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Reader Feedback on "Come As You Are"
thank you thank you thank you! I know this essay is a little old but i just happened to tumble upon it at just the right time. My boyfriend just told me that he was bisexual. i had always thought of myself as a pretty progessive, open minded girl but i have to admit i was unsure how to proceed. The phrase "bi now, gay later" kept coming to mind. I didn't want to be that girl that was too blind to see she was dating a homosexual. But, we've talked about it and he explained his feeling to me and now, with the addition of this article, i feel i can finally understand.
--AH
02/09 |
that waz an amazing article.I feel so understood for once in my life.i am a younger,rather,"undecided" male and i feel as if my reason for this confusion is because there is a lack of mystery when it comes to me and women that I still hold with men. Which I feel could be due to the fact that my relationship with my fathers havent ever been the best.And my mother has always been a good friend of mine.i have never had alot guy friends either.i think I could be searching for in men what I didn't receive as a younger child.love.i have always felt rejected by other men.my father was a workoholic and had no time for me as my step dad always hungout with his real son.i feel as if that could be cause of homosexuality.a mans search to find acceptance,love,and confirmation that they never quite received.the search to find out if they have wat it takes.but instead we confuse these feeling with our sexuality.overall I feel as if bisexiality and homosexuality is just our way of replacing our puzzle peice we could never find.lost?- [email protected]
--jb
01/19 |
id rather have a women than a man. men dont feel love all that much. i love females but not really males.
--dm
11/26 |
realize this was posted last year but i just read it and it rocks, and you rock and thank you. and i've copied it to a word doc so i can read and memorize it as a manifesto. i'm a film maker and my solemn promise is to make a kicky fun movie that puts all that you have said--and which is written down the bones of my own life--front and center--and dangerous for all to see. way to go neal.
--PF
12/10 |
I know this article is not new, but I've just stumbled upon it and I wanted to say THANK YOU for writing it. There is not nearly enough out there that expresses even a small part of my experience as bisexual. I read this article and found myself holding my breath because I was identifying so hard with you. (Somehow that sounded dirty, although I didn't mean it to!) I am a female-to-male transexual who identifies as bisexual. My sexuality has 'changed' a few times too without actually changing. Rather, I've changed and my levels of disclosure have changed but underneath it all, I've always been queer no matter how you cut it. When I was a little girl I wanted to look up other girl's skirts. When I was a teenager, I fantasized about circle jerks. As an adult male, I kind of like the idea of hosting a circle jerk in skirts. Is that wrong? Every person I have ever been with has been uncomfortable with my bisexuality. I'm not. I love it. And I love that there's someone else out there who recognizes the weird vibes people have for bifolk. I don't know why it's so threatening. Anyway, longwinded and not pointy. Apologies. And THANK YOU AGAIN.
--Jay
12/08 |
i can relate to virtually everyone's comments on bisexuality. One thing I get annoyed about is the fact that often times we are overlooked because we are not gay or straight so many people tend to think of us as horny bypassers. That is so far from the truth. I have known all my life that I love women and love them as much as a man; however, I enjoy the love of a man, I just have the sexual stamina and appreciation for a woman as a man does. Does that mean I'm going to run off with a woman? No. They just fullfill me in a place that a man cannot, but at the same time can never fill the place of a man. This is hard to live with. So many people do not understand. Therefore, it is even more difficult to have relationships and understanding because people want to impose labels on humanity and it just doesn't work that way with us....so we are left to try to convince mates that we love them but still want to have experiences with the same sex, although it is non-commital...it is so difficult to convince someone of that. They just don't see it that way. I finally came out and told my family and as open minded as they are they tried to suggest that it was some passing phase when from the start I've been this way. I know it has to be easier for me because women being together is some sort of kinky turn on, but it has never been that for me. In fact, I never went for that scene, I know when a woman really wants me and has no reservations. I appreciate a sexy self-assured female rather than some chick trying to have an audience. It scares some people sometimes but I could care less because this is who I am and when I finally realized it and stopped pretending, that is when I truly knew who I was and felt comfortable about who I was. I spent so many years denying it and that time sucked. I used to live a secret life full of guilt and shame and that is how I know anybody living an alternative lifestyle feels. It sucks. You always have hidden desires and until you fully accept who you are, you can never be free of that and live as the "real" you, even if it means telling your family, because ultimately it is you and the masks and bullshit silence isn't going to make you happy in life. Instead, you just become some phony mask