[Greta Christina] The Case of the Missing Bisexual
Harebrained speculation time:
Why aren’t there more “true” bisexuals? (”True” in quotation marks — so please don’t all start yelling at me.)
One of the interesting puzzles about sexual orientation is the way it’s distributed in the population. It’s very far from a neat bell curve, with a few heterosexuals and homosexuals at either end, and a big peak in the bisexual middle. It’s not even a slanty bell curve, peaking sharply at “more or less heterosexual” and sloping down gradually towards “more or less homosexual.”
Instead, it’s a double bell curve — with one peak near “leaning towards straight,” and another, smaller peak near “leaning towards gay.” (The height and shape and location of these peaks vary depending on who’s doing the study . . . but the basic “double bell curve with one high peak and one low” pattern seems to hold pretty steady.)
Translation: Very few people are strictly straight or strictly gay . . . but most people do have something of a preference for one gender or the other. Quote unquote “true” bisexuals, people who are attracted to women and men equally, are fairly rare. Even if we take self-identification out of the picture — even if we define orientation purely on the basis of desire or behavior — we still see this tendency.
Why would this be?
If sexual orientation were entirely genetic — if there were some evolutionary reason for humans to be more heterosexual than not but to have some fluidity around that — why would we have the double peaks? Wouldn’t we just have the slanty bell curve, peaking around 1 or 1.5 on the 0-to-6 Kinsey scale, and gradually curving down towards 6? Why would we have a small second peak at around 4.5 or 5?
I freely acknowledge that there might be some good genetic reason for this “double bell curve” phenomenon, one that we just don’t know yet. I’ll even acknowledge that there might be some good genetic reason for this phenomenon, one that somebody else knows but that I don’t. I’m definitely not a sexual orientation constructionist (translation: person who thinks orientation is entirely constructed by society). The science is still shaking out, but it does seem to be pointing to genetics as at least a significant factor in determining which gender or genders we like to boff. And it might well turn out that genetics play an important role in this “double peak” pattern.
But I’ll also say this:
I think it’s quite plausible that the double peak is entirely cultural.
And there are two specific cultural trends that I think may be skewing our orientations towards the two peaks.
The first is homophobia . . . and the way it’s sorted our culture into Straight and Gay. The two mix and overlap, of course — straight people have gay friends, and vice versa — but they’re still distinct social categories. Especially in parts of the country and the world that are more homophobic. Because of homophobia, people who lean towards being queer have a strong need to create a gay culture, a community shaped around sexual and romantic desire towards people of the same sex. And of course, because of homophobia, straight people have historically shunned queers — and have denied any queer tendencies in themselves. This has improved dramatically, but it’s only improved fairly recently, and it does still go on today.
So because society has sorted itself into two intermingling but distinct groups — Gay and Straight — people somewhere in the middle often feel a need to pick one. There is a bisexual community, but it’s nowhere near as visible, or as well-organized, as either the straight or gay worlds. And it can be very hard to drift back and forth between those two worlds. People whose natural orientations lie close to the middle of the scale — say, a 2.5 or 3.5 on the scale of 0 to 6 — often wind up picking a side, and more or less sticking to it.
And that tendency can be self-perpetuating. A cultural preference for straight society or the gay community can slant your sexual preference towards women over men, or vice versa. I know that I tend to get more interested in women when I’m spending more time in dyke culture, and I get more interested in men when I’m hanging around straight people more. It’s a simple matter of who’s on my mind. Not to mention who’s available. Love the one you’re with, and all that. Or lust after the one you’re with, anyway.
So that’s Harebrained Speculation Number One for the double peak.
Harebrained Speculation Number Two: Biphobia.
There’s a strong bias against bisexuals in both straight and gay cultures. Gay culture tends to see bisexuals as traitors, fence-sitters, kinky thrill-seekers, people who can’t commit either politically or personally. Straight society tends to see bisexuals as fickle, unreliable, secretly gay people who just can’t admit it. Plus straights often see us as promiscuous . . . and, of course, in the age of AIDS, they see us as vectors of disease. And both gays and straights tend to see us as confused, experimenting, “going through a phase.”
All of which exacerbates people’s tendency to sort into gay or straight culture. The strong biases against bisexuality — from both gays and straights — push many people to pick one camp or the other . . . people who might not otherwise need or want to. People who might have identified as bisexual can internalize this biphobia, and decline to call themselves bi. And people who privately identify as bi are often reluctant to do so publicly.
