Some Things Never Change ...

So I'm on the subway heading downtown when I see two straight couples standing nearby. Late thirties, early forties. The women are both white, the men are black and white. The guys are average-looking, as are the women, who are dressing perhaps a bit too loudly to accentuate their sexiness and minimize their age. There is something rather common about both of them. The white guy seems to be a bit of a lout, while the African-American guy at least appears to be the most intelligent and best educated of the bunch.

However, as the train pulls into a stop in Greenwich Village, it is the African-American guy who decides --since this is "gay" Greenwich Village -- that he has to tell the story of how -- gasp! -- a gay guy came on to him at a subway stop in the area. [This is another example of how dated these people were, as it is Chelsea that is now considered the big gay neighborhood in Manhattan, not Greenwich Village. Of course, they don't quite get that we are everywhere.] It is almost a dating ritual when straight couples go down to any area that has more than three gay people in it that the guy has to make clear what he thinks of gays, and that he is definitely, positively, thoroughly heterosexual.

Believe me, this particular gay guy wouldn't have cruised the fellow telling the story even under the influence. Guys like this feign disgust and disinterest at gay attentions when you sense deep down that they kind of like the fact that somebody thinks they're attractive. One of the women, while wearing a nauseated expression, said "Why didn't you tell him to get the fuck away!"

Good question. Maybe the guy telling the tale was on the down low. But he was establishing his heterosexuality for his date, hoping to bond with the Jersey gal in their mutual homophobia.No, I didn't hear "fag" or any obvious slurs, but the disapproval and negative attitude were definitely there.

Just a reminder that not everyone is cool with gay people, even in liberal New York City, and it's foolish to think that they are.

Attack of the Self-Hating Homos

Okay, you've heard of Attack of the 50 Foot Woman and Attack of the Giant Leeches, but have you ever been subjected to an attack by a self-hating homo? As much as I'd like to think that SHH's are a dying breed, they still exist. Most of them are in the religious ex-gay camps or on the down low, but a few identify as gay and can be found in gay bars and parties. They can strike when you least expect it.

It usually goes like this. SHH is offended by your gay identity because he or she has none of his/her own. Instead they're dealing with a lot of internalized homophobia. They are almost never out of the closet, even to family and [non-gay] friends, even though just about everyone knows that they're gay anyway.

What brings on an attack can be anything, but especially a discussion on gay rights and gay marriage. Self-hating homos will employ the same arguments that straight bigots use when discussing gay marriage and gay rights ["special privileges" to them]. Regardless of how old they are, they're stuck back in the 1970's.

Because they are on the periphery of the gay scene, they have little knowledge of it beyond their own sexual urges. They know little of homophobia or of the struggle for acceptance, and couldn't care less -- to their minds, it doesn't concern them. They tend to eschew relationships and their sex is of the anonymous (as opposed to casual) variety. They have sex not in actual beds and bedrooms but in parked cars and bushes. Even if they are not in heterosexual relationships (wife and kids), they very much resemble those kind of closet cases. Since they think of gay men in the most stereotypical of terms, and feel they are not in any way like them (except, ahem, for the attraction-to-men bit), they want to disassociate themselves as much as possible from gay guys. They deign to have friendships with openly gay men. [As if we need them.]

They speak of gays as if they are somehow apart from them (which in many ways is true; these people are homosexual but hardly Out and Proud). Like straight bigots they will point out all the outrageous [to them] participants in Gay Pride parades -- "those drag and leather queens, why would I want to march with them?" -- blindly ignoring the fact that most participants in Gay Marches are just average folk who happen to be gay. [Let me make it clear that I am not putting down the more flamboyant marchers.]

They speak of total disdain for gay culture, gay life. Because they are essentially unhappy, they blame it all on their being homosexual. They brag about how they hardly ever go to gay bars, how they have few if any gay friends. In their own minds this somehow makes them better than the rest of us. Their superiority complex only masks an inferiority complex -- but it doesn't fool anyone.

