Bi The Way

I was reading a post on Lesbian Said What about Religious intolerance and amongst the comments was a post by some character called “Sane” who struck me as being totally insane. His argument against Gay Marriage was so laughably bigoted I had to repost it just to be sure I inhabit the same world.

“Sane” cites an article which is a synopsis of a book by Dr. James Dobson, called “Marriage Under Fire”. Dobson, a homophobe and evangelical Christian seems to be pretty dumb for a guy a with a PHD in psychology, so sit back and enjoy as a lay university drop-out (ie: me) savages his arguments. Which for the record, can be found here: http://nosamesexmarriage.com/marriage/nogaymarriage.php

Argument #1. Same Sex Marriage Decays Families

Dobson cites the example of Scandinavia where half of all children are born out of wedlock. OK – what has this got to do with same-sex couples? After all same-sex relationships don’t produce children! I think we can squarely lay the blame for this statistic on the straight community.

Argument #2. Gay Marriage Will Lead to Polygamy

Actually this hasn’t proved to be the case at all. Gay marriage and civil partnerships where available, have largely been taken up by monogamous couples. We’ve had several years of legal “gay marriage” in various countries and to date, no-one has ever been charged with Polygamy, ie: marrying more than one person, (an offence under UK, European and US law) whereby the offender was married or in a civil-partnership with someone of the same sex.

To be honest Dobson here I think is confusing polygamy with polyamorous relationships, and as I’ve already stated it tends to be monogamous couples who take advantage of civil partnerships or gay marriage. The incidence of married polyamorous gay couples seems to be about the same as the incidence of polyamorous straight couples. Don’t believe me? Join a swingers club.

Argument #3. States Will No Longer Protect Marriage

Actually legalising gay marriage is all about protecting partnerships and giving gay, lesbian and bisexual couples the same legal rights as straight couples. How can we accused of undermining marriage when we are actually trying to encourage it?

Contrary to Dobson’s theory that it will make divorce easier. As far as gay marriage its concerned when it comes to divorce settlements, it actually makes it harder for gay couples to separate without financial consequences and gay-marriage actually rewards same-sex couples for staying together.

Argument #4. Children Will Be Taught Perversion

I choked on my cocoa when I read this one… Homosexuality and Bisexuality are not perversions. What gives Dobson the right to declare it so? Its such a backward view I almost can’t believe its been published, its right up there with the view that “the world is flat.” Dobson is a psychologist, so I’ll counter with the view of a far more respected and eminent psychologist, namely Sigmund Freud. Freud believed we were all inherently bisexual and that it was societies norms and expectations that made us predominantly straight. If you define perversion by what is ‘normal’, as opposed to what is ‘natural’, then Dobson may have a point, but I’ll opt to respect nature over societies social constructs, when I start to describe things as perversions.

My increasing opinion is that Freud was right and heterosexuality is a perversion of nature perpetrated by society and religion. Children aren’t born with prejudice, they get that from adults, so by teaching them that straight is great and queer is weird I think we are perverting their minds.

Argument #5. Children Will Be Placed in Gay Households

So what? Gay and Bisexual people have been parenting children since time began, especially in times that didn’t allow them to be open or honest with themselves or others about their sexuality. Over half of my gay and bisexual friends are parents. Their kids are fine.

Oh and please don’t think this is a contradiction of Argument #1. Gay people produce kids, not same-sex couple’s… can all the small minded bigots out there keep up?

Argument #6. Parents Will Be Required to Accept Homosexuality in Their Children

Er… yes that’s the general idea… In particular Dobson seems to reference foster parents of gay children, who will apparently have to undergo “sensitivity training” so they can be accepting of gay youths. You know what I think? If you need sensitivity training to accept LGBT teens, you shouldn’t be a foster parent!

Argument #7. Gay Partners Will Burden the Government Entitlement System

I love this one… its so ill thought out, its like a lazy slow ball begging to be hit out of the ground. Dobson wants us all to be straight, so in his utopia there will be 6 Billion straight people all wanting to get married and have two point four children under wedlock. Each couple claiming benefits under government entitlement systems for married couples.

Until recently people in same sex relationships have been letting the government off the hook. Their “gayness” was a get out of jail free card for the benefits system. Imagine the burden the system would be under if all these gay, lesbian and bisexual people went straight. Could you imagine the claims?

