy.  We love each other like brothers, but yet more than brothers, but not as lovers.

Bisexuality,Sex, and Self-Love

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SHIRT & TIE [small] (final)Last week we looked at bisexuality and the six kinds of love. Most of the social media regarding bisexuality is eros in nature, and most of that is based on erotica rather than passion. That’s okay. There is a place for that in the bisexual life whether it is with the same partner or a variety of partners. These experiences fill a need for our strong sexual drives and our need to experience love making in a variety of ways. It is part of the process of sexual identity, but it does not have to stop there.

In an amazing book by Elizabeth Gilbert titled “Eat Pray Love”[1], she tells about her journey (literally and internally) to find philautia or self love. As stated in the last blog, our love forms and sexual encounters should all lead to greater understanding and love of our Self. One of the strategies Gilbert used is self-talk, believing that the other voice comes from the inner or Higher Self or perhaps from a higher power that functions in unison with our Higher Self. What she does is write in her journal how she is feeling and what questions she has about life, and then sits back and waits for an answer that comes in the form of a written response from her inner self. During one of her moments facing depression and loneliness, she came up with this response:

”I am here. I love you. I don’t care if you need to stay up crying all night long, I will stay up with you. If you need the medication again, go ahead and take it – I will love you through that as well. If you don’t take the medication, I will love you too. There is nothing you can ever do to lose my love. I will protect you until you die, and after your death I will still protect you. I am stronger than Depression and I am braver than Loneliness and nothing will ever exhaust me.”

Beautiful isn’t it?  Sends a shiver down my spine and urges me on to loving myself more and respecting myself more. On her journey, she leaves behind a failed marriage and a hot sexual relationship (both with men) and eventually finds Pragma or intimate partnership with another man. Just recently, she has divorced again and found pragma with a woman[2]. This suggests that part of her journey was coming to terms with her bisexuality. The process of finding her Higher Self opened her doors to intimacy, first with a man and now with a woman.

You see, our sexuality, like all forms of sexual identification, is just biological. As bisexuals, we are either biologically men or women, but we are more than just sexual beings.  Our bisexuality is also psychological; it is part of the way we think both at the conscious and subconscious levels. We are a collection of cognitive and behavioral patterns established in our neural pathways with a sprinkling of genetic predisposition and a whole lot of environmental experiences, some good and some damaging to our inner soul. But we are more than that.  We are spiritual beings with an inner or Higher Self that longs to be heard and to guide us into a higher level of living.  We have to learn to listen to that inner voice before we can arrive at the core of our humanity – the intimacy and connection with our Higher Self. We can then connect with others and help them understand and harmonize with their own higher self. Then when we can evolve together, we can experience a whole new level of intimacy. Then the sex can become even hotter as it is more focused on making love rather than just having hot sex.

 

[1] Gilbert, Elizabeth. Eat Pray Love. Penguin Books. London, England. 2006. (page 54).

[2] Schaub, Michael. “Eat Pray Love Author Elizabeth Gilbert Announces Lesbian Relationship”. The Los Angeles Times. Sept 2006. . (https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2016/09/07/eat-pray-love-author-elizabeth-gilbert-announces-lesbian-relationship.html)

Bisexuality – Kinds of Love

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SHIRT & TIE [small] (final)Yes, I am a bisexual human being, but there is more to me than my genitals. The key to living a bisexual life, or any life for that matter, is learning to love from the deepest part of the soul.  Kaznarek, in his work titled “How Should We Live”[1], looks at the six Greek words for love. Lets apply them to bisexuality.

As bisexuals, we usually focus on the sexual eros, the passion side of love. We have taken a biological process designed for reproduction, created the concept of “sexual love”, and held it up as the solution to all our wants and needs. As bisexuals, we often seek same-sex love where we engage our passions without being responsible for the feelings of our sex partner. This can be okay as long as each person seeks passion for the same reason. As we have seen, this form of love may lead to pleasure and the dopamine rush that we all seek; however, we have also reached the conclusion that this is not enough to keep a relationship alive or provide for the deeper needs of the human soul. Typically, we use passion for a while to meet our individual needs and then we drift apart.

