OLD help please. Guy told me he is bi, how to politely say I don't wish to continue?

[LoveintheTimeofCoronaa]

Hi all,

Could do with some help please!

I've been chatting to a bloke online, seems nice. He has just informed me he is bisexual 'in case it puts me off'.

Not sure I can fully explain why, even to myself as I have zero issues with anybody's sexuality but I would prefer not to continue this. We haven't met but I do want to be decent and give him a response.

I'm not looking to be called a homophobe as I assure you I am not. Just want to be tactful.

How would you express this politely??

Thanks!

Whereas for me a partner being veggie is important. I get turned off by long hair, over grooming, being in a band... I wonder if those things are unsuitable prejudices?

So interesting watching people getting really REALLY angry because a woman has boundaries.

A lot of gay men and women also choose not to date bisexual partners - are they homophobic too?

There’s nothing wrong with boundaries! But some of the responds here are pretty repugnant and reveal a lot about posters. I wouldn’t say it was biphobic, so much as homophobic actually. Most of these comments which are unpleasant relate to sex acts.

Tells you a lot about a person that they focus on that. It is homophobic.

You don't have to explain yourself, and you certainly don't need to feel bad. Live life on your terms.

Indeed imagine women having boundaries about particular sex acts, how inconsiderate of them.

I think we already know that woman who have boundaries are all hateful bigots. They need to STFU and do whatever men want.

Right, because objecting to comments going "A man sticking his willy up another man's bum EEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW" is "being against women having boundaries."

I'm a GC feminist and very active on Twitter and as a member of Woman's Place. I'm the first person to fight for women's right to informed consent, and to fight against the million and one overt and covert/subtle ways in which women's consent is degraded in this society. But there have been overtly homophobic comments on this thread that have had nothing to do with who a woman chooses to sleep with or not sleep with. It's flat out lying and gaslightling to pretend that lesbian posters who object to homophobia are evil nasty woman-haters trying to attack straight women's rights and boundaries. Amongst the many wonderful strong GC feminists on this forum there are unfortunately a minority who relish any opportunity to give gay, lesbian and bisexual people a good kicking, and are happy to exploit the GC movement (often using the same tactics of DARVO, manipulation, and word-twisting as TRAs use) as an excuse to engage in homophobia and lesbiphobia and in this case biphobia.

The OP is completely in her right to decide not to date this man. But as a lesbian I have every right to be hurt and offended by comments implying that bisexuals are incapable of monogamy, or that LGB people are icky and gross.

Exploiting the GC movement in order to gaslight women (including lesbian) posters who object to homophobia is abuse, period.

I bet anything the usual suspects will be lining up to tell me to STFU. Interesting how that always happens whenever a woman expresses boundaries!

I am bisexual and would have no issue to dating a bisexual man. But it is up to OP to make the decision whether she wishes to date him. Better for him to ask date someone who accepts that part of him and isn't uncomfortable with it. Just my opinion

So many errors in the above. I am shattered.
*no issues with dating a
*Better for him to ask early on and then date someone who

@SwerfandTurf - totally agree.

It’s always a focus on sex itself that gives it away.

Quite legitimate to say “not interested”.

Totally revealing to start referring to sexual acts between men. This is good old fashioned phobia.

If you are not interested, you aren’t worried about what someone you are not interested in does in bed. You don’t have to confess you are revolted or otherwise repulsed.

But the point is, it doesn't matter why she isn't interested. Sexual preferences aren't equal opportunities, they are usually highly discriminatory. You are picking the odd person out of many to have a sexual relationship with.

I don’t really mean the OP. I would have just said “not interested”.

It’s the comments here about sex between men which are phobic. Some of them would shame a bar in the 1970s. None of that is relevant but it is very revealing of people who probably imagine they are “tolerant”.

You are totally entitled to feel the way you feel. Tell him straight (pun intended) that you don’t want to be with someone who is bisexual. If he doesn’t like it then fuck him. I mean not literally but figuratively.

For my money, I don't disagree that some of the (particularly later) comments on here have been really unpleasant in the vein of 'gay sex, ewww!' which seems to me to be pretty intentionally offensive (not to mention childish).

