A Question for Bisexuals

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I recall going through moments where my thoughts and feelings about men would be all over the place or, on the Kinsey scale, they'd go from 3 to 6 and back again or, sometimes, I'd totally be a 1 in these things and it was interesting to examine my very fluid feelings and trying to make sense of them and more so when I knew that I didn't like guys like that - but I sure did love having sex with guys. Then I had a boyfriend and that changed a lot of things in my thoughts and feelings but since I was very married to an understanding wife, the duality of my feeling "made sense" and I just got used to being emotionally fluid. It's kinda not easy to put into words. I still do not look at men and get the hots for them or my mind gets filled with romantic stuff; I want their dick in my mouth (and mine in theirs) and if we bond from it, I don't have a problem with it but I believe that having a boyfriend really got me in touch with my emotions and made me a more complete bisexual.

 

Throughout my early homosexual "experimentation" and 25 years (from 30 years of age onwards) of sex with guys, I never had the slightest attraction to guys with their clothes on in every day life, even at the gym or in the swimming pool (but the situation was different when I saw their cocks in the locker room--but then it was their cock and not the rest of their body that I was attracted to). But when I was finally free of my second girlfriend just before Covid hit, I finally allowed my gay side to come out to myself more and more, and I realized I've always been mostly homosexual.

Since accepting this, and loving it, and beginning to live it more and more, I'm finding myself being attracted to guys with their clothes on in every day life, noticing good looking guys, checking out their asses, feeling desire for them in just the same way I've always felt desire for women. It's not quite equal yet. But I believe when I finally find total freedom to be who I really am, in a FWB fuck buddy relationship, or even fall in love with a boyfriend (I've already had romantic feelings for two guys in the last 18 months), then I'm thinking maybe I will let myself feel more and more attracted to guys in every day life, and perhaps less and less with women. That attraction to women might never go away, since there's a little bisexuality in me still, but I'll be able to live my truth as a mostly gay man, and be overjoyed with that.

 

Caveat: Absolutely random samples of gay and bisexual men are unachievable, which is why the result may strongly depend on the composition of the sample and the definitions (of bisexuality etc.) But I find that this sample represents me (Kinsey 3) well.


Figure 1: Bisexual men’s and women’s (left panels) and heterosexual men’s and women’s (right panels) mean sexual attraction to “swimsuit models” as a function of target sex and target attractiveness


Figure 2: Bisexual men’s and women’s (left panels) and heterosexual men’s and women’s (right panels) mean viewing times to “swimsuit models” as a function of target sex and target attractiveness

Richard A. Lippa: Men and Women with Bisexual Identities Show Bisexual Patterns of Sexual Attraction to Male and Female “Swimsuit Models

Abstract. Do self-identified bisexual men and women actually show bisexual patterns of sexual attraction and interest? To answer this question, I studied bisexual men’s and women’s sexual attraction to photographed male and female “swimsuit models” that varied in attractiveness. Participants (663 college students and gay pride attendees, including 14 self-identified bisexual men and 17 self-identified bisexual women) rated their degree of sexual attraction to 34 male and 34 female swimsuit models. Participants’ viewing times to models were unobtrusively assessed. Results showed that bisexual men and women showed bisexual patterns of attraction and viewing times to photo models, which strongly distinguished them from same-sex heterosexual and homosexual participants. In contrast to other groups, which showed evidence of greater male than female category specificity, bisexual men and women did not differ in category specificity. Results suggest that there are subsets of men and women who display truly bisexual patterns of sexual attraction and interest.

DOI: 10.1007/s10508-012-9981-z

I have always been annoyed by the fluidity chatter of people who wanted to avoid the word bisexuality at all costs and therefore desperately clung to the less provocative homosexuality/heterosexuality dichotomy (→ Bisexual Erasure).

Without consciously doing so, I am constantly scanning the environment for body shapes that match my search algorithm. Young, slim and with a beautiful face. I also find my crushes in cities where I don’t expect them, even if I can only see a part of their body. Or I realise that I am unconsciously looking for a topic that interests me in a magazine shop when I suddenly notice a magazine with this title among the thousands of magazines, when it almost calls out to me without me having intended to look for this topic when I visited the magazine shop. I believe that the individual search pattern is influenced, among other things, by positive experiences, one’s own decisions and what is currently on one’s mind.

Anyone who believes that all bisexuals find everyone attractive is very much mistaken. I am sexually attracted to about 1% or 0.5% or 0.1% of the population (that is 10% or 5% or 1% of the favourite age group). So I am sexually not attracted to 99% or 99.5% or 99.9% of the population, and this only applies under the counterfactual condition of a population without excess weight. The more choice you have, the more selective you can be.

I remember how, at a lecture not so long ago, I had to keep looking compulsively from left to right and back to left again. On one side sat a very attractive young man, on the other a very attractive young woman, and both asked me intelligent questions. I was magnetically attracted to them!

