Bisexuals, Unicorns and Nice Tories: Fact of Fiction?

Apparently lots is said about bisexuals and bisexuality from a straight perspective, but not that much from a gay one.  Therefore in the interests of throwing out uninformed perspectives and generalisations into the blogosphere, here goes with some of mine!

Kinsey Scale

The best place I think we can start with a discussion on sexuality is the Kinsey Scale.  Yes, it's ancient (1948), yes I'm sure you've heard of it, yes it's been refined subsequently to include biological sex, gender identity, asexuality and the fact that sexual identity may change throughout a lifetime.  Its strength though is that it's very easily understood.  Here it is: the idea is we all fall somewhere between the two poles of 0 for complete heterosexuality and the 6 of complete homosexuality.

Kinsey shocked conservative post-War America by his findings that 11.6% of men were 3 (perfectly bisexual) from the age of 20 to 35.  He also found that 10% of men in the 16 to 55 age range were 5 or 6 (pretty much completely gay) for at least 3 years.  The figures for women were slightly lower, but still significant.  These numbers have been the subject of lots of debate since then: the fact is no one really knows what is going on in your own head (and in your bedroom) except you, and it is notoriously difficult to get honest straightforward answers on this subject.

Societal Pressures

The Kinsey scale has always seemed quite logical and reasonable to me.  One refinement I'd add is that societal pressures add hugely to whether you will react freely to where you are on the scale.  It's surely pretty obvious that if you are in ancient Greece and some fine semi-naked youth happens to stroll through your back garden of an afternoon, even if a "1" you'd be far more likely to indulge in some neighbourly interaction, than if you live in a society where same sex acts are strictly taboo.  Similarly you'd have to be a 5 or even a 6 if you lived in a country like Victorian Britain or one of the 7 countries in the world in 2012 that terrifyingly still have the death penalty for gay sex.

Hullo Comely Greek Youth. Cup of tea?

Even in a liberal European country today you may of course be a 4 or 5, but your personal upbringing and in particular teachings based on faith will have an effect on the actual expression of your feelings.  Self-loathing religious gays and married "ex-gays" aren't unfortunately as rare as, say, unicorns.

Polarising Attitudes to Sexuality

So far, straightforward?   Now some thoughts on attitudes to bisexuality.  If we're essentially all somewhere on the scale between 0 and 6, we do live in a society where having sex of any consenting adult of our choice is not punishable by law, and Kinsey's numerical findings are even half way accurate, why is bisexuality relatively so little spoken about? Why do some people (particularly within the gay world) actually doubt it exists?

A big factor in this has to be that fact that that human beings seem desperately attracted to polarisation and seeing things in black and white.  Both straight and gay worlds occur to me as being incredibly binary: you either like the opposite sex or you like the same sex.  Our wider (overwhelmingly straight) society has even come to accept homosexuality from a social and legal perspective as long as you fit neatly into one of the two boxes*.

I went through such a lot of personal soul-searching and absurd angst in admitting to myself I was attracted to men, that once I was over this massive hurdle I fell squarely into the "gay camp" and haven't really ever questioned this since.  If I'm asked where I fit on the scale I'd say I'm a 5.8 or a 5.9: the extent of my sexual experience with women is twice half-heartedly snogging girls in my early 20s.  In gay terms that makes me a "Platinum Gay" apparently.

The Bavarian Balcony. Zounds.

I do wonder though.  What if society did not have this polarising characteristic: would I actually view where I am on the scale differently?  When I look at an image like this, I would be lying if I didn't say I find her incredibly attractive.  Yes, my interest in things Blond(e), Bier and Bavarian related may be a factor in this, but wow.  She is gorgeous... mesmerically so.  Is there space for me as a gay man to fancy a woman like this?  I know plenty of gays who would come out with quite misogynist comments when faced with the idea.  Frankly I'd be a bit scared as I'm much more familiar with "what to do" with men in bed, but I'm pretty sure I could actually get over that with her.  I'm just so clear in my head that I'm gay I don't really think about such things.

Having reflected on this I do think we are all (gay and straight) drawn so strongly to the ends of the scale by society that anything in between is really very challenging to us.  If a straight man finds another man sexually attractive, is his power of denial sufficiently strong that he won't even consciously register the thought?  How many straight women reading this actually find her sexually attractive and might react on this if we didn't label ourselves so clearly into one of the two camps?  There is a lot more to the concept of sexual attraction than simply choosing a number, when society's pressures may be putting a lot more pressure on us than we even possibly realise.

