Bisexuality in the Lives of Men

Facts and Fictions

Erich W Steinman, Brett Genny Beemyn

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781317992783
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Gender Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Explore the theoretical, political, psychological, and cultural issues surrounding male bisexuality!Bisexuality in the Lives of Men is the first anthology to focus on men who love both men and women. The theoretical, scientific, and literary essays in this landmark volume dispel the fictions that bisexual men are greedy, promiscuous, confused, deceptive, unfaithful, HIV-positive--the dominant images of bisexual men in our culture. Whether portrayed as a coward who can't quite come out into full gayness or a smooth-talking serial killer, the bisexual man has been vilified in books and movies. In scholarly studies, they are often ignored or else lumped together with gay men. It is now widely acknowledged that human sexuality is more complex and diverse than the narrow categories "gay" and "straight." But, while the use of the term "bisexual" has become much more common in the last decade, an understanding of bisexuality itself lags far behind. A lack of research on how bisexuality is experienced, interpreted, and encoded in literature, film, and other aspects of popular culture means that stereotypes, stigma, and confusion are still prevalent. Bisexuality in the Lives of Men is a multidisciplinary examination of this neglected topic, bringing together expertise reflecting divergent approaches and fields to show the whole bisexual man. Topics include:

• a thoughtful review and analysis of the public health research on the role of bisexual men in HIV transmission
• a study of the marital consequences of a husband's bisexuality, including couples who have stayed together
• an analysis of the heartfelt discussions taking place in an online bi-male community
• an empirical study of the ways that bi-negativity differs from homophobia
• an essay bringing together queer theory and social constructionist ideas to explain why bisexual men are much less visible than bisexual women

The rigorously analytical yet accessible essays in this volume offer new information and perspectives about male bisexuality. Bisexuality in the Lives of Men is an essential resource for anyone interested in the theoretical, political, and cultural issues of male bisexuality.

Make Me a Map

Bisexual Men's
Images
of
Bisexual
Community

Paula C. Rust

© 2001 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.

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[Haworth co-indexing entry note]: “Make Me a Map: Bisexual Men's Images of Bisexual Community.” Rust, Paula C. Co-published simultaneously in Journal of Bisexuality (Harrington Park Press, an imprint of The Haworth Press, Inc.) Vol. 1, No. 2/3, 2001, pp. 47–108; and: Bisexuality in the Lives of Men: Facts and Fictions (ed: Brett Beemyn and Erich Steinman) Harrington Park Press, an imprint of The Haworth Press, Inc., 2001, pp. 47–108. Single or multiple copies of this article are available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service [1-800-342-9678, 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. (EST). E-mail address: [email protected]].

SUMMARY. Traditionally, a community is a socially interconnected group of people living and working in close geographic proximity to each other-for example, a small town. However, in contemporary Western societies, high rates of geographic mobility, compartmentalized relationships, and the replacement of social relationships based on factors of birth with relationships based on common interests have rendered this form of community increasingly scarce. For many individuals, the sense of belonging once provided by geographically bounded communities is now provided by other social structures, such as membership organizations and Internet connections. “Make Me a Map” explores the questions of whether bisexual men feel that a bisexual community exists and, if so, what makes it a community; whether they derive a sense of belonging from it; and how it is related to other sexual and political communities. The data are drawn from an international study of the psychological, social, and political experiences of over 900 bisexual men and women, in which respondents described their bisexual communities (or lack thereof) verbally and drew maps of these communities. These verbal responses and maps reveal feelings of both isolation and belonging among bisexual men, a variety of beliefs about what a community is or should be, and a variety of experiences with and perceptions of this bisexual community. Also explored in “Make Me a Map” are bisexual men's perceptions of racial, political, gender, and sexual diversity within their bisexual communities, issues of visibility and self-identification, and the relationships of their bisexual communities to gay and lesbian communities. The analysis concludes with a theoretical consideration of the relationship between individual perceptions of community and the concept of a collective social reality. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-342-9678. E-mail address: <[email protected]> Website: <http://www.HaworthPress.com>]

KEYWORDS. Bisexual men, bisexuality, community, intergroup relations, sexual orientation, sexual politics, social construction of reality

September 1, 1998. Early evening. The back room of a leather store catering to the “gay community.” An impressive but silent cappuccino machine overlooks a deserted counter, a remnant of the short-lived coffee shop that closed because of “lack of support” from “the community.” Tonight, the room is filled to capacity with three dozen men and women who have come to hear a panel discussion about bisexuality. On the panel are one “expert”, and four “real people”, that is, bisexual men and women. Audience members nod in agreement as first the expert describes how hegemonic Euro-American culture revels in binary categories of sex, gender, and sexuality that deny the existence of bisexuality, and then as the real people tell their stories with an emphasis on dispelling stereotypes and exemplifying the diversity of bisexual experience. The question and answer period had not yet begun, but a hand went up. Caught slightly off guard, panel members looked quizzically at the man in the audience, who said, “All of you keep mentioning the ‘bisexual community.’ Tell me, where can I find it?”

