It seems that a lot of the Gen Z kids who run in progressive circles have different definitions of these words than someone from an older generation would understand. My daughter identifies as a boy and has dated 2 different guys who called themselves “bisexual”. Neither one had ever dated an actual male. They were “bisexual” because they were dating her. My daughter is obviously exclusively attracted to males but also calls herself “bisexual” or a “gay boy”. These kids have had it drilled into their heads that it is exclusionary and immoral to limit one’s sexual attraction to only certain categories of people, or even to acknowledge that sex is a meaningful characteristic upon which to base sexual attraction.
Having witnessed this firsthand, I don’t trust any surveys that rely on people to identify themselves as straight or gay or bisexual, because I know many young people today aren’t being honest even with themselves about their sexual orientation. And yes, this is completely absurd. You end up with 2 straight people in a relationship, both claiming to be gay.
I have a suspicion that the same is true of those who self-identify as pansexual. They claim to be attracted to anyone, regardless of their sex or their gender. Which may be a worthy aspiration, but, as you say, not the way attraction actually works. You find somebody sexy, because ... well, you find them sexy. Your politics doesn't come into it.
And the same can be turned around. You can be very sure of your preferences until that moment and then you discover that you find sexy a person who does fall against your preferences, because... you find them sexy.
Lots of people assume labels, also sexual orientation labels, for social reasons of group conformity or to feel special or to feel good. Politics, or better ideology, come into a lot of things that people do, and often override their actual innate or deep preferences. This does not mean that it is true for everybody.
The pansexual label has been an attempt to define a specific sexual orientation that does not focus on a specific gender or presentation. I object to your wording, which denies the existence of people of pansexual orientation (self-identify, claim, etc) and reminds me a whole lot of the denial of existence that I as a bisexual man experienced in the gay world.
I define myself as bisexual, because I have been such for such a long time, and because of my belief in the sex binary, but my experience with my sexual attraction and relationships in all likelihood defines me as pansexual.
Sure. I do agree that we can be surprised by what attracts us. I'm sorry you found some of my terminology offensive, but I would have thought "self-identity" is a neutral term. I identify myself as gay, and although others may identify me as gay, it seems unlikely that anyone is going to identify me, or you, as pansexual.
The latter is very true. Which comes from an identity label being relatively new, besides the behaviour it indicates not being immediately evident so that other people can easily parse it (that is, people outside subcultures where the label is normally used and accepted): today, for a lot of our world, a homosexual is tautologically a homosexual, a person who naturally is only attracted to people of his or her own gender -- for a lot of the rest of the world a homosexual is someone unnatural, who should be reformed or eliminated. The bisexual orientation and its label had a harder time, because it easily feels like self delusion to many with a firm single-gender orientation. The pansexual orientation and its label have a harder time still, being that it began being used shortly before a slew of other very perplexing new orientations flooded the market.
But in fact, the pansexual orientation arose specifically to indicate the attraction to people irrespective of gender, vis a vis the coming out of an increasing number of trans people, towards whom one had to find out where one's own attraction lay. The pansexual label is supposed to say "What bits you have is not what drives my attraction" (not in any way, "I do not have any discriminating attraction") and it would cease to make any sense in the absence of trans people and trans bodies.
As a note, I did not find your terminology offensive in any way. I objected to it, because I found it dismissive. When you say that something is a "worthy aspiration but not the way attraction actually works", and call it political, you cannot tell me that you mean anything else but that such orientation cannot be real, because it is negated by nature. Which is what called to my mind the gay argument against bisexuality: "Since sexual orientation is a fixed and unchangeable wiring towards one sex OR the other, those who claim to be attracted to both deceive themselves, for internalised homophobia or fear of social stigma if they admit that they really are gay."
I will readily agree that a vast number of people are driven to assume identities, labels and behaviours for ideological reasons, peer pressure, social conformity within a group, desire to be seen as cool, and the like... see the disaster of the excesses of the trans movement, and the generalised present obsession with individual quirks elevated to identity status owed social recognition. But that is not the case for all people that assume a certain label. Many actually are what they say they are, having tested and experienced it.
No offence taken or given, my friend. We are having a conversation and trying to reason things out.
Describing something as being homophobic does not imply that the person doing so thinks anyone is - or should be - obligated to act differently.
Personally I would for example describe it as a racist preference if someone had a personal preference for never inviting black people to their home.
In my eyes that *is* racist. I define racism as systematically judging or treating people worse depending on their racial background and so since this fulfills the definition, I think the label does apply.
But applying the label does NOT MEAN that I'm a proponent of the idea that anyone should be *obligated* to invite anyone to their home. I *disagree* with the choice they're making and think it's a shortsighted and bigoted one.