Misconceptions about Bisexuality

Extending this thought it's fair to say that bisexuality seems to make quite people a bit uneasy.  The binary way we look at ourselves means that the wide middle spectrum is marginalised and ignored.  A lack of acceptance and discussion leads to all sorts of misconceptions.

Fuck Yeah Bisexual Dolphin: Superb!

 For gays one of the powerful misconceptions is that it is a "passing phase" and therefore doesn't really exist.  When I "came out" I did something I think a lot of young gay people did: I lied.  I told my friends that I was bisexual.  It somehow seemed less shocking and perhaps more acceptable to say that I *did* fancy women, but also "I liked guys".  The power of self-denial is such I may even have believed it myself for a short time.  After some amount of time the theoretical "bisexuality" dropped away and I related to myself openly as gay.  The above type of thing really can't help if gay people project their own experiences of having lied about their feelings onto bisexuals who are genuinely attracted to both sexes.  Straight friends who have heard the lie from a gay friend are also likely to take on board the idea bisexuality is either a passing phase or doesn't properly exist.  It clearly does exist and I know some very "real life" bisexuals.

There seem to be people convinced by the idea that if a bisexual is attracted (physically and emotionally) to both sexes they must want or need somehow to alternate between the two in relationships and can not be happy or fulfilled just being with one.  I have never really understood why this should be the case.  You might be a man who finds blonde women extremely attractive and end up in a relationship with a brunette.  Does this mean you cannot be satisfied sexually because you constantly crave blonde women?  Yes you might still fancy them, but that really does not mean you have to go out and bed them on the side to be happy.  You make a choice, you are attracted to the person sufficiently to want to be with them, and you just get on with that.  Think this through.  If a bisexual woman meets a man and has even a life-long relationship with him, why does that make her any less bisexual and why will it affect her happiness?  She will still continue to find women attractive, but assuming the couple has agreed on a monogamous relationship and it satisfies them emotionally and sexually there is no reason she will be unhappy or unfulfilled more or less than any other relationship. 

Some look for the next thing to come along: plenty don't

Following on from this you have the promiscuity argument.  Why on earth bisexuals should inherently be any more or less promiscuous than people elsewhere on the scale is beyond me.   You might say "well there's more choice".  Yes they may fancy more people because there are two genders to take into account, but so what?  I see plenty of men on a trip to Norwich I fancy, it doesn't mean they will sleep with me as almost all of them will identify as heterosexual.  It should be straight people who are the most promiscuous by rights as there are more straight people "in the pool" who would be available for sex.  The meeting, dating, and being together process for bisexuals has to be just the same as for any other group - unless society's unease about someone's bisexual identity comes in and it actually makes it more difficult.

The last thing to mention is that sexual attraction and emotional attraction are clearly intricately linked, but there is a big difference.  People are capable of engaging in sexual activity with someone of whatever sex, but the key reason I see myself as being gay is that I am emotionally/ romantically attracted to men.  It is however of course perfectly possible that anyone anywhere on the scale will meet and fall in love with someone of a gender opposite to those they have dated before and form a lasting bond.  The physical attraction is a large part of it: the emotional attraction is what creates unions.

Unicorns and Nice Tories

I'm not sure if anything above has actually said anything even vaguely original or perceptive, but I have quite enjoyed writing it.  I'd better deal briefly with the other subjects of the blog post.  Well, unicorns exist.  Of course they do: the Bible mentions them 9 times in 5 different books.

A perfectly reasonable explanation

As Dr Elizabeth Mitchell says here, to think of the biblical unicorn as a fantasy animal is to demean God’s Word, "which is true in every detail".  The reference in her view could in fact be a creature with one horn, such as a rhino (a slender one, who has been on a treadmill as above?), or even with two horns (i.e somewhat puzzlingly in fact a "duocorn").  This latter definition of course handily covers anything from a giraffe to a walrus.

It would seem however that Noah forgot the unicorns who were off playing in a field when he called the animals onto the Arc (remember, this all has to be taken literally).  I find this quite upsetting and a little bit unreasonable of both him and the guy behind the whole "flooding the entire world to teach them a lesson" plan.

Now, Nice Tories?  Does the Bible mention them?  Of course not.  Don't be silly: they don't exist and you shouldn't believe in fairy tales.  Proof of the existence of 2 out of 3 things isn't bad though ;-)








* (and unless you're expecting marriage equality and talking to a traditionalist Christian of course).