The Bisexual Option

by Fritz Klein MD

  As one bisexual said: “It’s great to be able to make it in bed with my friends if we so desire” If they do not “so desire,” there is no problem. But self-imposed restrictions keep the doors of change constantly swinging. The aware bisexual knows that desire cannot always be so easily regulated, and that the friend who holds no sexual attraction today could tomorrow. The heterosexual and homosexual take their fixed place in the sexual spectrum more for granted. The bisexual’s equilibrium is not so easily fixed.

  The aware bisexual, looking for present-day factors that will affect his or her future in friendship or love, would not seem to have a great deal to go on. Yet more and more people are giving to their sexuality a place equal to what has always been given to basic needs such as food, shelter, and sleep. In the past, women were encouraged to be suspicious of one another, causing most women to find it nearly impossible to bond in friendship the way men do. These two factors alone, the recognition of sexuality as a necessary and healthy human need and the readier bonding between women, will undoubtedly bring enormous changes in how we view the bisexual and how the bisexual views him- or herself.

  The Family. A woman at a recent dinner party spoke to me of the bisexual lifestyle and how it is becoming more popular. What she meant by “bisexual lifestyle” was the person who lives by him- or herself and has sex with both genders–a man on one night, a woman on another. But, as we’ve seen, there is no one lifestyle when we speak of the bisexual. The arch of behavior is wide and the avenue of expression broad. A bisexual lifestyle can even be satisfactorily expressed through a family, children, and one or two close friends. It can be expressed in a single relationship with a member of one sex, or in a couple of relationships with members of either or both sexes. The bisexual life can also be lived in sequential monogamous relationships or in “open marriage.”

  The family as such is very much involved when bisexuality is considered. What family factors today concern the bisexual in the future? Many. Let me mention some of the more important ones.

  Divorce rates keep rising in the U.S. year after year.

  The number of divorced people under the age of 35 is over 80 per 1000 married persons.

  More and more people are living alone.

  The number of single-parent families has skyrocketed.

  Other factors include the increase in the number of working women and their resulting financial independence; and greater mobility in our civilization, which is also loosening family ties–if not those of the nuclear, then those of the extended family of uncles, aunts, cousins, and even brothers and sisters when they become adults and move away. Other options become, available, other methods of close relationships must be formed.

  The monogamous ideal of the past is being seriously questioned in all parts of society, which encourages the bisexual to speak out. In a discussion at the Bisexual Forum held in March 1977, of 17 people present, not one believed in monogamy for him/herself at the current time. Three people desired it for the future but not for then. One happily married man, who came closest to it by being monogamous with his wife for 23 years of marriage, had only one male lover friend at any one time and only a total of three while married. A number of married and formerly married men and women had been monogamous for periods of one to ten years but none were currently monogamous. Most desired open relationships with one primary partner. The general consensus was that no one person could fulfill all the emotional and sexual needs of a person and that other people were desirable and even necessary.

  Nothing else in bisexuality is more historically important than this simple “truth”: what was once both religious and civil law–one man, one woman, one lifetime–is now in question. Millions of people who half a generation ago embraced a monogamous lifestyle–venturing outside it only in secret–are attending a new sociological god, autonomy, whereby, whether in a true or illusory spirit of freedom, one is open to self-exploration through emotional and sexual relatedness with more than one person in a lifetime and, for many, more than one person at a time.

  However, in the last ten years, with the epidemic of AIDS, this practice of sexual relations with more than one person at a time has been diminished to a great extent. Some bisexuals practice monogamy where previously they were “swingers,” some have decided to have many fewer contacts outside their prime relationship, and those who have continued their former open lifestyle are now carefully practicing safe sex.

  “Lesbian, Gay &BiEqual Rights and Liberation movement.” In April 1977, the White House invited the National Gay Task Force to hear its views on discrimination against homosexuals. This extraordinary event occurred only eight years after the Stonewall riots in 1969, in which hundreds of gays clashed with New York City police over the question of police brutality during a raid on a gay bar.

  This outstretched hand from the Executive Branch also held out the promise of a new outlook toward bisexuals. In the mind of the general public, the homosexual and the bisexual are synonymous. If the men and women privy to the most powerful office on earth were willing to listen, who knew what changes the future might hold in store? Though the more recent Republican administrations of Reagan and Bush have proved rather less sympathetic to their non-heterosexual constituencies, the new Clinton presidency is once more listening to these minority groups. Though the extreme religious right tries to outlaw and circumscribe gays and lesbians, the gays and lesbians themselves continue to flex their political muscle, adding more cities and states that have passed anti-sexual orientation ordinances. Thus, as gays build a higher self-image, the bisexual, too, may begin to occupy a more firmly rooted place in society.

  The Women’s Movement and Feminism. The women’s movement, awakening as it did in 1968 from the half-sleep it entered after women got the vote in 1920, has unalterably changed American life. It is all but impossible to imagine what American culture was like without it.

