Over at The Bi Married Mafia they’re conducting a survey to help bi-married men better understand their thoughts and activities compared to others in similar circumstances.
Take the survey here.
July 24, 2010
July 11, 2010
Accepting a Bisexual Husband
From Stephanie Chen (CNN): one of the most comprehensive and enlightened articles I’ve read on bisexual husbands. Many gay and bisexual men, uncertain of their sexual orientation early in life, follow the the traditional path of falling in love with a college or high school sweetheart, marry her and go on to lead healthy productive lives. The trick, after they eventually come to terms with their sexuality, is how they deal with it.
(CNN) — Robert Winn met his wife, Christine, in college. He was a fraternity boy. She was a sorority girl. Early in their relationship, he made a confession, a thorny secret he camouflaged from his closest family and friends.
The truth sputtered out awkwardly.
Sensing his nervousness, she speculated he would announce he was sick — or perhaps dying?
He told her he was bisexual.
On the surface, Robert Winn, now 40, and Christine Winn, 41, appear to be like any other blissfully married heterosexual couple. They boast nearly 18 years of monogamous marriage. He’s a well-respected physician, who works with the LGBT community in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She’s a successful hospital administrator.
The couple says they’ve grown closer over time, but like any marriage, two people can have differences — including sexual orientation. Christine Winn is straight, and she has been supportive of her husband, who is openly bisexual.
“I don’t think about it [his bisexuality] as a part I have to accept,” she said. “It’s just a part of him like any other husband who loses their socks on the floor or doesn’t take the trash out.”
Her husband feels a sexual and emotional attraction toward men and women. While he fantasizes about Angelina Jolie just as his straight male friends might do, he is also attracted to Brad Pitt.
This may sound like the best of both worlds, but being openly bisexual can be complicated. He frequently battles the stereotypes of bisexuality: That bisexual men are promiscuous. That his relationships with men were just an adolescent phase. That his bisexuality is imaginary. That he’s really a gay man trying to camouflage his orientation.
“There is a whole list of assumptions of what my life might be like, that somehow she is some sort of front for me because I’m not willing to accept I’m gay,” he said. “People are confused by bisexuality. There’s just not a lot of support for people who fall in the middle like me.”
More than 50 percent of Americans accept the idea of a gay or lesbian relationship, signaling growing support for same-sex couples, according to a Gallup poll in May. The poll, however, doesn’t address the issue of bisexuality, often defined as having a romantic attraction to both men and women. It’s a sexual orientation some advocacy groups and researchers say remains challenging because neither the gay community nor the straight population advocates for men and women who are attracted to both sexes.
“It’s either you’re in the closet or out of the closet, and it’s not that simple,” David Malebranche, a physician and professor of medicine at Emory University, says about the common perception of bisexuals.
July 2, 2010
It’s Complicated, Really Complicated
I came received this from a feed linked to an Internet community for gay and bisexual husbands, a collection of men of all ages and circumstances scattered around the United States. It’s a series of questions many gay and bisexual married men live with everyday. Despite your personal convictions, we have to make way for those who grapple in different ways with the genes they were born with .
1. Do we embrace our love of men with acceptance, even joy, instead of feeling bad about it?
2. Do we embrace the love of our wives as central, or is that lessened or weakened by our attractions to men (even if we do not act on those, but certainly if we do)
3. Do we tell our wives this is a part of who we are, or do we find we need to keep that part of ourselves hidden but diminish or eliminate the guilt we have in our pursuits
4. Can we find men for our particular needs of male sexual pleasure without that pursuit itself detracting from our other love and life responsibilities, or does that pursuit itself have a negative impact on us (obsessive use of pornography or search time, lack of positive results and so frustration, stealing time from family or work or friends in searching or acting out sex with men)
5. What is the honest sexual continuum we feel? Lots or little desire for our wives even if we love them? Lots or little need for male sexual action even if we say we love our wives primarily.
6. Are we really gay and if so what does that mean for the marriage? Can we stay in it because of our non-sexual love and history with her is so important for us, or does it cal into question the entire marriage?
7. If we do tell her, what kind of accommodation do we imagine or want? Acceptance but no on-going talk about it (don’t ask, don’t tell), sharing of some particulars in stories, participation by her in some of our sexual forays, permission and encouragement for her to have her own outside sexual liaisons? a wide open marriage that accepts one or both of you may find sexually and emotionally compelling others for stretches of time, yet you are able to stay together?