An aside: Most of us certainly have and should have heterosexual friends. But whenever I meet a homosexual person who says, in that certain "superior" tone, that most of their friends are straight, I always get an impression that they feel this makes them somehow better in their own eyes because after all, they think heterosexuals are better than gays [or at least that it's better to be straight than gay].

Sometimes you can help a self-hating homo to find acceptance. More often they set up a stony wall of attitude that it's impossible to breach. They need therapy and counseling but will rarely seek it. They prefer to wallow in their misery.

Some of these people stay shivering in their closets. Others do real damage to themselves and others. They never understand that by acting as if there's something wrong with being gay, they insult every gay person they choose to associate with.

SHH's are all over the Internet. They have strong opinions, but their opinions are always ill-conceived and uneducated because, as they admit, they are on the periphery of gay life. Still they persist in mouthing off on message boards and blogs.

Always anonymously.

The Gay/Bisexual Debate

The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force has issued a 148 page report on Bisexual Health which may have some shaking their heads in disbelief (it can be downloaded at the Task Force's website); I certainly found a lot of it mind-bogglingly stupid.

First let me say that I never really saw the need to have a separate bi movement, and its interesting to me that a really strong one has never quite emerged after all these years – although it's certainly got certain gay rights groups by the balls. Even today the Bi Movement seems to consist of a few souls carrying a big politically correct stick as opposed to a huge congregation of committed bisexuals. [No doubt books are being sold and people are getting attention yapping about Bi Rights, which seems to be the reason behind just about everything]. My thinking was that if a bi-identified person wanted to live a gay lifestyle, they were already covered under the gay rights umbrella. And if they wanted to live a straight lifestyle, they didn't need protection because they'd be perceived as hetero and hence were “safe.”

The main focus in the Task Force's report, of course, is on health issues, and the fact that many people, especially men, who have sex with both genders, are both at risk and putting others at risk for AIDS. These are men who are on the “down low,” which was first reported in the New York Times as being a phenomenon of the African-American community but which in my experience occurs in every ethnic background. The “down low” is nothing new of course. There have always been men who who can't accept their homosexuality, who can't feel “macho” if they admit to being gay or even bi, and who have sex with men [generally but not always being the “top”] but who also have relationships with a wife or girlfriend. There's a word for this sort of thing and it isn't “bisexual.” It's called “being in the closet.”

Not that members of the not very huge Bisexual Movement would agree. [The web site that's linked to the Task Force's site is kind of thrown-together, and I was amused by the fact that the late male founder of the Bisexual Foundation had had a long-term relationship – with another man. If this guy occasionally had sex with women, would that really have made him bisexual?] There are some disturbing things to be read in the Bi Health Report, including the incredible new definition of bisexuality. According to the report “a bisexual orientation speaks to the potential for, but not requirement of, involvement with more than one gender.” Potential ---!? By that definition, virtually anyone could be considered bisexual! This is an attempt by the rather bullying bi movement – who've got Matt Foreman and others of the Task Force and other groups locked up tight in a grip of political correctness – to bolster their numbers to a ridiculous proportion. Why, there must be more bisexuals than gays and straights combined! [Yes, I understand that the report's compilers could argue that some people will always be gay and others will always be straight, and these are not seen to have any “potential,” but this is still a impossibly vague and nearly all-encompassing description.] According to the report bi's also “have a greater likelihood of suffering from depression due to biphobia.” Well, maybe they're depressed because they can't come out of the closet? Because they can't deal with being gay? Because they want to be completely straight but can't be?