But I think it's a choice they absolutely SHOULD HAVE the right to make.
Part of upholding liberal values is believing people should have the right to do things that I personally disapprove of and would prefer if nobody did.
Similar logic applies in dating and sexual contexts.
It's kind of a difficult thing to disentangle the reasons for accurately, I would think.
Take dating black people in majority white cultures with a history of racism. Someone may not date a person of the other "race" "simply" because they are not attracted to them... but what goes into making up whether that person is attracted to someone? Certainly it's not just raw impartial physicality and "colour-blind" preferences. For some it would be, for others it must certainly have a cultural component. We are all products of our environment.
It's an interesting question. I only came across the idea about a month ago when a bisexual streamer made an accusation that there were many women out there "preaching" gender-blindness, yet they would never even contemplate dating a man who's ever kissed another man one time.
I'm just as likely to date a man whether he's bi-, homo-, or hetero- sexual, and I have an equal complete absence of attraction to all three, so this phenomenon is outside my experience, but it does sound like a very interesting sociological area of study... even if it is one of those "forbidden sciences" where research into it ruffles feathers across the zeitgeist.
Is lack of attraction to bisexual men immoral? I don't really see how morality can come into it... it's either a fact or not — you are or you are not. I believe Helen is correct, attraction is not grown based on who your moral stances imply you SHOULD be attracted to. I think you can argue the morality of the social/cultural things that go into fostering that lack of attraction — if they can be disentangled — but judging people morally on who does and does not titillate their brain receptors and nervous system seems bizarre to me.
It's interesting to look at bisexuals themselves. I know quite a few bisexual women who when dating women prefer lesbians to other bisexual women. Ultimately I think it's not good to try to right any discrimination in the world by going after who people want to date.
I think this is because like in the bisexual vs straight men case, the problem is “dick is plentiful”. If your partner is attracted to men the opportunities to cheat are far more numerous than if they are only attracted to women.
Of course, the goal is to find a partner that never wants to cheat. But I think this is fairly unlikely across a lifetime. A “moment of weakness” is more likely to actually lead to sex if men are an option than if only women are.
Yeah, trying to pressure people into being attracted to things they're not generally doesn't work and is just annoying. Even if you believe it it's like trying to get yourself to like cilantro or spicy food.
Attraction is deeply unfair, but there's not much we can do about it.
I know bisexual men that have engaged in exactly this while simultaneously calling transgender people rapists for doing the exact same thing. They also sent me highly sexually charged messages due to me being transgender, which was highly disturbing.
Go to r/bisexual Reddit, and bi men are the biggest whiners about this. I think that little by little bi people are starting to see straight monosexual women are not bigoted, we just are pretty choosy and want the men in our lives to really center us. There are bi people calling out formerly closeted bi men if they have cheated, want to cheat, or are pressuring their straight GFs into doing things they don’t legit like.
Welcome back to taking issue! You make an important point here, noting that your interlocutors want to take attraction for granted and believe the lack of attraction is what requires explanation, while you hold the opposite. And, yes, the norm, even for lesbians, is female choosiness, so focusing attention on women should make us even more aware that the interlocutors are on the wrong track. We can also just see desire--and the ways in which desire evades censors, nannies, and inquisitors on both sides of the political fence--as a valuable space of individual freedom. Illiberals of all kinds want to bully people into desiring properly, and there's nothing sexy about that.
One quibble is that I think that many women - at least today - are attracted to the idea of two men together - the wildly successful heartstopper series as well as the gay hockey book were written by and for women. In fact the majority of gay erotic novels that have made it mainstream were written by women. And it’s all over fandom and fan fiction.
So why don’t more of these women put their desires into effect? Well, I’d say it’s because men and women are different. It’s much, much riskier for a woman to let an extra man into her bed than it is for a man to let an extra women into his (On the other hand it’s probably much easier to find a male third than a female one). Plus as you say women are choosier. I might not want to commit to a man who can easily go out and get a hookup in seconds on an app if he wanted to. Straight men have a much harder time cheating because women are not on grindr.
I don’t believe I’m being biphobic in making this assessment - straight men are just as likely to want to be cheating bastards. It’s just much more difficult for them. So if I want a monogamous partner I do think it’s somewhat reasonable to be wary of openly bi men if one is looking for something long term. I’d be looking for some demonstrated evidence that he’s interested in monogamy and not hookups.
But on the other side I’d actually be thrilled if my partner who has proven he’s not going to cheat came out to me as bi. Maybe that makes me a hypocrite, I don’t know.