The second kind of love is ludus or playful love. This is the innocent stage of flirting or teasing. It is the banter at the bar, or psychological jostling in the coffee room at work, or the contact on the dance floor. It is innocent play that seeks to unite through joyful experiences. It is sexual in nature but is more of an attempt to connect through play rather than an all-out drive to seduce. This love lets us laugh and experience each other’s positive energies of joy and happiness without getting into the dopamine driven sexual rush. It lets us connect with and share positive energies with other human beings.   As bisexuals, this play can be with men or women; however, we usually save the play for heterosexual banter and the driven passion for same sex experiences. If we to learn to play with both sexes, we may smile more and regret less.

The third type of love is pragma, or longstanding love, often associated with couples in long lasting relationships. These are usually opposite-sex sexual partnerships but may also be the same-sex primary relationship. Pragma is having a life-partner to share at the deepest levels of our spiritual souls and sexual bodies. When we are in these relationships, we usually attempt to stay monogamous. However, we must realize that the monogamous part is for intimacy and soul to soul, spirit to spirit kind of relationship.  For bisexuals, this kind of monogamy does not necessarily exclude other kinds of love or other lovers for that matter. We may still have our pragma relations with our soul- mate but relate to others with sexual passion or play. This requires a great deal of maturity from both partners.

The fourth aspect of love is philia or deep friendship. At this point, we leave the sexual world behind and express an altruistic type of love. In the Greek, it originally referred to men fighting side by side in the phalanx on the battle field. I believe we are again on the battlefield in our present society, fighting a war for identity and purpose.  It helps to have people that we can trust with our lives to share, grow, and survive. In our bisexual desires to get closer to our same-sex acquaintances, we often revert to sexual attraction, but this kind of love is much deeper than that. For me, my challenge is to make non-sexual bonds with other gay and bisexual men who truly understand and share the struggles of bisexuality.  I have to learn to share my fears with them and trust them to guard my back when I need it.

The fifth, and perhaps most important of all, is philautia or love of self. The negative side is narcissism which is self-absorption that leads to individualism and most of the negative aspects of our society. The positive side is that we like ourselves and feel secure enough in ourselves to reach out to others. All other forms of love should be connected with self-love. All relationships with others should lead us to greater love for ourselves. If we bisexuals find ourselves feeling depressed and experiencing shame because of our sexual practices, we know we have work to do in this area.

The sixth type of love is agape or universal loving kindness. It is tapping into the universal power of love that connects us all as human beings. It is being able to take this love within and then share it with someone else. It combines compassion with intimacy. It is being willing to touch and be touched by others. It is that warm hug from a dear friend or the hug that follows a moment of tears with someone that needs our love and support. As bisexuals, because of the journey we have taken to become mature sexual human beings, we have something to share with others on how to go beyond our sexuality into the world of self-love and love for others.

If we truly understand our bisexuality, we can view it in light of all these aspects of love and connection. Yes, sexuality it is one way to reach out to others as a form of intimacy and connection, but it should not be used to fulfill all our needs and desires for connection and self-identity.  We are more than just sexual beings; we have all these other expressions of love that are better expressed by a hug than by an hour in bed.

 

[1] Krznaric, Roman. How Should We Live .Amazon.  2013.  (http://www.yesmagazine.org/happiness/the-ancient-greeks-6-words-for-love-and-why-knowing-them-can-change-your-life)

 

Statistics and Bisexuality

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SHIRT & TIE [small] (final)Statistics consistently indicate that bisexuals outnumber gays and lesbians. In a comprehensive study of scientifically accurate surveys from around the world, Gates[1] concluded that among adults who identify as LGBQ, bisexuals comprise a slight majority, 1.8% compared to 1.7% who identify as lesbian or gay. However, when you factor in people with sexual orientation issues (presumably bisexual?) the numbers clearly indicate that bisexuality is a major factor in the lives of a growing number of people today.

