[q]bisexual by most people's understanding means the ability to form relationships both emotional and sexual. I have noticed an interesting phenomenon about identifying oneself as bisexual however: if you were to ask a group of bisexual women if they could form a romantic relationship with a woman, the majority will say yes. Ask that same question of an equal number of men who call themselves bisexual, and you get some pretty different results.[/b][/q]
yes, you would. why do you think that is so?
[q]Actually, this is mostly put forth by gay people looking to make themselves better and straight people looking to make themselves feel better. Most thinking adults realize that sexuality is a bit more complex than 'this or that'.[/q]
as a thinking adult, i’d have to say that my sexuality isn’t quite as complex as the next persons, but more complex than someone else’s. for many people, it is very much ‘this’ or ‘that’ and I don’t buy the line that bisexuality is somehow a more authentic form of sexuality. to me, the Kinsey scale makes a lot of sense, and i fully agree that sexuality occurs on some sort of spectrum, but on the whole, you’ll find far more 0’s, 1’s and 4’s and 5’s than you will 3’s. not that a 3 isn’t any more or less worthy of love, life, respect, and rights than anyone else.
with men, however, you’ll find that there are many bisexual men who are, indeed, gay, and who are clinging to the bisexual label to give them a hope of maybe one day they’ll find that girl. i was one of those men once. there was a NYT article that came out in recent years called “gay, straight, or lying” which was about male bisexuality, and it generally confirmed what most gay men will tell you – for many men, bisexuality is a cop-out, and were it not for homophobia and the costs incurred when one comes out, you’d have a whole lot more self-identified gay men.
so what does this mean? you seem to be looking to pick a fight with me, so I suppose it might disappoint you to know that I don’t care how someone self-identifies. i just want someone to be happy. yes, my experience might tell me to be a bit suspicious of a young man who says he’s bisexual, but that doesn’t mean I don’t believe him, or that I don’t wish him happiness to pursue a life with the man or woman he falls in love with.
[q]Hmm. I think more and more people are less and less comfortable with the polarized notion of 'gay' and 'straight'. Just my take on it. And what do you mean 'transgression'? A gay person who had straight trysts would look back at those as trangressions??[/q]
you seem to want a semantics discussion, so … it is a transgression of a standard sexual norm. heterosexuality is what is considered the norm. because i am homosexual, i am socially transgressive. I am punished by gender norms. but i live with that, and the costs aren’t as great as they once were.
homosexuality is abnormal. it is a naturally occurring abnormality, like red hair or left handedness, but it is not the norm. and I am fine with that. and so are many other people.
[q]Why only two men or two women though? How do truly bisexual couples who want to realize the fullness of their emotional, romantic and sexual needs do so then in a legally recognized monogamous (well I guess it's not technically monog, but whatever) union, and why shouldn't they be allowed to affirm that committment to each other? Before you say 'well two of them can marry and just have the third as a long term committed partner', remember that gay people don't want to be told that they can't have marriage but they can be long term committed partners either, do they?[/q]
you’re confusing quite a few things here. you are not arguing for the social recognition of bisexuality nor are you arguing that a bisexual has rights that are denied to him/her on the basis of an immutable characteristic. a bisexual has the option to marry someone they love. just like a polygamist has the right to marry someone they love. a gay person has no right to marry someone they love.
you are not asking for rights for bisexuals but for rights for polygamists. that’s fine, but argue it on it’s own terms. i don’t think you’re going to get very far arguing that the rights of a bisexual are violated or that they are barred entry from the 1049 rights that married couples are able to access.
[q]Understand that I agree with your views mostly, but you do realize that what you are saying is pretty much similar to what someone who objects to the 'lumping in' of this issue with racial equality? I'm not arguing that polygamist marriages should be legal, I'm saying that what's good for gay people, why can't it be just as good for bisexual folk?[/q]
polygamy is very much a cultural practice, is it not? Race and sexual orientation are immutable characteristics, are they not? Is this not a difference that should be teased out and used for evaluation? No one says that being gay is exactly like being black, but we are saying that many of the arguments used against interracial couples – go look up Loving vs. Virginia on wikipedia – are almost precisely the same as those used against gay couples.
if you are bisexual and wish to marry the person you love, and that person you love is of the same sex, then, please, fight for marriage equality. if you love more than one person and want to marry both of them, or more, then you’re talking about polygamy not bisexuality.
[q]Really? What secular reason can you give me for why two men and a woman shouldn't be allowed to marry? Or for that matter for a man to have 3 wives? Most of what we consider law has some root in religion. Most of the stigma that polygamy has (pretty deservedly, too, in most cases) had heaped upon it could likely be a product of what happens when you marginalize a behaviour and outlaw it. People will still do it, but because of the rejection of society they circle the wagons and keep it close - which of course leads to the horrifying incest / in-breeding etc in these families..but think if it wasn't illegal - do you think that every polygamist family would have those issues? Isn't much of the stigma of promiscuity and disease heaped upon gay people a byproduct of centuries of being outlawed and outcast and misinformation spread? Just as surely as not every gay male wants to have wild unprotected sex with 100 men, I'm sure there are a number of people who would coexist in a polyamorous relationship without raping the daughter of their second wife or taking a 14 year old bride.[/q]
we’ve just seen in Texas why polygamy was outlawed. It has historically involved the statutory rape of young teenaged girls.
i tend to agree with you. i am sure there are adults out there who are capable of existing in a happy, healthy polyamorous relationship. but the difference is that so long as they are heterosexual or at the least bisexual, they still have access to the institution of marriage that a gay person does not have and will not have until same sex marriage is legal. you are free to fight this battle, but don’t pretend that what you’re arguing is about sexual orientation. it’s not. it’s about polygamy. so make that argument.