His question was followed by several seconds of silence. “Well…” Each panel member ventured an answer. One of us said, “We are it.” The audience member looked unsatisfied; can four people be a community? Apparently that was not the answer he had hoped to hear. Another panel member mentioned a local support group. “How do I get in touch with that group?” “We're not sure, who's running it now?” “Try calling the local Gay Alliance; they can tell you.” Another panel member mentioned the national organizations; “membership forms for BiNet are on the display table. Have you seen Anything That Moves?” “Do you have a computer? There are lots of bisexual discussion groups on-line. Many people today are finding community in cyberspace.”

Is there a bisexual community? Yet? Answering that question requires knowing what a bisexual community would be if it did exist, and therein lies part of the problem. Traditionally, a community consists of a residential area whose inhabitants are connected to each other by dense and overlapping social and economic networks. A small town in which residents live and work lifelong, for example, is clearly a community in this sense. Bisexuals do not have this kind of community. But neither do most other people today. In the individualistic electronic age, people move frequently, choose friends not because of physical proximity but because of common interests, and compartmentalize their relationships with others. Instead of growing into social networks consisting of family and neighbors, most of us build social networks by finding people who share our personal characteristics-our sexuali-ties, for example. “Lifelong friends” are those we stay in touch with over the miles; most other friends are associated with particular time periods or aspects of our lives.

If geographic proximity and overlapping social and economic networks no longer define most people's experiences of community, what are the modern bases of community, and do bisexuals have them? Although social scientists have developed modern scientific concepts of community based on functional rather than geographic criteria, this chapter is less concerned with the ways social scientists define community than the ways in which bisexual people-bisexual men, in particular-define and experience community. Do bisexual men feel there is a bisexual community? If so, of what does that community consist? If not, what is lacking?

METHODS AND SAMPLE

The following discussion of bisexual men's experiences of bisexual community is based on the findings of an international study titled “Sexual/Bisexual Identities, Communities, and Politics.” The overall purpose of the study is to explore how individuals who are attracted to both genders or have had sexual contact with members of both genders arrange their psychological and social worlds in the context of a society that is organized to facilitate either exclusive heterosexuality or exclusive lesbianism/gayness. Data were collected via in-depth interviews, participant observation, and self-administered questionnaires distributed with postage-paid envelopes in the United States and with postal coupons in several other countries, including the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Belgium, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

The questionnaire was designed to be self-explanatory and anonymous to encourage a wide range of people to participate, including those who are secretive about their sexuality. Because it is impossible to draw a representative sample of any population that is defined by its sexual feelings and behaviors, sampling was focused instead on drawing a diverse sample. Therefore, the questionnaire was distributed by multiple means, including conferences on sexuality, social networks, meetings of bisexual and LesBi-Gay social and political organizations, and advertisements in bisexual newsletters, mainstream “alternative” newspapers, and the Internet. Particular efforts were made to maximize the racial/ethnic, sexual, age, gender, and geographic diversity of the respondents.

The remainder of this chapter is based on 200 questionnaire respondents who were born male, were not post-operative MTF transsexuals or otherwise living full-time as women,¹ and lived in the United States at the time of the study. Of these men, 64% (n = 130) self-identify as bisexual or bi and 10% (n = 21) self-identify as heterosexual-identified bisexuals, gay bisexuals, or bisexual-identified gay men. Most of the remainder identify as queer, gay, homosexual, heterosexual, straight, or choose not to label themselves. Regardless of current identity, all have or have had either sexual attractions to both women and men or sexual experiences with both women and men. Six are crossdressers. Most describe themselves as White or of European descent (87.8%); 4.8% are Latin/Hispanic, 2.7% are of Asian descent, 1.6% are Black or African American, and 1.1% each are of Middle Eastern descent or Native American. At the time of the study, 12% of the sample lived in rural areas or small towns, 33% lived in a large town, suburb, or small city, and 54% lived in medium-sized or large cities. Twenty-nine percent had children, and most were in their 20s (26%), 30s (34%), or 40s (24%), with 15% over 50 years old. The sample is very highly educated; only 6% had no more than a high school education and 71% had finished sixteen or more years of formal education, usually equivalent to four years of college. The median income, however, is only $25,000.