There was a study somewhere on Substack that revealed basically the obvious:
When women were unfaithful, it was due to some kind of dissatisfaction with their partner and that said partners could usually do something in regard to their behavior to prevent or lower the likelihood of cheating.
When men were unfaithful it was completely about opportunity. It didn't matter how beautiful or kind or feminine or anything else a woman was, there was simply nothing she could do. It all came down to whether or not male partners had the opportunity to cheat.
So, yeah. A large part of the reason women are so picky is the search for exclusivity or markers of it anyway. Bi men have a major strike against them.
Possible. I suppose 19% is still enough to fund novel series. I think it’s more though. Consistently in fandom the most common “shipping” pairings women prefer by far are men with other men. It seems persistent from the beginning and started with Kirk x Spock.
It could be the case that they have a very different reaction with fictional or semi-fictional characters or celebrities, than with people in real life. That is difficult to think and research about tho.
Well, this is always the case with fiction. For pleasure, I almost exclusively read murder mysteries. It’s almost cosy. I’d not find it so in my own life.
Those women who think gay male relationships are BL anime or Heated Rivaly are truly immature. They don’t want to do the hard work of decentering the straight men who are atrocious to end misogyny. It’s creepy crap, and they go crazy over LGBT make actors and think in their fantasy they’ll watch them have sex with other men and invite them to join.
I am very much attracted to gay men irl, but part of the allure of the fiction -- I am a fujoshi -- is that in these stories, the gay men don’t act like gay men: they act like men socially and females sexually/romantically -- they’re monogamous, faithful, physically sexy in the way that women think is sexy (well-groomed and often boyish) not sexy in the way that gay men think is sexy (overmuscled and sweaty).
That’s because exclusivity and longterm viability is very important to most women and promiscuity/infidelity are major turn offs.
Men seem inclined to partake in and think light of these things in general, finding them so desirable that they sneak and scheme for them. That's a trillion times worse of a risk to take on a bisexual man -- a gigantic issue on top of an already substantial pile of issues with men and marriageability in general.
Said with great love... I do not feel that you have met a vast number of gay men. There are the bears, yes (or Bara). And there are the twinks, and the suit guys, the rubbermen, the leathermen, the puppies, etc, etc. Gay men are men. They come in a thousand different shades and flavours, overmuscled, muscled, lean, scrawny, hairy, depilated, with makeup, without. They do not make us in one mould, gay, straight or bi or whatever else :)
And although males are certainly more promiscuous than females on the mean in our species, evolutionary tendencies are not a destiny for every individual, and I know a large number of gay men happily married and faithful, a lot of women who cheated just because of lust, and a lot of couples of every persuasion who found balance by not sticking to sexual exclusivity but to emotional exclusivity.
The world is much varied. Broad generalisations are dangerous. And "a study on Substack" is not a great recommendation.
So, I have not met many gay men because I noted that women are not attracted to the hypermasculine men typical of the male attraction profile and instead stated the fact that women like exactly what girls post on their bedroom walls, save as their wallpapers, and write in their fantasy?
Because I noted that the **female** authors of these, gay fantasy stories (because it's a **female** genre) write the gay men as something that is not reflective of the behavior of actual gay men, I "don't know many gay men?"
Do not speak me again until you've taken some kind of course in reading comprehension.
You are very offensive and unreasonable, but I will give you the grace of pointing out this:
"not sexy in the way that gay men think is sexy (overmuscled and sweaty)."
Your words. This is what I commented on.
The hypermasculine is only one of the many attraction profiles (and quite varied even within what can be defined as hypermasculine), and typical does not really work here.
You do not know many gay men, lady.
But you surely know how to be rude and incapable of having a rational discussion, therefore I will not waste any further time engaging with your tirades. Besides, it feels quite odd to talk to Excalibur.
I was (rather unsuccessfully) trying to explain this to a younger friend of mine a few months back. She had insinuated that it was discriminative of heterosexual women that we might prefer open disclosure of trans-male identification (in a dating context) because anyone who identifies as male is a male, and therefore to be naturally included in a heterosexual woman’s dating pool. I argued in favour of open disclosure (as opposed to her argument that the onus should be on the woman to ask rather than the male-identifying individual to tell) because this would be the ethical way to begin an encounter that requires the consent of both parties… and that this is relevant when an individual’s sexual orientation is limited to one sex. She didn’t understand that, and took issue with the notion that sexual orientation is a natural preference rather than a moral stance (and I had no success in persuading her that her own orientation - which she isn’t able to define, but seems very fluid - would not necessarily be protected from discrimination if it were deemed conscious preference rather than unconscious and immutable orientation). Her personal orientation is ‘whoever is attracted to me’, whereas mine is ‘whoever I am attracted to’… and so we were completely talking past each other. She just didn’t get that I don’t *decide* who to want based on their expression of interest in me; I just want what my body responds to… which, sadly for me, makes me boringly straight. I just happen to be turned on by a male body and mind that have been honed by hard physical work and real-world problem solving. It’s just highly fortunate the man I chose is one who is also attracted to me, as I have no argument for why he should want me otherwise.