So largely because of homophobia from the straight world, we have a tendency to sort ourselves into straight society and the gay community. Because of biphobia from both straight and gay cultures, this tendency gets exaggerated. And this cultural tendency gets transformed into personal sex behavior and desire . . . which then turns into a self-perpetuating feedback loop. Hence, the “double peak” pattern in our sexual orientations — a pattern that might be much less pronounced, and might not even be there at all, if these social trends weren’t there.
I’m not sure how you’d test this hypothesis. But here’s what I’d expect to see if it were true:
If it were true, then in parts of the world that were less homophobic — and less biphobic — I’d expect to see a less vividly pronounced double peak. (If the less-homophobic, less-biphobic trend had been happening for long enough, anyway.)
And if it were true, then if society continues to become less homophobic — and less biphobic — over the coming decades, I’d also expect to see the strong double peaks soften and flatten towards a more standard slanty bell curve.
It might not flatten out entirely. Again, there may be some genetic reasons for the double peak in the bell curve, ones that we don’t know about. And even in an entirely non-homophobic, non-biphobic society, we still might have something of a cultural tendency to sort into gay and straight cultures. For dating/ cruising purposes if nothing else. But I think without these cultural factors, this double peak would very likely flatten out significantly.
I’m not saying “everyone is basically bisexual.” I think that’s bullshit. Some people are clearly not bisexual. Some people are clearly gay or straight. And even though most people do have at least some capacity to be attracted to both/all genders, that still doesn’t make them “basically bisexual.” Sexual identity is complicated — it’s about political identity, cultural identity, sexual history, romantic and relationship preferences, etc., as well as basic sexual attraction. And when people are deciding which identity (if any) works best for them, they get to decide for themselves which of these factors gets priority. I don’t want someone insisting that I’m “basically lesbian” because I’m currently hovering around 5 on the Kinsey scale — so I’m not going to insist that someone else is “basically bisexual” because they’re currently hovering around 4.
So I’m not saying “everyone is basically bisexual.” I’m saying that, at least for those of us in the wide sloppy middle of the Kinsey scale, sexual orientation is at least somewhat malleable. Like I wrote in my recent piece here, The Learned Fetish, the finer points of our sexual desires can be shaped by our experiences as adults — even if the basic outlines are set early on.
I’m not sure why I think this is important. I’m not sure the answer would have any effect in figuring out social policy or political strategy or dating strategy, or any other practical decisions we might make about sex. I’m even not sure that it is important, except that figuring out what is and isn’t true about reality is always important.
But I sure do think it’s interesting.
So what do you think? If you lean more towards one end of the Kinsey scale, do you think you might lean more towards the middle if society weren’t so divided into Gay and Straight? And if you’re already pretty squarely in the middle, do you think you’d have had an easier time getting there if it weren’t for the two camps?
This entry was posted on Wednesday, 25 November 2009 at 12:43 pm and is filed under Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
on Wednesday, 25 November 2009 at 1:28 pm annajcook wrote:
This is more of a refinement of what you’ve said (which I think totally makes sense) than anything else, but I also think that if you’re in a monogamous relationship with someone as a bisexual, then the “bi” part of who you are isn’t immediately evident because people read you socially as either “straight” (with an opposite-sex partner) or “lesbian/gay” (with a same-sex partner). I’m currently partnered with a woman and because of that, I don’t spend a lot of time correcting people who think, or might think, I’m 100% interested in women because they see me in a lesbian relationship — for right now (and hopefully for a long time to come) that will be who I am in the world: a woman in a lesbian relationship.
If I’d ended up falling in love with a man, then my same-sex desires would have been invisible to others unless I made them visible by talking about it (something that’s just not in my personality to do). But I realize that my tendency to be quiet about my sexual preferences, and to let my relationships speak for themselves does reinforce the cultural invisibility of people whose sexualities are more fluid or in tend to sit somewhere in the muddy middle.
So maybe cultural (and personal) tendencies towards monogamy also have a effect on the distribution of orientations/identities?
on Friday, 27 November 2009 at 8:32 am Kala Pierson wrote:
Absolutely, annajcook: people’s orientation is too often perceived in terms of their relationship status, not their desires. Unless one is in sustained relationships with multiple people, and those people are of more than one gender, one is usually perceived as oriented toward the gender of one’s current partner.
