Category: Bisexuality

Bisexuality –Gender or Sexuality?

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I am a bisexual – I did not choose it, I was born with it. I do not even really have a choice on whether I will be attracted to a male or a female. It comes and goes almost like a bipolar experience, but I hate to use that comparison because there is an unspoken feeling out there that bisexuals are actually mentally unstable (my apologies to the wonderful and stable bipolar friends out there). We are not. We are just delightfully unpredictable, even to ourselves. So what does bisexuality mean? Is it strictly sexuality or is it more?

My daughter was having an evening out with female friends and discussing sexual behavior among young women when the host’s fourteen year old daughter chimed in. She stated that most of the girls in her school feel comfortable having sex with either guys or gals. My daughter and her age 35 + friends were shocked. This new sexual freedom among young women seems to be confirmed by a study by researchers at Boise State University that found that in a group of college heterosexual women, 60 percent were physically interested in other women, 45 percent made out with a woman in the past, and 50 percent had fantasies about the same sex.1

Is this bisexuality? Depends on your definition of bisexuality. If you mean sexual attraction and sexual experiences with both men and women, then it is bisexuality. But that reduces bisexuality merely to sexual behavior. I choose to believe it is much more than that, at least it certainly has been in my own bisexual life.

I could not find a similar study that identified the percentage of heterosexual males that experienced same sex attraction. Even if there was one, it would probably not be reliable because of male confusion and lack of disclosure. Therefore, it is not surprising that the Boise State researchers also found that men were more likely than women to report being “100 percent heterosexual” or “100 percent homosexual” continually throughout their lives. Most of the time we are lumped into the gay population. Most of the combined gay and bisexual statistics range from 2 to 5 percent. My guess is that gay would be 2% and bisexual males an additional 3 to 5%, but certainly not in the 40 to 50% territory. On the surface, this suggests a definite difference among bisexual men and women; however, my guess is that most of these young women eventually will gravitate to one or the other leaving a similar smaller population that continues to experience swings (pardon the pun) from one gender preference to the other on an ongoing basis for the rest of their lives.

I think we can safely conclude from these studies that there are a large number of people (mostly women) who experience a same sex attraction. We can call them bicurious and perhaps even bisexual, but not bioriented and certainly not bigender.

A true bisexual man is at least bioriented. At times we experience strong biological impulses to meet and mate with someone from our own sex. As a man, it gives me a sense of leaving behind my ego-mind and slipping into my biological, hormone based body to respond to the smells, feelings, strength, and pheromones of another man. At other times, I feel attracted to a well-shaped woman walking in front of me. Certainly when I am with my wife and we begin to cuddle and kiss, the lamp lights and my hormones are pushing me towards copulation. I need to feel the pull of my masculine sexuality, the need to dominate her body sexually as our sexual passions blend together. In other words I have a biological biattraction and biorientation towards both men and women.

But my bisexuality is so much more than biological attraction and sexual orientation. At times I feel an overwhelming drive to experience the feminine side of my being physically, emotionally, and sexually; in other words, I flow into my feminine gender is a full body and soul experience. This is when I feel a need to flirt and express my deeper emotions with my male friends. This is when I sometimes need to reach out and hold and hug a man from the heart in the hopes of feeling a magical moment filled with a sense of wonder and completion. This is when I feel the need to feel intimacy with a man and tell him “I love you”. But “I love you” means something different when I am with my wife. I also seem to have a need for a masculine biological/psychological base. I need to feel the power flow through my body as I reach out and hold my woman and feel her face against my chest and my arms wrapped around her body. I need to feel that I am the protecting husband and father.

I cannot truthfully even attempt to know how bisexual women experience their bigender but from studies I have read I believe they are more likely to seek a sexual/psychological base in either a same-sex or heterosexual relationship. They also appear to be more likely to seek deeper relationship in their “other” gender experience, rather than engage in casual sex like their male counterparts. In both cases bisexual men and women seem to need an intimate gender base that meets their needs for relationship, love, and family while maintaining a parallel drive for sensuous and even erotic pleasure in their other side. We do not seem to operate well on our own without a base. The world becomes too chaotic with constant confusion and pulling from the two sides of our nature. The hard part is to find a mate that understands our other side and is willing to give us the freedom to experience our bisexuality as a basic need of our bisexual gender. So there is a tendency to be dishonest and hide our bisexuality from our partners, and of course that leads to suffering and pain. On the other hand, as bisexuals, we are faced with the constant struggle to be true to ourselves, or should that read – to be true to “both selves”?

