It’s sex week at Good Men Project. Great posts from Amanda Marcotte and Emily Heist Moss as well as my weekly column. Today’s piece is a personal one Mythbusting Bisexual Men.
Mama, please give this a miss.
Excerpt:
In more than a quarter-century of thinking, writing, and eventually teaching about male bisexuality, I’ve become convinced that the inability to accept the reality of bisexuality in men is linked to fears about fidelity. The myth that men are naturally promiscuous while women are naturally monogamous endures. So we assume that a bisexual woman can make a commitment to either a man or a woman, and that she’ll be able to stay faithful. But we already think straight men have a hard enough time remaining true—the expectation that a bisexual man will invariably cheat is high.
…I can’t speak for every man who has dealt with a lifetime of sexual attraction to both men and women. But I can speak from my own experience, which is that monogamy is no harder for bisexuals than it is for straight or gay folks. Even if you’re only sexually attracted to females, there’s no way your wife or girlfriend can possibly embody everything that draws you to women.
One of my exes had a beautiful voice, a soprano so breathtaking it brought tears of joy to my eyes. My beloved wife, Eira, has a thousand amazing talents, but can’t carry a tune. I’m no more likely to leave the mother of my daughter for a man than I am to leave her for a member of the L.A. Master Chorale. No partner can be everything to us. Every honest heterosexual in a monogamous relationship admits that his or her partner lacks something that others might have. It’s no different for bisexuals. Really.
Before making a lifetime commitment to someone, almost everyone—gay, straight, or bi—struggles with the realization that if everything works out as they hope, they’ll never have sex with anyone other than their partners for the rest of their lives. Lots of people find that terrifying. But that’s a general fear about the loss of possibility rather than a specific anxiety about not being able to sleep with a particular type…
Read the rest here.
Credit where credit is due – I for one didn’t expect a useful advice essay by Amanda Marcotte. But this essay was good. Actually, longer would have been better, in this case. Maybe it helped that she wasn’t talking about men
I’m in both camps you mention, Hugo. I think guy-on-guy sex is hot, and I would jump on the chance for a hot menage a trois with another boy. Soooo hot.
But, would I want to be in a relationship with a bi guy? Totally different thing, because I can’t imagine competing with GUYS as well as girls. I’d have hooked it up with you back in the day, and a boy toy of yours too.
I’d never have dated you seriously.
I am apparently in the minority, as I have dated bisexual men without facing that kind of issue. But then again, I never looked at our relationship as a barrier that was “keeping him from something”. I wasn’t in competition with other men, or other women, or anyone for that matter. He was with me because he wanted to be. If he had wanted to be with someone else, of either gender, I wasn’t stopping him. It just meant that he wouldn’t have been with me then.