Instead, we opted for Gay Marriage… Why? Because its cheaper!!! Yes thanks to Gay Marriage, same-sex couples have the same pension rights, and tax allowances as straight couples, but as we’ve already established gay-couples don’t produce children, so the government doesn’t have to pay for paternity leave, both partners can invariably remain in full employment for their full working lives and actually contribute more to the treasury in terms of income tax and social security than a straight couple. Best of all due to the absence of children they can at the same time be less of a burden on the system.

Argument #8. Gay Marriage Will Spread Quickly to Other Countries

Good. What’s the problem again?

Argument #9. Evangelism Will Be Hindered

Again Good. What’s the problem with that? If this is the kind of thoughtless bullshit evangelism produces then frankly its rather hindering itself without any help from the LGBT community.

Argument #10. The Culture Will Be Anti-Christian

Yet again good, though more specifically culture will be anti-Abrahamic religions, which include Judaism, Islam and Christianity. In short, more secularism. Great! Sorry, but I just don’t see any of the last 3 points as a negative.

This is intended as a scare tactic to mobilise the zealously religious parts of the USA, politically being “Anti-Christian” is almost as bigger slur as being a “liberal”. But frankly I don’t have a problem being “Anti-Christian” if being “Pro-Christian” means I have to be a bigoted homophobe that believes in the rather dubious morality of the Old Testament. Which for those of you who don’t know is where the Christian prohibition of homosexuality originates, along with other such gems as executing children who curse their parents, stoning adulterers to death and massacring women and children. Yep its all in the old testament. Yet curiously the only part of it which hasn’t been disowned by the church is the bit about homosexuality.

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OK – How did I do?

Over the weekend I found an excellent resource for young LGBT people. The Queer Youth Network is non-profit-making organisation that is run by and for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender young people. They are active in campaigning for LGBT rights including an end to homophobic bullying both in schools and in the workplace as well as advocacy of marriage equality and ensuring that young LGBT people are not denied sexual health information.

The Queer Youth Network’s web site is a great resource, with message boards and regional groups, which made it a great way to meet new people, chat on-line and get support through tricky periods like coming out. There’s also advice and resources about LGBT rights and information on how you can get involved in campaigns.

Campaigning has been central to the Queer Youth Network since its inception. They successfully spearheaded a campaign to overturn Kent County Councils “mini-section 28″ (then known as the Queer Youth Alliance) and have organised a boycott of transport giant Stagecoach over allegations of institutional homophobia within the company directed at both staff and customers.

In 2006 The Queer Youth Network also launched Queer Youth Radio, the shows are produced by its members and youth groups from across the UK.

Best of all they seem to be genuinely interested in bisexuals and have a section dedicated to it on their web site, from which they were also kind enough to link to us. So I return the favour in this article.

• Queer Youth Network – Bisexuals

There’s a bar I go to quite regularly. I normally drop in for a beer in the early evening, not that I’m a big drinker, just that it gets me out of the house and away from my computer for a couple of hours. Working from home you need a few places to “escape to” otherwise you never stop work. Due to my early evening drink, I tend to hit this pub when it’s at its quietest. So you get to know the staff and in particular I’ve gotten to know the landlord Jon.

Jon is a self-declared homophobe. Which on the face of it seems like odd label to claim for yourself. Now Jon isn’t a gay-basher or a thug, just a 40 year-old career publican with two divorces and a Catholic upbringing behind him. So we can allow him a degree of latitude in wanting to create a hard-man persona, however his self-declared homophobia has always amused me, especially as he seems to run such a Gay-Friendly Pub.

Jon will openly tell people, and frequently does, that he “can’t understand homosexuality”, that he thinks “its sick” and “unnatural”. But its difficult to take him seriously or find offence in his words because over the years he has hired so many Gay people, that at one point I think they actually outnumbered the straight staff.

He goes further, insisting that if saw a gay couple kissing in the bar, he’d ask them leave. “Not family friendly” he insists. Again though rather hard to take offence at this hypothetical because in 20 years, its never happened. Come to think of it, unless you count a couple of sixteen year-old’s having a quick snog over a slush-puppy I don’t think anyone has ever made-out in Jon’s pub, its just not that sort of bar.

