Over at Cynical-C and In Pursuit of Mysteries, a rather sad tale of a bisexual man being forced to pretend to be heterosexual if he wants to keep his life the way it is. Apparently he has now "realised that he is completely heterosexual", despite having had a gay experience, - erm sorry but in my book, that makes you a bisexual. Personally if I was a gay evangelical Christian I'd ditch my sad narrow existence, come out, and move to San Francisco, but...
As Al remarks, perhaps in a different world he could explore his sexuality without fear of censure.
As Cartman remarked when looking at Sparky the Gay Dog, "Still looks gay to me..."
4 comments:
I'd admit that this case is pretty appalling. I used to live with a girl whose honest-to-gods belief was that people were gay because it was "popular". I mean, come on! On the other hand, having just spent an evening with two girls, five gay guys and the Baron Samedi, we did have an interesting discussion about the option of people "changing" their sexuality. It is perhaps possible in our conclusion (though personally I just think that everyone is bi, anyway)...
I think the definition of bisexual is "ever having had a same-sex experience and a hetero experience". So whilst he may self-define as straight, he isn't (by that definition).
Your former flatmate was clearly living in a different reality altogether!
I'm by no means a "gold star" lesbian, but I don't consider myself "bi" either. To me, bisexual is an acceptance and ongoing attraction for both sexes beyond experimentation. It's really an orientation unto itself. This whole fundamentalist thing of trying to re-orientate people is just wrong. Most people I know who have closeted themselves their entire lives have been really self-destructive and have ended up hurting other people. It's a very sad business.
I think there's a spectrum between totally heterosexual and totally homosexual (Kinsey thought so too, and devised a scale). And I agree that bisexual is a distinct identity in the middle. But clearly Haggard is not 100% hetero, whether he was experimenting or not.
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