Speaking of genders: another big issue is, of course, the word bisexual itself. To many people who used to easily self-identify as bisexual, it now seems much too rigid; it seems to suggest, “The world consists of female people and male people, and therefore the three possibilities for orientation are that one is attracted to females, attracted to males, or attracted to both.” For many of us, labels like “queer” (or “pansexual,” or other words without that “binary” root) are better because they have so much more space than “bisexual” for the reality that people who don’t strictly identify as female or as male are part of our world and part of our desires.
on Tuesday, 1 December 2009 at 12:59 am Tiara wrote:
Thank you for writing this. Like Kala, I identify as pansexual: I like people, can’t be bothered with their gender. I’m currently in an open relationship with a great man and I like close contact with women (though I haven’t had a lesbian experience yet). And then you have to account for genderqueer, transgendered, and intersexed people - are they “bisexual” by default?
I often feel weird being in the queer community because I feel like I give out “fake!!” vibes. I’ve been to lesbian parties only to have my friends (who are aware of my boyfriend) ask “what are you doing here?”. Because apparently just being female and liking the safe space of a women-only party wasn’t enough? I acknowledge that I do have immense straight privilege, though I also am from a culture where I cannot make mention of my interest in sexuality (let alone pansexuality) at all.
I wish the bi/pan community was a bit more organised and cohesive; it would be great to get stories and perspectives on balancing relationships, physical needs, reframing boundaries, and just feeling like the queer amongst the queer.
on Wednesday, 2 December 2009 at 3:05 pm D wrote:
I’m a man whose had several homosexual experiences and I may have more. You may find it strange, then, that I’m pretty firmly on the straight side of the curve in terms of who I’m attracted to. What I mean to say is: Men don’t turn me on. Ever. The only parts about being with a guy that work for me are a) it’s highly forbidden, b) there’s often an ego/power thing around gay men who are sometimes so eager to do straight guys and c) some of these guys are just very physically good at what they do. But being attracted to a guy? Never. Having a crush on a guy? No.
If society had a more tolerant view of bisexuals, how would things change for me…? I’m not sure they would. Although if there were a more tolerant view of homosexuality, it might take away some of the excitement of doing something forbidden.
You think there are a lot of totally straight-feeling guys who sometimes indulge in what the other side offers?
on Wednesday, 2 December 2009 at 3:45 pm Quinalapus wrote:
Because there are so few organic opportunities for puns involving statistics, I feel obliged to point out that a “double bell curve” represents a bimodal distribution.
I didn’t promise that it would be a good pun.
on Wednesday, 2 December 2009 at 3:52 pm me_weird wrote:
I was gratified recently at a party that I have successfully identified myself to my community as bi. We were basically playing “everyone rate everyone on the Kinsey scale”. I know these people only through my boyfriend, and am always afraid that they all see me as straight because of that. Turns out I’ve been out and proud and LOUD: they all put me as predominantly female attracted, despite currently dating a man.
Anyway.
I do think that if society were different there’d be more bisexuals. I have a couple of female friends who I think are straight by socialization only, as the impression I get of them when they’re drunk is that they have strong same sex attraction. They just never learned what to do with it. And it does have to be learned. I was late to figuring out I was bi, and after I decided I liked women I figured I should like breasts. But all I’d ever thought of them was that they were big awkward blobs and everyone else’s are bigger than mine. So I borrowed a season of L-Word from a friend and set out to understand why anyone could find breasts attractive. After hours of intense study, I got it. It just took practice to get over my prior socialization that breasts were not what I was turned on by.
on Wednesday, 2 December 2009 at 4:55 pm Blake Stacey wrote:
Interesting thoughts (as always!).
I am, I’ve discovered, not a particularly sexual person: I’ve always been single, and I don’t feel an urge to change that status. I haven’t had a casual encounter or an evening of “friends with benefits” in (thinks back) the better part of a year, and I don’t feel like I need to do anything about that, either. This is one reason why I follow Greta Christina’s blog with such enjoyment: “Whoa, people really do care about sex! Fascinating.” What stock of desire I do have is split between women and men, somewhat more so to the former, though that varies over time (and whether we’re considering the superficial “that person across the street is cute” attraction or the kind which grows upon acquaintance, etc.).
