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Where Are All The Bi Guys?
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A transcript of this episode is available at www.TwoBiGuys.com
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Transcript
Recording Evolution
00:00:00
Speaker
Hi, I'm Rob, and thanks for discovering Season 1 of Two Bye Guys. We hope you enjoy it. So in Season 1, we recorded everything in person. It was pre-pandemic, and we used professional sound booths. And as you'll hear, the audio quality is pretty great. But it was also very complicated and expensive. And when the pandemic hit, those booths became impossible.
00:00:23
Speaker
So in season two, we tried recording interviews locally while chatting on Zoom, which kind of worked. But the audio quality was spotty. Sometimes people made manual mistakes with the recording. It was a huge hassle for me to receive the files, convert the formats, compile the audio, edit by hand. I knew I needed a better solution if I was going to continue the podcast.
00:00:46
Speaker
And Zencaster was that solution. The thing that was most important to me, knowing how the process works, is that the audio gets recorded locally, not over the internet like Zoom does. When you get up to seasons three and four, you'll hear how good the audio quality is. It rivals what you're about to hear from season one, which was recorded in professional sound booths. And it's so much easier and cheaper. Everyone can record from home with whatever equipment they have, even just a laptop's built-in mic.
00:01:15
Speaker
And then there's the editing and post-production. I used to have to go through every track manually, reducing background noise, mixing volumes and levels, making sure my guest and I were synced. Now Zencaster post-production takes care of all of that and delivers ready to upload files. So if you're thinking about starting your own podcast, I highly recommend Zencaster. It's easy, it's affordable, and it's very reliable, and the sound quality is great.
00:01:40
Speaker
And now if you go to zencaster.com slash pricing and enter promo code 2BUYGUYS, you'll get 30% off your first three months. That's z-e-n-c-a-s-t-r dot com slash pricing promo code 2BUYGUYS for 30% off your first three months. It's time to share your story with Zencaster.
Introductions and Purpose
00:02:13
Speaker
Hi, my name is Rob Cohen. And I'm Alex Boyd. And welcome to Two Bye Guys. We are Two Bye Guys. Yeah, we both identify as bisexual men, believe it or not. And we're doing this because I think both of us agree that there's not enough bi men talking about bi men stuff.
00:02:29
Speaker
Mm-hmm. It's quite invisible. It was not something I heard much about until I got into this world. And there's so many bi men out there, I think is something we've both discovered over the last couple of years, is that they're way more than people think and nobody's really talking about it. So it's hard to learn about it and it's hard to come out and it's hard to accept.
00:02:49
Speaker
Yeah, completely. So we're here to try to change that and talk about it.
Meeting and Perspectives
00:02:54
Speaker
So Alex and I met almost two years ago at By Request, which is a bisexual discussion group in New York City. It's a very diverse group in terms of gender and age and race, background, ability, everything. We discuss
00:03:10
Speaker
bisexual oriented topics every other week. And so that's where Alex and I started talking about this stuff. And we pretty quickly realized that we have sort of similar opinions on some things and some things we defer. But what's interesting is we come at it from very different angles, our stories of how we got here.
00:03:30
Speaker
are quite different.
Rob's Bisexual Journey
00:03:31
Speaker
Area opposite in a lot of ways. Yeah. I identified as straight most of my life. I'm 34 years old now. I'm a writer. I worked for Law and Order SVU for seven seasons. And I didn't explore my sexuality really until around age 30, which was while I was at SVU.
00:03:46
Speaker
I mean, I explored my sexuality before that, but I identified as straight and I really didn't think about anything other than that for at least 20 something years. Then eventually I realized I was ignoring some other feelings and thoughts and desires that over the past few years I have started to explore and understand and come to identify as bisexual.
Alex's Identity Evolution
00:04:11
Speaker
Um, and on the other end of things, uh, I'm 25 and actually I identified as gay for quite a while first, um, before identifying as bi. And right now I bartend at a gay bar right here in New York city. And I've been doing a lot of work with the Trevor project and national suicide prevention hotline for LGBT youth.
00:04:31
Speaker
So yeah, I grew up in that kind of liberal like Northeast kind of environment. And I've really gotten gross in this like queer world and got really wrapped up in it. And I think over time I realized that there were kind of there, it's other problems in the queer world. Things that didn't really fit with my expectations and kind of bits of that community that I kind of had to defy in my own way. You know, I experienced a lot of straight men who were kind of exhibiting maybe some bi things here and there.
