Accepting
Myself As Bi
Accepting my bisexuality
was probably one of the most difficult things I've ever had to do in my
life. It seems to me that if you're straight then you grow up to
be and do exactly what everyone, including yourself, expected. Bisexuals,
or gays or anyone not fitting society's idea of "normal" for that matter,
don't seem to have it quite that easy. For me, I grew up with a sense
that I had different feelings than other kids my age. In time, I
began to accept these feelings and learned names for them. But no
one ever told me it was okay to be bisexual or gay or to have feelings
for people of the same sex. Everything I learned was from jokes told
in school, the media, or wherever else kids get their view of the world
(religion perhaps). And the picture I got of gays and "those type
of people" wasn't very favorable. I didn't want to be looked upon
as a "bad" person. From a gay friend, the Internet and gay positive
movies/books I learned what gay and bisexual people are really like.
They're just average people who have the same feelings every other human
being has, with the small difference that the gender they have romantic
feelings for is different. And after some time, I accepted that I
was, in some yet to be determined way, one of them.
In accepting myself as bisexual, it seemed
to me that bisexuals have additional confusion created
by the fact that it's not a one-or-the-other sort of decision. I
spent some time questioning myself if I was straight or gay and oscillating
my decision back and forth until eventually I came to the confusing conclusion
that neither gay or straight were exclusively correct, but that both accurately
described me. Therefore, I must be bisexual. The process was
not so matter of fact and it took a great deal of time and soul searching
before I could accept it (see next section for specifics). It's only
in retrospect that I can understand or explain this process I went though.
To this day I still have occasional moments of doubt, or perhaps doubt
is too strong a word, but I look at it as part of a routine personal evaluation
or check-up, just to see if I'm still the same person I think I am.
Existence,
Quantity and Quality of Attractions
In the process of
trying to figure out whether I was straight, gay or bi I considered the
obvious question, which I must have asked myself thousands of times, do
I like men or women? Seems simple enough. Do I find men sexually
attractive or is it more a feeling of admiration, envy or jealousy perhaps?
Do I find women sexually attractive or am I just feeling what I'm suppose
feel or want to feel so I can have "normal" life? So I asked myself
these questions for some time and the result was mostly frustration and
unhappiness. Eventually, when I wasn't so eager to have an answer
now and some time had passed, I could tell I had genuine sexual
feelings for both men and women. With so many emotions running through
my head like fear, guilt, loneliness and pressure from myself to define
my orientation immediately I couldn't tell what I really felt. So,
if you're like me, some of the best advice I can give is just to relax
and don't try and force anything, you'll know when you're ready.
But it didn't end there. Now I was relatively sure that I was genuine attracted both men and women, I realized that more often than not, it was guys I found myself drooling over. There were some women, but mostly guys. In a not quite scientific survey, I would say guys were the object of my attraction 75% of the time and women 25%. Does that make me gay since I find guys attractive more often? My personal view is no it does not. Some may have more attractions to members of the opposite sex, some may be about even. Some it may just depend on how they feel that day, month, year or whatever. So where is the cut-off point, if I was only attracted to women 5% of the time would I be gay? Well, as you know, life isn't numbers or percents. It's about feelings and choices (perhaps made genetically as you were conceived). What you decide you are, if you even chose to label for your feelings, is entirely up to you.
But again, it didn't
end there for me. Sometimes, coming out can feel like a series of
boxes that when you open one, what you find inside is just another box
that you've got to try and figure out how to open. I knew I felt
something for both men and women, but what exactly did I find attractive?
What was it that I wanted from a guy or girl? Sex? A family?
A soul mate? It seemed to me that love could be divided into two
categories: physical (sexual) love and emotional love. I asked
myself the questions: do I want and am I capable of having physical
love with a man/woman? Do I want and am I capable of having emotional
love for a man/woman? Certainly these, like all the other, are not
easy questions to answer. My conclusion, I haven't come to one yet.
I have some idea, but I don't feel I've had enough experience to say for
sure. Time and experience will tell (I hope). If you want to
read more on this subject of physical vs. emotional love here is an interesting
post and a reply from the newsgroup soc.support.youth.gay-lesbian-bi
in May 1998: Reply 1, Reply
2. Note: I do not necessarily agree with everything the
authors of these posts have written, but I do think they have some interesting
ideas to consider.
Coming
Out
My current situation
is that I'm not really "out" about being bisexual. Just my close
friends know. The truth is I think I'm scared to come out because
I fear what other's will think of me and that they may reject because I'm
bi. You've probably heard that idea that if you do come out to friends
and they reject you, then they weren't very good friends to begin with
and not worth being concerned about. I think this is true, but losing
friends, regardless of how good of friends they are, always hurts (especially
if you don't have that many to begin with). It seems to me that being
bi makes it somewhat easier not to come out than it is gays or lesbians
since you can still feel included and at least partially understood by
your friends. But in the end I've found it's not a good solution
because I can't hide who I am all my life. Emotionally it costs too
much to hide part of who I am to my friends and family. It costs
too much to keep secrets and pretend that a part of me doesn't exist and
therefore isn't of value. The benefits are your family and friends
love you for who you are and can actively participate in your life.
You're relationship may get stronger. You can talk about that guy/girl
you went out with rather than make up a cover story. You can put
that poster up on your bedroom wall. Some may seem like little things,
but really they're not. Depending on your own personal situation,
you have to weight the costs, benefits and potential risks of telling others
about your sexual orientation and come to a conclusion. Often financial
dependence is a big factor if you still live at home and think you may
get kicked out. My personal conclusion is to be out, but when will
that actually be a reality in my life? Soon I hope. As for
getting over the fear that you'll be rejected or be looked upon as defective,
I suggest reading about other people's coming out experiences and hopefully
you'll see that it doesn't happen all that often and that the benefits
are worth it. I also suggest getting a book on coming
out (here are some recommendations)
that has ideas on how to go about doing it and will allow you to think
about questions ahead of time that you hadn't considered and may be asked.
Check the Internet or try the PFLAG organization for material on coming
out.
So what do you think
about what I wrote? I've been getting lots of email from people telling
me that they've felt very similar. How about sharing what you think
by adding to my guestbook so that everyone will know they're not alone.
Sign Guestbook View Guestbook
If you're bi or think you may be and want to talk about it you can email me at [email protected].
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