1 <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2011/10/20/study-more-than-half-of-women-attracted-to-other-women_n_1021730.html&quot;

Bisexuality and Health and Wellness

Published on by Bi-Ed: Bisexual Education2 Comments

I have recently been appointed to the LGBTQ sub-committee of the Saanich Health and Wellness Committee in Greater Victoria, British Columbia. I am attempting to assist bisexual men and women in fitting in with our community. One of the things I have discovered is that we are not very vocal and not as well organized as the gay, lesbian, and transgender groups. There are a few scattered bisexual groups in the Greater Victoria area but there does not appear to be any concerted effort to identify problems and support one another with solutions (by my brief survey of other communities this appears to hold true around the world). What representation there is comes mostly from bisexual women. Men are clearly not visible, but then again that should come as no surprise. Yet, we do have major problems that should be addressed by the community.

Tari Hanneman, Deputy Director of the Health and Aging Program at the HRC Foundation, has stated, “Bisexual people are the largest single group within the LGBT community, but we’re not addressing their specific healthcare needs,”1 Hanneman’s study shows that bisexuals face elevated rates of poor health outcomes ranging from cancer and heart disease, to obesity, (all stress related) sexually-transmitted infections, and mental health issues. In addition:

 Bisexual adults have double the rate of depression than heterosexual adults, higher rates of binge drinking, and are more likely to engage in self-harming behavior, including attempting suicide;

 Bisexual women have higher rates of cancer than the general population of women, higher rates of heart disease and obesity than heterosexual women, and are more likely than all other women to suffer from mental and emotional stress;

 Bisexual men are less likely than gay or heterosexual men to get tested for HIV, leading them to be disproportionately affected by the infection; and bisexual people are less likely to be screened for the human papilloma virus (HPV), which can increase the risk of cancer in both men and women.

In her conclusion, she stated that the reality is that bisexual people face discrimination not only outside of the community, but also from within, and that the community often discourages bisexuals from engaging in and benefiting from the work that LGBT advocates are doing to address mental, physical, and sexual health. “Bisexual people often face outright discrimination when they come out in healthcare settings,” Hanneman said; “That can lead bisexual people to delay or avoid seeking care, or not disclose their identities to their providers. This can mean that medical professionals are not getting an accurate picture of what that patient’s sexual health needs are, or the mental or physical health concerns for which they may face heightened risk.”

The greatest risk to bisexual men, I believe, is in the area of mental health and suicide. It is very difficult to find information on bisexual men alone for obvious reasons; they do not like to disclose or take part in any scientific surveys; moreover, any attempts at suicide will not be attributed to their orientation. In a study by Paul et al, 2002, involving approximately three thousand gay and bisexual men, they discovered that twenty-one percent had made a suicide plan; 12% had attempted suicide (almost half of those 12% were multiple attempters). Most who attempted suicide made their first attempt before age 25. They concluded, “Gay and bisexual men are at elevated risk for suicide attempts, with such risk clustered earlier in life. Some risk factors were specific to being gay or bisexual in a hostile environment.”2 My personal belief is that bisexual men probably exceed these statistics by an additional two to five percent due to nondisclosure.

The saddest statistics are the ones that do not exist. We seldom talk about our problems and usually do not seek counselling from our friends and families, religious institutions, or community mental health institutions. The stresses build and build until we seek the final solution. Bisexual men are withdrawing into the shadows exposing their bodies to disease and their minds to stress and breakdown, and their lives to the hands of the dark executioner – their own tortured self. Time to stand up, I think, and be counted.

1. Lifter from http://www.bi-alliance.org Read More: http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.92.8.1338

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2. Jay P. Paul, Joseph Catania, Lance Pollack, Judith Moskowitz, Jesse Canchola, Thomas Mills, Diane Binson, and Ron Stall. Suicide Attempts Among Gay and Bisexual Men: Lifetime Prevalence and Antecedents. American Journal of Public Health: August 2002, Vol. 92, No. 8, pp. 1338-1345.
doi: 10.2105/AJPH.92.8.1338

Hyper-Bisexuality

Published on by Bi-Ed: Bisexual Education1 Comment

According to Simon LeVay, a neuroscientist and writer based in West Hollywood, California, “Bisexual men might have their ‘hyper-heterosexual’ female relatives to thank for their orientation.”[1] He attributes this to an X-linked gene that increases attraction to male sexuality. He claims that even though this genetic link may not be the determining factor in gay and bisexual sexual orientation, it’s certainly seems to influence it.

LeVay refers to a study by Andrea Camperio Ciani and colleagues at the University of Padua, Italy. [2] They asked 239 men to fill out questionnaires about their families and their past sexual experiences. On the basis of their answers, the men were classified as heterosexual, bisexual or homosexual. The results showed that the maternal aunts, grandmothers and mothers of both bisexual men and homosexuals had more children than those of heterosexual men. They suggest that the genes on the X chromosome may be responsible for influencing a woman’s attitude to men rather than actually increasing her fertility, making her likely to have more children. According to Camperio Ciani and colleagues, the same genetic factor appears to be passed down to both bisexual and homosexual men. .