My own half- or quarter-baked guess about the “missing middle” boils down to neuroscience and developmental biology. As PZ Myers once wrote,
From which he develops the following conjecture:
Taking this conjecture as given, it makes some sense that a random human would be more likely monosexual. The developmental programme instigated by a person’s genes gives them the neural structures to tell human from non-human, and other structures (partially overlapping, perhaps) to tell male from female. If the latter neurons “grow in backwards”, as it were, then we get a man who desires other men or a woman who desires other women. (This change doesn’t have to be genetic in origin: it might be a developmental accident which has a small probability of happening regardless of genes, so that sexual desire would be innate but not genetic. Or, variations in the genes could increase the probability of such a change in development, so that we’d see a DNA signature in some but not all people who identify as gay.) Perhaps having both versions of the neural pathways is less likely than having just one.
It’s all speculation, of course. A quarter-baked guess, as I said.
on Wednesday, 2 December 2009 at 9:04 pm feral sparrowhawk wrote:
I think its entirely possible you’re right, but I can offer an alternative hypothesis, on why it might actually be genetic.
Look at it like this. Imagine there is a “sexuality gene”. It’s highly probable the homosexual version would be recessive, because dominant genes that reduce your chance of having children have a much lower survival rate. It could be the sort of recessive gene we learn about at high school, that is one where if you don’t have two copies of it there are no signs (like Darwin’s peak on the ear - you have it or you don’t).
But it could just as easily be in that category of recessive genes where it you have one copy you get a limited effect. Eg people who have two sickle cell anemia genes have the disease, but people who have one just have blood that’s somewhat resistant to malaria, without ever getting anemia.
Let’s say that’s the case, and that 20% of the population carries this gene. What would we see: well 64% of the population would be entirely straight. And 4% would be entirely gay. And 36% would be in between. But the inbetweens wouldn’t be exactly equally in between, they’d be a spectrum, with no individual point being that common.
Now that still doesn’t sound like the world we see too much - more bis and fewer total gays. But what if this gene was on the X chromosome? Then what we’d see is a distribution like the one I’ve described for women, but for men we’d see 80% being totally straight and 20% being totally gay.
Of course this doesn’t describe the world either. We know bi men exist, but it certainly looks quite a lot like my circle of friends- ie most of the men are gay, quite a few are straight, and bis are rare, whereas for women the straights are the most common, but there are a lot more who identify as bi than lesbian.
If you decide there is not one, but two “sexuality genes”, genes on different parts of the genome that are independent of each other you can model situations that give us something like the twin peaks we see, and if at least one of them is on the X you get a different pattern for women and men.
Now let me stress that I’m not saying this is the case. Your theories are at least as credible as mine, and even if there is a genetic component I’m absolutely sure the social/cultural effects modify it pretty substantially. But still, the possibility is there.
PS I can also give an evolutionary theory on why this would be advantageous if anyone wants to listen.
on Wednesday, 2 December 2009 at 9:11 pm Iamcuriousblue wrote:
“I think it’s quite plausible that the double peak is entirely cultural.”
I tend to think of sexual behavior as an interaction between biological predisposition and acculturation, but I think you’re absolutely right about how culture pushes bisexuals toward one side or the other.
I think a good example is how common straight-oriented bisexuality has become among younger women. What I mean by “straight-oriented bisexuality” is women with a basically hetero orientation, who don’t identify as queer at all, yet have same-sex histories, often quite extensive ones. These women are often dismissed as “fake bisexuals” who are just doing it for men, but knowing the sexual history of several such women I’ve been with leads me to believe otherwise. These were women who were classic “glamour” bi girls who were highly attractive to men and were not above using their bi status as a come-on to men. (It definitely worked with me. :) At the same time, in many cases, their same-sex history was not incidental, and several had a history of long term relationships with other women.
I do think there’s a link between the arousal value that this kind of sexual history has toward men and these women’s bisexuality, but its not as simple as the “they’re just out to please men” canard. Rather, I think they have a genuine attraction to both sexes, but a greater orientation to men. The fact that their bisexual history actually raises their relative attractiveness to men, and like attractiveness in general, increases sexual opportunities and choice of partners, acts as a reinforcer to a bisexual orientation.
