Sep 08 2008
Bisexuality, behaviour or sexual orientation?
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?
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8 Responses to “Bisexuality, behaviour or sexual orientation?”
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Good rebuttal
However on one point… I’m not sure that bis are more likely to not be satisfied with just one partner at a time actually. A look at the levels of non-monogamous behaviour in gay and straight populations alike says to me that it’s more likely that we are much more likely to notice and give due credit to someones bisexuality if they happen to have more than one partner of more than one gender at a given time.
We just notice people as being bi more when their relationships are complex than when they are simple. Damned invisibility.
Hmmm. I’ll say you have.
But I think it’s enough to say that our sexuality is not determined by our sex life. That, to me, says it all.
I think that bisexuality is just one of the markers on the sexuality scale. Some people say they are 100 percent one way or the other. I have a friend that likes to kiss girls because she feels attracted to girls. But the same friend says she wouldn’t have sex with a girl because her sexual attraction isn’t strong enough for her to.
It’s all good. I think society wants people to choose because that way society can stick them in to some box with a label. I say just be you, society should give a damn about who you sleep with as long as it’s consensual and they are of age.
C.
If bisexuality were merely a sociological behavior, I doubt it would be found in the animal kingdom. There are many animals who are sexually active with both males and females within their species.
Also, the Kinsey Report stated that a rather significant number of those interviewed found themselves sexually attracted to men and women. I don’t think it’s all that uncommon…nor has it ever been. It just hadn’t been quite so stigmatized until the last few centuries.
To clarify a point Jen made, I wasn’t trying to infer that bisexuals are more likely to be non-monogamous than straight or gay people. Only that having two concurrent partners is a more acceptable option for some bisexuals and that contrary to Brad’s assertion not all people want or seek out a monogamous relationship.
The neuroscience of sexual orientation is rather interesting. On the one hand, there are a lot of indicators that suggest that it is influenced by pre-birth and genetic factors, and there are a host of statistical differences between gay and straight men, many of which are clearly impossible to consciously control. There is also the consistently poor success rates of “reparative therapies” like those promoted by Exodus. That research indicates that sexual orientation is probably clearly defined and “not a choice” for at least a portion of the population.
What is not established is what effects are important in establishing sexual orientation. The truth is that no section of cognitive science, and no psychological or neurological theory, has adequately explained the totality of what the causes of homosexuality are.
So it should be no surprise that bisexuality is even less well understood, being a sort of gray area, and having (as it seems to me) less interest in the popular mind. It’s sort of astonishing to see people assert that sexual orientation is a dichotomy and not a continuum, since to my knowledge there is very little definitive research into what it would even mean to be “objectively” gay or straight, and a great deal of circumstantial evidence to suggest that some people are attracted to both sexes. Of course, in my mind the issue is settled, but scientifically you need statistics and non-subjective information as well as “anecdotal” evidence. The techniques to investigate bisexuality are, from what I’ve seen, still rather primitive.
So it makes no sense to state as fact that there are only “gay” or “straight” people. That merely means that the person speaking hasn’t encountered many people claiming to be otherwise.
In any case, there’s something absurd about insisting that someone has a “true” sexual orientation that he/she has to claim. After all, relationships take precedence over labels. If someone has good relationships with both sexes (whether concurrently or not), why insist that there’s some explanation?
If there turns out to be a deceptively simple explanation of sexual orientation, such as two specific competing processes, one can easily imagine some in-between, or situation in which neither wins. If it is more complex, one would expect it to be even easier for there to be diverse sexual orientations.
Side note: there is one study that showed that, in a particular trial, nearly every male respond preferentially to (i.e. get a bigger erection from) either gay or straight porn. Some people blew this out of proportion and said that male bisexuality does not exist. This obviously doesn’t work because it was a) only one small study, b) specific to porn preference, c) worked in a small time frame (maybe many bisexuals have “gay” or “straight” days when it comes to porn) and d) relied purely on erection size.
A couple of studies that have been done in women: one showed that most straight women were aroused by lesbian porn or even bonobo mating videos to a comparable extent as they were aroused by straight or gay male porn. This study used an equivalent method to that used on the males in the other study, by measuring vaginal swelling. In addition, the lesbians in the study were usually not aroused as by gay male porn or bonobo mating videos. Yet no one concluded from this that straight women were secretly bisexual or attracted to bonobo chimps.
Another study showed that women found either more masculine or more feminine faces attractive depending on their menstrual cycle. This is at least indirect evidence for a biological basis for bisexuality, in that sexual preference can be adjusted in an individual through simple hormonal fluctuation.
sadly, in our culture it has always felt to me that heterosexuality and homosexuality (in a either/or paradigm) is understood as a NOUN – a real actual concrete thing, whereas bisexuality is understood almost as a VERB – an activity that happens.
i find it endlessly frustrating that when you come out as bi, you almost have to back it up with a legitimate history to ‘prove’ that the orientation is legitimate.
if somebody were to come out as gay, no questions are asked, no checklist is needed to prove or verify the persons sincerity.
we have a long way to go still in being understood as actual.
Society has been brainwashed into thinking that everyone has to be either gay or straight, even when a person identifies themselves as bisexual, society still gives them a gay or straight label only. The bisexual person has become an invisible chapter in society.
I totally agree with your statements and your point that we bisexuals are indeed very strong-minded people because it takes a huge amount of courage and will-power to break out of society’s expectations and tear up the rule book.
I used to feel frustrated out there because of it, but now I actually enjoy having this level of bisex invisibility, and not having to live up to any predefined society stereotypes.
It actually feels great to be able to appreciate and enjoy sex with both male and female and not worry about having to act, dress or behave in a certain way in order to fit into some box, label or way of being that I haven’t choosen.
The only downside to it all is that society only accepts the concept of men being with men as strictly gay, which then forces a new identification onto me that isn’t correct. Bisexuals are totally different from homosexuals, a bit like how Japanese people are different from the Chinese.
The bigger mystery however is how people in this world pretend not feel any of their original innate bisexual qualities which is a given biological norm that virtually every species on Earth displays. Scores of scientific and psychology tests also prove this to be a norm, so are we as a society really that “brainwashed” to a point where even our own minds would actually deny our true biological standards and abilities??