“We have already seen the vitally important concept of racism weakened by stretching it to include any dissent from Critical Social Justice theories of anti-racism thus undermining a fragile consensus that racism is a grave moral failing.”
Very well put.
Apart from being a category error, their argument seems to ignore aspect that makes attraction on the basis of the target’s sexuality itself different from other criteria. Ultimately we’re talking about a desire to have sex with someone possibly regularly. That person’s preferred mode of sexual behaviour is therefore relevant in a way that other attributes like race, height body type etc are not.
It probably does imply a racist attitude if someone says: “I would never consider dating a person of [particular] race”, whereas: “I don’t find persons of [particular] race sexually attractive”does not. On the other hand: “I would never consider dating a person whose sexual proclivities are [of certain type]” seems perfectly reasonable.
I think the real issue here is the hypocrisy of all of this.
Women tend to be aggressively and performatively supportive of the LGBT community, and in general react very negatively to anyone who isn't. Also, it appears that, at least in the modern West, every single woman you meet openly acknowledges her own bisexuality. Often as some sort of source of progressive pride.
But those same women find bisexual men repulsive.
Incongruent.
So, I agree. Like what you like. But accept when your logic gets questioned and your belief system is shown to be inconsistent.
So, its unfair to dislike you for the former, but clearly justified to dislike you for the latter.
I'm always staggered to find that there are so many people who get so worked up about who other people want to go out with (I'm a pedantic British woman of a certain age, and don't 'date'). I mean why? How is it anyone else's business?
In other news, the next email in my inbox was inviting me to a talk entitled "The strange sexual biology of stalk-eyed flies". Which I think is of much more interest than the sexual behaviour of other people!
Hello Helen! Very much enjoying your epistles from the countryside. Sounds like you're doing extremely well with your recovery and you should definitely believe Matt when he says so.
I am a bisexual man. I am also much to the joy of superkayso present as the masculine muscled thirsty promiscuous stereotype, admittedly pure top so have a slightly lower STI risk than she might suggest, but yes a wider range of partners, and many parts of the gay and trans scene have very different sexual morals and partner turn over than straight basic lady preference dating.
But, honestly, never had an issue. 1) the male and trans gaze is much sterner, bi men on average dress, smell and look better because we will get judged for it. Abs not popping, not jacked and hung? You will be asked for body and dick pics up front on Grindr. Straight lads barely have to shave and throw on a shirt. Advantage bi 2) Dating apps are wide ranging and powerful these days. I found a lot of female partners that were turned on not off. The ones that had always wondered about two fellas for example. This is much easier to organise successfully for the inquisitive madam with a bi male partner. Apps like Feeld allow the adventurous ladies to seek us out. Play to your strengths and find your niche. 3) Some selectivity gentlemen goes a long way. Being based in central London, with the universities and largely liberal and younger population makes a huge difference. When I did try to swing a date up in Newcastle on a work trip was the only time I got homophobic comments. I would suggest there might be some political and class skew to these results.
I tend to agree with the notion of possibly skewed, although YouGov usually is careful with samples. It also notes that the not-willing drops to 34% in the age class 18-34, which is decidedly not the majority. We are an ageing population.
And again, it very much depends, in my opinion on what the purpose of dating is -- dating for sex is not the same as dating for relationship. Sexual attraction is the lead in the first, other considerations take over in the second.
For the rest, my experience is the same as yours, in my own subculture. And I never met a woman who did not want to date me because I am bisexual (or married, for that matter), in the UK or abroad -- I am neither ripped nor young, but I am fit and I am overly educated, and the kind that I like usually like me back.
It seems that a lot of the Gen Z kids who run in progressive circles have different definitions of these words than someone from an older generation would understand. My daughter identifies as a boy and has dated 2 different guys who called themselves “bisexual”. Neither one had ever dated an actual male. They were “bisexual” because they were dating her. My daughter is obviously exclusively attracted to males but also calls herself “bisexual” or a “gay boy”. These kids have had it drilled into their heads that it is exclusionary and immoral to limit one’s sexual attraction to only certain categories of people, or even to acknowledge that sex is a meaningful characteristic upon which to base sexual attraction.