00:04:58
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah, we could do a whole episodes about that. You were one of those straight men doing very bi things. Yes. Yes, I was. It happened very slowly. But yes, eventually I was I was very fluid and I my brain had not yet caught up to my behavior. Yeah. But I'm reconciling it all now. Yeah, it works out in the end.
Bisexual Visibility Challenges
00:05:23
Speaker
People really don't think that bisexuality is real, especially for men. I think there's a conception that women can be bisexual and that's normal, but guys who are bisexual are really gay. People think men are either straight or gay. They're sort of stuck in this binary. And really, that does so much damage to bi men because
00:05:42
Speaker
First of all, it's not true. Let's just say that. I've learned everything is very fluid and there's a lot of room in the middle here. And it doesn't mean you're right in the middle. But it hurts by men because it keeps them from being able to talk about it. People are very afraid of it. And it keeps people from coming out and being themselves.
00:06:01
Speaker
And at the end of the day, like, why is it that women with women is like a hot thing, right? Like women messing around with women, that's hot, but men messing around with men, like, nah, that's just gay, not cool.
Impact of Media Appearance
00:06:13
Speaker
But we did kind of where some of this conversation started is we appeared on a TV show actually called Slut Ever. It's on Vice Land, and it's hosted by Carly Chertino. It's a very like sex positive show, but they had an episode entirely dedicated to bisexuality among men.
00:06:30
Speaker
And through talking to Carly and through kind of the reception that that episode got amongst people we know, but also kind of like the greater world, we very much so realized that there was a big like lacking conversation here. That people really just weren't talking about this and that this was like new perspectives for a lot of people, which kind of surprised us and made us think that maybe it was time to kind of fight that invisibility with a conversation like the one we're having right now.
00:06:54
Speaker
Totally. So many people after that aired contacted me and I was out to most people, most of my friends by the time that aired, but not everyone who I'm friends with on Facebook and old friends I hadn't talked to and the response was kind of amazing. So many people reached out to me and
00:07:12
Speaker
you know sort of thanked me for sharing that and so many people came out to me after that like it was more female friends but also guy friends I have came out to me after that who I had no idea and so it was really an illuminating experience that once you put this stuff out there there's more people interested than you might think yeah for sure
00:07:32
Speaker
So maybe you can start with kind of telling us a little bit about your story, Rob. Sure. So like I said, I'm 34.
Self-Reflection and Realization
00:07:40
Speaker
I live in New York City in Manhattan. I grew up in Westchester outside of Manhattan, so not too far. And grew up in a pretty heteronormative environment and school, I would say. I didn't realize it looking back. Everything just seemed like this is the way the world is.
00:07:56
Speaker
normal and fun, but looking back, everything was sort of very heteronormative and I didn't really know many gay people in growing up or in high school, like very, very few, nobody who was a close friend, and I absolutely did not know any bi people. I didn't even know that bisexuality was a thing. Yeah, that's gonna make it tough.
00:08:18
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, right. Like, I mean, I imagine going to school now and just even knowing one person who you liked could make such a difference. But like, I just never had anyone to talk to about any of these issues. And so I didn't then keep it all inside. I just didn't have those thoughts, right? So like, I just
00:08:37
Speaker
thought it was straight, assumed I was straight and like, cause everyone else around me was and it felt fine and natural. And so I dated women and I was interested in women from a pretty early age and like a girlfriend in fifth grade and kissed a girl in seventh grade and like, you know, step-by-step, like a relatively normal trajectory of being heterosexual guy. And it felt natural. It didn't feel like I was faking anything. It didn't,
00:09:03
Speaker
feel like I was tricking anyone, and really it didn't feel like I was repressing anything for a long time. Like I would say through college and even a little bit after college, it didn't feel like I was repressing anything, but slowly these feelings started to pop up and develop.
00:09:22
Speaker
I guess the form it took was like these charged moments there would be these like moments that stuck out in my memory that as they happened and even like in my 20s I didn't really think they were important but over time and as I got to my late 20s I started to think like
00:09:42
Speaker
Hey, maybe this is something. So it was like a pattern kind of thing. Yeah. And then, you know, enough instances and, you know, it indicates something maybe a little bigger. Yeah, exactly. Or like, you know, there's just people that stuck in my memory. Like, like I remember in high school, I worked at camp and there was one guy who... It was always at camp. It was always... I did learn a lot of that.