Sexual attraction must be distinguished from sexual behaviour. Since different places and strategies are relevant for male homo- and heterosexuality, it is difficult to take care of males and females at the same time. Groups that are perceived as minorities are known to need meeting places where they are among themselves or at least strongly overrepresented. It is easy to forget females there, until at some point I usually say to myself: I am neglecting the female world! Males are a bit boring in the long run, their presence is like a holiday in the own country, while the presence of females is more like a trip abroad, and so I set sail again into the female world (→ The Bi Cycle).

I am looking for a combination of what I consider to be the positive characteristics of females and of males while avoiding their negative characteristics. So I don’t necessarily desire a male plus a female body. But since I am a man, I naturally love variety and desire several such wonderful people!

 

Very interesting analysis, and study. Thanks for sharing, @TwinT. I found the study particularly interesting in terms of viewing time: bisexuals, especially bisexual men, spent more time looking at the same sex models that the opposite sex models, in particular as their level of attractiveness increased. And this was with swimsuit models, which I assume means they were wearing a bathing suit--so partially closed, like people are in every day life. I wonder how much the data will change when it's fully naked models. I bet with bisexual men on average, it would be heavily skewed towards male models because of our lust for male genitalia above all else with men.

 

I'm not really sure what "attracted to" means as it relates to guys.. I've sucked a bunch of cocks and had a couple dozen making deposits in my ass in my teens/twenties, but I can't say I've ever once thought of a male sex partner as someone to live with, have concerns for, sit and watch TV with while holding hands, explore new recipes with..

oh I can see taking a car trip to the Rockies with a guy and swapping a lot of fluids - if my wife passed on - and I had a neighbor or fishing pal or fellow veteran in town or a guy at the diner/outside the bookstore I discussed politics/philosophy with or some guy in my oil painting class who was also a fuck buddy..

but it's always been women I've had traditional emotional and sexual relationships with (I'm guessing 250 F and 50-60 M)..

however, now that I've been writing this, I find myself remembering that 11 yo me getting introduced to sex by my 14 yo buddy.. and that was pretty intense for 4 years.. and there was a lot of MM (and some MMM, MFM play) after 18yo..

and a lot of close MM friendships where I don't recall even thinking about sex (except if their wife hit on me).. and the very night I met my wife to be in 1975 I got her phone # before she left the pub and then spent the weekend with a guy who smiled at me (and his roommate).. but I never thought about calling them again..

I've always kept a separation between the me who is just horny and a honey.. but If my wife passed away?

I'm starting to wonder if it would be so bad to have a really close friend for a 3-4 times a week sleepover..

I'm gonna have to ponder this..

life changes and - hell - just five years ago I still thought of myself as "bi curious".. now? well I accepted that I was first imprinted with bb sex and it wasn't until I was a hs freshman that I even thought about women..

then 50/50
then 75/25
then just hetero for 45 years..

but if not full-blown bi (pun intended) why have 100% of my jerkoff fantasies been MM or MWM for the last 20 years?

more perplexing, I sometimes fantasize about intense hetero trysts from my pre-marriage days or scenes from books.. and not a few times I've been fantasizing I'm fucking a guy face to face..

very odd..
maybe I'm over thinking all of this..
I suppose I am whatever it is I am and will be whatever I will be as time goes foreword..

hell, I might be suppressing a gay nature but this free spirit from my youth is tired of living in the shadows?

btw: if anyone has wondered.. my wife knows all about my attraction to both women/men from 'the old days'..

but nothing really disappears, does it?

 

"Attracted to" means whatever you want it to mean. "Classically," it has meant that you're attracted to men in similar ways that you're attracted to women which gave birth to that nonsense of liking men and women equally and for/with romantic intent. I have seen and/or have met some damned good-looking men... who I would never sleep with because beauty is only skin deep. Seeing them as being attractive is one thing; being attracted to them is something else but I have learned that we really don't understand attraction all that well and some of the best sex I've ever had has been at the hands of someone, male or female, that no one would say is attractive.

As such, attraction is arbitrary and eye of the beholder stuff. No one gets to tell me how I should be attracted to someone, and it is 100% valid to be attracted to the sex - or the potential of having sex with someone and then for no other reason than to have sex with them. I like to bust my protege's ass when he says that he rejected a guy's advances because he wasn't attracted to him... and I'll ask him, "What, you gonna marry the guy and he's gonna have your babies?" But he believes that you can't - or shouldn't - have sex with someone you don't feel a physical attraction to and, well, let's just say that I learned some very different stuff about attraction and sex.

Still, "attracted to" means whatever you say it means and no one can tell you anything different or "make" you conform to a standard that's inherently flawed because just because it looks good doesn't mean that it is good and it's a lesson that I think everyone winds up learning.