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No One’s Asking, But I’m Telling

January 9, 2011 By
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Credit Image: Commons Wikimedia/Tweetapo

Last month the bisexual, lesbian, gay and transgender community was euphoric over the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” secure and content in the knowledge that bisexual, lesbian and gay Americans would soon be able to serve proudly and openly in the Armed Forces. Now if I were a Member of Congress, I would certainly have voted for the repeal. Since we have a military, it is only right that all qualified adults who wish to have the opportunity are able to join regardless of race, gender or sexual orientation. But that’s as far as I’ll go on that.

]While we were popping open the celebratory champagne, though, we seemed to  to have forgotten that the United States is still engaged militarily in Iraq and Afghanistan. It also seems that this ‘victory’ for the bisexual, lesbian, gay and transgender community has kept us from considering the larger issues of war, colonialism and imperialism.
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Crisis and Growth: Bisexuality in Seeking Sara Summers

November 16, 2010 By
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When Susan Gabriel’s Seeking Sara Summers (Wild Lily Arts, 2008) opens, the very same Sara Summers Stanton is a major crossroads. The 44-year-old has three children already grown and out of the house. Her marriage to Grady is stagnant and she has lost one breast to cancer, for which she will have to continue treatment. Sara seems stuck in the fictional Western Massachusetts town of Beacon, teaching English in the very same classroom where she studied with her good friend Julia David.

In the first section of the book, Sara finds a way to reconnect with Julia, who sends Sara an invitation to her art opening in Tuscany. The normally self-effacing Sara somehow finds the gumption to get time off and get herself to Italy. In the second section of the book, Sara and Julia deepen their relationship in ways unforeseen even to them, all the while enjoying the splendors of the Italian countryside. Eventually Sara has to return home, having grown in more ways than she could have imagined. Continue reading »

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Bisexuality and Polyamory: Embracing Debate

November 1, 2010 By
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It seems my initial book review stirred up some concerns about the larger public’s confounding bisexuality and polyamory. Clearly they are two different things, but outside of our community people can have some—shall we say—strange ideas about bisexuals. What is important is not merely what others think of us but how we react to those perceptions.

Whether we like it or not, we have been saddled with the image of bisexuals as voracious sexual predators, incapable of moderation and commitment. It is not as if this fate has escaped other groups, for example consider the image of the black male sexuality in US society. The truth about the sexuality of others is almost irrelevant because the puritanical society in which we live projects its neuroses and desires upon that Other. And we are (one of ) the Other(s).

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Keeping an Open Mind…and Marriage

October 15, 2010 By
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Memoir is not my favorite genre, I must confess. So when I was asked to be a judge for the bisexual category of the 2008 Lambda Literary Awards, I was skeptical of those memoirs that came my way. Jenny Block’s Open: Love, Sex, and Life in an Open Marriage (Seal Press, 2008) soon overcame my doubts.

In the prologue, Block begins, “This is a story about a girl who grew up believing what many girls believe—that one day she would fall in love with the man of her dreams, marry him, have kids, and live happily every after. Yet as she grew older, all she felt was confused.” This book is fundamentally a road map describing Block‘s exploration of her confusion and a travelogue of her willingness to go in a direction many would call off-road in terms of relationships.

The first part of Block‘s story reads as typical. She lost her virginity at 17-years-old, she had lovers in college, she found man, she settled down. After the birth of their daughter, their sex life got rocky. Block discovered she had a higher sex drive than her husband. They decided to work it out, but she also asked herself some questions about whether or not she was married to the right man or whether or not she was a lesbian. She and her husband explored and eventually she went a little further. Block found a woman who eventually became her girlfriend. Block was in an open marriage, something that doesn’t look like what most people would think.

Believe me, there are no spoilers here because Block uses her prologue to lay out the basic facts of her story. Those facts by themselves are not interesting. The story engages you from chapter one precisely, because it is not a mere chronicle.  Block starts right off by examining each stage of her life in order to understand how she got where she is today.  In chapter one, she takes stock of  the messages that society sends young girls and then moves on to talk about her own sexual awakening. Block continues to go back and forth between holding society up to a lens and examining how her experiences and desires fit into those expectations—or not.

