I'm a bit skeptical that bisexuality is so rare (in males). Of course it's conceived of as being a spectrum, with very few in very middle (eg: the range of 49%/51% to 51%/49%), or at the extreme ends. But there seem to be a good number of men who have substantial amounts of attraction towards both sexes, closer to the middle than to th…
I'm a bit skeptical that bisexuality is so rare (in males). Of course it's conceived of as being a spectrum, with very few in very middle (eg: the range of 49%/51% to 51%/49%), or at the extreme ends. But there seem to be a good number of men who have substantial amounts of attraction towards both sexes, closer to the middle than to the ends of that spectrum.
But I recognize that my assessment is based more on experience than objective statistics. Do you have any source for believing that bisexual men are very rare?
Also, you referenced males. Do you believe that bisexual females are more or less common? And why LG rather than LGB if you are talking about all sexes, not just males?
I've read a lot about bisexuality and all studies say the same thing: 50/50 bi men are exceedingly uncommon. I have never met one. I didn't say there are none.
Most bi men are basically gay men who top and go with a woman once in a while.
With women the attraction is much more about the relationship than visual arousal and I have read that women can choose their orientation a lot more than men; my best friend in the USA is bi and married to a man but based on his health I doubt they have sex.
I last went to a gay public territory in 1996. I was 42 and in great shape but already past the age where I felt like I fit in and I saw men older than I being savagely abused with name-calling. I continued to hook up on the Internet but gay places are for people under 30 who want to ruin their hearing and their lungs.
Maybe it depends on how one defines bisexuality. As I noted, there are very few who are 100/0, 50/50, or 0/100 - or for that matter 90/10 or 36/64. That's way too narrow. a range.
I was suggesting that being closer to the middle than to either end, like "at least 1/4 towards each" as a broader definition. I doubt that is as rare.
Yes, I've heard gay men dismiss male bisexuals as fence sitters, and treat them as being partway along the coming out process. It makes sense, based on their own experience, for many. And I meet bisexuals who figure everybody is really bisexual, some are just too hung up to let it out - again, generalizing from their intuitions or experience.
What I was curious about is any kind of statistics or study.
Yeah that was a common belief in the 70s. It was none other than Saint Lou Reed who put the kibosh on it with "you don't get to call yourself gay unless you suck cock or get fucked."
Yes a lot of gay men were horribly misogynistic, referring to women as "fish." I don't know about lesbians.
But I will just let it out here. While gay people have made disproportionate contributions to society and culture, the gay culture has never produced anything of value and at least back when I was briefly in it was rotten to the core. Rotten with cruelty and shallowness and useless in its disincentives to maturity. Gay men were encouraged to capitulate to every impulse and indulge any whim, to never grow up.
I remember one late morning in 1982 some time after we learned what AIDS really was, that we had to cut way back on the promiscuity. It hit me all of a sudden with one of those hard heart thumps: my life was going to change. I'd been to bathhouses a few times and sometimes it was a blast. That was clearly over, but of course the bathhouses would be closed soon anyway.
They weren't.
A lot of people prudently changed their behavior but many reacted in defiance, almost moving into the bathhouses, refusing to use condoms, aggressively promiscuous and infecting murderously. And the goddamn gay community, steeped in the ethos of postmodernism and long accustomed to resisting negative messages about sex, refused to make the most evident judgments. Yap yap yap "personal responsibility."
Even when infected men were lying about their HIV status and perforating their condoms to deliberately infect others, value judgments were off limits.
It was a sick, ghastly society and if it still exists it almost certainly still is.
Steve and others have noted that I am chillingly comfortable in drawing lines. I do not hesitate to condemn, and if you ever wondered why, now you know.
I'm a bit skeptical that bisexuality is so rare (in males). Of course it's conceived of as being a spectrum, with very few in very middle (eg: the range of 49%/51% to 51%/49%), or at the extreme ends. But there seem to be a good number of men who have substantial amounts of attraction towards both sexes, closer to the middle than to the ends of that spectrum.
But I recognize that my assessment is based more on experience than objective statistics. Do you have any source for believing that bisexual men are very rare?
Also, you referenced males. Do you believe that bisexual females are more or less common? And why LG rather than LGB if you are talking about all sexes, not just males?
I've read a lot about bisexuality and all studies say the same thing: 50/50 bi men are exceedingly uncommon. I have never met one. I didn't say there are none.
Most bi men are basically gay men who top and go with a woman once in a while.
With women the attraction is much more about the relationship than visual arousal and I have read that women can choose their orientation a lot more than men; my best friend in the USA is bi and married to a man but based on his health I doubt they have sex.
I last went to a gay public territory in 1996. I was 42 and in great shape but already past the age where I felt like I fit in and I saw men older than I being savagely abused with name-calling. I continued to hook up on the Internet but gay places are for people under 30 who want to ruin their hearing and their lungs.
Maybe it depends on how one defines bisexuality. As I noted, there are very few who are 100/0, 50/50, or 0/100 - or for that matter 90/10 or 36/64. That's way too narrow. a range.
I was suggesting that being closer to the middle than to either end, like "at least 1/4 towards each" as a broader definition. I doubt that is as rare.
Not quibbling over ratios.
I've never met any men I would call bisexual. My three hetero experiences don't make me bi. Anyway it's about attraction, not sex.
Gay men are prejudiced against bisexuality.
Yes, I've heard gay men dismiss male bisexuals as fence sitters, and treat them as being partway along the coming out process. It makes sense, based on their own experience, for many. And I meet bisexuals who figure everybody is really bisexual, some are just too hung up to let it out - again, generalizing from their intuitions or experience.
What I was curious about is any kind of statistics or study.
Yeah that was a common belief in the 70s. It was none other than Saint Lou Reed who put the kibosh on it with "you don't get to call yourself gay unless you suck cock or get fucked."
Yes a lot of gay men were horribly misogynistic, referring to women as "fish." I don't know about lesbians.
But I will just let it out here. While gay people have made disproportionate contributions to society and culture, the gay culture has never produced anything of value and at least back when I was briefly in it was rotten to the core. Rotten with cruelty and shallowness and useless in its disincentives to maturity. Gay men were encouraged to capitulate to every impulse and indulge any whim, to never grow up.
I remember one late morning in 1982 some time after we learned what AIDS really was, that we had to cut way back on the promiscuity. It hit me all of a sudden with one of those hard heart thumps: my life was going to change. I'd been to bathhouses a few times and sometimes it was a blast. That was clearly over, but of course the bathhouses would be closed soon anyway.
They weren't.
A lot of people prudently changed their behavior but many reacted in defiance, almost moving into the bathhouses, refusing to use condoms, aggressively promiscuous and infecting murderously. And the goddamn gay community, steeped in the ethos of postmodernism and long accustomed to resisting negative messages about sex, refused to make the most evident judgments. Yap yap yap "personal responsibility."
Even when infected men were lying about their HIV status and perforating their condoms to deliberately infect others, value judgments were off limits.
It was a sick, ghastly society and if it still exists it almost certainly still is.
Steve and others have noted that I am chillingly comfortable in drawing lines. I do not hesitate to condemn, and if you ever wondered why, now you know.