00:10:04
Speaker
Sex and sexuality at camp and you know my first real girlfriend was at camp and stuff so that was happening too but but then I just remember this guy who like I was always acting a little awkward around him, and I kind of thought he didn't like me for some reason and I
00:10:21
Speaker
And I was just weird around him. He literally cared about something there. Yeah. He cared about that relationship before. Well, yeah. And at the time, I just thought, he doesn't like me. This is weird because he's being weird to me. But really, he was just cute. And I found him attractive and I had a crush on him.
00:10:40
Speaker
And when I had a crush on girls, I could identify it. Like I knew what that felt like, but because this crush was on a guy, I didn't even think about it that way. So it didn't manifest that way. And then like only years later when I look back and I'm like, why was I awkward around him? And also now I can recognize that he was cute. Then I'm like, Oh, that's what it was. So there's just like moments like that, or also at camp, like,
00:11:07
Speaker
Kids would run around naked sometimes for fun and the counselors would get really mad at them. I remember feeling really anxious and tense when that happened. So I never did it. I didn't get naked again. I didn't encourage people to do it. I kind of retreated when that happened.
00:11:23
Speaker
But in hindsight, there was something charged about that. Basically, there must have been some repressed sexual feeling in there that I couldn't really access, but I could feel on some level. It was inside me somewhere.
00:11:39
Speaker
So slowly I started to notice those moments. I started to think about that stuff.
Identity Exploration
00:11:45
Speaker
And then I guess like the real thing that sort of tipped the scales was I noticed that every once in a while I would be clicking on gay porn.
00:11:56
Speaker
Let's just go right there. I mean, you know, I was watching straight porn first where I thought not just the women, but also the men were pretty attractive without really realizing that. And then every once in a while I would find this porn that was like
00:12:13
Speaker
straight guys doing gay stuff. And slowly in my late 20s, I started watching a little more and more of that, and it would be the kind of porn where it's like, gay for pay was a big one for me, where it's, these are straight guys, they go on the video, they say they're straight, and then the producer pays them money to jerk off together, or to engage in other sex rags together. Broke straight boys is a good example. Their videos are very popular.
00:12:42
Speaker
Corey, how's it going? What's up? It's going. I got fired here two days ago, exactly. Well, we're glad to help out with your finances. Why don't you give me a little kiss? If I wasn't getting paid, obviously, I wouldn't fill. If the money's right, then pretty much anybody will do anything.
00:13:04
Speaker
And they're maintaining their straight identity the whole time, but they're engaged in certain types of gay sex or interactions. And then also there was like hazing porn that was like, you know, fraternity. If you want to get into this fraternity, you have to suck a dick or do something gay.
00:13:23
Speaker
I swear to God, this stuff is popular out there, too. There's other people watching this. But I found myself clicking on that. And I would click on it. And I would watch it. And I would tell myself these stories that I just want something new. I'm just trying to set up and exploring. You're just as straight as all of these guys. Right. Exactly. That's exactly what it was. These guys are straight. And they're doing more than you. Right. And I'm just watching this. So I'm still straight. I'm just turning off to this stuff.
00:13:50
Speaker
So there was like probably a few years where I was doing that but maintaining that straight identity. But then finally I just you know that stuff started weighing on me more and I started thinking what does this mean? Why am I interested in this? And then I went through a period of being very
00:14:09
Speaker
tense and stressed about and actively repressing that because I was afraid I was gay. I was afraid that this was either turning me gay or that I had been gay all along and not realized it and that really upset me because
00:14:24
Speaker
you know, now I can see like all those relationships I had with women were good and natural and like none of them individually worked out because I was in high school and college but like but they were real and they were loving and they were fun and and I liked those relationships and I didn't want to invalidate those in my head sort of by saying actually I was gay the whole time I was very stressed about that I started reading a lot and looking for information and struggling to find other bi guys and
00:14:53
Speaker
Well, I imagine you were probably scared that you were losing that straight element of your life, right? Yeah. The men maybe took over where the women were before. Right. Yeah. Just because it's a new element. Right. Right. And all those other relationships were important to me. And they felt like part of who I was. And I really, really loved some of those people.
00:15:16
Speaker
Yeah, it was very hard to sort of realize that I wasn't becoming a different person. I was still the same person, I was just sort of having additional feelings. I sort of liken it to food preferences, that you can try new flavors of things and like them, it doesn't mean you have to stop eating foods you used to like.
00:15:39
Speaker
It's an addition. It's not a subtraction. There's a show called Schitt's Creek that actually was just nominated for an Emmy for Best Comedy, and one of their main characters is pansexual, and he has one of my favorite explanations of this. I do drink red wine, but I also drink white wine, and I've been known to sample the occasional rosé. I like the wine and not the label. Does that make sense?