  Like all movements, this one has its factions, and an important one is its own gay population. In the past, male homosexuality was more or less the condition people thought of when they thought of homosexuality at all. As with most other things, homosexuality was very much a “man’s world.” But ideas of what is a man and woman are changing, and these ideas will undoubtedly help to make it a people’s world. In this world, the lesbian will hold a place in our culture equal to that of the male homosexual. From that position she affects the consciousness of all women, who will thus be more likely to confront their possible homosexual component–and be tolerated and, one hopes, respected for it.

  Feminism, with its emphasis on the latent power inherent in what is female, tends to make it more acceptable for men to acknowledge that part of themselves. Men can be less concerned with the problem of establishing their manliness, thereby helping to free both themselves and women to more fully explore their sexual natures.

  Women have thrown off for good the cliché images of powder-puff simplemindedness and passivity. A happy fallout is that men can express what is womanly within them with less fear of social opprobrium. And as men in turn free themselves of old-time clichés of machoism, it becomes more acceptable for women to express what is manly about them.

  Whatever was female was long considered inferior. One of the most insidious results of such downgrading of half the human race was the mistrust and alienation it caused among women themselves. While men could form bonds of mutual respect for one another, women could not; they were taught not to respect themselves. Today, women have new respect for themselves and therefore for other women. They are able to see bisexuality as one of the roads leading to a closer bond between women. This is bound to lead to a more understanding and tolerant attitude toward bisexuality in the future.

  This change is already evident by the overwhelming adoption of a Sexual Orientation declaration by the 1977 National Womens’ Conference held in Houston. In 1992, Elizabeth Reba Weise edited an anthology of writings by 21 women on the topic of feminism and bisexuality, Closer to Home, Bisexuality and Fem
inism.

  This new-found strength has also changed the bisexual movement to a large extent. In the past five years many bisexual women in the lesbian community have decided to counter the prejudice of many lesbians towards themselves by breaking away from the lesbian community and forming new bisexual organizations. Some of these new organizations have continued to have only female members while others have opened their associations to men. The result is that there are now over 50 bisexual organizations in the U.S.

  The first National Bisexual Conference, held in San Francisco in the middle of 1990, was an example of the role of the female bisexual. It was through the energy and drive of the women organizers that it took place. There is available now an International Directory of Bisexual Groups. (For a current copy of the most recent Directory, you can send a self-addressed stamped envelope and a donation of $2.00 to: Robyn Ochs, East Coast Bisexual Network, c/o GLSC, 338 Newbury St., Boston, MA 02115.)

  In addition, there now seems to be a sufficient number of organizations in the Western world that permit a beginning trend of bisexual conferences meeting on an international level. The United Kingdom put on its tenth National Conference in 1992. In 1991 Amsterdam hosted successfully the First International Bisexual Conference where 200 participants from ten countries gathered. London hosted the Second International Bisexual Conference in October of 1992, and New York is planning to host the Third International Conference in 1994 in conjunction with the 25th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots.

  Myths. Misinformation and lack of information about bisexuality is very much what this book is about. There follows a simple list of the myths surrounding bisexuality in two broad categories: the myth of nonexistence, and the myth of neurosis, both of which will play an important role in the shaping of the bisexual future.

  Nonexistence Myth

  A person is either straight or gay.

  There is no such entity as bisexuality.

  The bisexual is really a homosexual.

  Bisexuality is only a transition stage.

  Neurotic Myth

  The bisexual is by definition neurotic.

  The bisexual cannot love deeply.

  The bisexual is mixed up and can’t make up his/her mind.

  The bisexual is hyper-sexed and sex crazy.

  Dilemmas. The bisexual’s dilemma is twofold: his/her interaction with society on the one hand, and his/her internal problem on the other. Until now, the overwhelming social attitude toward the bisexual has been one of denial. This is a classic attitude of large groups of people toward anyone different. But how different are bisexuals? Now many people, some of them famous, are broadcasting their bisexual natures. Many people are illuminating what we now know to be bisexual behavior. The door to the closet will never close so firmly again.

  If bisexuals are a problem to others, the others are even more of a dilemma to bisexuals. And the bisexuals themselves are the ones who live with the condition. Both groups of people should profit from better understanding in the future. To understand the bisexual is to understand ourselves better, no matter what our sexual orientation. And with understanding comes growth–as individuals and as a society. Again, in a word–progress.

  Sex. What a powerful three-letter word. What a joy. What a burden. After millions of years of living with it, we are as awed and as baffled by its power as we are by the meaning of life itself. If we are ever to learn the truth of that meaning, the understanding of sex will be an essential key to the mystery. Millenniums have passed in darkness. The future–for people of all varieties on the spectrum of sexual orientation–looks brighter.

  Bisexuality is now staking its claim upon our serious consideration as a real force for bringing about that brighter future.

  Such, at least, is the premise of this book.

  APPENDIX A

  The Bisexual as Portrayed in the Arts

  THE “REALITY”

  1. The Fox

  ... It had seemed so easy to make one beloved creature happy. And the more you tried, the worse the failure. It was terrible. She had been all her life reaching, reaching, and what she reached for seemed so near, until she had stretched to her utmost limit. And then it was always beyond her.... She was glad Jill was dead for she had realized that she could never make her happy.