Gates found that estimates of those who report any lifetime same-sex sexual behavior and any same-sex sexual attraction are substantially higher than estimates of those who identify as LGB. He discovered that an estimated 19 million Americans (8.2%) report that they have engaged in same-sex sexual behavior and nearly 25.6 million Americans (11%) acknowledge at least some same-sex sexual attraction.These last figures indicate that people who have some attraction more often than not act upon these impulses. Some of these then choose to live bisexual lives while others use these experiences to determine their true wants and desires.

So what can we take from this data? Bisexuality is the largest component in the LGBQ community, and yet, we receive the least attention. Two question arise from this – “Why?”, and  “Is this a god thing or a bad thing?” Frankly, I think this is a good thing. We do not need the label, and we do not need special political considerations. These viewpoints just cloud the issues and focus on the bi nature and not the human aspects of our sexuality and how it affects our general health and well-being.

The “Why?” is a little more complex. Samantha Joel, in her article “Bisexual Myths Debunked by Science”[2] used science to discredit three myths: Bisexuality Doesn’t Exist, Bisexuality Is Just a Phase, and Bisexual People Can’t Be Faithful to Their Partners. I believe that society has created these myths out of fear of the greater implications of bisexuality. If we are not gay or lesbian, and if we are not straight, then we are somehow a threat to both. Gays and Lesbian hold to myths 1 and 2 because they need to believe that if you have same-sex tendencies than you must be gay or lesbian in denial or repression. After all, sexual orientation must be biological and probably genetic, and therefore, there is no room for a third grouping. Straight people hold to Myth 3 as a warning to straight people to stay away from this dangerous and unpredictable group in society. There is also the belief by both groups in myth 2, in that bisexual people are just confused with loose morals and need erotic experiences; therefore, they must be just going through a sexual exploration phase. They can therefore be devalued and ignored.

At the root of it all is fear for the greater unasked question and the subsequent response. We engage is bisexual activities because we enjoy it. We have stepped outside the sexual boxes imposed by the heterosexual and gay explanations of sexuality and declared that we are our own sexual revolution where sex is a pleasure of the body that can be explored without morals or gender bias. We have stepped into the realm where gay, lesbian, or heterosexual sex is perfectly normal, enjoyable, and open to everyone.

And if we have sexual freedom that is just the tip of the iceberg. Then we have the potential to be free from all of the other restrictions placed on us by society. That makes us even more dangerous.  That means we are out of control. It actually may lead to a deeper level of brotherly love free of political and religious restrictions. It might even mean that we might destroy the planet as the majority know it and subsequently save it by helping to usher in a new paradigm based on universal love, acceptance, and freedom.

 

[1] Gates, Gary. “How many people are lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender?”. Williams Distinguished Scholar, April 2011 (The Williams Institute, UCLA School of Law)

[2] Joel, Samantha. “Bisexual Myths Debunked by Science”. Science of Relationships, file:///C:/Users/User/Documents/My%20writing/Blogs/Bisexuality%20Myths%20Debunked%20by%C2%A0Science%20-%20_%20-%20Science%20of%20Relationships.html

Bisexuality and Transformation

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SHIRT & TIE [small] (final)As bisexuals, we are often robbed of our ability to enjoy our sexual experiences by the feelings of worthlessness, shame, or guilt that follow. These feelings seem to come from an empty space within our mind and soul.  We need to fill this empty space before we can live wholesome lives. This may require a transformation.

At the root of most of our sorrows is usually the lack of attunement, which is the transfer of a positive life force from the mother to the child. The mother figure may love the child but does not demonstrate it through physical contact, focused attention, and especially eye to eye contact. It  is necessary for the child to “feel” loved in the womb and during the first year of life.  It is through this love connection that the child becomes empowered to go out and conquer her world.

Lack of attunement sets the stage for most of the lingering difficulties experienced in life. When this empty space is not filled, there is a constant underlying sense of anxiety. Lack of attunement and the resulting anxiety is  the root of most personality disorders, and it is the personality disorder that is often the cause of a person not being able to form and keep wholesome and lasting relationships. These broken relationships then add fuel to the fire of  worthlessness and expand that empty space in the heart. But it is not a life-time sentence. Even personality disorders and painful experiences can be overcome by the power of the human spirit.