of a person, who you want them to see and be, but it destroys you in the end because you know that you are someone else and pretending to be that other person breaks you down. My family may not be totally accepting but at the same time I feel better not living the lie anymore. I ran away from it for so long by self-destuctive patterns of abuse of myself, drugs, life in general. It felt good to come clean even though some were not happy. Fuck it in the end, they appreciate the fact that I came out a decent person and better than any heterosexual fucking materialistic bitch who don't give a damn about anything. I'm special and I know that now, but I spent so many years as a child especially feeling like I was going to hell for what I felt. It wasn't until later in life that I realized the God I serve now doesn't care about that and accepts me for who I am. But looking back on that religion part, it was hard to live with the guilt and shame of liking the same sex and feeling guilty for acting on what I know now was natural. I love who I am and that feels so great after years of denial and shame, but yet I am a hypocrite because a lot of my family still doesn't know and if it came down to it I would tell them but they just don't understand. I love them but they are still caught up in the rules of religion and it's not right... they send me emails about gays in the military and so forth...if only they knew. But it's better this way. Because they will never understand...even though deep down inside I know they have had tendencies too. I kind of like being the face of reality for those people...the truth...the real side of what people are about instead of some bullshit sorry excuse for a family who is "Christian." I'm the most Christian person I know. I love everybody and forgive everybody and accept anyone in my life...and few of them represent that. They all think denying real natural human feelings and experiences means being a Christian but it is far from that...that is such a sorry myth and I feel sorry for those who buy into that. Loving God and being a good person naturally is the greatest devotion to religion and so much better than someone's interpretation of the Bible...it makes me ill to think of people living by this sorry brainwashed facade. And to think all along I am one of the people who figured that out when so many are still searching and clinging to some stupid white man's version of what it's about...it makes me sad to think about it. It's all about being a decent humand being and having respect for others...instead they impose rules and ugliness to it and make it an undesirable way of life...when it should be so good. It should be exciting because you connect with the desire to be that kind of human being, not because you disagree with someone's decision to have an abortion or do drugs...who are we to judge? That makes me feel sad that religion has turned into that....I'm a liberal I guess if their has to be labels but I believe I represent a party that believes in treating people with humanity and dignity and not imposing my own morality on others...why don't the majority of others feel the same way? Oh well I'm done with my rant...I just love life but at the same time people scare me.
--
09/30 |
jah, sorry dude, but the whole IQ/progress of the human species thing makes no sense. It's not like gay sex correlates with sex for pleasure or straight sex correlates with sex for reproduction. Please, since contraception always seems to have existed (and also lesbian and gay sex) people- hetero or homo- have been having sex for pleasure. The hetero's also for reproduction. I know everybody likes to think that they are smarter than the average, but come on. There are plenty of dumb people in the world, their dumbness independent of their sexual orientation. Same with smart people. signed, someone who is bi, just to make that clear.
--am
07/28 |
One thing that seems to be missing in this discussion is the IQ aspect of bisexuals. The only true Bi's that I have met have had above-average IQ's. This I have found to be essential in my interaction with both gay men and straight women. I simply cannot tollerate a "dumb fuck" and have found that my desires are much better accommodated by truly bisexual members of both sexes. Bisexuality is the final evolvement of the species leading to pure pleasure and the ability to procreate. Having aspects of both sexes is essential for the planet to evolve beyond its current state.
--jah
07/25 |
i may be a breeder (a fabulous breeder?), but this article is better than most recent ones on Hooksexup. harkens back to the Hooksexup of yore, when there was true searching and discussion about sexuality. i especially like how this article and much of the comments on it fly in the face of this perverse need by many to make sexuality either/or. i'm gonna be that guy--pol pot terrorized cambodia, not burma/myanmar (burma is called mynamar by the current military regime there.) i got a chuckle out of the "HRC political consciousness" line! too true. HRC may have drag queens and kings at their functions, but how much have they really done for TG folks? while what HRC does is important, they seem to leave behind those in the queer community who are not "just like you hets". i'm being harsh, but i dislike heteronormativity and am not interested in seeing a homonormativity be established; both must be destroyed.
--wde
05/22 |
Neal - great essay. Summarizes much of what I've thought and experienced myself. skg's comment is also spot on. I'm a bi man in a relationship with a bi woman, but that doesn't make either of us - or our relationship - heterosexual.
