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No One’s Asking, But I’m Telling

January 9, 2011 By

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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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Bisexuality and Polyamory: Embracing Debate

November 1, 2010 By

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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All Power to the BLGT People

October 2, 2010 By

(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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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

(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

(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

(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

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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Yoga for Bisexuals

April 7, 2010 By

Stop.  Take a breath, exhale through your mouth.  Do that again deepening your inhale and exhale.  Now do it a third time deepening your breath even more.  Raise your shoulders up, then bring them down and back.  Do that one again too.  Now close your eyes for a few moments and take in the sensation.

Feel better?  Good, I thought you might

There are many ways to approach yoga.  One view I embrace is of yoga as a method for integrating the mind, emotions and physical body.  I try to use it as a way to remain centered and peaceful, even in the midst of chaos and upheaval.  In fact, my favorite version of The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali translates the second sutra as, “Yoga is the settling of the mind into silence.”

Silence.  Peace.  Centeredness.  Integration.  How in the world do we move towards those states?

There are certainly enough things that can throw us off balance. First of all there are the multiple problems faced by the BLGT community as a whole.  Check out of the news on any given day; biphobia and homophobia are rearing their rather ugly heads with what seems like the wildest of abandon.  From “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” to being denied the opportunity to attend a prom, the situation is tense and surreal.

Of course, there are those issues that bisexuals face in particular: denial of bisexuality and invisibility.  The demon of dichotomous thinking strikes again.

Ah, but wait.  The asanas–or postures–of yoga are there for building more than just physical strength and flexibility.  They also help us cultivate stamina and flexibility for dealing with what life hands us.

For example forward folding has been a real issue for me.  Every time I get on the mat, I have to work various ways to come deeper into any position that requires bending.  After years of practice, I’m a farther along than I was when I started.

So it is with bisexuality.  I’ve found I have to contemplate what it means for me in various ways, coming at it from different angles.  I’ve had to look at how I deal with relationships with women and men and with how I approach the various kinds of intimacy with each.  Years later, I’m a little farther along than when I embarked on the adventure.

Yoga isn’t easy either.  I have a friend who is fond of reminding her classes that, “Yoga is not a pleasure cruise.”  It is work that takes discipline to accomplish.  I’ve lost count of the days when I haven’t wanted to step onto my mat.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve fallen out of poses like my major tumble from handstand a couple of weeks ago.  After I go my breath back, I tried going upside again.  I keep at it anyway and feel better for it at the end.

It’s the same again bisexuality.  How many times have any of us had to deal with a question about what bisexuality is?  How many times have we been told that we have “to choose one or the other”?  How many times have we had to explain how biphobia hurts?  These are all things we clearly don’t want to do yet we do them anyway, even those times when we aren’t particularly articulate or when we know that what we say makes no difference.   Nonetheless I know that I feel better for having spoken up and I hope you do to.

Silence.  Peace.  Centeredness.  Integration.  We arrive at them when we fully accept who and what we are.  We arrive at them with work and discipline, with failure and carrying on.  We arrive at them as bi folk when we understand and accept that bisexuality is beautiful thing.  In fact I tend to see bisexuality itself as a form of integration, a way to unite and express all the ways we can love our fellow human beings.  For this, I feel gratitude.

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Making Bisexuals Count – Moving Beyond Opposites

March 24, 2010 By

As I was perusing titles for a look into the ways the US government has counted race and ethnicity since 1790, I came across Hybrids: Bisexuals, Multiracials, and Other Misfits under American Law by Ruth Colker, Esq, presently professor of law at the Ohio State University.  I didn’t quite know what to expect but I was sure I had to examine the book and with a click it went into interlibrary loan request.

As soon as I got it, I dove right into the tome and devoured the sections on bisexuality in a flash.  Colker maintains that bisexual invisibility forces us into one of two fixed categories, in this case “gay” or “straight”.  In Chapter Two she writes, “Ignoring bisexuality allows society to perpetuate the stereotype that sexuality is rigidly dichotomous.”

Unfortunately the Western worldview tends to categorize things in pairs of binary and immutable opposites, which is not a terribly helpful enterprise.   Understanding this position helps to explain people who deny bisexuality such as Michael Musto and Dan Savage.  It certainly explains why the law–from municipal domestic partnership legislation to state statues to military regulations–doesn’t broach the subject.  In fact as of 1996–the book’s publication date–“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was the only law that specifically mentioned bisexuality and I could find no others in my own research.

The consequences of making bisexuals invisible through a focus on bipolar categories can be serious however.  Colker mentions how lesbian friends refused to vacation with her after she married a man and how a feminist activist erased her experiences with women by referring to her as a ‘hasbian’.  Certainly in this column, you have read about my struggles with being a bi man.  Colker goes far deeper though by discussing the ways bisexual invisibility has hampered efforts to combat AIDS in the African-American community by not addressing actual sexual practices, regardless of labels.

Colker asserts that sexuality is complex, nuanced and not easily pegged as either “gay” or “straight.”  She also  reports on work proposing that certain communities understand that people engage in both same-sex and opposite sex relationships, while perhaps not naming such behavior as bisexual.  Yet she still goes on to say, “Naming bisexuality can broaden people’s understanding of human sexual experiences by acknowledging the existence of a fluid spectrum rather than rigid bipolar categories.” According to Colker, using a bisexual perspective permits us to ask about our attractions and their origins.   It permits us to tell a story.

What Colker calls for is a “bisexual jurisprudence,” one that takes into account the fluidity of human experience on many levels as it applies to the legal system.

As far as I am concerned any recognition at all requires that we tell our stories, recount our own experiences as often as is feasible.  It matters precious little how many men and women we have had relationships with.  What matters is speaking our truth and bearing witness to the fluidity of attraction as we live it and the quality of our relationships.  It is our presence and our personal disclosure that will put an end to bisexual invisibility and broaden people’s understanding of human sexual experience.  It is speaking up in ways large and small, as organizations and individuals that will make sure bisexuals count.

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