So what purpose does Jon’s “homophobia” serve? His expression of it as an opinion, is on the face of it, protection from non-existent threat. A bit like bombing a series of remote mountain caves in an attempt to kill a dialysis patient, Jon’s homophobia is all for show, but for who’s benefit? Is he trying to compensate for his gay-friendliness so he doesn’t appear ‘weak?’ Does he have some homosexual feelings he’s yet to have inwardly accepted or resolved? Is he racked with Catholic guilt for some repressed homosexual encounter in his youth?

It would be easy to say “yes obviously” and cite the over-used and largely unproven hypothethis that all homophobia is born out of an individual’s own unresolved homosexual urges. But I honestly don’t think that is the case with Jon. Though as someone who believes in innate bisexuality I can’t dismiss this as a possibility.

For me though it seems like a defence mechanism, albeit one that misplaced and unnecessary. Jon’s biggest fear isn’t of being homosexual himself (because clearly he isn’t) or even of having gay people around him or (heaven forbid) hitting on him. What Jon fears is how his gay-tolerance might be perceived by other people.

This isn’t to say he isn’t really a homophobe, he believes his own rhetoric, he’s brainwashed himself with his homophobic mantras. My observation is just that his words don’t match his actions. And I honestly think that Jon’s homophobia is born out of fear of other people’s homophobia, rather than any real fear or hatred of homosexuals.

At any rate, he’s an interesting case study, largely because he’s the only homophobe I can tolerate enough to spend time with.

Today is a very special day in the bisexual calendar. The 23rd of September is the day we celebrate Bisexual Pride. The day is an opportunity for bisexual people, their friends and supporters to celebrate bisexuality. A number of events are being held across the UK, Europe and the US to mark the occasion.

Bisexual Pride Day, or Celebrate Bisexuality Day as its officially known, is the brainchild of three bi-rights activists from the United States, Wendy Curry, Michael Page and Gigi Raven and was first celebrated in 1999, regular annual events have been held since.

The idea of a bisexual pride event which is separate from the mainstream LGBT events was really a response to the perceived marginalisation of bisexual people by elements of both the straight and gay community. This is understandable when you consider that no bisexual has ever been able to come out without someone suggesting, its just a phase and we’ll “straighten out” or a transition on the way to accepting “true homosexuality”. So as part of the main LBGT pride events, particularly marches, a fleeting waive of purple amongst all the pink really can look like a passing phase.

So bisexuality now has its own date on the Calendar, a day when it can stand up and be counted on its own and gain recognition as a separate identity to being straight or gay. But its not all about protest, its about fun, a time for the bisexual community to come together and celebrate bisexual history, culture and to hang out with some really cool people.

In truth most of the events were celebrated over the weekend, but there is still one event being held today in Manchester (UK). Unfortunately due to work commitments I’ve not been able to make any of the events myself, but I’ve put on my rather faded purple t-shirt so show some solidarity.

Anyway, happy Bisexual Pride Day.

Just when we thought California had asserted itself as the “Gay-Friendly” State in the US. I was disappointed to learn that there has been an amendment tabled, with Republican Support, aimed at striking down California’s liberal and tolerant attitude towards gay marriage.

Proposition 8 is an initiative measure on the 2008 California General Election ballot. Which if passed would amend the State Constitution with a new section that would effectively outlaw marriage between same sex partners.

The purpose of this post is to call on all readers in California to VOTE NO to Proposition 8.

California is well known within the US and abroad, for being a progressive and tolerant state. It ought to uphold its historic and long established defence of equal freedoms and rights for all citizens, including the right to marry whoever they wish. This amendment threatens California’s reputation for tolerance and equality and must be defeated.

Now you may ask yourself, what right has a Brit to medal in the affairs of a US State? Well when it comes to US affairs I think we all have a right to voice our opinion as the United States is the world’s last super-power, and in recent times has been rather keen to exert its values on the rest of the world. As a non-US citizen, I don’t get a vote, but I do get a voice. And as long as the US is keen to export its values, I think the rest of the world deserves the right to help influence what those values might be.

Granted California is just one state, but if California leads the way on Gay Marriage and LGBT tolerance, other states will follow. Whilst Europe may still be streets ahead when it comes to LGBT rights, once the US follows suit, exporting equality for LGBT people worldwide will be so much easier.

The most recent opinion polls show that California is split on Proposition 8 with 40% in favour 56% against and 6% undecided. (The sample has an approx 3% margin of error.) There is thankfully a small majority against proposition 8, but this can all change on election day and its no time to be complacent.

So please do all that you can to vote down Proposition 8.