Having witnessed this firsthand, I don’t trust any surveys that rely on people to identify themselves as straight or gay or bisexual, because I know many young people today aren’t being honest even with themselves about their sexual orientation. And yes, this is completely absurd. You end up with 2 straight people in a relationship, both claiming to be gay.
I have a suspicion that the same is true of those who self-identify as pansexual. They claim to be attracted to anyone, regardless of their sex or their gender. Which may be a worthy aspiration, but, as you say, not the way attraction actually works. You find somebody sexy, because ... well, you find them sexy. Your politics doesn't come into it.
And the same can be turned around. You can be very sure of your preferences until that moment and then you discover that you find sexy a person who does fall against your preferences, because... you find them sexy.
Lots of people assume labels, also sexual orientation labels, for social reasons of group conformity or to feel special or to feel good. Politics, or better ideology, come into a lot of things that people do, and often override their actual innate or deep preferences. This does not mean that it is true for everybody.
The pansexual label has been an attempt to define a specific sexual orientation that does not focus on a specific gender or presentation. I object to your wording, which denies the existence of people of pansexual orientation (self-identify, claim, etc) and reminds me a whole lot of the denial of existence that I as a bisexual man experienced in the gay world.
I define myself as bisexual, because I have been such for such a long time, and because of my belief in the sex binary, but my experience with my sexual attraction and relationships in all likelihood defines me as pansexual.
Sure. I do agree that we can be surprised by what attracts us. I'm sorry you found some of my terminology offensive, but I would have thought "self-identity" is a neutral term. I identify myself as gay, and although others may identify me as gay, it seems unlikely that anyone is going to identify me, or you, as pansexual.
The latter is very true. Which comes from an identity label being relatively new, besides the behaviour it indicates not being immediately evident so that other people can easily parse it (that is, people outside subcultures where the label is normally used and accepted): today, for a lot of our world, a homosexual is tautologically a homosexual, a person who naturally is only attracted to people of his or her own gender -- for a lot of the rest of the world a homosexual is someone unnatural, who should be reformed or eliminated. The bisexual orientation and its label had a harder time, because it easily feels like self delusion to many with a firm single-gender orientation. The pansexual orientation and its label have a harder time still, being that it began being used shortly before a slew of other very perplexing new orientations flooded the market.
But in fact, the pansexual orientation arose specifically to indicate the attraction to people irrespective of gender, vis a vis the coming out of an increasing number of trans people, towards whom one had to find out where one's own attraction lay. The pansexual label is supposed to say "What bits you have is not what drives my attraction" (not in any way, "I do not have any discriminating attraction") and it would cease to make any sense in the absence of trans people and trans bodies.
As a note, I did not find your terminology offensive in any way. I objected to it, because I found it dismissive. When you say that something is a "worthy aspiration but not the way attraction actually works", and call it political, you cannot tell me that you mean anything else but that such orientation cannot be real, because it is negated by nature. Which is what called to my mind the gay argument against bisexuality: "Since sexual orientation is a fixed and unchangeable wiring towards one sex OR the other, those who claim to be attracted to both deceive themselves, for internalised homophobia or fear of social stigma if they admit that they really are gay."
I will readily agree that a vast number of people are driven to assume identities, labels and behaviours for ideological reasons, peer pressure, social conformity within a group, desire to be seen as cool, and the like... see the disaster of the excesses of the trans movement, and the generalised present obsession with individual quirks elevated to identity status owed social recognition. But that is not the case for all people that assume a certain label. Many actually are what they say they are, having tested and experienced it.
No offence taken or given, my friend. We are having a conversation and trying to reason things out.
Great article. The idea that someone’s sexual preference obliges anyone else to fulfil it is ridiculous. If not sinister.
Describing something as being homophobic does not imply that the person doing so thinks anyone is - or should be - obligated to act differently.
Personally I would for example describe it as a racist preference if someone had a personal preference for never inviting black people to their home.
In my eyes that *is* racist. I define racism as systematically judging or treating people worse depending on their racial background and so since this fulfills the definition, I think the label does apply.
But applying the label does NOT MEAN that I'm a proponent of the idea that anyone should be *obligated* to invite anyone to their home. I *disagree* with the choice they're making and think it's a shortsighted and bigoted one.
But I think it's a choice they absolutely SHOULD HAVE the right to make.
Part of upholding liberal values is believing people should have the right to do things that I personally disapprove of and would prefer if nobody did.
Similar logic applies in dating and sexual contexts.
It's kind of a difficult thing to disentangle the reasons for accurately, I would think.
