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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To not understand why people doubt male bisexuality?

216 replies

zenithfreedom · 04/06/2021 15:30

Bisexuality is ironically stigmatized not just amongst some straight people but in LGBT circle. It's common for people to believe "bi woman are really just straight and bi men are just gay".

But when it comes to males and being attracted to both genders, many people doubt it. I recently thought about this as my workmate has a boyfriend who she was discussing is bi and she was a bit wary of that but accepted it. Most other girls said that he's deluding himself and it's only a matter of time before he starts shagging other guys/looking for them on Grindr.

I think that the reason why there are less bisexual men anecdotally and by statistics isn't because it's less common but rather the stigma.
In actual fact, I would have thought that bisexuality would be more common in males, the reason being is that men have a higher sex drive and are overrepresented in paraphilias and fetishes compared to women. So wouldn't men be more likely to have sex with their gender than women.

OP posts:
AryaStarkWolf · 04/06/2021 15:32

Odd isn't how in both cases people automatically think both Bi women and Bi men must really be more into men, I wonder why that is?

honeyytoast · 04/06/2021 15:33

I completely agree with you! IMO the reason people think bi women are attention seeking and actually straight, and bi men are actually just gay, is because men simply can’t imagine everything not being about them.

Bisexuality is so fetishised and misunderstood while I privately think that it’s more common than any other sexuality

AryaStarkWolf · 04/06/2021 15:35

@honeyytoast

I completely agree with you! IMO the reason people think bi women are attention seeking and actually straight, and bi men are actually just gay, is because men simply can’t imagine everything not being about them.

Bisexuality is so fetishised and misunderstood while I privately think that it’s more common than any other sexuality

Grin yeah that's probably it alright
SarahAndQuack · 04/06/2021 15:35

I don't think men do have higher sex drives.

I agree with @AryaStarkWolf there's definitely some good old-fashioned misogyny behind the prejudice.

I think it's also connected in to the history of differentiating between gay men and gay women. Gay men are a massive social threat; sodomy is something you make laws against; gay male sex is most definitely sex. Gay women? Well, they're probably not real, and if they are they probably just hold hands, and it's definitely not real sex.

Lockheart · 04/06/2021 15:35

This isn't going to go well. From previous threads, MN posters are as a rule ridiculously bigoted about bisexual people.

LaBellina · 04/06/2021 15:41

I think nobody is 100% straight.

I think the balance/ percentage of how straight you are just differs from person to person. That said, I wouldn’t want to be in a relationship with a bisexual man. I have a few gay friends that I love to bits and I wouldn’t mind if DS came out as gay or bisexual but the idea of being in a relationship with a guy who also likes to have sex with men, just puts me off. No idea why and it’s very much a feeling because on a rational level I believe we’re all a bit bisexual.

AryaStarkWolf · 04/06/2021 15:42

@Lockheart

This isn't going to go well. From previous threads, MN posters are as a rule ridiculously bigoted about bisexual people.
Really? I never noticed this
StillCoughingandLaughing · 04/06/2021 15:50

I think it will change over time - but in the past, bisexuality was seen as a bit of a ‘soft option’ for men who weren’t ready to come out as gay yet. I’ve heard the expression ‘bi now; gay later’ more than once. Way back in the seventies, Elton John initially came out as bisexual; more recently Duncan James did the same. They both seem to have their gear sticks firmly shifted to gay now.

I think as times change, ‘fluid’ sexuality will become more and more accepted, whereas it’s dismissed as a bit of a fad now (‘Ooh, everyone’s non-binary now, aren’t they?’)

PinkPlantCase · 04/06/2021 15:54

I haven’t come across this view in day to day life. Of course I’m not saying that it doesn’t happen just in my mid 20s it isn’t something that I’ve really heard people my age not be accepting of or be weary of.

On the note of you talking about expecting there to be more bi men than women I know they’ve done studies and found that women in general are sexually aroused by a much wider array of things than men are, not necessarily from a sexuality point of view but biologically it’s something that we’ve evolved into. I can’t really find a link but I know it’s come up in multiple books and documentaries that I’ve come across.

summerinthebigcity · 04/06/2021 15:55

Totally agree with your main point OP and what others said about the bi women and bi men 'must be into men really' thing. (bleurgh)

But paraphilias and fetishes would for me point to a more fixed/ rigid sexuality, so wouldn't in itself support the argument that bi men are more common than bi women.

SarahAndQuack · 04/06/2021 15:58

I know they’ve done studies and found that women in general are sexually aroused by a much wider array of things than men are, not necessarily from a sexuality point of view but biologically it’s something that we’ve evolved into. I can’t really find a link but I know it’s come up in multiple books and documentaries that I’ve come across.

I think this is really dubious, TBH. You can't separate out biology and culture and it's so complicated. Even if you try to isolate out people's unconscious reactions (eg. by looking at pupil dilation/heartrate/brainwaves), you are still looking at a conditioned response.