On the other hand, I would say it's legitimate and not phobic to say/feel, "look, the idea homosexual/heterosexual sex (as applicable) is just a real turn off to me personally to the point where it turns me off a potential partner who has engaged in it/is turned on by it".

SwerfandTurf genuinely interested in whether you'd agree?

I hesitate to use "legitimate" for reasons a woman chooses not to have sex with someone but you know what I mean - I think one way of expressing yourself marks you out as at best totally thoughtless, at worst actively and unashamedly homophobic while the other is a legitimate way of expressing yourself and your sexual offences and asserting the same boundary without making you a dickhead.

*sexual preferences not offences! Great typo, that

I was called homophobic the other day on another website because I said I wouldn’t date a bi man either, my brother is gay and nor would he date a bi guy. It’s a preference and nothing to do with homophobia.

I know a few bi guys and they have hidden it from female partners up until she has very strong feelings for him and then he told her, well one of them told me this, it’s bad and I asked him why and he said he found that more females had had an issue with it more than men, I can see why though.

At least he told you before it got serious.

To combat some other homophobic/biphobic stereotypes that have been trotted out here:

1. Not all bisexual people have had sex with a person of the same sex. There are plenty of bisexual men who have never had a sexual experience with another man (or bisexual women who have never had sex with a woman). Plenty of bisexual people are virgins! You don't need to have sex to have a sexual orientation.

1. Bisexuals are no more or less likely to be monogamous than a heterosexual person. A bisexual is no more likely to cheat than a straight person.

1. There's a bizarre fixation on male/male anal sex here. But a full third of gay men DO NOT have anal sex regularly and plenty of gay and bi men never have anal sex.

1. All these comments about "eww I wouldn't want a dick that's been up another man's bum." I guess you'd flip out if I told you there's a fair amount of anecdotal evidence and studies that bisexual men (the percentage of bisexual men who do have sex with men, and the percentage of those who engage in anal sex) are more likely to label as bottoms? Meaning their dicks have never been anywhere except vaginas and mouths?

I would date a man who fancies other men so my opinion is still the same, instant turn off for me

If a self proclaimed bi person hasn’t had sex with the same sex then how on earth do they know they’re bi? Surely they are just bi curious then?

Turn off for me as well with bi men, didn’t want to say that though as I got flamed previously on another website

WokeOnTheWater I do agree with you.

Though just thinking out loud, there are tons and tons of men who aren't willing to date or marry women who aren't virgins, because they find the idea of a sexually active woman such a turn off. If a guy started a thread asking how to dump a woman because he'd discovered she wasn't a virgin and he just found the idea that she'd had a dick shoved in her vagina before off-putting, he'd get his arse handed to him. No one would defend his right to only be attracted to virgins.

It's not a fair comparison of course because we live in a world that's so biased against women in so many ways (eg women being killed for not being virgins, history of women's financial worth and ability to remain out of poverty being linked to the state of their hymens). There's no male comparison to the many victims of so-called "honour killings" (a crime that proves the importance of sex-based rights). And women are expected/pressured to provide sex in a way that men simply are not. No one would defend a man's right to only have sex with X group of women because that right has never needed defending.

But on the other hand an awful lot of homophobia is predicated on misogyny and it's worth thinking about. OP is totally within her rights but all the "anyone who plays the homophobia card hates women" posters are denying that there's a more nuanced debate at play here.

WOULDNT* definitely wouldn’t date a man who fancies men!

Inappropriatefemale by that definition you magically turned heterosexual the day you lost your virginity. And women who don't lose their virginities till later in life or who never lose it (eg women with certain disabilities preventing them from having intercourse) never have any sexual orientation at all!

The idea that sexual orientation = acts is ignorant. That's not a slur or accusation, just a fact. It reinforces the idea that straight is the default, like everyone is born straight, and that gay/bi/lesbian people somehow turn LGB at some point later in life. It's a very dangerous concept because it's that very concept which was behind hundreds of years of dangerous abusive forced conversion therapy, and the concept behind things like Section 28 and the idea that gays convert children and that you can be turned gay.

Sexual orientation is in the mind, not the genitals.