The key is to change the beliefs of the mind and the ego, which means changing the neural pathways in the brain that were formed before memory, concept development, and the ability to reason. That means we have to rewire the old brain, not by changing thought and behavior patterns, but by changing our feelings..

The process of transformation has to be carried out with the combined participation of body, ego, heart, and spirit. One must make sure the body is rested and has proper nutrition and exercise, thereby restoring the immune system and keeping the brain chemically balanced. Next, one must make a conscious ego-commitment to becoming a more complete, more powerful person. One must also keep the energy levels of the spirit up by taking time during meditation for awareness, experiencing, and responding. With the will power of the ego, the energy of the body, and the power of the spirit one is ready to heal the heart.

To do this we have to bypass the thought processing part of our brain and get into the feelings.  The best way to do this is through visualization. During meditation, we create a visual image of the feeling attached to the emptiness or the pain. We then ask the body to reveal the experience behind the feeling.  We then simply acknowledge the people involved in the image and thank them for the good gifts they have brought into our lives, even if it is just that their actions have given us an opportunity for spiritual growth. In some way, we have to be able to see a positive side of the negative, the yin that exists with the yang. Then we take the negative influences they still have on us and call on the fire of passion from the spirit to burn them up and blow them away. We can visualize the negative vapours dispersing into the gentle summer winds that blows continuously in a  spiritual garden that we can create outside our bodies.

In my opinion, there seems to be two sides to each relationship, the negative and the positive. I feel we have to recognize that both are gifts, even the negative. When we allow our emotions of love to mingle with the emotions of rejection and abandonment, we can reroute the fears of the ego into the positive feelings of acceptance and gratitude from the heart. We need to visualize the burning of negative constructs as an act of kindness, a gift to ourselves and to the people involved, because it frees our souls from the negative energies we have created.

 

Wading through Research on Bisexuality

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SHIRT & TIE [small] (final)

Having trouble wading through the scientific research on bisexuality? Join the club. This may help. Paula C. Rodriguez Rust in her book, Bisexuality in the United States (2000), traces the research from an historical perspective.  She notes research on homosexuality (or any sexuality for that matter) was not showing up in the scientific field of studies until the 1950’s. Homosexuality was still considered a perversion and a mental illness and received very little scientific attention. During the 60’s the sexual revolution started and after the riots in New York, homosexuality started to receive attention as a legitimate orientation. In the 70’s, bisexuality was noted but was considered just a transitory stage to homosexuality. In the 80’s researchers finally began to address the issues because they felt that bisexuals might be the gateway for spreading AIDS from the homosexual to the heterosexual community. She sites works by two pioneers in the 80’s, Jay P. Paul, Reassessing our Paradigms of Sexuality, and A.P. MacDonald Jr.,  A Little Bit of Lavender Goes a Long Way, that brought the study of bisexuality away from the binary view of heterosexuality and homosexuality.  During the early 90’s we had a shift to a concept of sexual orientation which allowed for a broader view which could explain bisexuality and other variations that did not fit into the binary model. This opened the gates to the hodge-podge of theories and conclusions that we now see in the scientific journals. To the part-time bisexual academic like me, all this is interesting, but  there appears to be no clear cut answer to anything that might help me understand myself better and lead a more wholesome life.

After wading through the review of the literature, one is left with a headache and more confusion than when one started. We eventually are tempted to chuck all the theories in the wastebasket and start over with a new paradigm. I believe we are all individuals who pursue our passions in different ways according to a sprinkling of genetic factors that create a predisposition, and environmental experiences during early childhood, or even back into the womb, that shape these predispositions into a potential orientation. Further experiences during adolescence reinforce the predisposition leading us to fulfill our needs for passion and sexual gratification in different ways. This creates a biological/psychological impulse from the old brain that we can refer to as a sexual orientation that directs us to seeking copulation with same sex, or opposite sex partners, and in the case of bisexuals, with either/or.

People who have been gay or lesbian or straight since the get-go, may have strong psychological/emotional impulses that result in powerful feelings of repulsion when different sexual  opportunities arise. When the impulse goes to the administration center, it gets an automatic yes or no depending on the feelings attached to our orientation. But as bisexuals, these aversion or circuit blocks do not exist. We always have the ability to choose.