What comes across clearly is Block’s willingness to take chances and look at her own actions. She is very aware of those around her and clearly cares a great deal about them. Block is honest about her need for sexual fulfillment, and also shows thoughtfulness and consideration. It’s not all about her. Her sexual and affective needs are not merely personal but also philosophical. Society’s norms regarding heterosexuality and monogamy were not working for her and Block decided to do what worked for her and her family.

Block rounds out her book by including a chapter on the steps to having an open marriage. It’s not so much a how-to, as lessons learned for her and her husband’s exploration. In fact, proof of the effectiveness of the communication within the family and the strength of their marriage, is the epilogue her husband Christopher provides.

Block’s frankness is supported by her clear and direct prose. She tells her story simply, also providing references, some statistics and quotations from leading feminists and sex experts. All in all, I was struck by Block’s sincerity, forthright treatment of the subject, and willingness to share her story. I recommend it to bisexuals because it offers a look into the nature of relationships and the various possibilities and permutations thereof without a political agenda. This is the story of one woman, her husband and her girlfriend. Take what lessons you may.

Open won the bisexual category of the  2008 Lambda Literary Awards.

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All Power to the BLGT People

October 2, 2010 By
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(Image) Commons Wikimedia dot org /NE House

I don’t know where to begin, but I’m not suffering from writer’s block. It’s writer’s rage actually. I started September by reading  Jeff Sharlet’s “Straight Man’s Burden: The American Roots of Uganda’s Anti-Gay Persecutions” in Harper’s Magazine. I ended the month by listening to Democracy Now!’s Ellen Goodman report on the suicides of Tyler Clementi, Seth Walsh, Asher Brown and Billy Lucas.

What struck me about the vigor and vitriol of the movement to pass Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill–some of whose sanctions include life imprisonment and death–is the willingness of some segments of that society to be so heavily influenced by outside elements. In this case, Ugandan evangelicals seem to have taken up the banner of US evangelicals in wanting to quash BLGT rights with frightening effect. The article points out the terror that BLGT people live with in Uganda, including being outed in newspapers and physical violence. In addition, Sharlet writes about Uganda’s continuing internal political struggles and troubled past.

I came away with sense that certain evangelical parliamentarians are attempting to shift the focus away from more pressing internal issues. I also came away with the sense—as the article suggests—that as BLGT people make progress in the US, American opponents of BGLT are taking their backlash international. It sounds like a very high-risk version of bait-and-switch in which same-sex attraction becomes the boogeyman responsible for all the ills in society. It’s all rather convenient, unless you’re BLGT.
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The Difficult House of Joy

June 15, 2010 By
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(Image) stock.xchng/Mokra

What grounds you?  What keeps you rooted and centered?  What is that place of strength from which you move outward?

This was actually asked of me and my mat mates this past Saturday at the beginning of a yoga class.  What came to my mind first was my love of men, my capacity to love other men fully and intimately.

This is so because my love for men has been hard won and therefore something I value all the more.  I’ve had to work on it intensely because while society will always support relationships between women and men, however difficult they may be, it will often try to undermine intimate relationships between men.

In addition, if you are a man who loves other men you have to work on accepting yourself first.  This means not only dealing with the bi- and homophobia that exist outside you but with the bi- and homophobia on the inside.  We all know what a battle that is.  We also know how much harder that makes building a relationship between two men.

Add to that the ludicrous fantasy of what men are supposed to be: unemotional, self-contained, wealthy, aggressive, full of swagger, in charge.  And remember this craziness affects both of you.

Could there be any more roadblocks to two men getting together?

What I have learned from my relationships with men is that it eventually dawns on you that neither you nor the fellow on the other side of the bed can live up to the standards the two of you have been indoctrinated both to adhere to and expect.  You have to work past them into new ways of being together.