For more information please see:

• Lesbian Mommy – LGBT Call to Action
• No on Proposition 8 (campaign Web site)

The other day, Brad made a comment on my earlier piece “Are All bisexual men closet gay?” He asserted that bisexuality was best described as a behaviour rather than a sexual orientation. His remarks were well made, but his conclusions so outrages that I just had to respond.

Here are Brad’s remarks in full:

Bisexuality is better described as a behavior rather than a sexual orientation. As stated, people are rarely (if ever) exactly 50% attracted to men AND 50% attracted to women. Presuming that most people want one life partner at any given time, they will find themselves attracted to the same sex (gay) or opposite sex (straight).

Your sexual orientation is a permanent part of your DNA. The way you behave is a complex part of your community, family upbringing, religious beliefs, etc. So you can play the field as a bisexual, but your orientation at the end of the day is either gay or straight.

OK Brad gets one thing right and that’s the fact that bisexuals are rarely, if ever, equally attracted to both genders. However, he uses this as the basis for his next statement where he wrongly presumes that “most people want one life partner”. This is flawed, because actually a lot of people don’t. Bisexuals in particular can seek to have two concurrent relationships, and depending on the bisexual in question, one or both of these relationships might be considered to be with a “life partner”.

However, even those bisexuals who choose to be monogamous, do not have their sexuality defined by their current partner. I’ve had relationships with guys and relationships with women, but never at the same time. I expect to continue to have relationships with either gender until I find Mr or Mrs right. Do I magically change from being “straight” to “gay” depending on my current partner? Does my DNA reprogram itself depending on who I’m currently dating?

Of course it doesn’t (and I’ll deal with Brad’s misconceptions about genetics in a moment). What’s more when I’m in a relationship with a girl (and presumably straight according to Brad) how does he explain me still turning my head when I see a fit guy? I might not act on these feeling when I’m in a relationship, but it doesn’t stop me taking a second look.

Now lets move back to my DNA and how I’m supposedly preprogrammed to be straight or gay. First up, scientists have been unable to demonstrate that sexuality is genetically predetermined. In fact the current theory gaining ground, is that homosexuality (in men at least) is determined by the conditions in the womb.

Now that doesn’t really explain bisexuality nor does it prove it’s existence and Brad is right about one more thing, The way we behave is a complex mix of our community environment, family upbringing and religious beliefs. But since when have any of those factors ever encouraged bisexuality?

Never! In fact quite the contrary, all of those factors almost always encourage people to be straight!

So I return to Sigmund Freud and his theory of innate bisexuality. The theory basically states that to a greater or lesser degree we are all born bisexual and that societies norms and pressures mould us into becoming straight.

Haven’t you noticed how society almost brainwashes us into being heterosexual?

Granted, In recent years greater tolerance of homosexuality has allowed gay-leaning people to be accepted as homosexual. Provided they identify as Gay society lets them off the hook. But for everyone else heterosexuality is on the only option on the table. From a young age we are indoctrinated to believe that the only socially acceptable outcome for us is to pair up with a member of the opposite sex and make babies. Look at the imagery we are given, look at the games we play, look at the teachings on sexual morality we get from our churches and chaplains.

If you want further evidence to support this theory, show me a bisexual who isn’t strong willed and doesn’t know his/her own mind? I’m not saying there aren’t strong-willed gay or straight people, but to identify as bisexual you have to break out of societies expectations and tear up the rule book that people have been lecturing you from since you were old enough to walk. This takes a strong-minded individual.

Ultimately though, the best argument to prove my point is that, nothing in our modern social structures encourages bisexuality, yet everything encourages heterosexuality. So what’s more likely to a be an acquired behaviour?

Have I done enough to rubbish Brad’s theory?

Well we got the news today. Bitheway.co.uk made it into 9rules. Naturally we’re honoured and chuffed that the site was one of the few picked from thousands of submissions.

For those of you that don’t know, 9rules is like Mensa for blogs. Its a highly selective online community of blogs and bloggers dedicated to bringing together the best content from the independent web. In 2006 it took the award for Best Community Site of the Year at SXSWi in Austin, Texas.

From Wikipedia: 

9rules is currently made up of over 30 communities divided by topics such as Gaming, Apple, Web Design and Web 2.0. Each member is hand-picked out of thousands that apply to join, their blogs evaluated over an extended period of time with regard to quality. In 2006 it is estimated to have had more than 200 members.