Let me make it clear that if you now ascribe to the old theory that most bi's are gays who aren't yet comfortable in a gay skin, you're considered not only old-fashioned but a bigot. The funny thing is, until I read this report I was perfectly willing to rethink my position on bisexuality. In my experience, most bisexuals clearly had a sexual preference, generally their own sex. I had always thought that there might be a few – maybe quite a few – genuine bisexuals, but these I would describe as people who are sincerely attracted as much to men as they are to women, kind of a 50/50 deal. Just because I or any other gay man may occasionally be attracted to a woman, or may have had sexual congress with females in the past, doesn't make me “bisexual.” But according to the Task Force's report all you really have to do is have the “potential” to sleep with both sexes and – bingo! -- you're bi. Suddenly my shit-o-meter was on high alert and I began to think that I was right all along. I think the Task Force will find that rather than revise people's opinion on the whole bi question, their report may have the opposite effect.

Now I'm beginning to think that the bi's protest too much, and I question the research, statistics, and science of the report. I detest the “politic-speak” that the report is riddled with, silly terms such as “MSMW” to describe a man who has sex with both men and women [whatever happened to bisexual, for crying out loud, which is supposed to be the whole point?] And all the pc crap such as how two men in a committed relationship are no longer a “gay couple” but a ”same-sex couple” [presumably because we could both take up with women at any moment. Sure].

The Task Force (and GLAAD) protested a June '06 piece in the New York Times -- “Gay, Straight or Lying”-- for sloppy research methods but their report isn't much better. The Times piece at least went so far as to present opposing viewpoints; in fact --aside from some dumb, ill-considered quotes -- I found it reasoned and balanced. [For the record the piece described how when a group of men were shown gay and straight porn and their sexual responses were monitored, most of the “bisexual” men reacted to the gay porn but not to the straight. Big surprise.] It essentially left the whole matter up in the air, which is where it may always remain. Most people will never be honest – even to themselves – when it comes to sexual orientation so perhaps all we'll ever have is opinions without conclusions. [Although my opinions are at least based on decades of personal experience and interactions with people who have variously identified themselves as gay, straight or bi, not on a series of interviews or what-have-you with a small cross section of men or women.]

But most importantly, when you consider the stigma that still exists to this day over being gay, it's no wonder so many people refuse to use that as a label. Even saying they're “bi” gives them a kind of cachet, a connection to the straight world, the feeling that they're not quite as “abnormal” as if they were exclusively gay. Frankly, it's become very tiresome and even offensive. This was not what the Gay Rights movement was supposed to be about.

Are there genuine bisexuals in the world? Possibly. It depends on the definition. If you think a married man who has children but who has sex with men as well is bisexual, I suppose it may be a reasonably fair statement. Except for the fact that many of these men, when they finally come out of the closet [usually because they've developed romantic feelings for a guy] generally say that they were never straight or bi to begin with, but gay. Lots of gay-identified men can sleep with women and father children. I'll never forget one man on LOGO's TV show “Coming Out Stories” saying that before his marriage he didn't think of himself as gay or bi but “just a straight man who sometimes had sex with guys.” [In other words, he was on the down low.]

Then there's the interesting case of a guy I worked with years ago in the Gay Activists Alliance in New York. I recently learned that he describes himself as bisexual and is now partnered with a woman [I don't recall if he was bi-identified all those years ago, only that he had a male partner for many years]. Admirably, on his web site he doesn't deny his gay past, and even has a picture of his ex-male lover [whom he does not name] and describes how he and his “straight girlfriend” attend gay pride marches. His commitment to gay activism does not seem to have wavered. In fact he was once downright militant, like me, and probably still is. Is he a genuine bisexual, or is his relationship with his lady friend more of a loving friendship born out of mutual loneliness than any kind of serious "grand passion"? He had a long-time relationship with a man; was he simply unable to find another man to share his life with after the first relationship broke up? Is his “straight” relationship emotional or sexual or both? If he'd found the right man would he ever have really considered being with a woman? Only he knows for sure but the answers don't really matter. While he may not have taken up with a woman to “run away” from his gayness, there are still plenty of gays who do just that and if we truly care about these “bisexuals” we can't just let them spend a lifetime lost in indecision and denial.

