Life isn’t easy for Life isn’t easy for

Bisexual People Outnumber Gays—So Why Are We Treated So Poorly?

pink, blue, purple hydrangea flowersLife isn’t easy for bisexual people. For the most part, they are invisible, defined by society by the gender of their partners. Bi people with opposite-sex partners are viewed as straight, those with same-sex partners considered gay, and the ones who have both male and female partners—well, they’re just sluts (Ann Landers once called bisexuality “lust run rampant”). Tell a heterosexual person you are bi and he or she may picture wild three-ways (if you are female) or see you as a sexually transmitted disease conduit/pariah (if you are male). In the gay community, things aren’t much better—bisexual people often are seen as “closet gays,” or as people who want to have same-sex partners while retaining heterosexual privilege. Bisexual people who first identified as lesbian or gay have special problems, as I learned when I came out as bi in the eighties after having been an extremely out, activist, self-identified lesbian. We are traitors, sellouts to the comforts and ease of a heterosexual existence.

For starters, let’s set the record straight about sexual orientation. Our culture arbitrarily defines sexual orientation by splitting it into two categories: homosexuality and heterosexuality. Some people acknowledge the existence of a third category, bisexuality, defined as equal attraction to both sexes, but believe this occurs very rarely.

But reality isn’t parsed so simply into boxes. As the great sex researcher Alfred Kinsey noted over 50 years ago, sexual attraction varies along a continuum, and he devised a seven-point scale to describe this. At one end of the scale are people who are exclusively heterosexual—all their fantasies, attractions, and sexual and romantic behaviors are directed toward the opposite sex. At the other end are people who are exclusively homosexual. In between are many gradations of desire, from “mostly heterosexual” to “mostly gay.” ( It’s actually even more complicated than that—some people have sexual but not romantic feelings for one gender or the other, and some have a fluid sexuality, experiencing different degrees of same- or opposite-sex attractions at different points in time. And women may be more physiologically wired for bisexuality or pansexuality than men. But these are topics for other articles.)

So bisexuality—meaning people with some significant degree of attraction to both genders—is pretty common. Bisexual people outnumber gays and lesbians. Some researchers, emulating Kinsey, break subjects down along a five-point scale, from exclusively heterosexual through mostly het, het-leaning bi, bi, gay-leaning bi, and so on. Using these metrics, points two through four—people with a mixed sexual orientation—comprise a far larger group than those with exclusively gay orientation. (Savin-Williams, 2013)

So how could we possibly be so invisible? For one thing, we often take longer to figure out our sexual orientation—it’s confusing to an adolescent to find he or she has mixed attractions when the world is pressuring him/her to choose up sides. But that also means we are less likely to be “out”—to be visible.

But we’re also invisible because we threaten the binary system of sexual identity, so neither gay nor “straight” people want to acknowledge bi people exist. The binary system exists to put as much distance as possible between heterosexuals and homosexuals, the “other.” For heterosexual people, especially straight men, admitting there are people who are “mostly heterosexual” or bisexual means they have to ask themselves if those feelings exist within their own hearts. Easier to just never mention them. Exclusively gay or lesbian people have different reasons to deny their existence. Historically, many gay people see themselves as having been “betrayed” by partners who identified as bisexual, so many see the label as signifying betrayal or cowardice.

If bisexual people do become visible, are truly seen, they are often mistrusted, feared, even despised. Bisexual women feed the fantasies of many straight men, but that is hardly acceptance. Bisexual men become instantly de-masculinized. Both are feared as disease carriers: bi women are sometimes shunned in the lesbian community for that reason, and straight women are warned away from bi men. Young bisexuals coming out are seen as going through a “phase,” a reason for a parent to hope that traditional marriage is still a possibility.

And the “It Gets Better” thing? Not so true for bi teens. A new study in the Journal of Adolescent Health (Cardom, Rostosky, and Danner, 2013) measured levels of depression in lesbian, gay, and bisexual teens and followed them to early adulthood. For gay men and lesbians, it does indeed “get better”—rates of depression symptoms, especially thoughts of suicide, decrease dramatically from adolescence to early twenties.

But for bisexuals and those who identified as “mostly gay,” suicide thoughts and attempts did not decrease. The authors speculate that this is because exclusively gay teens receive support from the gay community, but bi teens find, to their dismay, that they are just as isolated and stigmatized in gay life as they felt in the straight world. And that leads them to be ambivalent and uncertain about their orientation.

In a weird way, it’s easier to be exclusively oriented to one gender. Even if that gender is your own—at least your orientation is clear-cut. It’s harder for you and everyone around you to be in denial. And you don’t have to ponder the meaning of “choice,” because you have none. As Janis Joplin sang, “freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose,” and if you are gay, especially if you are gender nonconforming or gender queer, at some point you either come to terms with it or you don’t—which can mean suicidal ideation or a life of misery and isolation.

So, to an extent, bisexual people are perpetuating their own stigmatized position. I have found that most people self-identify according to the gender of their partner. Whether your partner is same or opposite sex, you get a lot more support and acceptance if you pretend to be what you look like as a couple. But as long as bisexuals do that, we allow the issue to remain invisible—or, worse, we allow all the terrible stereotypes of bisexuals to exist, unchallenged by the reality of having a loved one, co-worker, friend, or acquaintance who is openly bi.