These findings support some of the studies that we have looked at in previous blogs. A study by Blanchard and associates found that gay men tend to have more older brothers; the likelihood of being gay increased by a third to one half with each male fetus[3]. They suggest that these outcomes may be linked to pheromones[4]. The theory is that mothers develop a higher level of female pheromones to counteract the male pheromones of the fetus with each successive male pregnancy. This may reduce the male pheromones and create a higher percentage of female pheromones thus resulting in female psychological and perhaps even internal physiological characteristics. One last study before the conclusions, a study by Derr way back in 1976 indicated that homosexual men have significantly higher levels of testosterone.[5]

Granted these studies seem to have a whole lot of theory based on a small amount of science; however, the conclusions and possible implications are interesting to say the least. These studies suggest several things.  First, the genetic X component may be connected to a heightened awareness and attraction in both men and women to testosterone based pheromones from men. Secondly, males from larger families may be influenced by powerful female pheromones interacting with the male pheromones of the male fetus during pregnancy.  Either way, the evidence is mounting for a biological based attraction toward males in gay and bisexual men.

Here are some additional thoughts. Perhaps (just guessing, for after all that is the prerogative of a blogger) the degree of the power of the maternal X may  also determine whether we are completely gay or sort of half gay/half heterosexual as in bisexual.  A second possibility may be the strength of the forgotten Y component from sexually aggressive fathers.  Could it be that the degree of male sexual aggression and increased testosterone in bisexual men simply leads to a powerful drive that neutralizes the aversion aspects of the oxytocin bond?  As bisexuals we have a powerful testosterone based drive;  we  are definitely attracted to men and definitely attracted to women. Furthermore, could it be that we may have a hyper heterosexual/homosexual combined genetic XY factor that increases our drives directing them to male and/or female pheromones?

Perhaps the title should be “hyper-sensitivity”, or “hyper-sexuality”? Perhaps the title should be “hyper-bisexuality”?  Could this explain why we are so driven for gay sex even though we have healthy sexual relations with our female partners?

 

[1] Bisexuality passed on by ‘hyper-heterosexuals. https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14543-bisexuality-passed-on-by-hyper-heterosexuals/

[2] Journal reference: The Journal of Sexual Medicine (DOI:10.1111/j.1743-6109.2008.00944.x)

3. Blanchard, R.  2001. “Fraternal birth order and the maternal immune hypothesis of male homosexuality.” Hormones and Behaviour, 40(2), 105-14.

[4] Money, 1987. Meyer-Bahlburg, 1995. Blanchard, 2001.

[5] Peter Doerr, MD; Karl M. Pirke, MD; Gotz Kockott, MD; Franz Dittmar. Further Studies on Sex Hormones in Male Homosexuals. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1976;33(5):611-614. doi:10.1001/archpsyc.1976.01770050063010.

 

Married to a Bisexual Man

Published on by Bi-Ed: Bisexual Education1 Comment

2013-08-30 14.26.43

(The following  blog on why a woman can enjoy bring married to or partnered with a bisexual man is based directly on the thoughts and words of my beloved mate and the love of my life.)

The other day my wife stated that she would not get involved with another heterosexual man if I passed on before her. I asked for explanations.

She said that in the 17 years that she had been divorced she had kissed a lot of frogs to find her prince (me, lol), she had noticed that many of them spent a lot of time interacting from their brains and dicks but not from their hearts. Apparently I was the first man who connected with her almost immediately from the heart.

She also told me that when she was a student at university she met a lot of really sweet (and stinkingly handsome) fellows who made easy heart contact and delightful conversationalists.  However, they could not perform in bed* and the poor girl was left with the impression that there was something wrong with her that turned those young men off. Only much later did she find out they were gay.

After her divorce she was frequently attracted to openly gay men and felt sad when they told her that they were not ‘available’. She intuitively knew that a marriage partner would have to possess some of those wonderful qualities that she had observed in her gay male friends: a spiritual approach to life, a way with words, appreciation for art, high energy, a love of life expressed in music and dance,  a high sex drive (preferably with knowledge about the workings of female sex preferences), compassion for sentient beings, enjoyment of nature, etc.

While heterosexual men have many of the above characteristics, she now can see that bisexual men (me) have a heightened sensitivity to them. They are easily moved to tears of sadness or joy and display intuitive understanding in many situations without requiring intellectual explanations or interpretations. Of course their hyper-sensitive natures can create ‘princesses’ that require an especially thoughtful approach with communication (me again, sad but true). Many bi men have anxiety and low self-esteem issues, so when a situation wakes up their pain body,  the Ego is immediately in charge and sparks can fly.

