{"id":25069,"date":"2014-08-14T06:00:59","date_gmt":"2014-08-14T13:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/?p=25069"},"modified":"2016-09-23T11:18:28","modified_gmt":"2016-09-23T18:18:28","slug":"10-things-you-might-not-know-about-bisexuality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/10-things-you-might-not-know-about-bisexuality-0814144","title":{"rendered":"10 Things You Might Not Know about Bisexuality"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AnI recently agreed to do part of an online course in LGBT studies<\/a>. I\u2019m doing the \u201cB\u201d: bisexuality. They had a hard time finding someone to do it; no one thought they could fill the time with enough info on the subject! After all, we still live in a world where a lot of people think there is \u201cno such thing\u201d as bisexuality.<\/p>\n

The more I dig, the more I feel that understanding bisexuality is the key to understanding a LOT of things about sexual orientation<\/a>, behavior, attractions, and gender<\/a> itself. Here are 10 things I\u2019ve learned so far:<\/p>\n

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  1. There are more bisexual\u00a0people\u00a0than gay and lesbian people.<\/strong> That\u2019s right. Not only does bisexuality exist, those who self-label as bi outnumber those who identify as gay or lesbian. A 2011 study in The Journal of Sexual Medicine<\/em> found that 3.1% of respondents in a national survey said they were bi and only 2.5% lesbian or gay. Other studies have found similar results.<\/li>\n
  2. Younger people embrace the identity more than older people. <\/strong>Lisa Diamond and Ritch Savin-Williams\u2019 research shows that people under 40, and especially those under 30, think it\u2019s no big deal to acknowledge attractions to both men and women. But then again, young people tend to think marriage<\/a> equality is a no-brainer, too.<\/li>\n
  3. Women may be more bisexual than men\u2014or they just accept it more.<\/strong> About 15 years ago, Meredith Chivers did lab research showing that women\u2014regardless of their sexual identity\u2014respond more to bisexual erotica than men. And recent analyses of national youth surveys by Nanette Gartrell show about 15% of adolescent girls have had a same-sex experience, not just attractions.<\/li>\n
  4. But men may be catching up. <\/strong>Savin-Williams is doing research on \u201cmostly heterosexual\u201d men\u2014those with a little bit of same-sex attraction and behavior. There are a LOT of them. And Diamond, once an advocate of the position that women were more bisexual and fluid than men, recently published a paper called \u201cI Was Wrong\u2014Men Are Pretty Darn Fluid Too.\u201d<\/li>\n
  5. Bisexuals threaten heterosexuals because they \u201cblur the line.\u201d<\/strong> In case you haven\u2019t noticed, many heterosexuals still fear<\/a> and reject<\/a> gay people. They want to distance from same-sex attraction in every way. If the world is divided neatly into two \u201ccamps\u201d\u2014those who are 100% heterosexual and those 100% gay\u2014that\u2019s easy. But if there is a third group, people who are attracted to both men and women, it\u2019s harder to draw the line and make that separation.<\/li>\n
  6. Bisexuals threaten gay people because they represent the ability to hide behind \u201cheterosexual privilege.\u201d<\/strong> Lesbians and gay men often fear they cannot compete with heterosexual privilege in a relationship, and many suspect that anyone who self-labels as \u201cbisexual\u201d will eventually find the lure of a \u201cnormal\u201d life too tempting. Some see bisexuals as potential traitors\u2014and heartbreakers.<\/li>\n
  7. This double \u201cbiphobia\u201d leaves bisexuals without a community.<\/strong> The \u201cB\u201d in LGBT is only grudgingly accepted. Bisexuals would normally seek solace from their \u201cqueer\u201d tribe\u2014but there is sometimes only marginal acceptance by the tribe.<\/li>\n
  8. There is a tremendous pressure to \u201clie\u201d if you are bisexual. <\/strong>Only 23% of self-identified bisexuals tell others. It\u2019s easier to just let people assume that if you are with an opposite-sex partner you are straight and if you are with a same sex partner you are gay.<\/li>\n
  9. This leads to \u201cbi-invisibility.\u201d<\/strong> \u201cBiphobia\u201d is the irrational fear of bisexuality. \u201cBi-invisibility\u201d is the denial that bisexuals exist and being blind to the existence of bisexuality. Until recently, this was argued in the scientific literature about bisexuality, and it is the most common public misconception about bisexuality. But bisexuals themselves may unwittingly help to maintain bi-invisibility by not \u201ccoming out.\u201d After all, arguably the single most important thing that advanced gay rights in the past 40 years was gays and lesbians becoming more public.<\/li>\n
  10. Bi-invisibility is also maintained by \u201cbi-erasure.\u201d<\/strong> Bi-erasure is the cultural tendency to refuse to acknowledge bisexuals even when they proclaim their bisexuality. How many people think Rock Hudson gay and Marlon Brando straight? Both talked openly about attractions and sexual experiences<\/a> with men as well as women. Larry King\u2019s fumbling interview of Anna Paquin is not unusual. For reasons that mystify, many people have such a hard time wrapping their heads around the idea that someone could be attracted to both genders\u2014or that gender might not matter\u2014that they just erase the possibility from their worlds!<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Bisexuality is widely misunderstood\u2014by heterosexual and gay\/lesbian people alike. Here are some things we are beginning to understand about bisexual people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2634,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[542],"tags":[31,434,234,25,139],"class_list":["post-25069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured-articles","tag-psychotherapy-practice","tag-identity-issues","tag-lgbt","tag-psychotherapy-issues","tag-sex-therapy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2634"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25069\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}