This is a badly-phrased thread title because it’s hard to explain what I’m asking so succinctly. I’m not asking for statistics on the occurrence of bisexuality, I’m actually taking an unscientific poll. Basically, some questions arose in my mind while I was reading Predict the next celebrity who’ll come out of the closet (and when), because a poster mentioned that a celebrity wasn’t likely to be gay because he was married.
How likely are you to assume someone is bisexual – that is, how much evidence do you need to be presented before being convinced of someone’s bisexuality?
If a celebrity sets off your gaydar but seems to be happily heterosexually coupled, what is your comparative likelihood of assuming “oh, he’s probably just straight but flamboyant” or “oh, she’s probably a beard/he’s in denial” or the third possibility: “oh, he’s probably bisexual”?
Do you think pure bisexuality is common or that most people tend to be far enough on one side of the spectrum that they can be considered straight or gay?
IMHO, pretty much everyone is some measure of bisexual, whether they want to admit it or not. However, there is no clear evidence for this flimsy claim.
However… “46% of the male population had engaged in both heterosexual and homosexual activities, or “reacted to” persons of both sexes, in the course of their adult lives” (Kinsey, via Wikipedia article on bisexuality) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisexuality
And from the CDC website about females: http://lesbianlife.about.com/od/lesbiansex/a/SameSexBehavior.htm,
scroll down and it sounds like in their study, about 11% of women have had same-sex experiences in their lifetime, no report on “reacting” (uncertain exactly what Kinsey meant) to same-sex individuals, but I’d bet the prevalence is pretty high.
Similar to what Oregon Sunshine said, I believe that pretty much everyone has had both same-sex and opposite-sex attractions in their life. What isn’t as common, however, is being both attracted to both genders enough that a person would be able to have a satisfying sexual or romantic life with someone of either gender. However, I do think that possibility is far more prevalent than most people think, or even realize about themselves.
In my experience, I have far more bisexual friends than gay friends. Most of my bisexual peers tend to “lean straight” in terms of actual relationships, but they believe they would be compatible with either gender.
And theoretically, I try not to assume anyone’s orientation unless I have some evidence of it, relationship history or some such thing, but it is hard to get past the “straight = default” mentality that the majority of the population here has. Granted, however, it is easy for me to think, “Well, they may be in a straight relationship, but doesn’t mean they aren’t bi…”
As for celebrities, I wouldn’t even know how to begin to answer that question because I don’t notice when celebrities are coupled (unhappily or happily) and I rarely speculate as to their sexuality.
From my personal experience, true bisexuality does exist, but I think in many cases it is more of a gateway to coming to terms with true homosexual identity. My best friend self-identified as bisexual from middle-school to about eleventh grade. She finally admitted to me that she chose to nurture the (virtually nonexistent) attraction to men because it allowed her to believe that she had the hope of some semblance of a normal life, a marriage, children–not letting her family down.
She is now happily married (in spirit, if not the eyes of the law) and openly, strongly lesbian.
My little sister (in-law) also first came out to us as bisexual when she was about 14. At the time, I figured she was just an adventurous straight girl, but now, at nearly 18 years old, she identifies as a lesbian and does not have any interest in men.
All of the people I know who have expressed attraction to both sexes usually lean pretty strongly toward the same sex.
I am the opposite way. I am 99% straight, but I find myself sexually attracted to about 1% of the women I meet. I don’t think that qualifies as ‘‘bisexual’’ but since I would never rule out a lesbian relationship it does imply there is a spectrum aspect to sexuality.
It’s probably true that everyone’s a little bit gay (particularly for women – from a biological standpoint it seems men are more often genetically predisposed to gayness, whereas with women it could be either nature OR nurture. That is just my opinion based on who I know.)
Well, now you have one on the opposite side; i’m bi, and more strongly attracted to women (me being male).
I’d certainly agree with the “sliding scale”, though. To me it seems like bisexuals can often switch their prioritised interest, preferring men overall for some time and then changing to women, while still being attracted to both. That doesn’t seem all that unreasonable to me, since monosexuals certainly appear to change their tastes within the boundaries of one sex. We just have an added axis of change.
As to the OP; i’d say I’m biased towards assuming people aren’t, based really only on the comparatively small amount of us. To be sure, it would be reasonable to think that some famous people are bi, but i’ve really no insight into detecting that.
I’ve had serious relationships with 6 women who identified as bi (and 1 as straight) at the time. Data are from when we began our relationship, which ranges from 32 to 11 years ago. Currently:
1 cycles between sexual orientations (and has some major mental health issues)
2 identify as lesbian
3 still identify as bi (and I’ve been married to one of them for over 10 years)
1 still identifies as straight
[emily latella]Well, I suppose if you have to bi it and can afford to bi it, it is pretty common. I mean if it weren’t pretty common, wouldn’t prostitutes go broke…um…ah, it’s spelled how?
Wow you almost described me. I’ve been openly bisexual since around 15, I’ve just ended an almost 8 year relationship with my partner (male) because I don’t think I can do it anymore.
I have always been open with him and we have been trying to make it work for the whole family, having kids, conventional stuff but I am now coming to terms with the likelihood I am gay.
I think there are far more people out there that are bisexual, but the fact is if you are a 50/50 split it’s a hell of a lot easier to stick with being hetro.
God, I gave it a go and I’m thinking I’m more a 90/10 split
