Bisexuality

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(In the opening statement, "Contrary to popular myth" was changed to "Contrary to popular belief.")
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[[File:Bi_flag.svg|thumb|right|Bisexual pride flag, created by Michael Page in 1998. Page describes the meaning of the flag as this: "The pink color represents sexual attraction to the same sex only (gay and lesbian), The blue represents sexual attraction to the opposite sex only (straight) and the resultant overlap color purple represents sexual attraction to both sexes (bi)."]]
 
[[File:Bi_flag.svg|thumb|right|Bisexual pride flag, created by Michael Page in 1998. Page describes the meaning of the flag as this: "The pink color represents sexual attraction to the same sex only (gay and lesbian), The blue represents sexual attraction to the opposite sex only (straight) and the resultant overlap color purple represents sexual attraction to both sexes (bi)."]]
  
[[Bisexuality]] (also known as '''swinging both ways''', or '''playing for both teams''') refers to romantic or sexual attraction to both males and females.  Contrary to popular myth, bisexuals rarely are attracted to both [[gender]]s ''equally'', and normally have preference for one or the other. For example, a person may be happy to have homosexual encounters for fun or just [[sex]], but not as a relationship.  The [[Kinsey scale]], developed by sex researcher [[Alfred Kinsey]], provides for these sort of variances in attraction for one sex or another; 7 points ranging from purely heterosexual at 0 to purely homosexual at 6, with 3 in the middle. Although this is a quite simplified model and doesn't take into account special exceptions (such as the "I'd go gay for..." game), fetishes, or the like, it works well enough to indicate preferences, and show people that sexuality isn't a binary.
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[[Bisexuality]] (also known as '''swinging both ways''', or '''playing for both teams''') refers to romantic or sexual attraction to both males and females.  Contrary to popular belief, bisexuals rarely are attracted to both [[gender]]s ''equally'', and normally have preference for one or the other. For example, a person may be happy to have homosexual encounters for fun or just [[sex]], but not as a relationship.  The [[Kinsey scale]], developed by sex researcher [[Alfred Kinsey]], provides for these sort of variances in attraction for one sex or another; 7 points ranging from purely heterosexual at 0 to purely homosexual at 6, with 3 in the middle. Although this is a quite simplified model and doesn't take into account special exceptions (such as the "I'd go gay for..." game), fetishes, or the like, it works well enough to indicate preferences, and show people that sexuality isn't a binary.
  
 
==Attitudes==
 
==Attitudes==

Revision as of 05:09, 28 February 2015

Part of the series on

Sexuality

Icon sex.svg
A baker's dozen on sex
Gender signs.png
Bisexual pride flag, created by Michael Page in 1998. Page describes the meaning of the flag as this: "The pink color represents sexual attraction to the same sex only (gay and lesbian), The blue represents sexual attraction to the opposite sex only (straight) and the resultant overlap color purple represents sexual attraction to both sexes (bi)."

Bisexuality (also known as swinging both ways, or playing for both teams) refers to romantic or sexual attraction to both males and females. Contrary to popular belief, bisexuals rarely are attracted to both genders equally, and normally have preference for one or the other. For example, a person may be happy to have homosexual encounters for fun or just sex, but not as a relationship. The Kinsey scale, developed by sex researcher Alfred Kinsey, provides for these sort of variances in attraction for one sex or another; 7 points ranging from purely heterosexual at 0 to purely homosexual at 6, with 3 in the middle. Although this is a quite simplified model and doesn't take into account special exceptions (such as the "I'd go gay for..." game), fetishes, or the like, it works well enough to indicate preferences, and show people that sexuality isn't a binary.

Contents

Attitudes

The conventional wisdom on the matter is that women are more likely to be bisexual than men.[1] However, this may be due to the fact that bisexual women are more "socially acceptable" than bisexual men in the modern world. It's certainly true that whenever the word "threesome" is bounced around in popular culture it invariably implies that the third person is female.

Some detractors of bisexuality believe (a stance generally considered incorrect by sex educators and psychiatrists, not to mention bisexuals themselves) that bisexuals are actually homosexuals in denial, or perhaps homosexual or heterosexual but too confused to admit either way, or heterosexuals going through an experimentation phase. These negative attitudes often come just as much from the "gay community" as they do from the "straight community", and thus B in LGBT can often be a very separate issue to the others.

In the United States, bisexuality is almost completely absent from the national discussion and the media. A bazillion tabloids will speculate as to whether thus-and-such celebrity is gay, but won't even bother considering the possibility that said celebrity may be bi. Gay rights get the spotlight, but bi rights rarely if ever do.

Science

Bisexuality in certain animals has been shown to be evidence of flexibility of gender—a form of chemically-induced hermaphroditism that many species of frogs and fish[2] retain but mammals appear to have lost.

Relation to reparative therapy

Joseph Nicolosi, Ph.D., in his book Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality; a clinical approach,[3] seems to advocate for a very similar scale to Kinsey's. He states, "Each individual falls somewhere along the heterosexual-homosexual continuum, possibly moving from one direction to the other during different life stages." This heterosexual-homosexual continuum is remarkably similar to Kinsey's, and suggests that reparative therapy does not involve changing homosexual orientation, but simply changing the activities of bisexuals, a theory supported by follow-up studies.[4]

Game-theoretical considerations

According to Woody Allen,[5] bisexuality doubles your chances of getting a date on a Saturday night (see, they're not confused, they're just greedy).

According to many disgruntled bisexuals, bisexuality lets you explore how the gender not usually desired can be duplicitous fuckwits just as much as the one you were used to.

"Barsexuals"

Some straight women (at least, in Western countries) are admitting to being "barsexuals", a term used to describe girls who make out and fool around with other girls at bars to activate the imaginations of straight guys and/or free drinks (in other words: attention whores).[6] This is irritating to the bisexual community, as it prevents real bisexual women from being taken seriously and they end up being accused of trying to entice men.

Ever notice something?

Ever notice how bisexual women are accused of merely being "barsexuals" in order to entice men, and bisexual men are accused of simply being gay and being too chickenshit to admit it, and are thus using bisexuality as a cop-out?

Do you notice that it doesn't seem to occur to these people that not everything is about men?

Similar concepts

The concept of bisexuality is related to pansexuality, which assumes more than two genders or gender expressions. It is also related to the concept of polysexuality.

Gallery

See also

Footnotes

  1. Although this may be skewed by the existence of the Suicide Girls, for whom bisexuality is a prerequisite.
  2. http://www.sefsc.noaa.gov/sedar/download/S22_DW_14.pdf?id=DOCUMENT
  3. http://www.narth.com/docs/repair.html
  4. http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/rainbow/html/facts_changing.html
  5. BrainyQuote:Woody Allen quotes
  6. [1]
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