If you don’t know them, you have to learn dialog, compassion and cooperation.  You also have to learn to see someone as he really is, with all his faults and virtues.

In the end money, power and prestige can’t buy you love.  Being emotionally unavailable is antithetical to relationships.  And no one wants to be pushed around by a tough guy.  Besides, Prince Charming is a narcissist.

Eventually you have to learn to talk it out, work together and accept that you can either build a life with someone who helps to pay the bills or someone who spends all day in the gym working on six-pack abs.

In other words building a relationship between two men requires consciousness, dedication and effort above and beyond what opposite-sex couples have to put in.

For me this is what the late poet Paul Monette means when he writes in “Committing to Memory,” “No point/in having so much rope unless you can/tie a knot.  It has to hold.”  And that which holds will keep you grounded in what at the end of the same stanza Monette refers to as “the difficult house of joy.”

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“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” – A Memorial Day Reflection

May 31, 2010 By
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(Image) morgueFile.com/ Arker

Since the end of the Civil War, the United States has honored its fallen service members on Memorial Day so it seems appropriate for those of us associated with Bi Social Network to remember the members of the BLGT community who have served and died in action.

It also seems rather appropriate to note the continued effects the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy has on bisexual, lesbian and gay service members.  It’s even rather interesting — shall we say — that the House of Representatives voted to repeal DADT so close to the holiday.  The Senate Armed Services Committee in turn voted to approve the repeal measure, sending it to the full Senate for a vote.  If the Senate votes to repeal, then it would go into effect only after the projected December 1st submittal of a report by a Pentagon Working Group.

There seem to be more politicians for the repeal than against.  There seem to be more military top brass for the repeal than against.  More Americans are comfortable with same-sex attractions than ever before.   Yet there still seem to be a fair number of heels dug in. If the measure voted on by the House passes the Senate, then we need to wait for a Pentagon report to come through.  It seems the closer we get the more games are being played.

I remember when “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” went into effect seventeen years ago.  I couldn’t quite believe what I was hearing.  The convoluted compromise to the outright ban on bisexuals, gay men and lesbians in the military sounded more like Ionesco than sound, mature defense policy.   You must be joking, I remember thinking.  No, they weren’t joking, using irony or displaying one iota of wit.  The government was as earnest as ever.

As a nation we have been going back and forth over DADT since then.  I find it a sign of progress that former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretary of State Colin Powell has changed his mind on the issue.  The current Chairman, Adm. Mike Mullen, is also in favor of repeal.  Have we finally understood the many costs of this policy?  Some 13,000 women and men have been discharged from the Armed Forces and we have lost some $1.3 billion in training as blogger Megan McDonald Scanlon notes in “The Hidden Costs of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’” at thehill.com.

We have highly qualified personnel who are willing to fight and put their lives on the line for the United States.  We are in the middle of two wars, as well as a continuing economic downturn and worsening environmental degradation to name just two other pressing matters.  We should already have joined all the other nations which do not measure the competency of their soldiers by their sexuality.

In spite of all the people of good will trying to move us forward on this matter, I find it disturbing that we have been so slow integrate bisexuals, lesbians and gay men into the military — among other areas.

What is it in the national character that makes us so resistant to change?  What makes us so unwilling to take the decisive steps necessary and instead plod along with the more level-headed among us trying to do a delicate dance?

It seems rather disrespectful not only to BGLT service members but all members of the Armed Forces.  Let’s so some respect for our military women and men by closing this matter once and for all so we can attend to the critical issues facing them and our society today.

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A Bisexual’s Dilemma: Who Can You Bring Home to Mother?

May 18, 2010 By
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(Image) stock.xchng/Emre Danisman

As the days lengthen and weather gets warmer I always start to remember my time in the Peace Corps.  Every year different memories will come wafting to the fore as I gladly anticipate the hotter weather to come in this country.

This year the first memory to come floating back was of a conversation I had with one of my mates as we went out to grab some supper to take back to the hostel/office.  As we stood on the corner with our plates in our hands waiting for the neighborhood women to put their wares out, I brought up the topic of my dating both men and women.