A negative response toward bisexuality, on the other hand, will tend to push someone away from bisexuality more toward the gender that they lean to. I think that this is the case for bisexual men. While bisexual men may be less common to begin with, there’s also a lot of disincentives. I generally don’t hear women speak nearly as positively about male partner’s same-sex history as would be the case if the genders were reversed. And gay men are notoriously bi-unfriendly as well. Hence, in those cases there’s a lot of motivation to “settle” on one side or the other. But I would guess if there was a wave of “hot bi boy” fetishization among straight women equivalent to straight men’s “hot bi girl” fetish, open same-sex activity among men would be considerably more common.
on Wednesday, 2 December 2009 at 9:47 pm Blake Stacey wrote:
So, you’re saying we need more Yaoi Fangirls, eh? (-:
on Wednesday, 2 December 2009 at 11:44 pm ChrisZ wrote:
I also don’t know what the reason for a bimodal distribution would be, but let me throw out a few biological possibilities that haven’t yet been mentioned. Keep in mind that I am not a biologist and am just speculating for the sake of it.
Possibility 1: Sexual orientation is mostly about what kinds of features one is attracted to (yes this is part of the speculation). Since the distribution of physical features is pretty bimodal, with men on one side and women on the other, people’s preferences tend to fall into one of those two camps.
Possibility 2: The male/female dichotomy is a very real one in our species. Our whole reproductive system is designed around having one of each. Given that, perhaps the who-you-are-attracted-to direction we get from our brains is given in the form “you are attracted to men” or “you are attracted to women.” Switching the man/woman around in a given person takes one kind of genetic/embryological change, and broadening ones attractions to include members of both sexes takes an entirely different one. If the first change were more likely than the second, this would also result in a bimodal distribution.
Possibilty 3: A Normal Distribution (or a slanty one) is the natural result of a number of independent probabilistic events (flipping a bunch of coins a number of times and counting the number of heads yields a normal distribution). If, however, the events in question are not independent, they could very well result in a multimodal distribution. If, for instance, sexual orientation is strongly governed by a series of embryological events where say the first “straight event” makes subsequent “straight events” more likely and vice versa, then a bimodal distribution would be expected.
Anyway, those may be laughably wrong, but it’s what I could come up with quickly. I would be shocked if our currently less-than-tolerant society doesn’t cause a number of people in the bisexual camp to just pick the straight side (hell, it causes a lot of gay people to just pick the straight side), but that of course gives no evidence about how many bisexual people there are out there.
I would like to see any research on what these distributions are like in animal populations, maybe that would give us some insight into the nature of the dichotomy in our species.
on Thursday, 3 December 2009 at 3:35 am Valhar2000 wrote:
I am 100% straight, with no “gay encounters” under my belt nor expectation or desire of having any. Nonetheless, I find this discussion interesting, but, I have to ask: how rare am I?
I used to think that I was squarely one the average, but all this talk I keep hearing about straight men’s occasional gay-themed fantasies, or gay experiences, makes me wonder: I’ve never had any of that, and not because I’ve put any effort into repressing anything.
on Thursday, 3 December 2009 at 9:45 am Iamcuriousblue wrote:
Re: feral sparrowhawk
While there is evidence that there is, in part, a biological component to sexual preference (eg, separated twin studies showing rates of homosexuality above control levels in twin siblings reared apart), nobody has so far ever been able to find something as simple as a “gay gene”. Whatever biological component there is to sexual preference, it probably cannot be reduced down to a simple single-locus dominant/recessive genetic model.
on Thursday, 3 December 2009 at 10:52 am David Harmon wrote:
My theory is a slight variation on Blake Stacey’s:
We have male-recognition and female-recognition “circuits”, both of which include evaluation of desirability. Note that these are parallel, and in some developmental sense, they’re likely to be “adjacent”. We also have a “mate-seeking” circuit, which normally (that is, usually) takes it’s primary feed from the opposite-gender recognition circuit — but that’s not usually a complete lockout, and the connection continues to develop well past birth and well into infancy. More, that mate-seeking circuit has its own parallelisms and relations — in particular, it’s closely linked with social attachment in general. (Notice how we use the same word, “love”, for family bonds as for romantic attachments — and sometimes for strong friendships!)