8. Who are we drawn to and can we attract them and what is that all about? Younger men, men our age, older men? Gay men? Dads? Short hot encounters or longer more casual friends with benefits? And then there is that whole issue of finding what positions and roles you want to be in and having the gumption to go after it.
9. How does sex with men fit into our other life issues? (a bigger issue the older we get) Retirement? Having good men friends of a non-sexual kind? Pursuit of professional or community or personal interests? Having fun? Working on our “spiritual” side or defining the larger meaning of our lives?
10. How widely do we want our real self to be known? Wife? Whole family? Circle of friends? Community?
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April 19, 2010
A Bisexual Married Man’s Story
Another story that came my way which presents powerful human emotion: the battle in a man’s head who loves his wife and is also driven by his attraction to men. Surely there is balance for couples like this, and many have found it, but for most, a lack of understanding and the strictures of our modern-day moral codes prevent emotional solutions.
Reaching out:
My wife and I had not had sex in many years, after a slow atrophy of interest and increasing performance issues on my part. I have shared this with only one old friend. I knew my reawakened interest in men and discovery of male porn was a large part of it, but job changes, body changes, tensions around parenting all become the convenient excuses. I was also ashamed to admit that as she put on some weight and aged, and I was working around many younger and attractive women and men, I found her less attractive. Objectively, she is still attractive, energetic, smart, funny, and accomplished, and I feel strong love, but not sexual excitement like I did. I do not want to lose her, we are soul mates.
August 24, 2009
Searching for Answers
You might say it was an awkward time in my life, or a period of self-discovery, or a journey down an unknown new path. It was certainly a time of self-doubt. Fresh out of a failed marriage of fourteen years, father of two teenage girls, fighting wars on many fronts in the world of business, doubting my ability to be a satisfactory husband, just one thing dominated my thoughts. One thing unrelated to all the other events in my life.
I say unrelated–maybe it wasn’t. The marriage was such a dismal experience, maybe my curiosity about men had a more significant meaning than I had realized. The notion of exploring a relationship with with another man had moved to the forefront of my thoughts. The curiosity had evolved into a single-minded ambition. If I wasn’t cut out to be a satisfactory husband, maybe I was cut out to be a buddy. Possibly an intimate buddy. It was simply a matter of meeting the right guy.
In the days before the Internet, the prospects for finding a like-minded friend were slim. Gay bars weren’t for me–I wasn’t gay. Though I had recognized my attraction to men, I was still enormously attracted to women, just wasn’t sure I was compatible with them. The only alternative at the time was a discreet message in the personal section of a popular local newspaper.
One day, after a string of disappointing results, I opened a letter from Larry, which included his picture. Dumbfounded, I stared at his image, immediately smitten. Something about his appearance and the words he had written gave rise to an instant connection. I wanted to get him on the phone immediately, but had to settle for the long process of contacting him through the mail. We eventually arranged a rendezvous in the lobby of a large hotel.
Of course it was awkward. His first time and mine doing something like this. He looked as good in person as he did in the photograph. We eased into a conversation and started to get to know each other, our anecdotes, missives and confessions uniting us as like-minded men. Like me, though the circumstances were vastly different, he was at the end of a less than desirable marriage. Like me, he was tall and thin. His curiosity equaled mine. Other than that, we had nothing in common, which, I believe, is exactly why our friendship became so exciting and interesting. He was an executive with a high-end retailer; me, founder of an auto parts manufacturing company. Our paths in life couldn’t have been more different. As our first conversation drew to a close, he suggested we get a room.
August 20, 2009
The Jew and the German
The Jew and the German
We rounded up one hundred and sixty Jews today. The rifle shots that ended their lives had stopped less than an hour ago. I had witnessed it all, standing among my German comrades, not twenty meters from the edge of the trench that served as a mass grave.
Men, women, children; it didn’t matter as long as they were Jews, or gypsies, or suspected Bolshevik sympathizers. I had seen the increasingly higher pile of naked bodies at the bottom of the trench, watched the officer go down among them and blow out the brains of those still moving. I had listened to them moan and beg and pray, and watched as they somberly removed their clothes, then stood shivering at the edge of the trench, not allowing their eyes to fall below the eastern horizon. I had felt my stomach roil with bitter acid, felt my teeth hurt from clenching them so tightly. I had been part of it, me, a draftsman just out of college. I had been conscripted into the SS, assigned to the ranks of Sonderkommando 4a, one of the outfits designated to address the Jewish question, currently operating in Ukraine. My group had been ordered to clean out the surrounding villages around Kiev. The day would come I would be chosen to man one of the rifles. I still could not comprehend why we were doing this. I had not figured out what had happened to my homeland. My breathing had been labored since my first day in Ukraine. I could not imagine pulling the trigger.
