READER REPORT: What about the sexual fluidity of men? BENJAMIN SMITH

123rf.com Ask any bisexual about the confusion of adolescence and you’ll hear stories of feeling alone and being unsure of where they fit in society.

A recent opinon piece on Stuff by Kate Norquay discusses the results of a recent Glamour Magazine survey on female sexuality. The survey and Norquay’s article explored the concept of female sexual attraction towards more than one gender. While the publication of these findings gives me hope that society is moving towards accepting sexuality is a grey concept as opposed to being black and white, the way in which it was presented was, to put it bluntly, pretty bloody depressing.

The question I asked aloud as soon as I read that headline was 'and what about the men?'

The target market of Glamour is female, so it should not surprise that their survey was focused on the sexuality of females. The Glamour findings and Norquay’s report do, however, raise an important question: how focused on male sexuality is the media and wider society? This issue is of particular importance to me, given that I identify as a bisexual male and have done so from an early age.

LGBT rights have come a long way in the last 50 years. Society, by and large, now accepts the damage done to young people who are forced to repress their sexuality. Being gay is no longer taboo, although it still raises unacceptable challenges for a large portion of our community.

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But despite the challenges gay and lesbian people face, I was jealous of them growing up. To me, they had it easy. Like other monosexual orientations, they knew who they liked and it didn’t vary. Ask any bisexual about the confusion of adolescence and their bi-cycle - the monthly, weekly, daily flipping of sexual preference - and you’ll hear stories of feeling alone and being unsure of where they fit in society.

It is an isolating experience. I didn’t know about bisexuality until fifth form health class, so from ages nine to 15 I felt defective. I desperately wanted to be straight but I knew I had homosexual desires. It was a relief to learn there was a recognised orientation I could apply to myself. My self-acceptance was life changing, but it was a journey I had to take alone, society never spoke about what I might be feeling and I had no guides to show me the way.

It is my view that by separating sexual fluidity into a purely female concept we damage how society views those men who have the exact same sexual attractions. Suggesting it is only becoming normal for women to have same sex attractions silences the story of men, and that silence speaks volumes. What it says is that while it may be normal for women, if a man desires or engages in sexual contact with another man, while also being sexually involved with women, then he is abnormal.

The effects of this kind of thinking are clearly evident in another statistic taken from that same Glamour survey: 63 per cent of women say they wouldn't date a man who has had sex with another man. "This suggests that these women hold on to the view that while women occupy a wide spectrum of sexuality, men are either gay or straight," - Ritch C. Savin-Williams Ph.D., director of the Sex & Gender Lab at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

Try and picture how that statistic makes a young man feel about who he fundamentally is.

This writer accepts that people are only attracted to what they find attractive and arousing, and I take no offense from a woman holding the view that a man who gets down with other men is not attractive to her. I do not hold out unrealistic expectations of changing the view any of those 63 per cent. However, I believe that within the group of women who answered in the negative there will be individuals who have had their view shaped by society, rather than how they personally perceive the concept of male bisexuality. It is my hope that by opening this discussion of sexual fluidity to being all encompassing, people will learn that male bisexuality/pansexuality is common and should not be thought of as taboo.

The question of whether women are simply more inclined to be bisexual is often raised. It is my firm view that this is not the case. I believe that human sexual fluidity is equally spread among genders and that many men struggle to rationalise these feelings. We currently have a chicken and egg situation: more women than men are comfortable disclosing their attraction to more than one gender because society believes it is more acceptable. This perpetuates the myth that it is more normal for a woman to feel this way, further damaging those men who have same sex attraction but are taught it is abnormal.

The media contributes to this, reporting heavily on every young female star who confirms that her attraction isn’t fixed on men. I can empathise with these reports, I get why they fill our entertainment news. A young, attractive female talking about same sex experiences is titillating and helps sell papers - this is an important issue on its own: the sexualisation of female bisexuality and the role that plays in diminishing the worth of those women.

The purpose of raising this issue is to show that for every Miley Cyrus, Cara Delevingne and Demi Lavato who has their sexuality trumpeted, and commoditised, we are not exposed to the same number of men. We certainly hear about the gay men who are brave enough to stand up and be open, but most bisexual male celebrities prefer to play it straight.

So what is the point of this rant? Simply put, it is to try and centre the discussion of sexuality back over men and women equally. We need to ask whether people are becoming more sexually fluid, not just women. Stop viewing bisexuality as a hot thing that some chicks are into and understand that many of the men you interact with on a daily basis are repressing the same orientation. Think about those young boys who know they aren’t gay but can’t see a place where they do fit and they are terrified about it.

As Norquay rightly states, fluid sexuality isn't anything new or exciting. But only half the story is being told and therefore I have to disagree with her: The way we talking about it isn’t new and that needs to change.

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