I admit that there aren't necessarily any clear cut answers, but we should be open-minded without losing sight of certain undeniable realities. If the Task Force and the Bi Movement want to believe that most of the bi-identified are really bisexual, I certainly can't stop them. But if they insist that ALL of the bi-identified are part of some vast bisexual community, then that will be almost criminally irresponsible. Even if there are bisexuals who are not going through a phase between being straight and coming out proudly as gay, the fact remains that a great many of them are doing just that. And they need help accepting their gay orientation, not a lot of blather that will only muddy the waters and make them more confused – and miserable – than ever. This is not “biphobia” -- it is the basis of gay activism and its creed of self-acceptance. It is the whole point of the Gay Movement. If every person were to accept their homosexuality proudly, the struggle for gay rights would be aided immeasurably. Bi activists say that we're "threatened" by bisexuality, but what we're really "threatened" by is a dishonest diffusion of our masses, and the fear that instead of becoming out and proud some gays will only use "bisexual" as a label to hide behind, hoping to have a "real" hetero relationship instead of the satisying gay partnership that will lead to sincere, long-lasting fulfillment.

Let's remember that if many people who insist to themselves and others that they're hetero aren't really straight, it's also true that many who say they're bisexual aren't really bi. Although I could find absolutely no background information about this study in the report from the Task Force, the report claims that one study showed that 10% of men in New York City who identify as straight have had sex with at least one man in the past year, and that 73% of male New Yorkers who have had sex with men identify themselves as hetero. Does anybody really believe this has anything to do with “bisexuality?” Or with the sad, simple fact that these men do not want to be perceived as gay or project a gay image they somehow find distasteful? Why are we worrying about real or alleged bisexuals when our primary goal should be to publicize the diversity of our gay community [heck, we can even include bisexuals if we want to] and to utterly erase the stigma that still attaches itself to homosexuality? We need to get the message out that anyone can be gay, no matter what their style, appearance or demeanor, and life outside the closet is immeasurably sweeter than one lived in constant deceit and denial.

If this wasn't enough to deal with, the report details a conference for bi and bi-curious men and, while it admitted most men were troubled/curious about their gay leanings, there were supposedly some gay-identified men who were bemused by unexpected sexual feelings for women. Again, the fact that I or any gay guy can occasionally think a woman is sexy or even make out with one while inebriated does not necessarily mean that we are straight or bi. But will the moderators at these conferences [it is suggested they be bi-identified or sensitive to bi-issues, not bigoted old poops] be intelligent enough to realize this? [While some may think I'm being unfair, I don't think a man who makes out/has sex with another man while inebriated can get away with saying he's totally straight, again because of the stigma of homosexuality. A drunk straight guy may make out with a woman he wouldn't normally find attractive, but with a man, any man? Don't think so. You may disagree.]

Now I have no doubt that many activists are going to agree with me on this matter but will be afraid to say so, afraid to look narrow-minded or out-of-date. And then there's the fact that many will want to keep their jobs with the professional gay organizations that employ them. They won't want to offend any of their constituency, especially those -- like some bisexual activists perhaps? -- who may contribute generously to their coffers. I recognize that people who have unprotected gay sex but who do not admit to being gay [or bi for that matter] are at great risk for deadly STDS, and perhaps The Task Force felt this was the only way to educate health professionals about treating them. If only the overly political, academic-dumb, so painfully correct it hurts double-speak could have been ruthlessly excised from the report. It pains me that to appeal to these men on the down low we almost have to agree with them that they're “straight” -- they will not admit to being gay – as perhaps the only way to save their lives.

But if we forget all about teaching self-acceptance and gay pride, are we really doing anyone a favor?

NOTE: One of the most fascinating and scholarly articles I have ever read on the subject of bisexuality [through the ages] was written by Rictor Norton and can be found here : http://www.infopt.demon.co.uk/social12.htm

UPDATE: In early June 2007 the Task Force released a revised and updated version of the Bisexual Health Report. Maybe because of all the criticism it got?

If you have an opinion about this or any other post on this blog, please leave a comment or email me at trock4304@mypacks.net.