While my wife sometimes feels frustrated  by my over-reactions, she takes them with a grain of salt. She sees the many benefits of our union and is willing to pay the price for a deeply heart-centered relationship.

 

  • Most gay men either cannot or for some reason or other have no desire to have sex with women.  On the other hand, bisexual men have no difficulty engaging in and enjoying sex with either a man or a woman.

 

Two Spirits

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logo_2Fresh out of university, I spent two years teaching and living on reserves in Northern Manitoba among the Cree and Chipewyan First Nations people.  It has profoundly affected me, giving me a broader perspective on the meaning and purpose of life.  It has taught me to accept every individual simply as they are without any form of judgement. As I set out to explore the meaning and nature of bisexuality, I have once again been reminded of the beautiful spiritual-social nature of the First Nations community before it was influenced by white man’s political-social views and its moralistic standards of sexuality.

Taking the lead from traditional Native Americans and Canadians, I do believe that I, and most other bisexuals, are part of a greater community of Two-Spirited people; we simultaneously house a masculine and a feminine spirit.  Ontario has explored the Two Spirit concept in an attempt to fully understand and support individuals within the LGBT community:

“Two-spirited” refers to a person who has both a masculine and a feminine spirit, and is used by some First Nations people to describe their sexual, gender and/or spiritual identity….These can include terms such as the Lakota’s “winkt” or the Dinéh’s “nàdleehé”, both of which refer to men who fill social roles associated with women, or terms which refer only to sexuality, such as the Mi’kmaq phrase “Geenumu Gessalagee”, which means “he loves men.”[1]

So what have we learned from our Native Canadians about our bisexuality? Lots, we gain a view of bisexuality as a soul-trinity involving sexuality, gender, and spirit.

First of all, make no mistake, it is sexual.  “He loves men” means “He loves men”. We have a tendency in our WASP traditions to wax over the sexual part and focus on some kind of mystical spiritism.  That kind of paternalism is not doing the Two Spirit people true justice.  Sexuality is part of our being; it is a full body-soul expression of who we are.  One of the great warriors of the Sioux, Crazy Horse, is generally believed to have had a male lover.  He was far from effeminate and yet he had a love for men.  The beauty of the native cultures is that they have demonstrated a gentle acceptance of variations in people’s sexuality.  It appears that First nation’s people simply accepted without question or judgement that Crazy Horse loved a man, and that any man or woman could have more than one sexual preference.

In reading the work of Gabriel Estrada with the Navajo, I found this wonderful concept:

“Third and fourth gender roles traditionally embodied by two-spirit people include performing work and wearing clothing associated with both men and women. Not all tribes/nations have rigid gender roles, but, among those that do, some consider there to be at least four genders: feminine woman, masculine woman, feminine man, masculine man.”[2]

 The second lesson then is that First Nation’s people also recognized that Two-Spirited includes gender as well as sexuality. It appears that in the First Nation’s communities, all expressions of gender were generally accepted.  They understood that some men preferred to wear women’s clothing, work alongside the women, and help tend the children. There was no attempt to marginalize them or prevent them from influencing the young people within the community.

In our broken society, the only way for a Two-Spirited man to express his feminine gender is to cross dress in the privacy of his own home or in clubs that will accept his feminine expression.  My introduction to my feminine gender was trying on women’s clothing at age 15.  Later in my life, after my divorce, a spent a year enjoying cross dressing.  When I looked at myself in the mirror and saw the passable face and body of a woman looking back at me, I felt I had found my true identity.  I never did dare to appear in public in my feminine gender identity; that takes the kind of courage I was not able to muster. In our society, as soon as one has been identified as being transgender, he or she is often marginalized and their involvement in the greater society is restricted. My knowledge and experiences as an educator, a psychologist, and a spiritual guide would have been totally disregarded.

I have a gender foundation that has been pruned and shaped by my negative social experiences.  In my society I am merely that queer bisexual man who left his wife so he could have sex with other men. In my struggles, I was labelled by psychologists and psychiatrists as having a personality disorder with a gender identification disorder.  I saw myself as a disorder and a misfit to society.  When I left the pseudo scientific theories behind (tough to do because I was a psychologist by profession), I began to see my gender as a gift from the universe .  At that point, I no longer had a personality disorder as I was able to see myself and love myself as I am.

I came across this additional piece of information:

 “A direct translation of the Ojibwe term, “Niizh manidoowag”, “two-spirited” or “two-spirit” is usually used to indicate a person whose body simultaneously houses a masculine spirit and a feminine spirit”.[3]

In the First Nation’s communities, Two-Spirit people could have a different but definite role in the community. They simply accepted everyone’s contribution as a spiritual gift and allowed them to express their gender-spirit in any way they wished. They could be powerful warriors such as Crazy Horse, or “they were often the visionaries, the healers, the medicine people, the nannies of orphans, the care givers.”[4] Among the First Nations people, there is general recognition that those who have been blessed with two spirits have a special contribution to make to the health and wellness of the community.  The nature of the blended spirit becomes the essential factor.