Nor is our bisexual orientation stationary. Neurological studies based on real and solid evidence show that we are constantly changing, pruning away our dendrites and creating new ones, changing our neural pathways based on new experiences. When we change our neural pathways we change who we are. When we have traumatic events like rape or divorce, we may make major changes in our sexual orientation in order to survive. But once the hurting stops, we may choose to revert to old patterns or start new ones. Beyond that we adjust these patterns not only to survive but to thrive. Who I am today is not who I was yesterday, and who I am today is certainly not who I was ten years ago.

There is even a case to be made that we are all potentially bisexual and therefore open to all forms of sexuality. To say that we have to be locked into being gay or lesbian or bisexual of pan sexual or kinky or straight is simply not true. I KNOW THIS SOUND LIKE HERESY; once gay always gay is essential to the group political beliefs and the feeling of identity and security of the individual, but it is simply not the case. Brainwashing does work. If you experience enough pain you change the neural pathways, even the old-brain ones, creating blocks to old patterns and opening channels to new ones. Pain can make any change possible. Does that mean change will be easy? NO, of course not, and for some it will seem to be almost impossible, but in reality, anything is possible. But if you enjoy being gay, lesbian, bisexual, or straight, then by all mean continue and enjoy.

Essentially then, do we bisexuals have a binary sexual orientation? Yes, but so what? Except for academia in the fields of Psychology and Sociology, who really cares? The key is to find happiness and experience joy through our sexual experiences and to remember that this is only one aspect (how-be-it and very powerful one) to our complex love and pleasure systems. Thinking about it complicates it. By defining it, we claim it, and our sexual identity can become our personal identity. The key is to be able to bring things to the conscious level and to choose a path that will lead to contentment and wholeness. By continuing to function with this process, we can change who we are into whomever we want to be. So welcome change.

There is not a single sexual act or sexual orientation that you can look at as a source of any of your problems.   The problem is the way you think about it. There is no purpose in categorizing ourselves or others because that very act limits our freedoms and choices. If your orientation is no longer resulting in feelings of joy and contentment, then by all means change it or even suppress it entirely and become asexual.  What it all boils down to then is to know who you are, not just your sexual identity, but who you really are inside. Be true to the inner you and use your sexuality to enjoy your life in any way you feel will enhance being you.  So get your thinking straightened out and go out and enjoy life.

Bisexuality – Sex not Gender

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SHIRT & TIE [small] (final)Bisexuals do not have a gender. In fact, we may be the only group on the planet without one. But even saying that is as much as claiming that we are, in fact, a gender of non-genders. Such is the Catch 22 that Rebecca Reilly-Cooper is referring to in her article Gender is Not a Spectrum.[1] Rebecca is a political philosopher at the University of Warwick in the UK. She is currently working on a book about sex, gender and identity. She refers to the concept of gender as:

“ It used to be a basic, fundamental feminist idea that while sex referred to what is biological, and so perhaps in some sense ‘natural’, gender referred to what is socially constructed….Gender refers to the externally imposed set of norms that prescribe and proscribe desirable behaviour to individuals in accordance with morally arbitrary characteristics…. From birth, most female people are raised to be passive, submissive, weak and nurturing, while most male people are raised to be active, dominant, strong and aggressive.… We are all educated and inculcated into one of two roles, long before we are able to express our beliefs about our innate gender identity.”