That pattern allows for culturally-encouraged, and “occasional”, same-sex relations even among heterosexuals (especially during adolescence). But it also also allows for occasional developmental disruptions to shift the *primary* mate-seeking orientation, partly or completely, to the same gender. (I’m thinking of various studies I’ve heard about linking homosexuality to prenatal stress, and also clustering it with other neurodiversities.)
on Thursday, 3 December 2009 at 11:27 am sterculius wrote:
As a “straight” married guy who also enjoys performing fellatio, this article explains my orientation. http://www.cleansheets.com/coverstories/galarza_01.04.06.shtml
on Thursday, 3 December 2009 at 2:53 pm miller wrote:
I’m part of a different invisible minority, that is, I’m asexual. I can say that I’ve felt some pressure, internal and external, to simply identify as gay. It’s just so much simpler. It requires no explanation. When I get involved in LGBT organizations, I know it’s what everyone assumes. And I think it’s partly true too, though my attraction to men has been so fleeting that it may be in the realm of illusion. Certainly, it is true in the sense that I’m currently attempting a same-sex relationship. But it’s not true in the sense of ever crushing on guys, or finding them “hot”, whatever that means.
I almost despair of ever explaining this to people. I’d like to be out to as many people as possible, but what would I say? I have some friends who think I’m gay, others who think I’m a permanently single asexual. I feel like a terrible representative.
on Friday, 4 December 2009 at 5:21 am Grant Denkinson wrote:
See also: The Bisexual Index: Curving Both Ways
on Sunday, 6 December 2009 at 6:11 am feral sparrowhawk wrote:
I am curious blue: I agree, I was trying to present a hypothetical, much simplified case to illustrate one theory. I recognise its got to be much more complex.
on Monday, 7 December 2009 at 2:12 pm Henry wrote:
Well written, well thought out theory.
I would wonder how I’d fit in on such a curve.
I don’t necessarily care for the company of men (I’m male) and find myself hanging in the kitchen with the women at parties or such gatherings. Most men in the other room think that ‘gay’ behavior. I don’t follow sports (’cept golf). I don’t consider myself macho but I’ve got a good athletic build. I probably have more girl friends than male and I ad my wife know a ton of gay / lesbian couples that we consider good friends.
I have participated in pegging with my wife. Everyone seems to think that’s the evil slippery slope that leads to homosexuality. I’ll just say nonsense and that anal sex thing is wild and kinky and really hits the prostate.
But there’s just nothing in a man that I feel I want or desire or … anything. Guys just don’t do it for me. Ugh!
Am I Straight? Am I bi? Straight with bi curiousity? A male lesbian? Love the feedback.
on Tuesday, 8 December 2009 at 11:07 am underscore wrote:
I’ll say I’m a lesbian to most of the general public, but in queer circles, I’ll sometimes say I’m a bisexual-leaning lesbian, or sometimes I’m attracted to guys, or something like that (but even then, my primary identity is still lesbian, and bisexual-leaning is describing what kind of lesbian I am). In a non-homophobic world this might not be the case, I might identify as bisexual to everyone, including myself. I don’t know.
I think for those of us who grew up in ultra-homophobic religions, there is an added pressure to be gay-gay-gay (gay^3, if you will) in order to justify going against the religion, the community you grew up in, your family’s approval, and in some cases, your family’s love. I mean, for me at least, telling myself I was bi was not a good enough reason to go against all of that. But if I really couldn’t make it work with another man, then maybe I had a good enough reason to leave all that. Does that make sense? I think that the ghettoizing effect can polarize people as well… if you’re going to go queer, you better be damn sure that is your LAST option and that you are super-duper queer.
on Wednesday, 9 December 2009 at 9:15 pm science_siren wrote:
As a woman who identifies as heterosexual, but would easily fall into the bisexual domain, I’ve never really understood why we have to place sexual orientation on this dichotomous scale from Heterosexual to Homosexual, with Bisexual plopped in between. Choosing your “number” necessitates determining how attracted you are to one sex *versus* the other, and of course, completely neglects people who are attracted to anything in between “men” and “women”. As a woman, it’s as if moving from a 3 to a 4 means I suddenly like men less and women more, when it could just be a product of my current relationship status or situation.
I am very fond of the interpretation of sexual orientation as two-dimensional, with an X- and a Y-axis. Instead of having to choose between opposites, I think many people would find it much easier to express a degree of attraction to men and women as two separate values that don’t have to cancel each other out. If you look at it as two-dimensional, liking women more doesn’t have to mean you like men any less, and it can also account for asexuality and different levels of sexual desire. Kinsey was a great start, but I think it’s time to move on to a more nuanced approach to sexuality….who’s with me?!?!!!
on Friday, 11 December 2009 at 3:50 pm Nathan wrote:
I’ve recently started identifying myself as heterosexual but biromantic - I have absolutely no desire to have sex with another man (or even curiosity about it) and I am definitely sexually attracted to women, but I have had crushes on men and desired physical closeness (cuddling, even kissing) with them.
