Rachel Kramer Bussel at The Daily Beast thinks that male bisexuality has become ‘cool’.
‘…whereas bisexual women had their fling with pop culture in the 1990s-when everyone from Drew Barrymore to Madonna messed around with women, not to mention the famous Vanity Fair cover showing Cindy Crawford shaving k.d. lang-”bromances” are now the driving force behind Hollywood comedies and Style section features, as men find more ways to play for both teams, or at least act like they do.
Examples are everywhere. In John Hamburg’s recent movie, I Love You, Man, the gay guy who unwittingly goes on a date with Paul Rudd isn’t just played for laughs, but to some degree, sympathy. This summer will also see Lynn Shelton’s buzzed-about Humpday, in which two straight male friends decide to make a homemade porn video. And Brody Jenner’s reality show Bromance blurs the line separating friendship and attraction in what Videogum’s Gabe Delahaye calls “basically the gayest thing ever, made more gay by everyone’s desperate attempts to provide chest-bumping proof of their heterosexuality.”‘
For my part however, I’m not entirely convinced that male bisexuality has become ‘cool’, not least because most of the bisexual guys I meet are still terrified anyone will find out – and I still can’t name off the top of my head a single out male bisexual celeb in the UK (aside from my friend the novelist Jake Arnott – but as a self-described ‘gay bisexual’ he is rather exceptional). Whereas almost any female star under the age of 40 has to pretend to be bi-crazed or else risk that Nuts/FHM cover.
And the recent trend for ‘bromance,’ far from proving the hipness of male swinging is, as the name suggests, almost defined by its incest-taboo-driven need to purge the male love affair of the possibility of anything physical, any trace of erotics whatsoever, to a degree which male buddy flicks in the past didn’t, and in fact often went out of their way to inject: e.g. Top Gun, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Thunder & Lightfoot, Midnight Cowboy. By contrast these modern buddy flicks make me think ‘bromance’ is just another word for ‘bromide‘. Or lesbian bed-death for straight men without the honeymoon. (The arthouse movie ‘Humpday’ seems to be another story – and precisely because it is another story, it is highly unlikely to be a hit.)
But we are certainly living in interesting times, and the culture is slowly – and frantically – trying to negotiate, however ineptly, however deceptively, the thing staring them in the face like the outsize erections in the mandigo gang-bang porn so popular with straight guys these days: male bi-responsiveness is probably very common, rather than the deviant, bizarre, incredulous exception (it certainly was at my boarding school).
The metrosexual is also, of course, part of this journey – and also sometimes perhaps part of the attempt to deflect it.
But there’s a long, long way to go before male bisexuality is even approaching the same level of acceptability let alone coolness as female bisexuality. A recent study published in the Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality found that the famous ’sexual double standard’ has now reversed polarity and shifted in the direction of inhibiting men’s sexual adventurousness while encouraging women’s. According to The National Post men are:
‘…more limited by what is considered taboo in the bedroom; hit by a new double standard that expects men to be highly sexual, and yet expects them to be less experimental – while the opposite is true for women.
The study, published in the Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality, found that society accords men less “sexual latitude” than women, deeming it abnormal for a man to be disinterested in sex, to engage in homosexual fantasy, and to engage in submissive sexual acts.
“The double standard used to give men more sexual freedom than women, but these findings indicate that the dynamic is changing” said Alex McKay, research coordinator for the Sex Information and Education Council of Canada. “Men are forced to abide by a certain gender role, while women are today more free to be themselves. In this sense, the standard actually works against the man.”‘
I came to the same conclusion three years ago in a piece posted on here called ‘Curiouser and curiouser‘ – based on my own very private ‘research’:
‘That women are being encouraged to talk about their bisexuality as an enhancement of their femininity and sexuality is rather marvellous – but it also heightens the double standard about male bisexuality, one as pronounced than the double standard about promiscuity used to be (men were ‘studs’ and women were ‘slags’), and makes it more inevitable that male bisexuality – by which I simply mean ‘straight’ male sexuality that doesn’t fit into heterosexuality, and boy, there’s a lot of that – will have to be addressed candidly sooner or later.
The tidy-minded inhibitions which keep male bi-curiousness under wraps are still powerful, but have largely lost their social value, their attachment to anything real; they are mostly remnants from a Judeo-Christian (re)productive, world that doesn’t exist any more, except perhaps in Utah, every other Sunday…. When enough young men realise this – or maybe just the desperate preposterousness of the prejudice and ‘science’ deployed against male bi-curiousness – the change in attitudes will occur very quickly and dramatically indeed.’
As the Canadian report suggests – and Canada is about as liberal and relaxed a country as you could conceive – that day is not yet here. However, the fact that such a study exists at all is perhaps a sign that that it’s coming closer.
Either way, more research is needed. And I need a grant to conduct some more ‘interviews’….
I’ve got one – Alan Cummings (quiet at the back !) – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Cumming
But yes, all those profiles from bi men on gaydar – ