You recently gave this advice to a gay man involved with a married bisexual man: “Don’t mess around with bisexuals.” You went on to tell the reader he should not mess around with married men either. Staying away from people who are in committed relationships is sound advice. But condemning all bisexuals as poor relationship material is prejudiced, biphobic, and hurtful.
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It wasn’t prejudice and fear that colored my advice for Bud, Jennifer, but plain ol’ common sense. Bud, a gay man dating a married bisexual man, was frustrated about having to share his “soul mate” with his soul mate’s wife. Bud’s problem had nothing to do with monogamy (and if Bud was hung up on monogamy he wouldn’t have got involved with a married man in the first place) and everything to do with primacy. Bud wants to be his soul mate’s one and only, but that wasn’t in the cards with this particular soul mate, so I advised Bud to find another one. And under the circumstances, telling Bud to rule out bi guys and married men was sensible advice.
It may not be PC to say this–the last time I’ll use that term in this or any other millennium, I swear–but avoiding bi guys is a good rule of thumb for gay men looking for long-term relationships. Outside of San Francisco’s alternate-universe bisexual community, there aren’t that many bi guys on the planet who want or wind up in long-term same-sex relationships, monogamous or not. Surely it’s not news to you that people are put under a lot of pressure to choose partners of the opposite sex. The number of homos who succumb to this pressure–the flaming fags who marry straight women and big ol’ dykes who marry straight men–is staggering, so it should come as no shock that most bisexuals wind up with opposite-sex partners. And while many straight men are delighted to discover their girlfriends are bisexual, most straight women are not delighted to discover their boyfriends are bisexual. Consequently bi guys who want to keep opposite-sex partners are under tremendous pressure to stay closeted. And when a guy is closeted–as most bi guys are–he can’t really be there for his boyfriend, can he?
–Wish I Could Protect Everybody From Assholes
No, there are definitely some people who should fool around with bisexual men: other bisexual men! Jesus Christ, bisexuals, if straights and gays treat you unfairly then why don’t you turn to each other for love and comfort? Judging from my mail of late there’s an unlimited supply of easily offended, extremely verbose, highly ethical bisexuals out there looking for love. Fuck each other!