In my case, I have a spirit that is a blend of my man-spirit and my woman-spirit.  It is this Two-Spirit soul that makes me different; that makes me special.  If I were a member of an historic First Nations Community, I may have been a wise man, a shaman or a healer. My male-female sexuality, two-gender, two-spirit identification has become a beautiful foundation where I can experience my world from two spiritual views.  I now have a unique way of seeing and feeling things that I can employ to help guide my community to insight and compassion.  I have two spirits

In my search of the literature I came across one disheartening trend.  Some First Nation’s people do not want the LGBT community to appropriate and corrupt the two-spirit concept, and I do not blame them.  Unfortunately, we tend to take and use a term to prove our need for special attention in the political arena.  This concept is too precious for that.  Likewise it is too precious to appropriate it and corrupt it to describe and justify our sexual preferences. Our sexual desires do not need to be justified; they are what they are.   This term is certainly not political; it is much more than just sexual, and even more than bisexual. It is holy.  It is spiritual.

 

[1] http://lgbtqhealth.ca/community/two-spirit.php

[2] http://gender.wikia.com/wiki/Two-Spirit

[3] Estrada, Gabriel S. 2011. “Two Spirits, Nádleeh, and LGBTQ2 Navajo Gaze.” American Indian Culture and Research Journal 35(4):167-190.

[4] Roscoe, W. (Editor) 1988,Living the Spirit: A Gay American Indian Anthology. City: Publisher

How to Keep a Bi-man at Home

Published on by Bi-Ed: Bisexual Education2 Comments

 
2013-08-30 14.26.43

The following has been written by my wife, who has tried to understand my bisexuality so that she can help me on my life’s journey.  We have consciously worked out our sexual passion  so that it can enrich our relationship.  Here is her advice to bisexual couples:

 

Intimacy requires emotional sensitivity and sexual compatibility.

Since a bisexual man is basically gay, he has a very active sex drive that needs to be met. At the beginning of a relationship he may be besotted with the woman meeting his emotional and physical needs. He may not pay attention to her having an average to low sex drive. Over time he may become aware of her lack of interest which may become the one reason that drives him back into the arms of gay lovers.

Couples in a bisexual relationship need to be sexually compatible if they want to flourish. ( Which is also true for heterosexuals.) There needs to be a willingness to bring in excitement based on knowing what turns the partner on. Bi men can instantly be ready to mate, and be unaware that their female partner needs emotional and physical stimulation to get aroused. If that does not happen she may become frustrated and withdraw or become a ‘routine’ partner.

Women don’t like being used as sperm ‘receptacles’, they want to be seduced and played with. A good lover needs to have sexual skills and a good knowledge of the most responsive and pleasurable spots on his woman’s body. The ecstacy/oxytocin he produces in her makes her want more and keeps the excitement alive. On the other hand there is nothing wrong with an occasional ‘quickie’, but the emphasis is on occasional.

Some bottom guys may take on the role of the female and expect the woman to initiate sex. This works when the couple have a heart to heart connection where the woman is keen on pleasing her man in a role reversal. It also requires knowing what her man likes. Frank and honest communication is the key to letting each other know what works.

Bisexual men seek out women because they want a heart to heart connection. Gay encounters can leave them emotionally empty and unfulfilled. Their beautiful sensitive nature wants to be nurtured and expressed. It’s the female partner’s privilege to meet that need by accepting and appreciating her man’s feminine side.

By being active sexual and emotional partners the need to seek pleasures outside the relationship can thus be greatly diminished. 

 

My response.

I dare not contradict anything said here (lol), but there is one note I would like to add.  In response to one of my readers, I have to agree to disagree that we are not necessarily “basically gay”. We are heterosexual and gay and really not either but a combination of the two and maybe not even that.  Like three out of four bisexual men, however, my fantasies tend to focus on male sex.  But, when it comes to love and intimacy I gravitate to women.  I am the only bisexual my wife sees so this is her honest perception.