You can read more about 9rules here. I’m going to crack open a bottle of appletiser to celebrate.

There’s a prevalent view that bisexuals are nothing but liars and cheats, incapable of being in a faithful and committed relationship and that we are destined to sleep around and hurt anyone who gets close to us.

My frustration at this stereotype is well known, and I’ve already explained at length that there are many bisexuals like myself who, once in a relationship are exclusively monogamous. However, there are many bisexuals who are polyamorous, and whilst I’ll accept that this exacerbates the stereotype, does that make them liars and cheats?

Is it possible to be polyamorous and still be an ethical bisexual?

Well yes, I think it is. Lets be clear, there is nothing wrong with being polyamorous and having multiple, concurrent sexual partners provided certain conditions are met. Monogamy is after all, a trait not easily or naturally acquired by most men. Yet in our self-invented “rules of society”, monogamy is expected and being  polyamorous is frowned upon. So what are the conditions for ethical polyamorous relations?

Quite simply they are honesty and acquiescence. Provided a person is honest about their desire to have multiple concurrent sexual partners and those partners agree to let the person pursue those desires, then polygamous relationships can work and be very fulfilling. In fact a lot of people in poly-relationships have reported a greater feeling of trust and kinship for having been open and honest with one another about their desires.

Still, this tends to work best when both partners agree to explore their polyamorous side together. And things tend to fall apart when one partner agrees to allow the other to be polyamorous without first really considering how they would feel about someone else sleeping with ther person they love.

In short, the honesty that’s requires to survive a successful, long-term polyamorous relationship is two-way. The poly-partner must be open and honest about their desires, and the other partner must be honest about their ability to deal with having a poly-partner. There is no sense in pretending you are OK with your partner seeing other people if you are not genuinely cool with it. The relationship will just end in recrimination and resentment.

Fundamentally the ethical bisexual is open and honest, which in itself should make him or her instinguishable from any good boyfriend or girlfriend.

Sooner or later every openly bisexual guy is asked, or asks himself, how feels about dating or sleeping with someone who is transgendered. Usually when the topic is broached the reference is to a M2F pre-operative transsexual, a “shemale” or “ladyboy” if you will. And on the face of it, to many, it must seem like the perfect match for a bisexual man. I mean what more could a bisexual man want? A feminine beauty, equipped with a penis. Is that not every bisexual man’s dream?

Well, actually no, it isn’t, not always, and to be perfectly honest the whole notion rather arrogantly assumes that the transgendered person’s idea of a perfect date is a bisexual man. Transgender people can be straight, gay or bisexual. They exhibit the full range of sexual behaviour just like non-trans folk. So the chances of finding a mutual match aren’t greatly improved by focusing on the transgendered community.

Furthermore, our perceptions of transgendered people tend to be warped by transsexual pornography and this fuels the stereotypical belief that all transsexuals are wanton sex-goddesses and honey-traps for bisexual and bi-curious men, keen to let us enjoy the “best of both worlds” in a single platter.

What we tend to miss in all of this is that being transgendered is ultimately about gender identity and not about sex. As bisexuals we need to move past the pornographic stereotype and recognise transgendered people as more than just sex objects. After all, just like with any other group of people, there are beautiful, ugly, thin, fat, shallow, deep, intelligent, dumb, kind, cruel and loving transsexuals out there, but our primary exposure is to the ‘porn-star tranny’ and that’s not exactly representative of the wider transgendered community which includes people from all walks of life.

Finally from the bisexual point of view, whilst there are those of us who are naturally attracted to transgendered people, there are many of us who are not. Once again the bisexual falls foul of the misconception that we want to be with a man and a woman simultaneously, (which is rarely the case,) or that we want to be involved a man and a women concurrently, (which frequently isn’t the case either).

In this scenario, a pre-op M2F transsexual is been touted as the “solution” to our presumed polyamorous desires. This I find someone offensive on two levels, not that I have any problems with transsexuals, but the notion assumes that a) we bisexuals are all polyamorous, which we are not, and b) that being polyamorous is something that requires a solution, something that needs to be fixed.

This presumption is equally insulting to both bisexual and to transgendered people who frankly deserve more respect.

I thought I’d share a great post on the Queers United Blog about how to coutner the arguments against Gay Marriage:

Its well worth a read, and reiterates a lot of arguments I’ve previously made myself on various web forums so I’m very happy to recommend it.