  These are the thoughts and feelings of Ellen March at the end of D. H. Lawrence’s novella, The Fox, Written in 1923, The Fox is a haunting story of two women and a man entangled in a web of unhappy love. The two women have a difficult time making a go of their farm. Jill Banford, the principal investor, is “a small, thin, delicate thing with spectacles.” Ellen is the “man” about the place. She does four-fifths of the work. These 30-year-old, spinsterish, educated women are “attached to each other.” One day Henry, a 20-year-old soldier, appears. He reminds Ellen of the fox that has been preying on the chicken coop. Though exasperated by the animal, she is also mesmerized by it and cannot force herself to kill it. Within a short time, Henry asks Ellen to marry him–and kills the fox. Ellen is caught between the love of Jill and the love of Henry. She vacillates, unable to make a decision. But the decision is taken out of Ellen’s hands when Jill is killed by the falling tree that Henry cuts down.

  Writing in the 1920s, Lawrence was not explicit regarding the sexual behavior of the characters involved. However, Ellen’s bisexuality and Jill’s lesbianism are clearly inferred through their emotional ties, their declarations of need and love, and by the fact that they sleep in the same bed. Ellen’s involvement with the man is more explicit; she marries him after Jill’s death. But at no time did Lawrence describe sexual involvement between the man and woman apart from one kiss before their marriage.

  In 1968 the novella was made into a film, with Anne Hey wood playing Ellen; Sandy Dennis, Jill; and Keir Dullea, Henry. Two generations after the novella was first published, sexual explicitness was taken for granted, and what was only implied in the book is shown cinematically in graphic detail. We see Ellen masturbating in front of a mirror, enjoying heterosexual fantasies. The two women make love in their bedroom. Henry and Ellen have a love scene in an abandoned cabin.

  In the novella Ellen is ambivalent in her desires, and though seen as strong in a number of respects–especially in her relationship with Jill–she ends up as a passive, unhappy, and self-acknowledged failure. But the negative aspect of bisexuality is strongly emphasized when her indecision concerning her sexuality is followed by her death. Bisexuality is seen as an ambiguous state that cannot survive. A choice has to be made–give up either the male or female sexual object, and its corollary, relinquish the inner woman or man. Either-or. Ellen could not kill the fox, the male symbol. But the female object was killed and thereby Ellen’s inner masculinity. Ellen allowed it to happen. “And she–she wanted to sit still, like a woman on the last milestone, and watch.” Yet she could not submit, could not surrender her inner androgynous self. Though her husband wished it, she did not “have all her own life as a woman and a female,” but still was “a man, a woman with a man’s responsibility.”

  Reviews of the film (with a notable exception by Judith Crist) do not refer to bisexuality, though they provide a synopsis of the plot. Lesbianism, however, is mentioned in relation to the two women. So, although there are only three characters, it is the bisexual one who does not exist. The critic who mentioned bisexuality said this:

  ... but Anne Heywood, who plays the girl who is desired by both male and female, is sheer perfection in a stunning portrayal of a woman torn by the bisexuality that obsesses us all. [Author’s italics]

  2. Giovanni’s Room

  D. H. Lawrence’s portrayal of Ellen as a self-admitted failure was mild compared to James Baldwin’s delineation of bisexuals in his novel, Giovanni’s Room. He treats the difficulty of love with an intensity that permits a glimpse into the internal private hell of the neurotic bisexual. And once again, as in The Fox, the bisexual is depicted as one who, directly or indirectly, kills.

  Giovanni’s Room is
one of the very few mainstream novels with two bisexuals as the protagonists. David, a handsome, blond, young American living in France to “find himself,” meets the dark and handsome Giovanni in a gay bar in Paris. The two men begin an affair that night, and David moves into Giovanni’s small, dingy room. David, torn by guilty desire, finally leaves Giovanni to return to his fiancée Hella, who had been in Spain trying to decide whether or not to marry him. Down on his luck and without a job, Giovanni ends up killing his former employer. He is found guilty and guillotined. David’s love for Hella turns sour, he loses her and turns to men again.

  In fiction, the bisexual is more often than not depicted as the villain–the spy or the traitors–or the weak, vacillating neurotic. In Giovanni’s Room both types are juxtaposed. Giovanni and David share one quality: both are outsiders, both foreign elements in their adopted society. Giovanni, the Italian, is the foreign worker who is looked down on by the French, yet doesn’t fit his native Italian culture either, being unable to propagate his own kind (his baby was born “twisted, gray and dead”). David, the American expatriate, also feels alienated in France. He is neither in harmony with the homosexual world of Paris nor the heterosexual world of America. He belongs nowhere and to no one, not to Giovanni, not to Hella, and most important, not to himself. He remains a dim shadow, without substance.

  Giovanni comes through the pages sharply molded, a real person, a man whose essence contains a major flaw. Giovanni is able to love: He loved his wife and he loved David. But Giovanni also kills. When his baby is born dead, he renounces his religion, his wife, his home and runs to Paris. In Paris he destroys not symbolically but actually. This in turn seals his doom and execution. The bisexual, it would seem, is not to be trusted. Destruction follows his footsteps in the heterosexual as well as in the homosexual world. And in the end he is destroyed.