How or why I started talking about it on that dusty street as night began to fall is no longer clear.  What I do remember clearly as we waited to be served was that my dinner companion quite pointedly asked if I felt as free to bring my boyfriends home as I was my girlfriends.

The answer was a resounding, “no.”  I was a bit taken aback, not offended mind you.  It was just my friend the philosopher had asked perhaps one of the most pertinent questions I had ever been asked.  Whatever differences or similarities I found between women and men, I knew full well which of the two I could bring home to meet mother.

When you’re bisexual, that’s an issue because it can lead to a double life and a great deal of internal strife.  I longed to be able to share all of my romantic life with my family but I didn’t feel that I was able to.  No matter how I examined the situation, I always felt that my family had half the story.  In fact they did.  They got the edited version of my life.

Imagine Anna Karenina with only the story of Anna and Vronsky and the one with Kitty and Levin cut out.  It would without a doubt not be the same novel.  Yes, it would be much shorter but also much poorer.  We could not gather the same lessons because we would be missing a critical piece of the whole.

In other words I was suppressing a critical piece of my whole and it was utterly maddening.  How many bisexual men have been in this situation?  When we do this are we really living a double life or half of one?  If we give our girlfriends the “full treatment,” what in earth are we doing to our boyfriends?

Of course biphobia and homophobia sometimes oblige us to keep our mouths shut.  There are, however, limits.  To quote Abraham Lincoln, a house divided against itself cannot stand.  What the then Senate candidate said in reference to politics certainly makes sense to me in terms of psychology.  Living one kind of life with a female partner and another with a male partner makes no sense whatsoever.  There comes a time when we have to speak up and be clear about who we are in order to keep our sanity and to be respectful to all our partners.

So when my 40th birthday rolled around and I was actually in a relationship, I took advantage of the fact my partner was male to be clear with my family that he would be there to celebrate as well.  It wasn’t easy more me to do and probably less easy for my family to absorb.  Nonetheless, I did what needed to be done and my family came through for me.

I have felt a greater sense of wholeness now that I don’t have to do an editing job for those I care about.  Now if on some hot dusty road someone asked me whether I felt as free to bring my boyfriends home as my girlfriends, the answer would be a firm “yes.”

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Take Me Out to the Ballgame

May 4, 2010 By
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(istockphoto.com/ Michael Ciu)

When I moved to the Boston area some six and a half years ago, I knew that I’d have to stop discussing baseball.  Those who grow up as Yankees fans know it’s rather pointless, if not downright foolhardy to talk about the national pastime right in the middle of Red Sox Nation.

I for one decided it was far better to keep my normally fat mouth shut regarding the boys of summer.  However, I have elected to break my silence because of a recent piece of news that dropped into my inbox a little over a week ago.

The National Center for Lesbian Rights (see NCLR press release here) has filed suit against the North American Gay Amateur Athletic Association (NAGAAA) on behalf of three bisexual baseball players on the San Francisco D2.   The players  were questioned about their sexual orientation and subsequently disqualified following the 2008 Gay Softball World Series in Seattle.

According to the article “Ballplayers Sue Gay Softball League” by Andrew Harmon of The Advocate, it appears that the three players, LeRon Charles, Steven Apilado and Jon Russ, were deemed “nongay” by the NAGAAA.  Furthermore, the only choices the players were given during their questioning were “heterosexual” and “gay” when it came to describing themselves.  Charles, as stated in Harmon’s article, maintained that he was attracted to women and men, which the NAGAAA committee did not accept.

Are you still with me?
I was incredulous to say the least.  The NCLR press release, The Advocate article, and the response by the NAGAAA (see the organization’s open letter at outsports.com) left me with my mouth hanging open.  Digesting this information took a while.  I had no idea where to go with it.  I have to admit that my first reaction to friends was rather sarcastic.  It seems last year we were lying homosexuals and this year we’re deceitful heterosexuals, I quipped.