Power of a Kiss

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logo_2My search for material for these blogs is taking me farther away from bisexuality and into the common experiences of human sexuality experienced by all men and women.  In a recent read of James Thumber, I found the following:

 

“Many a man who loves spiritually is a weakling — a professor. Many a one who loves physically is a brute. But when the two are mixed, he loves with all the fire and passion of a poet and a cave-man… If I ever kiss you you’ll know that — and you’ll know what a wonderful thing my love is. Kissing seems not a great matter, in a way. And yet in one way it speaks the million things which words can’t… A real girl doesn’t care to be kissed, much, unless real love goes with it”[1].
As a spiritual bisexual, I am not looking just for sex, I am looking for intimacy. When you scroll the meat market, there are two types of bisexuals (and no, I do not mean “top” and “bottom”),  those who want to “get on and get off” and those want to “cuddle and kiss”. Getting on and off is okay just because everything is okay; there is no judgement. However, I find it disturbing when the bisexual man states he does not want to share a hug or a kiss.  There is oh so much more in cuddling and kissing – there is intimacy.

So what is in a kiss? Looking at it from the heterosexual viewpoint, the “caveman” searches for the kiss. Why? Because for him it means the woman is opening herself up to him for sexual exploration. And why is she willing to do that? Simply because she feels something, some connection, some excitement in her body, some stirring in her soul.

And then the kiss.  During the kiss she can sense just what the man’s purpose is.  If it is rough and urgent she may back away unless she already feels urgency and desire in herself for her own sexual needs. The kiss then quickly leads to a ‘quicky’ and both get off and, passion wains, and they usually are left feeling empty. So then, there has to be more in the kiss.  The kiss has to be exploring all right, but not just for sex.  It has to be for wanting to embrace the whole person, body, soul and spirit.

A close friend of mine confided that he has a wife who complains about his love making.  She says he does not make love like a man.  In other words, when it comes to sex, she wants to be made love to by a “brute”; she wants “a cave man”.  My friend is an English Lit “professor” a “poet” and I think, based on my conversations with other bisexual men, most of them are also professors and poets. Oh indeed there are many bisexual men (usually tops) who can be cave men, who can have a brute sexual presence, and as bottoms men we love it when we find one.  But for the majority of us (the three quarters of us who are bottoms), when it comes to making love to a woman, it does not come that easily.  We have more of a female brain.  When we kiss we want to express our inner being and we want to get in contact with our lover’s inner soul.  We want the kiss to be gentle and sensitive.  We want it to start slow and easy and build until it touches the latent caveman inside of us so that we can bring the combined “fire and passion of a poet and a caveman” to our partners. We want what everyone else really wants.  We want body, heart and soul connection.  We want intimacy.  We want to make love, be in love, and love unconditionally.   “If I ever kiss you, you will know that, and you will know what a wonderful thing my love is”.

Now I have to encourage  my friend’s wife to read this, and if I convince her that it is better that a poet makes love to her than a brute, I may convince my skeptic friend to believe in the power of my words.

 

[1] Thumber, James; White, E.B. Is sex Necessary. Amazon, 2004

 

Carol – A Study in Female Bisexuality

Published on by Bi-Ed: Bisexual Education1 Comment

Carol is a movie based on a novel, The price of Salt, by Patricia Highsmith. Carol and Therese are lesbian lovers. The movie (unlike the book) is played from Carol’s point of view with the assumption that she is the more vulnerable character (certainly a point to be argued). Even though the movie is widely acclaimed for its content and quality, I had difficulty defining my feelings and understanding of female bisexualism during the movie. However, I was challenged to try to see and understand female bisexuality, and discover the similarities between male and female bisexuals.

The first question then arises – are these women lesbian or bisexual? Carol is in the process of a divorce, and has a child, and is therefore by definition a bisexual woman.  Therese has a boyfriend, and according to her own admission has a hard time saying no, which I presume means she is also a bisexual.  Which of course, for women or for men, begs the question – according to label and definition, who is gay, who is lesbian and who is bisexual? According to my simple definition, if you are attracted to and can have sex with either men or women (and I assume enjoy it) then you are bisexual.  Beyond that point, your preferences may change and you make different choices, not to be bisexual because that is what we are, but we have the ability to enjoy relationships with either men or women.   At first Carol choses to be married to a man and chooses to have a child whom she loves dearly, but she  is willing to give up parental custody for the sake of the child, and in order to peruse her love for Therese. Therese has a boyfriend, makes plans to get married and live a straight life.  She is then overcome by her attraction for Carol and enters into a lesbian life, I assume because of her need for genuine connection and the opportunity to share deep feelings and desires.

As a man, I find it totally incomprehensible why two women would want to live together with such potential for emotional turmoil and chaos. So much easier being a man and being with a man.  Interestingly enough, Carol and Therese felt the same way; that is, they found living with a man so difficult and preferred the predictability of living with a woman – emotion, chaos and all. In my search of the internet I found this quote from a woman claiming to be straight but with bisexual tendencies, “I am attracted to the beauty of other women — and they’re so much easier to understand psychologically than men. We girls form deep relationships through friendships, which some say are the basis of love. And personally I believe that emotional connection and physical attraction are linked”[1]. Well, maybe for women, but not necessarily for men. I can be very attracted to a man on a casual basis without ever wanting intimate relationship.