Survey questionnaires usually rely heavily on verbal questions and responses. Even open-ended questions, although allowing more individualized responses than forced choice questions, impose a linguistic logic-including unidimensional linearity-on respondents' answers. Such methods of assessment are not always appropriate because some individuals tend to think in visual or artistic rather than linguistic terms and because some topics are multidimensional and therefore less easily explored via linear strings of words. Therefore, in the current study, respondents' experiences of bisexual community were assessed using questions requiring both verbal and non-verbal responses. Instructions in the questionnaire encouraged only bisexual-identified respondents to complete these questions, although some non-bisexual identified men chose to do so also. The primary verbal question was: “Would you say that there is a ‘bisexual community’? Explain why or why not. (That is, what does ‘bisexual community’ mean to you, and in what ways does it exist or not exist for you?)” The non-verbal question asked respondents to draw maps of their bisexual communities. The questionnaire, which was 22 pages long and consisted of over 150 questions, took most respondents over two hours to complete. The map was the last question, and respondents were told that drawing the map was optional. Nevertheless, of the 200 born males in the United States subsample, 119-including 13 who did not identify themselves as bisexual-chose to do the map, suggesting that the map tapped a dimension of bisexual men's perceptions of bisexual community that had not been tapped by the verbal questions.

To draw their maps of “what your bisexual community is like, and how it looks to you” respondents were provided an outlined square space. A footnote instructed respondents that “if you don't feel that there is a bisexual community, please read this question as if it refers to the network of bisexual people and organizations that you know about, even if you don't consider this network a ‘community.’” The purpose of providing an outlined space for the map was to ensure that map-makers would have sufficient margin space remaining to follow the next instruction, which was to add the lesbian, gay, and heterosexual communities/societies to the map. Finally, respondents were asked to indicate their position on the map with an “X”, and, if possible, to use a dotted line to “trace the path by which you entered the bisexual community and arrived at your current location in it.” Despite the detailed instructions and the square outline provided, respondents were encouraged to “think outside the box” by a note that read “if you are not a ‘visual thinker’ or graphically oriented, this might be difficult. Please try anyway, and do not worry about what ‘kind’ of map you are expected to draw. Different people draw very different kinds of maps, and the point is to draw your own unique kind of map that reflects the way you see things.”

FINDINGS

When asked to draw maps of their communities, many bisexual men drew Venn diagrams showing overlap between the bisexual community and other sexual identity communities. Other men drew islands, bridges, mountains, doors, fences, stick figures, houses, flowers, and amoeba-like and octopuslike structures. Some used multiple colors, others apologized for their lack of artistic ability. Two cautioned that “areas are not to scale” in their maps. Only a book with color reprints of all the maps could possibly do them justice; any verbal description and analysis of the wonderful variety in these maps can only impose the very verbal structure that I sought to avoid by asking respondents to draw maps. Fortunately, I am able to use the men's own verbal answers to open-ended questions about the bisexual community to guide my interpretations and analyses of their maps, and the eighteen maps that are reproduced in this chapter can help convey a sense of the complexity and variety among bisexual men's conceptions of the bisexual community.

The first finding to emerge from the comparison of bisexual men's verbal answers with their maps is that the two often seem to contradict each other. Some men who answered verbally that there is no bisexual community proceeded to draw detailed maps of bisexuals, bisexual groups, and bisexual networks that would appear to constitute a community. Some of these men even labeled parts of their maps “bisexual community.” Conversely, some men who answered verbally that there is a bisexual community drew maps in which nothing is labeled “bisexual community”; that the map nevertheless represents a bisexual community can only be inferred from knowledge of their verbal comments. In fact, some of these men drew maps that convey a sense of isolation and total absence of community, belying their verbal comments that a community does exist.

Therefore, in describing these men's experiences and perceptions, the word “community” must be used advisedly. To avoid misrepresenting respondents’ experiences and perceptions, and to avoid begging the question of whether there is a bisexual community, I do not use the term “community” in this chapter unless I am referring to the concept of community in the abstract or describing the experiences or perceptions of a respondent who uses the term “community” himself. This leaves the problem of what to call that which is not, or might not be, a community. Possible alternatives to “community” are the terms “population” and “world”, and although I use these terms when they accurately reflect the experiences or perceptions of particular respondents, neither of these terms encompasses the entire range of experiences and perceptions I will be discussing as I explore the question of bisexual community. Therefore, to highlight the fact that the problem of defining, creating, or detecting the existence of “community” is not one to be solved, but one to be explored and enjoyed in its complexity, I will coin and use the term “popumunity” whenever a more specific term would be misleading or inaccurate. A “popumunity” might be a community or it might be a population; or, its nature as a community, a population, a world, or some other type of social entity might be unknown. The novelty of this combination of the concepts of “community” and “population” should help both reader and author maintain an appropriate level of self-consciousness regarding the ways in which this essay not only examines, but might contribute to, the construction of a concept of bisexual community. For similar reasons, I will follow the same usage when referring to transgenderists,...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• About the Editors
• About the Contributors
• Introduction
• Interpreting the Invisibility of Male Bisexuality: Theories, Interactions, Politics
• Make Me a Map: Bisexual Men's Images of Bisexual Community
• Male Bisexuality and HIV Risk
• Bi-Negativity: The Stigma Facing Bisexual Men
• Writing Our Own Script: How Bisexual Men and Their Heterosexual Wives Maintain Their Marriages After Disclosure
• The Married Man On-Line
• Index