Take dating black people in majority white cultures with a history of racism. Someone may not date a person of the other "race" "simply" because they are not attracted to them... but what goes into making up whether that person is attracted to someone? Certainly it's not just raw impartial physicality and "colour-blind" preferences. For some it would be, for others it must certainly have a cultural component. We are all products of our environment.
It's an interesting question. I only came across the idea about a month ago when a bisexual streamer made an accusation that there were many women out there "preaching" gender-blindness, yet they would never even contemplate dating a man who's ever kissed another man one time.
I'm just as likely to date a man whether he's bi-, homo-, or hetero- sexual, and I have an equal complete absence of attraction to all three, so this phenomenon is outside my experience, but it does sound like a very interesting sociological area of study... even if it is one of those "forbidden sciences" where research into it ruffles feathers across the zeitgeist.
Is lack of attraction to bisexual men immoral? I don't really see how morality can come into it... it's either a fact or not — you are or you are not. I believe Helen is correct, attraction is not grown based on who your moral stances imply you SHOULD be attracted to. I think you can argue the morality of the social/cultural things that go into fostering that lack of attraction — if they can be disentangled — but judging people morally on who does and does not titillate their brain receptors and nervous system seems bizarre to me.
That's close to my take. Attraction isn't moral or immoral -- it just is.
But neither is it unaffected by attitudes and prejudices common in the culture we live in.
It's interesting to look at bisexuals themselves. I know quite a few bisexual women who when dating women prefer lesbians to other bisexual women. Ultimately I think it's not good to try to right any discrimination in the world by going after who people want to date.
I think this is because like in the bisexual vs straight men case, the problem is “dick is plentiful”. If your partner is attracted to men the opportunities to cheat are far more numerous than if they are only attracted to women.
Of course, the goal is to find a partner that never wants to cheat. But I think this is fairly unlikely across a lifetime. A “moment of weakness” is more likely to actually lead to sex if men are an option than if only women are.
We also know that bisexual attraction can be gender-dominant and arbitrary (50/50).
Yeah, trying to pressure people into being attracted to things they're not generally doesn't work and is just annoying. Even if you believe it it's like trying to get yourself to like cilantro or spicy food.
Attraction is deeply unfair, but there's not much we can do about it.
A good a article as usual Helen. A warning though:
"I am sure the majority of bisexual men would not wish to pressure women into having sex with them to demonstrate their inclusivity either."
Given that this is exactly the road trans-activism has gone down, I would be careful of any assumptions...
I know bisexual men that have engaged in exactly this while simultaneously calling transgender people rapists for doing the exact same thing. They also sent me highly sexually charged messages due to me being transgender, which was highly disturbing.
Go to r/bisexual Reddit, and bi men are the biggest whiners about this. I think that little by little bi people are starting to see straight monosexual women are not bigoted, we just are pretty choosy and want the men in our lives to really center us. There are bi people calling out formerly closeted bi men if they have cheated, want to cheat, or are pressuring their straight GFs into doing things they don’t legit like.
I think a lot of men would go for anything that increases their chances of getting laid.
Welcome back to taking issue! You make an important point here, noting that your interlocutors want to take attraction for granted and believe the lack of attraction is what requires explanation, while you hold the opposite. And, yes, the norm, even for lesbians, is female choosiness, so focusing attention on women should make us even more aware that the interlocutors are on the wrong track. We can also just see desire--and the ways in which desire evades censors, nannies, and inquisitors on both sides of the political fence--as a valuable space of individual freedom. Illiberals of all kinds want to bully people into desiring properly, and there's nothing sexy about that.
One quibble is that I think that many women - at least today - are attracted to the idea of two men together - the wildly successful heartstopper series as well as the gay hockey book were written by and for women. In fact the majority of gay erotic novels that have made it mainstream were written by women. And it’s all over fandom and fan fiction.
So why don’t more of these women put their desires into effect? Well, I’d say it’s because men and women are different. It’s much, much riskier for a woman to let an extra man into her bed than it is for a man to let an extra women into his (On the other hand it’s probably much easier to find a male third than a female one). Plus as you say women are choosier. I might not want to commit to a man who can easily go out and get a hookup in seconds on an app if he wanted to. Straight men have a much harder time cheating because women are not on grindr.
I don’t believe I’m being biphobic in making this assessment - straight men are just as likely to want to be cheating bastards. It’s just much more difficult for them. So if I want a monogamous partner I do think it’s somewhat reasonable to be wary of openly bi men if one is looking for something long term. I’d be looking for some demonstrated evidence that he’s interested in monogamy and not hookups.