--
05/18 |
As someone who really enjoys my own bisexuality, including its inherent confusions and contradictions, I do have to admit that for practical purposes it can be difficult for partners who are completely straight or gay or who are somewhere in between but have "made their choice". My own experience is that partners can never feel fully confident about being able to enjoy a meaningful part of any human relationship in that they are "special" in an overall sense and are also the only focus of one's sexuality. Although I also acknowledge the benefits of feeling secure and comfortable in a relationship, it seems that such an aspect of a relationship can be just as much as a variable to be either valued or deemphasized as the various things that someone enjoys sexually. The mystery of our sexual feelings will apparently always be such that we will never completely understand the sexuality of anyone that we are "partnering" with at any given time as we will also probably never completely understand our partners need for security and commitment. Still, as someone who is visually attracted to women but who has also enjoyed being attractive to men and who has found that sex with men has just as broad an array of sensual delights as sex with women, and who seems to really enjoy the shared bond of a partner experiencing an orgasm, it does seem irrelevent at the time what sort of genitals my mouth might be exploring or who might be inside who as two people enjoy intimacy together. So, maybe I am also being as intolerant as others by feeling that my own bisexuality is what is "normal" but it does seem to be a much broader experience of all of one's possible feelings but then I guess it is up to an individual as to how much that might be of value to them.
--ksf
05/17 |
As a bisexual man in his fifties I feel that there is now some respect for bisexuals. Before it was always no one trust a bi. There is an other side to the issue of with long term partners in that want to stay in a monogamous relationship there is a challenge in how you build your interaction with one anther. Your partner needs to feel that they can feed your sexual pallet it has made it an interesting 20 years so far.
--dlh
05/11 |
" Society's categories and the relationships between them change over time, often in response to the attempts of individuals to fit themselves within categories. Categories of identity are cultural abstractions that are never met by any single person or any sum of individual life experiences; identity categories are always inadequate when individuals try them on." - Henry Rubin, "Self Made Men"... (i know you said its hard to find comfort in academic queerbo third wave philosophizing, but this seemed so very apt. thanks for the insights)
--aw
05/10 |
Oh, GOD< I needed to read this! I am a VERY bisexual female, I've been married and had kids (now single), but have had more intense, sexual relationships with women than men. I have had in internal struggle about "bisexuality" for YEARS! What I like to say about my "identity" is, 'gender is irrelevant'. I am attracted to people based on their personality, chemistry, charisma, etc. Their 'parts' are insignificant, but on a quasi-statistical scale, I am usually attracted to more women than men, and have many more crushes on women than men. I feel comfortable with this myself, but have a hard time explaining things to others, having married and had children, but I date women. It is a quandary indeed, but for THEM, not ME. ;)
--mc
05/10 |
This artical seems to sum up everything that i have been trying to say in a recent debate about bisexuality i have been involved in. i am a bisexual woman, and i'm proud of my identity but it frustrates me where people seem so set in their perspectives that they refuse to understand that being bisexual isnt synonimous with being confused, faking it, taking te easy route or being a love rat. thankyou for the clarity and accuracy of this piece!
--EB
05/09 |
Excellent exploration, and a fine conclusion. I am a late-blooming bi. I considered myself "straight but not narrow" for most of my life. A few years ago, I fell in love with my best friend without falling OUT of love with my wife. Instead of opting for the traditional outcomes -- divorce or denial -- we became three. Our triad has been embraced by nearly everyone we've told, including my 83-year old father and our church community. But we are definitely challenging the status quo....
--MJ
05/08 |
I enjoyed your article very much. As a married bi myself its comforting to know that others share this slightly uneasy if not hugely enjoyable existance.I love to feel sexually attractive to other young guys which tends to involve hard work in the gym! However I remain in my mind totally committed to the very loving and fulfilling relationship that I have at home with my wife, whome incedentally I also suspect(know) is bi-sexual (another story!).Maybe Im not alien afterall :).
--GCP
05/08 |
as a woman who has often felt the need to justify dating a bisexual man to friends (and occasionally to myself), i appreciated how the writer explained how he could have a certain identity and not have it destroy his monogamous relationship.
--
05/06 |
Hooksexup, you're covering the bases! Thank you. I knew I could find myself in here. Now, just continue to work on balancing the ratio of nude women to nude men in your photography section and we're really getting somewhere!
--SMB
05/06 |
This is a really interesting essay - to read someone clearly discovering a bit more about the thing their writing about through the very process of writng about it. But (there's always a but), as a man who likes girls but has dabbled in what I believe is termed 'heavy petting' with the occasional bloke, and still finds the idea attractive in a kind of abstract way - I think this dude's a bit too caught up with 'identity'. Who gives a fuck about identity, which is only of importance to those who are denied the right to it. Bi-sexuals, or whatever, are not denied the right to identity, even if the insecure claiming of such a thing by (predominantly), some gay men and macho straight guys makes them think they are. The problem is not a lack of identity for bisexuals, who have arguably achieved the best possibl outcome of just hanging out and going with the flow. The problem is that so many ultra-gay or ultra-staight people define themselves by their sexuality in the first place, which is boring. So I say more power to you sir for your article because it proves your not limiting yourself to an 'identity'. Don't ruin that by looking for one. Ain't no such thing as 'identity' anyway - tis a mere social construct, and a matter of choice.
