Bi The Way

Tiresias has written recently about the importance of bi guys being visible (Goodbye, Mister Bond: Why Telling Matters). I had been wondering for a while if I should come out and be honest with the world about myself, particularly since developing intense feelings for a close friend. But I have decided that I’m not going to. A few close friends know about me, usually because they’ve worked it out for themselves, or have known me long enough to know my history, and I made a point of telling my wife at an early stage in our relationship, long before we were married. But otherwise, I don’t tell. And I think there are three reasons why that is.

Firstly, there is a real concern for my wife. Far too many would assume that I was having guys on the side if they knew that I was bi. I don’t want people thinking that my wife is a shield for closet homosexuality, or that she has to put up with unfaithful behaviour from me. Our marriage is good and strong and loving, and I would want to spare my wife being the victim of gossip and speculation.

Secondly, there is the work involved in coming out as bi. It is an on-going business, especially for those of us who are married, to explain to new people that you are bi. I have been rather more open in the past, but perhaps it was easier in the days when I was seeing another guy, though even then many people failed to understand. Some clearly assumed that my boyfriend was simply a mate, and others thought I was having a little phase. So I gave up trying to be out, and it’s amazing how quickly you can resume a straight identity. If I were now to try to be out to every group of people I know, I would need to invest so much energy on being out that being bi might come to be seen as the key thing defining me, which it isn’t, as it’s one of many factors that make up my personality.

Thirdly, the fact that most mates think I’m straight means that I can enjoy a certain amount of subtle affection with them without them realising it. This might sound a bit furtive, but every time a mate pats me on the back in a ‘blokey’ way, every time I share a bit of sexy banter with mates, every time I take a shower with other guys at the sports club, I enjoy a small degree of relaxed intimacy with other men that couldn’t happen in so spontaneous a way if they thought I fancied them. A wonderful example of this subtle and rather clandestine intimacy occurred in my last job, when a tall, handsome colleague needed to be measured for a new piece of uniform. The guy who normally dealt with that was gay, and my colleague feared that he would make too much of a meal of taking the measurements. So he asked me, as the safe alternative. He’ll never know how much I enjoyed getting that close and putting my arms round him to take various measurements (whilst all the time we were both joking about how much the gay guy would have enjoyed it!), a pleasure that would not have been possible if he had suspected that I thought him attractive.

So, I stay in the closet. But this presents a dilemma. When I was a teenager I would have welcomed some visible figures who demonstrated that it’s possible to be bi without the sky falling in, but now I don’t feel able to be out. My guess is that my reasons for not coming out will be familiar to many bi guys – do they sound familiar, and are they reasonable, or do you think I’m just being faint-hearted and dishonest?

- Marston

Photo by Robin Wong. Creative Commons Attribution 2.5

I have to confess I’m not normally a reader of The Sun newspaper, but sitting in a Chinese takeaway yesterday, flicking idly through a copy of it, I was struck by the sight of the word ‘bisexual’ in a headline. It appears that a number of American female celebrities are acknowledging that they are bisexual. The most recent to have done so being Fergie, who sings with the Black Eyed peas (helpfully distinguished by the paper from a certain football manager and the Duchess of York), and the actress Megan Fox. It may be that this report reflects nothing more than a certain titillation on the part of male editors, who find the thought of attractive women getting flirty together a bit of a turn on (but then again, who doesn’t?!). The report certainly contained one reference to ‘lesbian sex romps’ which might tell us something of the mindset of the reporter, and we cannot know how it would be reported if a male celebrity were to identify himself as bisexual.

But I was struck by the fact that the word ‘bisexual’ was actually used. The article didn’t talk of the celebrities being confused, or of having had a phase, nor was there any suggestion of a crisis in Fergie’s marriage to Josh Duhamel - it simply stated that that was the sexual identity of the women named. It’s probably too early to get too excited – I’m old enough to remember the excitement when Brett Anderson was identified as bi in the mid-nineties, which is now all but forgotten. But part of me just dares to hope that a tiny advance might have been made for bi visibility.

Or have I just been duped by some clever PR for a few American celebrities?

- Marston

Lately there have been some people who have expressed concern that I’m no longer updating this web site. First of all I’d like to reassure everyone that I am. Though truthfully, not as frequently as I once was. Comments are still been published and I’m replying to individual posts whenever I think I have something useful to say and I do read everything that is added to the site. However, I’ve been rather busy these past few months and time has been limited, so I thought I’d offer readers a quick update to explain why.

1) I have an RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury) which makes typing and spending time at the computer painful. As I have to work at a computer for my day job, I am rationing my PC time and this leaves little time for writing lengthy articles.

2) Moreover, I’ve met someone and I’m in love. We’ve been together almost 4 months and we’re very happy. My new partner has a small-holding in the country, which together we are trying to restore and work towards growing our own fruit and veg. So a new relationship and back-breaking labour on the farm leaves even less time for the blog.

For those of you who are wondering, my new partner is female, and yes she knows and is completely cool with me being bisexual.

There have been things I’d like to comment on. Such as the California Supreme Court upholding Proposition 8 – which sucks. But its been impossible to find time at the right moments to be topical, by the time I’d got to my computer, it was old news and had been blogged to death.

Finally I guess another contribution to current absence of new material is that as my existence is now exclusively straight and that I now have a girlfriend who is totally accepting of who I am, finding sources of personal inspiration is tricky, especially as my written style generally stems from reacting to injustice.

My personal happiness and my girlfriend’s acceptance is an odd cause for writers block, but a welcome one.