00:16:03
Speaker
So I was watching this porn and adding up these charge moments and starting to realize this stuff about myself and starting to find avenues where it might be possible to explore it in real life the more I researched. And I remember I was 29, I was going to turn 30, and I decided I
00:16:24
Speaker
didn't want to turn 30 without exploring this so that was when I sort of took a leap and did that and we can talk about exactly what that looked like on another episode that there are some longer stories there but I did that and I then just sort of explored for a few years while still identifying as straight and I took things very slowly one step at a time it actually in many ways
00:16:49
Speaker
mirrored my sexual and romantic exploration with women in like middle school and high school. I sort of started over again with men and did things very slowly and didn't jump into anything. And I was scared of each step, but I kind of took my time and did things when I was ready and slowly, slowly built up to the identity I have now. And, you know, interestingly, at the time that I was working at SVU during all this, uh, so like,
00:17:18
Speaker
When I started there, I was totally straight identified and didn't really have any clue that I might be by.
Advocacy and Community Support
00:17:25
Speaker
And then I did a lot of research there. I started as a writer's assistant and researcher and then became a staff writer for four years.
00:17:33
Speaker
And I was researching a lot of stuff about sex and sex crimes, but also about sexuality in general and like stigma and shame and how all this stuff works in the justice system. But I ended up jumping off from there on my own and continuing that research, you know, more specifically into
00:17:54
Speaker
male sexuality and bisexuality. Did that affect like your work basically though? Did it affect kind of your standing at work and almost? I was very compartmentalized at the time I think and I sort of kept my personal stuff out of work in many ways.
00:18:09
Speaker
and I was never out at work really. There was a time when I was starting to explore but I wasn't yet out there and I knew it for myself and in a weird way I started becoming an advocate for bisexuality and I started talking about it more in the writer's room and I started pitching it a little and pitching that certain characters should be bi.
00:18:31
Speaker
And it was actually easier and kind of a nice way to test things out that I could advocate for it without identifying myself that way. It felt like a safe way to sort of test talking about these things and to try to convince people that this was real without having to say, this is real and it's me. Yeah.
00:18:52
Speaker
However, I would say none of those pitches really went through and we never really did much about bisexuality on the show while I was there. At least I didn't really get to write about it. And I think it's because I wasn't out. You know, I kind of wish like, you know, in a perfect world, I could have said, hey, let's make this character bi.
00:19:11
Speaker
because I am and he's similar to me and I... And there are other people out here looking for this, right? Looking for that. Who would love that representation and I can help us do it authentically. But I could never really say that. I just wasn't ready and didn't feel comfortable at the time. And so we never did that. And it's a complicated history of me and SVU and my bisexuality. There's a lot of things that are interrelated.
00:19:37
Speaker
Yeah. We can talk more about the behind the scenes another time. Another time. Yeah. So then anyway, everything sort of got tied up for me when I started going to Buy Request and I met real buy people and I was in a room with 30 or 40 people every other week.
00:19:54
Speaker
who felt the same way that I had secretly been thinking and who weren't scared of it and weren't ashamed of it and had been going to this group for a while and they made it seem so normal to me and that was so helpful because you know I'd read stuff online and I had been doing research but I didn't really have a community of bi people and I didn't know them in real life and see that they were
00:20:21
Speaker
just like everyone else. They could live normal, happy lives and be cool with this. That sort of helped me get over a lot of the shame and stigma and really integrate it into my life and start coming out, which I did over the next year and a half leading up to Slut Ever when I'm now out fully. To the whole world.
00:20:42
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. To the whole world. Well, the whole world now, right? Because the whole world will be listening to this podcast. Yes, the whole world will be listening. We intend to have a couple billion followers. We intend to have a couple billion followers. We intend to have a couple billion followers. We intend to have a couple billion followers. We intend to have a couple billion followers. We intend to have a couple billion followers. We intend to have a couple billion followers. We intend to have a couple billion followers. We intend to have a couple billion followers. We intend to have a couple billion followers. We intend to have a couple billion followers. We intend to have a couple billion followers. We intend to have a couple billion followers. We intend to have a couple billion followers.
00:21:08
Speaker
So I think I definitely came about things in a little bit of an opposite fashion as we said a little bit before.
00:21:15
Speaker
Early on, when I was starting to discover my sexuality and find people I was attracted to, the big thing that just became very clear to me was that I was attracted to men.