What gives?  Really, what gives?
It seems to me that as bisexual men, our so-called true sexuality—that is when people patently ignore the words I’m bisexual as they come out of our mouths—depends on the convenience of others.  For writers such as—but not limited to—Dan Savage and Michael Musto (see my post from March 24th of this year) , we are straw men to be bashed and trashed, because we are lying to ourselves and others about our supposedly true natures.

We are also fodder for scientists as Benedict Carey’s 2005 New York Times article, “Straight, Gay or Lying? Bisexuality Revisited” demonstrates.  Apparently no matter what we say, think or feel we really don’t know who we are.

Apparently, we need to just fess up to being gay and get the charade out of the way.

But wait.  If we want to take part in activities within the BGLT community, we mustn’t take places away from those who are authentically gay.

It seems to me that other people’s agendas define who we are.  If others need us  to be gay in order to get their point across, then we’re gay.  If others need us to be straight to satisfy their agenda, then we’re straight.  That is what angers me.  It is positively maddening to be at the mercy of others and to feel like a pawn in their games.

It makes me want to holler, break down and cry
I can’t imagine what bisexual men have done to deserve such disrespect.  I can’t imagine because the answer is nothing.  We are just living our lives.

It’s high time for fair play for bisexual men, on the field, in the boardroom, in academia and on the street.

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Bisexual, the Antidote to Retrosexual

April 19, 2010 By
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Apparently there’s a crisis sweeping the nation, one that even merited the airtime of CNN International last Friday.  In case you’ve haven’t heard the news, masculinity has taken a battering and it’s time to bring back the lost of masculinity.  Hipsters and metrosexuals be damned!  The evil feminists have destroyed men, who no longer occupy their rightful place.  Men have become too soft and lazy, reduced to mere objects of ridicule.

Give me a break!

At what point did we catapult into the post-feminist, post-biphobic, post-homophobic world?

We haven’t and that’s the point.  While certain people are waxing poetic about supposedly manly virtues, some have already pointed out that the gig is up.  I can only hope the phenomenon of the retrosexual vanishes before it has a chance to take hold.

Yes my friends, you read right – retrosexual.  Thanks to shows like Mad Men and the efforts of bloggers, we can now all learn how to be real men again and take pride in doing so.  We can learn to lionize ‘great’ men like Teddy Roosevelt and John Wayne. We can dress like real men dress, read what real men read, and take up manly hobbies.  Perhaps we can learn to duel in order to preserve our honor.  Maybe you feel like you lost out on a particularly gruesome male initiation ritual.

Well I think there is a crisis in masculinity–it’s very existence.

Women got it right.  Feminism has razed the bulwark of femininity to the ground thus opening the doors of possibility wide open.

We men, on the other hand, are often still caught in the vice grip of masculinity and the dead hand of male gender roles.  Look around and you see all the advertising pandering to male insecurities.  Trying to be a real man seems to be the most important obsession for the male of the species.

It makes me think of the song “Real Men” from Joe Jackson’s 1982 album, Night and Day.  The song asks “What’s a man now?/What’s a man mean?/Is he rough or is he rugged/Cultural and clean?/Now it’s all changed/It’s got to change more/We thinks it’s getting better/But nobody’s really sure.”

By the time I heard this song, I had already discovered that being attracted to other men meant my ‘guy quotient’ tanked.  I discovered soon after that being attracted to both genders put me in a no man’s land–pun intended.  I had a choice: play to a script or live my life.  I chose to live my life.

I’m not saying it’s been easy but it’s been authentic.  Along the way, I’ve come across plenty of other men just living their lives without obsessing about manliness.  What I have found is that bisexual men tend to have a good handle on the theater of the absurd that masculinity is.  Hold the door open for a woman and you’re either a gentleman or a dinosaur.  Hold the door open for another man–well why would you?  Or just hold the door open for other people and be polite.

How about this:  some of us are human beings who happen to be male.  We’re neither smarter or more stupid, tougher or more tender than those who are female.  I’m still not sure we know what a real man is, but does it really matter?

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