But on the other side I’d actually be thrilled if my partner who has proven he’s not going to cheat came out to me as bi. Maybe that makes me a hypocrite, I don’t know.
There was a study somewhere on Substack that revealed basically the obvious:
When women were unfaithful, it was due to some kind of dissatisfaction with their partner and that said partners could usually do something in regard to their behavior to prevent or lower the likelihood of cheating.
When men were unfaithful it was completely about opportunity. It didn't matter how beautiful or kind or feminine or anything else a woman was, there was simply nothing she could do. It all came down to whether or not male partners had the opportunity to cheat.
So, yeah. A large part of the reason women are so picky is the search for exclusivity or markers of it anyway. Bi men have a major strike against them.
Or these are the 19% of women.
Possible. I suppose 19% is still enough to fund novel series. I think it’s more though. Consistently in fandom the most common “shipping” pairings women prefer by far are men with other men. It seems persistent from the beginning and started with Kirk x Spock.
Women certainly like romantic stories about men loving men. Not the same thing as being attracted to them.
Interesting. As someone who isn’t attracted to bisexual men, do you enjoy the romantic stories between men in a sexual way or some other way?
many female fans of this material definitely find it sexually arousing.
It could be the case that they have a very different reaction with fictional or semi-fictional characters or celebrities, than with people in real life. That is difficult to think and research about tho.
Well, this is always the case with fiction. For pleasure, I almost exclusively read murder mysteries. It’s almost cosy. I’d not find it so in my own life.
Those women who think gay male relationships are BL anime or Heated Rivaly are truly immature. They don’t want to do the hard work of decentering the straight men who are atrocious to end misogyny. It’s creepy crap, and they go crazy over LGBT make actors and think in their fantasy they’ll watch them have sex with other men and invite them to join.
I am very much attracted to gay men irl, but part of the allure of the fiction -- I am a fujoshi -- is that in these stories, the gay men don’t act like gay men: they act like men socially and females sexually/romantically -- they’re monogamous, faithful, physically sexy in the way that women think is sexy (well-groomed and often boyish) not sexy in the way that gay men think is sexy (overmuscled and sweaty).
That’s because exclusivity and longterm viability is very important to most women and promiscuity/infidelity are major turn offs.
Men seem inclined to partake in and think light of these things in general, finding them so desirable that they sneak and scheme for them. That's a trillion times worse of a risk to take on a bisexual man -- a gigantic issue on top of an already substantial pile of issues with men and marriageability in general.
Said with great love... I do not feel that you have met a vast number of gay men. There are the bears, yes (or Bara). And there are the twinks, and the suit guys, the rubbermen, the leathermen, the puppies, etc, etc. Gay men are men. They come in a thousand different shades and flavours, overmuscled, muscled, lean, scrawny, hairy, depilated, with makeup, without. They do not make us in one mould, gay, straight or bi or whatever else :)
And although males are certainly more promiscuous than females on the mean in our species, evolutionary tendencies are not a destiny for every individual, and I know a large number of gay men happily married and faithful, a lot of women who cheated just because of lust, and a lot of couples of every persuasion who found balance by not sticking to sexual exclusivity but to emotional exclusivity.
The world is much varied. Broad generalisations are dangerous. And "a study on Substack" is not a great recommendation.
So, I have not met many gay men because I noted that women are not attracted to the hypermasculine men typical of the male attraction profile and instead stated the fact that women like exactly what girls post on their bedroom walls, save as their wallpapers, and write in their fantasy?
Because I noted that the **female** authors of these, gay fantasy stories (because it's a **female** genre) write the gay men as something that is not reflective of the behavior of actual gay men, I "don't know many gay men?"
Do not speak me again until you've taken some kind of course in reading comprehension.
You are very offensive and unreasonable, but I will give you the grace of pointing out this:
"not sexy in the way that gay men think is sexy (overmuscled and sweaty)."
Your words. This is what I commented on.
The hypermasculine is only one of the many attraction profiles (and quite varied even within what can be defined as hypermasculine), and typical does not really work here.
You do not know many gay men, lady.
But you surely know how to be rude and incapable of having a rational discussion, therefore I will not waste any further time engaging with your tirades. Besides, it feels quite odd to talk to Excalibur.