Parental Influence on Identity
00:21:28
Speaker
I also had crushes on girls. I had plenty of crushes on girls, especially all the way back to first, second grade. I remember those crushes. First kiss, a girl. But I remember this attraction to men kind of took over almost, because it took over in a sense that I didn't
00:21:45
Speaker
know how I could possibly still be into women, into girls, if I knew for a fact that I was gay. Like, you know, I knew that for a fact. Right, how can you like two things? Yeah, it's not a thing. That's ridiculous. You have to like one thing. Yeah, yes. Feels like you have to like make that decision. Especially in seventh grade. You should know. Figure it out in seventh grade and then just fucking get on with your life.
00:22:14
Speaker
My first experiences were definitely with men. I didn't have anything with women for a long time. But in short, I came to this gay label because my parents discovered porn on my computer. So I had been watching gay porn, I had also been watching straight and bi porn, but my parents found
00:22:35
Speaker
you know, porn on my computer that was very explicitly showing men. I thought you said they caught you watching gay porn. No, no, no, no, no. That's how I remember it. Definitely not that. That's how I remember your life. They didn't walk in on you? Don't want to think about that.
00:22:54
Speaker
Wait, so what actually happened? They just went through your browser history? Yes, sorry. It's taking me a second to move past that image. But what did happen is they found, it was parent snooping probably. I'm not really sure exactly how it came about, but they were on my laptop, my computer, looked up things. I was lazy about clearing search history, so I obviously wasn't too worried about it at the same time.
00:23:21
Speaker
because I knew that they would be super cool with it too. I knew it wouldn't be an issue in my family. I grew up in super liberal Massachusetts, was never too worried. That's nice.
00:23:32
Speaker
it definitely wasn't my choice either. So in that moment, my mom sent me down and pulled up things that she had found or my dad had found, they had found together. That's uncomfortable. Yeah, yes. That's uncomfortable. She pulled it up. But them walking in isn't uncomfortable. Well, she pulled it up. Yes. OK, so maybe that's why I have that image in my head, because you're looking at gay porn on a computer screen with your mother. Yes, yeah. In a way, you could see it that way. I do.
00:24:02
Speaker
So, yes, I do too. So what happened at that point was I basically was in that moment asked, so are you gay?
00:24:13
Speaker
I kind of could do nothing more than shrug and say, yeah, looks like it. Because it looked like it, yeah. So I was 16 at that point, sophomore year of high school, and it just kind of solidified things. It definitely shifted my train of thought mentally and it actually kind of made things easier in a way because I suddenly saw the box that I was fitting in. I saw kind of the image I had seen gay men before. I knew that there was a future to some extent there
00:24:43
Speaker
I would imagine when she asks you that, it makes a lot of things make sense. And unless you already at that point had a very strong understanding of fluid sexuality and bisexuality, you can't really respond to your mom and say, no, no, no, I was watching gay porn. Like it's more complicated than that. It's kind of like you probably felt a little ambushed. Yeah.
00:25:04
Speaker
I mean, I literally didn't have another option there. I knew no other words I could have said in that moment other than yes. Yes, I'm gay. And then it just made sense to to use that label at that point. But no, I didn't have the words to say like, but I'm also maybe sort of bi or this isn't all the porn that's on here. If you looked a little bit deeper. Yeah, there was just no other option in that situation. So what
00:25:28
Speaker
kind of happened from there was I didn't come out to everybody immediately, but I did very quickly start to kind of claim that gay label, kind of your typical journey at that point, where I looked forward to college, I went to college, I very quickly met all the queer people on campus and kind of attached myself to them because I was out for the first time, dated a guy for like two months sort of, but not really for the right reasons, mostly just like four.
00:25:54
Speaker
I can have a relationship now because I'm out and everybody knows and it's not going to be a big deal.
00:25:59
Speaker
But then my junior year simply said I had a dream. I had a sex dream. And a girl that I had a crush on had kind of been eyeing
Dream-Induced Identity Shift
00:26:11
Speaker
on it. It was hard to kind of define for myself because I was labeling as gotten gay at that point. She was very prominently featured in that dream. So it very quickly kind of unraveled for me and I started kind of
00:26:25
Speaker
thinking back through things and realizing that like that was super hot too and was very quickly okay with that. I knew a lot of bi and sexual identifying folks at that point who kind of just opened my eyes up in other ways anyways. This kind of coined for me that bi is also a term that I could use, that women very explicitly are a potential option for me too. So after that,
00:26:51
Speaker
I claimed that bi label. I came out to all of the known world all over again as bi, as pansexual. And then about a year later, I moved to New York. And honestly, I moved to New York and part of me had this quota to fill. Like I was off of my campus where everybody kind of knew me as gay still. And I was kind of in my own, you know, a new realm of sorts. And it just became a quota to sleep with women, to just explore that side, right?