References:

  1. Cardom, R., Rostosky, S., Danner, F. “Does It Get Better for Depressed Sexual Minority Youth in Adulthood?” Journal of Adolescent Health, 2013.
  2. Savin-Williams, R., Rieger, G. Rosenthal, A. “Physiological Evidence for a Mostly Heterosexual Orientation Among Men.” Archives of Sexual Behavior, 2013.

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  • goldie

    October 10th, 2013 at 3:03 PM

    hmmm I guess in some weird way it is easier for me to see how you can love someone of one gender that it is to see you loving both sexes equally.
    I mean, I love my gir friends and all but I could never be attracted to another girl in a romantic way. But I am okay with others who do. But I am baffled a little by those who are equally up for a relationship with either a guy or a girl. It’s so confusing for me, I guess I should be more sympathetic to them because I know if I am confused then they must be too especially when they are young and trying to sort everything out.

  • Camille

    October 11th, 2013 at 3:44 AM

    In general it continues to be a lack of understanding

  • vaughan

    October 11th, 2013 at 11:14 AM

    There are actual numbers that say that bisexuals outnumber gay people? That’s interesting.

  • Burt

    October 12th, 2013 at 3:06 PM

    As a gay male, I have always looked at my bi friends, kind of with a sort of feeling sorry for them because you are right, they have always had it far worse than I have! People are always questioning them about why they can’t justy choose one or the other, but like I’ve always told them, the heart wants what the heart wants, right? So why should you have to justify to someone else who you fall in love with?

  • Jane

    October 14th, 2013 at 6:39 PM

    I’d like to share this on Facebook, is that possible?

  • Margie Nichols

    October 15th, 2013 at 10:59 AM

    You should be able use the ‘share’ button at the top of the page. If that doesn’t work, contact goodtherapy.org directly. Thanks for sharing this!

  • Liesl

    October 15th, 2013 at 10:31 AM

    is it closed minded to wonder if bisexuality is just a state of sexual confusion?

  • margaret nichol, ph.d.

    October 16th, 2013 at 7:18 AM

    Liesl, it’s not closed minded unless you mean it as a rhetorical question. If you actually want to know the answer to that question, I suggest Fritz Klein’s work, Meredith Chivers research on the physiological sexual responses of bisexual women, Ritch Savin-Williams’ work on bisexual and ‘mostly heterosexual’ men, or any number of other books and articles on bisexuality.

  • B1ue

    October 17th, 2013 at 12:01 PM

    @Liesl, there are relationships that aren’t confusing?

    More seriously, I really like this article. I came out as gay to my friends and family when I was 18, but at 15 I had already figured out that it was more complicated than that. Gay was easier in a couple ways, not least because while I am attracted to both genders, I am more attracted to men, so it felt like I was going with the odds. It also got my traditionally minded family realizing I didn’t share their values completely, and serendipitously helped them to think of me as an adult.

  • The Real Truth

    November 5th, 2013 at 9:47 PM

    Well i can certainly tell you this, it has become so very difficult for many of us Straight Guys trying to meet a Decent Woman Today which it is Very Obvious Why.

  • John Jones

    February 6th, 2014 at 2:59 AM

    I run a website which seeks to put paid to war but also seeks to commend men who live bisexually or who opt for a gay lifestyle.
    To some, this seems a strange conjunction, even a regrettable one. Why should these two projects be linked together?
    The answer is quite simply that the dominant ideal of maleness through the centuries has been one of bravery and strength, in time of war of ruthlessness and violence. It is the recurrence of war through our history that has fed this ideal; conversely, the wars have been the main means of entrenching it.
    Therefore, if we are to advocate a world without war, men must be able to embrace this as a desirable goal, one which is consistent with their idea of masculinity. This is not likely to happen so long as the war-nourished ideal survives.
    I have myself lived bisexually for more than 50 years – and been very happily married to the same woman throughout that time. In my view, because of the need to satisfy partners of both genders, the gay side of my life precludes anal sex, but is otherwise as frankly sexual as desired by both parties.
    There is much more to be said.
    John Garrett Jones

  • Luke

    November 16th, 2014 at 7:07 PM

    I assure you for me it has nothing to do with confusion, but much thought, introspection and spiritual understanding and choices I felt were important and good.

    Like John says, clear gender definitions were meant for a more primitive and violent time. The human race is not advanced enough yet for everyone to have a good balance of male and female virtues. It is because we as the human race have let old stigmas and old ways of thinking hold us back.

  • The Very Truth Of All

    November 24th, 2016 at 9:44 AM

    Unfortunately many women are Gay nowadays which it really does make it very Difficult for many of us Straight Guys trying to find a Good Women that is Straight.

  • Joshua

    November 3rd, 2020 at 7:47 AM

    As a bi person It is true that many of us are scared of what people think of us and its hard to explain what we like and who we like right now i’m having a hard time telling my parents

  • Robert

    May 23rd, 2021 at 11:32 AM

    I was raised by one of them familys that accepted gay and straight people but that was the limit. I initially came out as gay bercause I was taught that if a man has desires for another man, hes gay and the end. It wasnt for a few years that I realized life wasn’t so cut and dry, I have sense pissed off a large portion of my family (mainly the gay ones) To behonest and fair, I cant ppoint a finger at the intollerance of straight people when I have seen it so much more deeper from the gay community.

  • Robert

    May 12th, 2022 at 11:46 AM

    I am bisexual, I have been out since the day I found I was attracted to both genders. I have very loving and very straight parents. I can honestly tell you that I have been treated far far worse by the gay community over being bisexual (tenfold).

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