I was (rather unsuccessfully) trying to explain this to a younger friend of mine a few months back. She had insinuated that it was discriminative of heterosexual women that we might prefer open disclosure of trans-male identification (in a dating context) because anyone who identifies as male is a male, and therefore to be naturally included in a heterosexual woman’s dating pool. I argued in favour of open disclosure (as opposed to her argument that the onus should be on the woman to ask rather than the male-identifying individual to tell) because this would be the ethical way to begin an encounter that requires the consent of both parties… and that this is relevant when an individual’s sexual orientation is limited to one sex. She didn’t understand that, and took issue with the notion that sexual orientation is a natural preference rather than a moral stance (and I had no success in persuading her that her own orientation - which she isn’t able to define, but seems very fluid - would not necessarily be protected from discrimination if it were deemed conscious preference rather than unconscious and immutable orientation). Her personal orientation is ‘whoever is attracted to me’, whereas mine is ‘whoever I am attracted to’… and so we were completely talking past each other. She just didn’t get that I don’t *decide* who to want based on their expression of interest in me; I just want what my body responds to… which, sadly for me, makes me boringly straight. I just happen to be turned on by a male body and mind that have been honed by hard physical work and real-world problem solving. It’s just highly fortunate the man I chose is one who is also attracted to me, as I have no argument for why he should want me otherwise.
“We have already seen the vitally important concept of racism weakened by stretching it to include any dissent from Critical Social Justice theories of anti-racism thus undermining a fragile consensus that racism is a grave moral failing.”
Very well put.
Apart from being a category error, their argument seems to ignore aspect that makes attraction on the basis of the target’s sexuality itself different from other criteria. Ultimately we’re talking about a desire to have sex with someone possibly regularly. That person’s preferred mode of sexual behaviour is therefore relevant in a way that other attributes like race, height body type etc are not.
It probably does imply a racist attitude if someone says: “I would never consider dating a person of [particular] race”, whereas: “I don’t find persons of [particular] race sexually attractive”does not. On the other hand: “I would never consider dating a person whose sexual proclivities are [of certain type]” seems perfectly reasonable.
Adding this to the "Pluckrose should do an agony aunt column" folder.
I think the real issue here is the hypocrisy of all of this.
Women tend to be aggressively and performatively supportive of the LGBT community, and in general react very negatively to anyone who isn't. Also, it appears that, at least in the modern West, every single woman you meet openly acknowledges her own bisexuality. Often as some sort of source of progressive pride.
But those same women find bisexual men repulsive.
Incongruent.
So, I agree. Like what you like. But accept when your logic gets questioned and your belief system is shown to be inconsistent.
So, its unfair to dislike you for the former, but clearly justified to dislike you for the latter.
Very, very well said. I don't disagree with a word.
I'm always staggered to find that there are so many people who get so worked up about who other people want to go out with (I'm a pedantic British woman of a certain age, and don't 'date'). I mean why? How is it anyone else's business?
In other news, the next email in my inbox was inviting me to a talk entitled "The strange sexual biology of stalk-eyed flies". Which I think is of much more interest than the sexual behaviour of other people!
:)
Hello, Jeanette.
Hello Helen! Very much enjoying your epistles from the countryside. Sounds like you're doing extremely well with your recovery and you should definitely believe Matt when he says so.
I am a bisexual man. I am also much to the joy of superkayso present as the masculine muscled thirsty promiscuous stereotype, admittedly pure top so have a slightly lower STI risk than she might suggest, but yes a wider range of partners, and many parts of the gay and trans scene have very different sexual morals and partner turn over than straight basic lady preference dating.
But, honestly, never had an issue. 1) the male and trans gaze is much sterner, bi men on average dress, smell and look better because we will get judged for it. Abs not popping, not jacked and hung? You will be asked for body and dick pics up front on Grindr. Straight lads barely have to shave and throw on a shirt. Advantage bi 2) Dating apps are wide ranging and powerful these days. I found a lot of female partners that were turned on not off. The ones that had always wondered about two fellas for example. This is much easier to organise successfully for the inquisitive madam with a bi male partner. Apps like Feeld allow the adventurous ladies to seek us out. Play to your strengths and find your niche. 3) Some selectivity gentlemen goes a long way. Being based in central London, with the universities and largely liberal and younger population makes a huge difference. When I did try to swing a date up in Newcastle on a work trip was the only time I got homophobic comments. I would suggest there might be some political and class skew to these results.
I tend to agree with the notion of possibly skewed, although YouGov usually is careful with samples. It also notes that the not-willing drops to 34% in the age class 18-34, which is decidedly not the majority. We are an ageing population.
And again, it very much depends, in my opinion on what the purpose of dating is -- dating for sex is not the same as dating for relationship. Sexual attraction is the lead in the first, other considerations take over in the second.
For the rest, my experience is the same as yours, in my own subculture. And I never met a woman who did not want to date me because I am bisexual (or married, for that matter), in the UK or abroad -- I am neither ripped nor young, but I am fit and I am overly educated, and the kind that I like usually like me back.