00:27:21
Speaker
It's like most 15-year-old straight boys. They also feel they have a quota of women they need to sleep with to be a straight man. And there's a lot of commonality between my 22-year-old self and a 15-year-old straight boy, I think. Because I hadn't in person. I had no sexual experience with women whatsoever.
00:27:39
Speaker
been on any dates or anything really even. Right, how can you possibly be bi if you have not had sex with people of multiple genders? It's impossible, no. It is not, but it feels that way. Right, especially when you're figuring it out, you put that on yourself, I think, or at least I did. Yeah, completely, and I very much so put that on myself too. I can remember three women, essentially, that I slept with or almost slept with
00:28:08
Speaker
over the course of those early New York stages. So one, somebody I met at a bar did not have any connection to her beforehand. I distinctly remember I was straight in her eyes in every way. It was super easy conversation.
00:28:25
Speaker
The problem for me actually ended up being that I had bought her a couple of drinks. So when it came time to grab a car and we were gonna go back to her place, it was like super mutual and we were super kind of on board with that, it was suddenly super uncomfortable for me. I realized that I had essentially gotten her drunk, like as a man was intruding kind of in her space. It was a different dynamic than I had been used to at any other time this had happened.
00:28:52
Speaker
And honestly, it was terrifying in a sort of way. I just didn't know what to do. So when that car showed up, I walked away. I literally said goodnight, closed the door, never heard from her whatsoever. Yeah, so the second girl that I met up with, again, same situation, had met her at a bar, but less alcohol.
00:29:15
Speaker
And just like had a super great easy conversation from what I remember. And we went to her place. It worked out. Had my first sexual experience with a woman, like had sex and everything. Yeah, I mean it sucked actually. It was pretty rough. You know, I said that there's some similarities between 15 year old straight boy and like my 22 year old bi self and
00:29:40
Speaker
That's where it showed. It was that really fumbling experience where nobody really knows what they're doing. In this case, she probably didn't know what she was doing and I didn't. In this case, did she know that you were bisexual? No, she didn't. Or previously identified as gay? No. Okay, so then that's in your head too. For sure. Simply said there was an expectation to be a straight guy for that night and that wasn't me. And then the third girl that I ended up
00:30:07
Speaker
I had a little bit of a crush on her kind of thing. There was a connection there. And it was a better experience for sure. And she did know that I was bi. She knew the first woman that I was with that didn't care about that. In the end it honestly just kind of solidified me being bi.
Exploring Bisexuality in NYC
00:30:28
Speaker
I had had a lot of insecurity up until that point, until that
00:30:32
Speaker
experience that kind of just solidified, okay, this feels right, you can do this thing, right? And felt more comfortable at that point. So briefly to kind of wrap up from there until now, I started going out a lot more. I went to like circuit parties in New York all night long. Wasn't afraid to basically live a gay lifestyle and kind of dismiss that straight side sometimes. You know, what was kind of increasingly okay with dismissing
00:31:00
Speaker
you know, any expectation that I felt I should have on myself. And yeah, mostly it was with men still because I worked at a gay bar. I was comfortable in queer spaces. The women that did come up were generally queer themselves or trans and non-binary folks because there was just more of a connection. And as time went on, I really started to understand that was kind of the key for me, just because it gives us a common ground.
00:31:27
Speaker
Are you scared of cis-straight women? Is it intimidating? Yeah. Yeah. I think it is a little bit for me now. It's intimidating. A little bit less because I've had experiences with cis-straight women for the majority of my life. But now coming out as bi to them, I feel more intimidated or at least scared that some of them will not be cool with that. Yeah.
00:31:50
Speaker
Given that you've had more experience in your life with men and that you're still sort of exploring with women and it's relatively new in your life, how do you know that you're bi? Yeah, I mean, going to bi request, hearing those stories, hearing kind of the diversity of bi experiences out there and how I met folks who had never had any experience with women or any experience with men and realizing that all of them identified as bi, and at least in the context of that conversation, confidently so.
00:32:21
Speaker
it made me feel better about the fact that like, yes, my experiences are probably in the realm of like 80, 20, but my attractions are not necessarily quantifiable in that way. Like I can't, I honestly can't say if it's 50, 50, I can't say if it's 60, 40, I can't put numbers on it because there's people kind of all over the place. And it may change over time based on your experiences and who you're around and where you are. Yeah, yeah, completely. That's bye.