However, I think it is important, as a male bisexual, to try to understand female bisexuality and why most bisexual women eventually give up on the heterosexual relationship and choose to become lesbians. First of all let’s look at the differences. Women are much more likely to be bisexual then men. I found a study conducted by researchers at Boise State University that found that in a group of heterosexual women, 60 percent were physically interested in other women, 45 percent made out with a woman in the past, and 50 percent had fantasies about the same sex[2]. The researchers also found that men were more likely than women to report being “100 percent heterosexual” or “100 percent homosexual” continually throughout their lives. This explains a lot about Carol and Therese and their natural attraction for one another. Women are allowed socially to hold hands, hug,  and even kiss in girl to girl relationships.  For boys this is a taboo.  A man is supposed to be a man.  Begs the question – are we all really bisexual in nature but straight or lesbian or gay only due to social factors? Perhaps for women, but I think there is more to it for men.  For men there is an animal competition to spread our genes around so the dominant genes will be passed on.  This means ‘women only’ as men cannot reproduce with another man.  Whereas women seem to be straight only about 40 to 50% of the time, it appears that men are definitely straight about 95% of the time, definitely gay 4% of the time and about 1% of the time they seem to be either-or.

Research suggests that gay men tend to engage in promiscuous sex and lesbian women tend to seek long term relationship[3].  According to my research (I know four lesbian couples), of the eight individuals, five started out in a marriage or heterosexual relationship and then settled into a long term lesbian relationship, two were dominant (butch) lesbians from adolescence on,  and only one started out in a lesbian relationship and then later got married to a man and had children.  From the research, and from my observations, some have definite lesbian desires starting at a young age but most come by it later in life, almost as if they choose to leave the straight and sometimes chaotic life behind and seek out genuine intimate relationship. On the other hand, most of the bisexual men I know have known from an early age that they had gay tendencies but also felt a strong attraction for women and a strong desire to marry and be fathers.  They live for years going from one to the other, usually intimately with their wives and casually with their gay lovers. When they divorce, they usually go gay and then many of them again seek out another heterosexual relationship.  It seems they cannot make up their minds. They seem driven to be both.  Men are true bisexuals.  Most women seem to feel the need to be one or the other.
Even though this movie indicates major differences between bisexual men and women, I do believe we have a lot in common.  Like Carol, we have a very strong urge to explore our gay or lesbian sexuality.  Like Carol and Therese, we find same-sex experiences sensuous and erotic. Like Carol, we come to a time in our life where sexual freedom of expression becomes a deep expression of our inner self, and we choose to leave the security of a marriage and strike off into the unknown in spite of the turmoil and pain it will cause.  Like Carol, we are caring people who do not want to hurt anyone, especially our children, but being true to ourselves becomes more important that being true to everyone else.

[1] http://www.yourtango.com/2011104439/study-average-woman-bisexual

[2] http://www.advocate.com/bisexuality/2015/08/26/study-women-are-more-likely-be-bisexual-men

[3] 2 Sanford et al, 2001; Kulkin et al, 2000

Bisexuality – May the Force Be With You

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logo_2Like most men my age, I am a die hard Star Wars fan.  Kind of hurts to see Leia and Han looking older. Apparently, the force does not keep us young. According to Dr. Max Planck, one of the founding fathers of Quantum Physics, “All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force…. We must assume that behind this force a conscious and intelligent mind exists.  This mind is the matrix of all matter.”   One of the main themes in the movie series is “The Force”, which presents us with a bunch of questions.   Is it a reality?  I think so, and if so, what is it? How can this apply to our daily lives? What does this have to do with sexuality? And in particular what does it have to do with Bisexuality?

I am just completing a heavy book called The Energy Healing Experiments by Gary Schwartz[1] .  Gary is a PHD researcher from the University of Arizona. He is the Director of its Laboratory for Advances in Consciousness and Health.  He and his colleagues have carried out scientific research with energy fields (the force?) and consciousness (Jedi mind control?) Perhaps the force within us is what we call our “spirits”, and perhaps our spirits and what contemporary physics calls “energy” are in a deep sense one and the same. Over the next few weeks we will be looking at this whole area of energy and how it affects bisexuality.  For today let’s just look at energy itself, its nature and its effects on our bodies.

