Bi Bi, Fear of Gays

Had a little back and forth with a female friend last night on why, despite making out with, being sexually attracted to and pretty much having sex with women, she isn't Bisexual.

She isn't a "bi-when-drunk" type, kissing girls to titillate drunk guys in bars: she's genuinely attracted to some women and considers herself a "hedonist."

Why not bisexual, according to her? Simple. She doesn't want a relationship.

Ever seen a guy make out with another guy and say he isn't bisexual? Probably not. Now imagine if you met a man who sleeps with other men, but insists he isn't gay or bisexual-- because he's not there for a relationship. If he's black, they'd say he was on the "Down Low"-- that ambiguous, I'm-not-gay-but-I-fuck-men status minorities (Mexicans have a variant) cling to to maintain machismo.

General opinion on the guy would be pretty clear: Dude's a total closet case.

Maybe the categories themselves are at fault: by bisecting all sexuality, by making it black and white (you're with them, you're with us, or you're nothing), it takes away the kind of loose, pressureless spectrum my female friend seems to be looking for.

But that doesn't change the fact that a man in that position wouldn't get the kind of pleasant leeway she would.

Know what, though? We can't blame anyone but ourselves. The gay boogeyman has such a looming presence in the straight male psyche, it's hard for us not to force them into a safe little box. It's protective, to have them so clearly defined. Even for a guy like me, who is neither offended nor uncomfortable around gay men.

Er... that is, most gay men....



I am black. And I have to admit, nothing makes me more uncomfortable than being around a black, gay man. Somehow, within my mind, this is an aberration and is both more threatening and more confusing than any other racial category for gay men. It's almost as if I expect it from whites but the engrained cultural machismo, the majority homophobia that marks our subset of society, has a deep infection in me I can't shake.

Honestly, I don't want to have a problem with them. But they scare me.

They scare me the way an urban black male might scare a quiet, suburban white male.

They scare me... sexually.

At work some weeks ago, a black gay man comes walking by and our eyes met, briefly: I at once look away, distinctly uncomfortable. Moments later, a friend, who is also black, comes up, says he just had the guy stare him down and visibly shuddered. Our reaction is visceral disgust, even though we deal with gay men every day, as coworkers and, in my case, as friends.

Perhaps this is deeper than gay and straight, perhaps this is also racial and racist: somehow, in them being black, their homosexuality becomes shaded with prejudices of aggression. Perhaps, when a black gay man looks at us, we feel as some protected white female may feel when we look at them: as if, at any moment, a rape might occur.

It comes down to the "threat" of it all.

These day, bisexuality is becoming more acceptable on the male side, mostly in urban centers among the bohemian types. Women may indulge in seeing their male hipster friends putting tongue to tongue, the way most of the nation drunkenly suggests sorority girls do to one another (sometimes on camera). But this is, in no way, the norm.

And... I think I'd like to suggest that it be okay. Our reactionary fear to gays doesn't make us any straighter and it doesn't suite us for a world where we co-exist with homosexuality (and this is inevitable, this is human rights) or with the growing segment of women who wouldn't sleep with us if we didn't accept the gays. In the end, all it causes is anxiety-- can I admit I think Dave Navarro is hot, without all my friends thinking I've switched sides?-- and anger.

We don't need the fear. We have to find a way to get over it.

So maybe if a girl likes kissing girls, she isn't bi. And maybe if a boy likes kissing boys, he isn't a closet case.

But I insist that if you're screwing someone, relationship or not, you're a that-sexual (omnisexual?).

No one can say you aren't a zoophilic if you've only just fucked a pig once.