Understanding Bisexuality
00:32:51
Speaker
So now that we've told our bi stories, why don't we talk about what our current conception of bisexuality is? As you sit here today, what does bisexuality mean to you? What's your definition? How does it play a role in your life?
00:33:08
Speaker
There's always one definition actually that I kind of like resort back to. Robin Oaks, she defines bisexuality as the potential to be attracted romantically, sexually, or whatever to people of more than one gender, not necessarily at the same time, not necessarily in the same way, and not necessarily to the same degree.
00:33:30
Speaker
Yeah, that just captures all the potential bisexualities that could exist out there. So it captures, to use another word, that some people use the fluidity that people experience. Maybe it's not romantic with men, and it's romantic with women. Or that can change, or the type of attraction can be different. Yeah, it makes it so that there's really no box for it.
00:33:53
Speaker
I would agree with that. I mean, my answer is sort of just a longer version of that, but I think it totally is just about openness and potential. And it's not about like fitting into someone else's version of bisexuality or being 50-50. So like, for me at first, you know, I identified a straight and I knew I was sexually and romantically, emotionally attracted to women. Like I knew that that was possible for me.
00:34:20
Speaker
you know, all of that. And then I just had these sexual thoughts about men. Like, there was a time where they were specifically sexual and they were to a much lesser degree than my thoughts about women, but they were there. And then slowly, like, I opened myself up to them and then I started to notice, like, as I opened myself up, I had more of those thoughts. And then as I was comfortable with
00:34:43
Speaker
the sexual attraction I became open to emotional and romantic connections and also not just to men but to people of any gender and trans people and so I continued to open up and those possibilities expanded and it really by sexuality just became to me about that openness that openness to anything and any potential to any type of relationship regardless of gender they're like gender is no longer a disqualifier for me it's about the person
00:35:13
Speaker
Yeah and I think kind of on the other side of that like looking at other people for me at least like I think what you talked about kind of like opening up of genders kind of thing and of perspectives in that way like you also start at least for me looking at other people differently like assuming their sexualities right like I no longer assume that the straight like bro looking kind of type like football bro right
00:35:38
Speaker
necessarily straight or like if he does something that's like a little gay like he's not necessarily gay either just like somebody who some you know really butch girl or something you know doesn't imply anything maybe is a lesbian maybe isn't maybe literally who knows
00:35:56
Speaker
Well, there's all these other things that we attach to gender and sexuality that are not really about what gender means and what sexuality means. And like gender in many ways is a construct and people can be on lots of different spectrums in terms of like expression and appearance and personality and everything. And gender doesn't really have to define that. It's sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy and it doesn't necessarily.
00:36:20
Speaker
Yeah, and what about if I would want to grow out my hair long, have a ponytail, wear heels, all of that, why couldn't I still want to have sex with a woman? Right. Why is that in any way connected to who you want to have sex with or who you can have an emotional connection with? We live in a world with a lot of these rules and norms and bisexuality is sort of about saying,
00:36:43
Speaker
Fuck those rules and like who created those norms? Why do they exist? And yeah, exactly, you know, I don't think about why am I bisexual anymore? I kind of think about like well, why not? Yeah, like why can't I do X Y and Z? Yeah Bisexuality allows all that freedom to explore anything that you're interested in There's all these spectrums and everyone gets to decide where they fall on each of them Yeah, whatever is gonna feel like comfortable for you. Yeah, like yeah. Yeah and with that like however you want to identify right like maybe bisexuality is
00:37:13
Speaker
which we're using here, isn't the right term even though you want to do bi stuff every once in a while. That's cool. Or maybe you do identify as bi, but you want to put yourself out there in the world as pan, or queer, or whatever label that you choose that feels best for you. Or straight, or gay. Well right, you can identify as straight too and have bisexual behavior, although we'll talk about it. It's another thing. Why that could be problematic, leads to invisibility and erasure.
00:37:39
Speaker
You know, go for it. Why not? It's better than repressing the behavior also. And I also want to say that what bisexuality doesn't mean is that if you adopt that identity that it's changing who you are in some way. It doesn't mean that you're secretly gay. I was afraid of that for a long time.
00:37:58
Speaker
It doesn't mean that you're 50-50 gay versus straight. It doesn't mean that you still can't have preferences. It doesn't mean that if you're a bi man, you can't marry a woman anymore, although we'll talk about the stigma that there is. It doesn't take away anything from your life. It only adds new possibilities.