According to Schwartz, our bodies are forms of energy that generate electromagnetic energy waves. These waves seem to emanate from the whole body, perhaps through the water molecules in our living cells[2].  Various organs, or systems generate specific waves.  For example brain waves can be picked up on an EEG; whereas, heart waves (five times more powerful) are displayed on EKG’s. He goes on to show, again, through the rigors of scientific experiments, that intent or consciousness (may the force be with you) contains energy that can change the behavior of animals, growth in plants and even affect the well being of microorganisms in test tubes. In addition to energy waves, he demonstrates that quantum fields are actually generated through the works of collections of atoms that constitute our bodies or parts of our bodies. These fields can transmit energy and information in distances beyond the measurements of electromagnetic fields and may be a part of the universal matrix of living energy. In addition, Schwartz demonstrates that all biological matter emits dynamic patterns of bio-photon light which may express the essence of its being. For example healers were able to increase bio-photon emissions in plants by as much as tenfold simply by sharing their energy through conscious thought. He also states that energy emissions contain communication. “Energy provides the power that enables the information to be generated, transmitted and received…. Information without energy is powerless; energy without information is purposeless. Every one of our cells operate as a transmitter and receiver of electromagnetic energies.”[3]

So what is the application to sexuality?  Schwartz goes on to surmise, “Consider what happens when you hold someone you love. Or more explicitly when you are being physically intimate with someone. Can you imagine to what extent bio-energetic signals from our cells and organs are interacting and communicating?”[4]  Good question.  What exactly are we communicating through sexual contact?

Is there such a thing as the yin and the yang? Are there negative and positive energies?  It would appear that there is. Stress causes vascular inflammation in rats and humans.  Schwartz demonstrated that even microorganisms in test tubes respond negatively to healers under stress. It would appear that anxiety brought on by stress can have a negative effect on our health and well being. So what do we share when we have sex with our partners? Are we bringing a ton of emotional baggage that we then hoist onto our lovers? We may just be exposing our dark side and using our negative energies loaded with our own anxiety, to seduce and to weaken our lover’s flow of positive energy. In the process, we may also be weakening ourselves by building up patterns of addiction that feed upon themselves generating more and more negative energy.

Schwartz then goes on to demonstrate that healers who have a deeper level of compassion have a greater level of effect on animals, plants and humans. He concludes, “If we follow the accepted canons of science, we are led, slowly but surely, to the simple explanation that caring energy and loving intentions are the key to healing and health”[i]. This information should urge us on to bring positive energy, namely love and care, to the bed.  If we are going to engage in casual sex, can we bring caring and love to these types of encounters?  I honestly do not think so.  We can bring passion but I would hardly call it care or love.  If we truly want to be caring and compassionate people we should be mindful of whom we sleep with and what we are leaving behind when we get up and leave. On the side of life (within the force)  we can bring so much good energy through caring and love to our partners. We have an opportunity to bring powerful waves of healing that can build their sense or self-worth and physical, mental and spiritual well being.

 

[1] Schwartz, Gary, E; Simon, William L. The Energy Healing Experiments. Atria Books, New Your; 2007.

[2] Page 149

[3] Page 129

[4] Page 184

[i] Page 147

Beyond Gender – Bisexuality and Christmas

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logo_2Christmas time.  Time to get out of my head, out of my bed and into my heart.  Also time to be thankful.  Glad I am Gay.  Glad I have an amazing woman to be my wife and partner.  Happy I am healthy and wise.  Happy I am deeply emotionally connected to more than ten people in my life.  Grateful I have survived the hard times so that I can appreciate the bliss and ecstasy of the present times.

So what is the connection between Christmas and Bisexuality? None really, but on the other hand, everything.  Christmas is about self-love and then releasing our love energy to love others. I am bisexual; this is an essential part of who I am.  I have finally come full circle and instead of shunning and trying to murder the gay man inside me, I have learned to embrace and love him.  He is my gift to my whole self.  He makes me care.  He makes me cry when I feel another’s pain.  He helps me love at a deeper level than my male side would ever have known.  He tells me it’s okay to be me; in fact, being me is a privileged and special existence.  He tells me that my gay sexuality is a very special part of the whole me that lets me experience emotion and life at an incredibly deep level.

My feminine gay side is a gift that helps me seek bonding as well as pleasure.  It does not just want to encounter, get off and move on, but it wants to love slow and easy and linger for the tender moments following orgasm. It has coaxed me into not being satisfied with superficial relationships but to seek out that one true bonding whether it is with a man or a woman.    It helps me seek male friendships that are intimate, where we can hug and tell each other “I love you and care for you,” without feeling shame. It lets me establish deep relationships at all levels of love from platonic to parental, to intimate.  It seeks sexual experiences that fulfill its ultimate purpose of creating bonds that hold me and the people I love together.  It has channeled me into my wife’s’ beautiful body through which I explore her beautiful soul. My feminine, gay bisexuality is my gift.  I give it first to my Self, then to the woman I am totally in love with and  bonded to,  then to the other people I  love and then to you. Here comes a warm hug.

Merry Christmas.