--JH
05/06 |
There's so much about living as bi that falls under "Definitely Maybe" for me. Men? Women? Marriage? Singlehood? Monogamy? Kids? How to deal with phases of wanting to love and fuck the gender you're not in a relationship with? What I liked about your article was the call to respect the confusion, because accepting confusion is what people find so dangerous. I also appreciated the assertion that the identity is a means to an end. I'll call myself bi to draw attention to what I am so people's minds don't seal shut (and to draw attention to myself for more fun reasons), but living this life is so much more complicated than this label! Thanks for your story.
--AZ
05/06 |
I found this article interesting and long overdue. As a bisexual male, I have also struggled with the complexities of this "identity." I think bi people (myself included) too often skip the long explanations by simply saying "yeah, I'm gay" or by implying that they're straight depending on whom they're dating or happen to be around. It would be wonderful if one day we could just be HONEST and state "I'm bisexual" without a long conversation/attack immediately following. What I always find most interesting is the idea that people use the "bisexual label" to hang on to some sort of mythical heterosexual advantages. Excuse me, but once you admit to someone that you're a cocksucker (albeit, a bi one), you're still a cocksucker . . . I don't think James Dobson and his croonies would distinguish between a gay sodomite and a bisexual sodomite - so we're really all in the same boat!
--JAD
05/06 |
Neal, I just sent you an e-mail and a couple pics. Hope you like them and will reply me.....Your essay is well written.
--am
05/05 |
Thank you! I don't like to "identify" as this or that, but I know what you mean about lacking an Identity. For lack of a better term I would say I was bisexual, except that because I usually date guys (girls are so much more intimidating than boys!) and I don't have any tattoos, no one ever asks. I feel like a poser in the lesbian community - or a traitor - but I know I'm not strictly hetero either. One one hand it's not anybody's business what my sexual life is, but on the other hand my sexuality is such a huge part of my self that I hate feeling like I can't express the full range. I hope more people read this and little light bulbs pop on over their homo-hetero-normative heads.
--JS
05/05 |
I am still laughing out loud in public. As a bisexual female, I can relate to much of this article. I say, don't compromise.
--C.P.
05/05 |
Thank you for a lovely article! This article struck a chord with me as well. I'm married to a man right now, but during our 5 years of dating I have always maintained that I am not straight. How can I be when I am also very much attracted to women? Bisexuality is another way to pigeonhole our sexuality, that's why I don't like saying that I am bissexual. I let people have whatever assumption they have. I love whomever I love, sex of the person is not my barrier.
--AYY
05/05 |
brilliant article, for a moment there i felt as if i were reading my own thoughts.
--KAA
05/05 |
This article really struck a chord in me--I am currently in grad school where sexual ambiguity feels like it's all around, and yet when I tell people I'm a bisexual male, they get these confused looks on their faces, like they're about to fart. When I first came to school there were rumors that I was gay, and that I was straight, but no one thought, "Maybe he's bi." I did myself a disservice by not being totally upfront about things, but gradually I have decided to not give a fuck and hit on whomever I want, in front of whomever. The article really captured a lot of what I'm going through. Thanks.
--GRS
05/05 |
"My Bi friend asked me that very thing when I told her I was writing this article. Since I'm married and monogamous, how can I be bisexual?" I would answer it this way - you are still bisexual in the same way that heterosexuals and homosexuals are still gay or straight when they are not in a relationship and/or having sex at all. If you cease being bi because you are with a with woman, then I cease being straight when I'm single.
--skg
05/05 |
Very interesting... I liked this a lot. Right on!
--SD
05/05 |
Neal thank you! No one understands bisexuality, and I've long waited for Hooksexup to do something on the subject. We exist, we're real, and it's hard for us too. So thank you.
--ee
05/05 |
I am a bisexual woman. You described what it feels like to be bisexual perfectly. It irks me to no end that gays insist that bisexuality just means that a person isn't admitting to themselves that they are gay. I'm turned on by men and women equally and I think that's a bunch of b.s. In fact, sometimes I wish I could either be completely hetero or completely gay; it would certainly make things less confusing for me. But I am not either. I am bisexual. *Great Article*
--S.N.
05/05 |
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