00:38:20
Speaker
So that's what bisexuality means to us.
Bisexual Statistics and Visibility
00:38:23
Speaker
And to end today, I think we should talk about a couple of statistics. And the stats actually shocked me even, cause I always thought it was bigger than what was reported out there and what most people thought, but I didn't realize just how big it is. Like a lot of people don't even realize that most LGBT people are bisexual. 52% of the queer community is bisexual.
00:38:48
Speaker
more women than men, like among queer men, there are more gay men than bisexual men. But and among queer women, there are more bisexual women than lesbian women. But overall, when you add it all up, 52% of the LGBT plus community identifies as bisexual. So that is the largest group, you know, of the LGBT at least. Yeah. People don't really realize that we talk about gay and lesbian people a lot.
00:39:16
Speaker
which is great, but- Maybe not trans people, I know. Well, yeah, the trans people also get erased a lot, too. Yeah, in different ways. So there's a lot of work to do for bi and trans people, and there's a relationship there, and understanding, I think. Yeah, for sure. We'll do another episode on that, too. Yeah, we'll talk about trans stuff. Yeah, trans and non-binary and gender and sexuality and how it's all related. Yeah, we'll bring a friend in.
00:39:38
Speaker
Absolutely. But bi people are, there's more of us than anyone else. And even though overall, the statistics are hard to come by, you know, how many people in the country are LGBT, a lot of statistics say it's around five to 10%.
00:39:54
Speaker
But among young people it's much higher. So I think in America it's something like a third or maybe a little more than a third of young people identify as something other than straight. But in the UK there was an even more recent study that asked 18 to 24 year olds to rate themselves on the Kinsey scale. So it's like a zero to six, completely heterosexual to completely homosexual or anywhere in between.
00:40:19
Speaker
And 49% of the kids 18 to 24 years old identify as something other than heterosexual, which is half. I mean, it's 1% less than half. It's a ton. And it's changing fast. And I only see that number increasing.
00:40:37
Speaker
Well, of that 49%, I think it's something like 20, it is, it's 22% identify as a one on the Kinsey Scale, which is like mostly straight and just a little bit, you know, not a zero, like a little bit over on the Kinsey Scale. And then there's another 13% that identify as a two. So that's, what is that? 35% identifying the sort of
00:41:01
Speaker
more on the straight side, but not totally heterosexual. So I think there's just so many of those people out there. But then there's also a certain percentage at three, four, five, and six. It's spread out a little bit after that. But it's 49%. It's kind of crazy. I think as young people grow up, those numbers are going to get into the general population and keep going up.
00:41:27
Speaker
Also, another important statistic, and this is why it's hard to add up, is that bisexual people are much less likely to be out to their friends and family. So among gay men, 77% are out to their close friends and family, 71% of lesbian women are out, but only 28% of bisexual people are out. And this study didn't test this, but I would just bet anything that even less than 28% of bi men are out.
00:41:57
Speaker
that it's harder for bi men to come out than for bi women, so it's- Well, and not to mention, to add on to those statistics, that 100% of straight people are out. Yes, that's a good point. Right? That's wild. That's true. So low in comparison, I was about to- That is true. I never really thought about that. Yeah, they're all- It's kind of sad. Do you learn how to straight pride? Is that where you were in there? Yes, yes. It was a very exciting event.
00:42:22
Speaker
Yes, and they're all out and they don't have to come out and so it's like it's hard for bi men and and among bi people almost 40% are not out to anyone so and that was me for a short time and it's very difficult to live like that and to Know something about yourself that you can't share with people and have to censor yourself all the time
00:42:41
Speaker
Maybe you are bi, maybe you're straight, maybe you're gay, or maybe you're something else, and maybe you want to live mostly straight for your whole
Encouraging Open Conversations
00:42:48
Speaker
life. But I think what we're trying to do is to make sure that there's a conversation about that. And I think a lot of people feel that they deserve that conversation, and hopefully this is the start of that. We can start it, yeah. People are less afraid of talking about it. Yeah. So that seems like a good place to wrap. Thanks for listening to Two Bi Guys. We'll see you next time.
00:43:09
Speaker
Our music is by Ross Mincer and graphic design by Caitlin Wineman. This podcast is edited by Moxie Pung and is also produced by Moxie Pung, Matt Loomis, Alex Boyd, and me, Rob Cohen. Thanks for listening to two buggers.