We political people in the LGBTQ movements have hijacked the concept of gender for political reasons. We claim there are more genders than just ‘woman’ or ‘man’ to choose from. We have invented a whole new range of gender identities from “genderqueer” or “non-binary” to “two spirited” and beyond. Rebecca goes on to say that there is no end of the possibility of variances in the concept of gender. She refers to this as a spectrum:

“If gender is a spectrum, that means it’s a continuum between two extremes, and everyone is located somewhere along that continuum.…. In reality, everybody is non-binary. We all actively participate in some gender norms, passively acquiesce with others, and positively rail against others …, enabling the non-binary person to claim to be both misunderstood and politically oppressed by the binary cisgender people…... ”

So why the gender? It has and still does serve an important role, both within the group and individually. As a community, gays and lesbians had to overcome the harsh societal and religious  judgement that led to abhorrent practices like imprisonment, frontal lobotomies and brutal forced conversions. We needed a political voice. As individuals we were oppressed and confused, often due to our upbringing and the pressures of our society to be “normal”. We needed an identity that we could hold onto as a crutch until we could sort everything out and feel that we belonged somewhere with someone on this god forsaken lonely planet. But perhaps it is now time to move on.

Within the bisexual community there are so many variances that we could not possibly provide a definition of bisexual gender that would include all of us. The characteristics are not about gender but merely about personality. This includes our sexual tastes and preferences, but it also includes our value systems and our nonsexual behaviors. All the so-called gender issues can be captured by the broad definition of personality. We are all different and that is exactly the way it should be.

As bisexuals I believe it is in our best interest to eliminate the concept of gender altogether. We are not political.  We do not need special considerations. We do not need a bisexual gender label.  We are biologically men or women and we have two sexual preferences. Personally I like to think of it as “making love” with a woman and “having sex” with a man. That makes us bisexuals and forget the gender stuff. What we do need is understanding of ourselves and some supports in overcoming the mental issues related to our sexual preferences. I believe that would be easier to do if we concentrate on our personal issues rather than the martyrdom of gender because of our sexuality. If we eliminate the concept of gender, there is no viable purpose for grouping ourselves together according to our personalities or our personal issues.

Some parting advice from Rebecca:

“One of the first steps to liberating people from the cage that is gender is to challenge established gender norms, and to play with and explore your gender expression and presentation….The solution is not to reify gender by insisting on ever more gender categories … The solution is to abolish gender altogether. We do not need gender. We would be better off without it….The solution to an oppressive system that puts people into pink and blue boxes is not to create more and more boxes that are any colour but blue or pink. The solution is to tear down the boxes altogether.”

As bisexuals we should only seek to model the fact that we are more than what our society currently views as men, or women, or queer (I hate that word). Personally, I just want to be viewed as a loving and caring human being with a meaningful and rich life. Rebecca is right.  It is time to forget all the social and political issues and just learn to play.  Let’s enjoy sex in whatever way turns us on, forget about gender, and just be happy human beings.

Please Note: I am referring strictly to bisexuality.  There is a much stronger case for gender for gays, lesbians and transsexuals, both personally and as a community.

[1] Reilly-Cooper, Rebecca. Gender is Not a Spectrum.  https://aeon.co/essays/the-idea-that-gender-is-a-spectrum-is-a-new-gender-prison?utm_source=Aeon+Newsletter&utm_campaign=3b10c4d7b4-Weekly_Newsletter_1_July_20167_1_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_411a82e59d-3b10c4d7b4-68637497

 

Moon Beams

Published on by Bi-Ed: Bisexual EducationLeave a comment

Bisexuality, or any sexuality for that matter, longs for the touch of intimacy. The purpose of sex is to lead us to love. Spent the evening at Cattle Point, reading, waiting for the moon to rise over the waters of the Pacific. Then my wife and I took a long moonlit stroll along the beach. Great soul food and wonderful moments of intimacy.

Moon Beams

It peeks cautiously above the island,
Then steps up into the clouds,
Shedding its golden beams through the mists.
A golden boardwalk stretches out across the water,
Beckoning us to come and join in the celebration of light.

The warm Pacific waters bring a welcome coolness
After the heat of the day.
The wet sand caresses our bare feet,
As we watch the gulls and geese play across the water
In the fading light of day.

Our hands touch and our lips meet
As the feelings of togetherness expand,
Forcing a surge of love through our bodies,
As we feel the power of the moment
Joining us in eternal ecstasy.

Oh this is life, full life, powerful life, passionate life,
Filling, expanding, ever expanding,
From the power of one,
Into the power of two,
Into the power of everything that lives and breathes.
Yes this is life the way it was meant to be lived
In the fullness of togetherness.

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