Now, as the gloom of night cast the first shadows over the long weary day, I stood a few yards outside of camp, leaning against a tree, taking long draws off my third consecutive cigarette, staring absently across the vast steppe. Sonderkommando 4a was following the wehrmacht as it plowed through Russia. Setting up command centers in the cities and villages behind the front line, our objective was to round up and eliminate German enemies. Of course this included the Jews. My small group, part of the central group in Kiev, had been sent southeast to clean out the small villages. It was horrifying, merciless, carried out with ruthless detachment. I would never adjust to this manner of thinking. I had known many Jews in my hometown in Germany, neighbors, chums I had gone to school with. Why were we killing them?
From the corner of my eye, I saw an approaching prisoner, a young man in tattered peasant clothes assigned the chore of picking up the trash and cigarette butts littering our camp. I watched him, his cautiousness as he got down on his knees to scour the ground, glancing at me, most likely fretting over every tiny scrap and every last cigarette butt, trying to avoid a beating. I felt ashamed of my uniform.
Eventually he stared at me, the look in his eye chilling; more than hostility, analytical perhaps, a look that almost seemed to suggest pity, though not quite masking his hatred and contempt. Moving forward on his knees, likely resigned to his fate, his courage seemed to gather, reflected in the expression of defiance on his face. When he got to his feet, he glanced behind and saw we were alone, then fixed his arrogant, scornful eyes on me. “You think you’ll get away with this, with what’s going on here,” he said bitterly, staring fearlessly like a man with nothing to lose.
August 18, 2009
The Enlightened Bisexual Male
Just what is an enlightened bisexual male?
It’s not likely you can pick him out in a crowd. He’ looks much like any other man you run across everyday. Certainly he’s someone’s son. He may be someone’s brother, husband, father, cousin or uncle. He may be your neighbor, your best friend’s husband, your colleague at the office. Chances are you like him, though you probably don’t know he’s bisexual. You like him because he’s friendly, because he smiles a lot, because he’s interesting. You admire him because he’s objective, accepting, considerate, upbeat, self-conscious and seems to have identified the important things in life.
Inside his head is a world most people aren’t aware of, perhaps no one. He sees colors many men don’t see, hears poetry most men don’t hear, understands human nature in a way most men can’t comprehend. He has gotten past the onslaughts imposed by society, the indoctrinations hammered into him by politics, parents, social codes and the church. He celebrates his unique freedoms, privately, though he recognizes life’s greatest luxury is having someone to share his secrets with, someone who identifies with them, appreciates them, or at least someone who understands and accepts them.
He’s likely to fall in love with a woman; he knows instinctually a woman’s enormous capacity for love. He may not understand all of her perspectives, but he delights in the fact she has them. He falls in love with her because she inspires him, teaches him, she sees in him things everyone else sees and things they don’t, she provides him with entrees from the menu of life that he would not want to live without.
The enlightened male sleeps with his wife nude; he couldn’t imagine it any other way, nor could she. He sleeps close to her, a leg draped over hers, an arm over her chest, a hand cupping one of her breasts or perhaps resting between her legs. More often than not, this is his favorite time of day: falling asleep with her, holding her, resting his eyes on her when he awakes the next morning.
He recognizes male beauty. From time to time he sees a another man that gives him flights of fantasy. A man in passing, or standing in line in front of him at the supermarket checkout, or stepping out of a delivery truck. Sometimes he imagines what it would be like to know this man, to touch him or see him undressed, only to smile and assume these kinds of feelings are almost certainly not mutual. Still, he can imagine a great friend, a confidant, a buddy to spend time with. He can imagine being carried away on the way the man smells, a touch of the lips, a caress, a special very unique kind of intimacy.
If he’s not married or committed, he may have such a friend, a lifelong buddy who knows him better than anyone else. It’s entirely possible he will fall in love with this man and spend the rest of his life with him. Instead of a man and woman holding hands as they walk down the street, it will be two men walking side-by-side, exchanging knowing glances. Instead of resting his head between two soft breasts, he will rest it on the pectoral muscle of a firm chest.
He knows the value of a good novel, a movie with human drama instead of silly special effects, a song sung from the heart with passion, paintings that take you to different times and places, the wonders of Mother Nature, a special friend. He will most likely live a significant part of his life in that private world inside his head.