It's socially acceptable for women to be easily aroused (in fact it's socially unacceptable not to be - think how women are called 'frigid' for being simply not that interested in a particular man/group of men). OTOH it's still much less acceptable for men to be sexually aroused by other men.

SarahAndQuack · 04/06/2021 15:59

Incidentally, on the subject of paraphilia/fetish, this reminds me of Gail Dines' work on hardcore pornography. She found that a lot of men who had perfectly standard sexual interests became effectively 'desensitised' over time - they ended up seeking out more and more extreme porn in order to get the same 'hit' from it.

FelicityBeedle · 04/06/2021 16:02

It always shocks me on here, if a poster mentions her bloke has said he is attracted to men too, or had a boyfriend or watches the occasional gay porn she is told to leave him immediately as he is gay. And the awful line about ‘not being satisfied by one person’ is trotted out too. I’m Bi and have had relationships with women, now happily settled with a man, it’s ridiculous to paint us all as cheats

workshy44 · 04/06/2021 16:08

I wouldn't go out with a guy that was BI because every guy I have known that was ended up with men in the end
I do believe in male bisexualty , I just personally wouldn't want to take the risk

ghostyslovesheets · 04/06/2021 16:10

honestly - because men can't believe we aren't all after their dicks - and by 'men' I obviously mean male dominated patriarchal society

But I do take issue with people saying you can't be 100% straight - imagine saying no one is 100% gay or Bi?

I am straight and I AM only after dick - hth!

PinkPlantCase · 04/06/2021 16:14

@SarahAndQuack that’s a really good point about what we’ve been conditioned to find arousing culturally!

Though I’m also sure that the study I’m thinking of showed a video of gorillas bonking and it evoked an arousal response in women but not in men.

SarahAndQuack · 04/06/2021 16:17

YY, but that's still plausibly cultural conditioning. I don't mean women are conditioned to find gorillas sexy (though I guess if you look the right way at King Kong Grin). I mean, women are conditioned to think they're the sex class, so if sex is in the offing, they ought to be getting ready to be asked to participate.

I'm putting that really glibly, but I really do think it's a thing.

I also think men are quite strongly conditioned to believe their sexual desires are likely to be disgusting, so there's perhaps a bit of internalised self-policing.

SocialAffairsAndWoodlandFolk · 04/06/2021 16:19

There have been some quite horrible threads on here (less now, I imagine) where a poster has said that their partner is bisexual and you've got lots of people advising to get rid, that "he's probably gay", and a seemingly obligatory "I like my men to be men."
I've not seen similar about bi women.

JingsMahBucket · 04/06/2021 16:24

@SocialAffairsAndWoodlandFolk yes, the gay husband troll last year definitely brought out the homophobic MNetters including the so called feminists.

SarahAndQuack · 04/06/2021 16:24

Isn't it likely we don't see similar threads about bi women simply because MN is pretty female-dominated and mostly straight?

I have definitely noticed threads on MN where people express quite bigoted views about what the difference is between bi women and lesbians - there was one recently where someone's husband was being best man to his lesbian friend, and it turned out the lesbian friend had slept with the man back in the day. Cue predictable bigots full of disbelief, because clearly, a woman sleeps with one man and she can't be a lesbian.

I also notice masses of threads about teen girls that trot out the old 'it's all a phase/she's just saying it because it's trendy' line.

So I think there is biphobia about women too.

ClaudiaWankleman · 04/06/2021 16:30

I wouldn't go out with a guy that was BI because every guy I have known that was ended up with men in the end

Sample size please?

LaBellina · 04/06/2021 16:33

[quote JingsMahBucket]@SocialAffairsAndWoodlandFolk yes, the gay husband troll last year definitely brought out the homophobic MNetters including the so called feminists.[/quote]
There’s a gay husband troll on MN?

Sorry but for some reason I find that incredibly funny 😂😂😂

merryhouse · 04/06/2021 16:35

@AryaStarkWolf

Odd isn't how in both cases people automatically think both Bi women and Bi men must really be more into men, I wonder why that is?
possibly because anyone who isn't into men is going to run screaming from the thought of someone else's penis? - so if you're able to tolerate that it must be part of your sexuality. Then obviously a "bi" man is a gay man who craves heteronormativity and social acceptance, while a "bi" woman is a straight woman who likes to sound cool and interesting.

(I don't think this myself, btw... in fact for a while I pondered the possibility that we're all naturally bi and lesbians and straight men are just people who have hang-ups about other people's penises... also probably not true)

TentTalk · 04/06/2021 16:36

I'm bisexual and honestly, the biphobia is awful. I was very much ostracised by lesbians and straight people.

YouShouldLeave · 04/06/2021 16:36

@workshy44

I wouldn't go out with a guy that was BI because every guy I have known that was ended up with men in the end I do believe in male bisexualty , I just personally wouldn't want to take the risk
I don’t know many bi men, do they?

I know most (all) bi women do end up with men, though.