Now, if I try to explain this to a queer friend, they invariably tell me that I’m just repressing the part of me that wants to have sex with men, and that I actually am bisexual to some extent, and if I try to explain it to a straight friend they invariably tell me that I just have a very close friendship with this person. Or, since my romantic feelings have only seriously expressed themselves for one individual, that its a case of “I don’t fall in love with men, I just fell in love with him.” And since he’s Asian and looks rather youthful and effeminate, I’ve even thought that perhaps I just categorize him as female.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that while I’m pretty sure I’d be a 0 on the Kinsey scale, I can’t help but wonder how much of that is cultural. I mean, the idea of having sex with a man repulses me, even a man who I will freely admit to being in love with. And I wasn’t even raised in a particularly homophobic environment. If I had been, I’m sure I’d be much more confused.
on Friday, 11 December 2009 at 3:51 pm kt wrote:
This reminds me very much of my one political science class in college. I never attended the class, but I did get an A. Part of the homework once was illustrating, using the mathematics of game theory, why a three-party system (given our voting set-up) is unstable and will always return to the stable two-party status quo. I think something similar must be going on with sexuality. Game theory, anyone?
on Friday, 11 December 2009 at 8:31 pm [Greta Christina] Why Did Gayness Evolve? | Blowfish Blog wrote:
[…] Contact « [Greta Christina] The Case of the Missing Bisexual […]
on Saturday, 12 December 2009 at 7:29 am annajcook wrote:
I almost despair of ever explaining this to people. I’d like to be out to as many people as possible, but what would I say? I have some friends who think I’m gay, others who think I’m a permanently single asexual. I feel like a terrible representative.
miller, this is slightly off-topic for the thread, but I was catching up on these comments this morning and your question made me think of this recent post by Essin Em about coming out. I don’t think it’s a moral imperative for anyone to be public about their sexual orientation and feelings unless they’re being hypocritical and judging others for activities they privately engage in (i.e. politicians who are in secret same-sex relationships but politically anti-gay). so if you’re worried about being a “terrible representative” it seems to me like you should be gentle with yourself.
I don’t identify as asexual, but all through high school, college, and several years post-college I had never been in any sort of romantic or sexual relationship, nor was I actively seeking that in my life . . . and I guess I never felt the need to explain that single-ness to people. I thought a lot about my sexual orientation privately, and discussed it with several close friends and family members (I’m currently in a wonderful relationship with another woman, my first relationship ever, at age twenty-eight) but mostly kept kind of a low profile when it came to identifying sexually, despite the fact I was in a women’s studies program in undergrad where people were coming out all over the place with different identity labels.
The downside of that is that when I did fall in love with a woman, all of the people who had been assuming (due to lack of information to the contrary) that I was straight were a little taken aback by my sudden desire for my girlfriend. For the most part, I hadn’t TOLD anyone “I’m 100% straight” when asked directly, but they assumed it because I wasn’t outspoken about my more fluid desires. But in my situation, anyway, it’s been a lot less stressful to answer questions one-to-one when there’s a concrete opportunity rather than trying to forestall the questions through announcing up front “I’m queer.”
But I realize that has a lot to do with personality and context! I just thought I’d pass along the link and my own reflections.
on Monday, 14 December 2009 at 9:28 pm Eclectic wrote:
Heres a theory for you: bisexuals are rare because people have an inbuilt tendency to fetishize.
The initial attraction to a particular sex may be weak, but repeated pubescent fantasizing tends to canalize it. Bisexuality is an unstable equilibrium, and most people fall off of it.
I’m not sure if this is true, but it makes a lot of sense to me…
on Wednesday, 16 December 2009 at 10:51 am Great Christina Blog: The Case of the Missing Bisexual - Kleenex and Lotion: The Hookup - Hookup wrote:
[…] Great Christina Blog: The Case of the Missing Bisexual I have a new piece on the Blowfish Blog. It features my harebrained speculation on why there are so few quote unquote “true” bisexuals — i.e., bisexuals who are attracted to women and men equally, and truly have no preference for one or the other. It’s called The Case of the Missing Bisexual, and here’s the teaser: Quote: […]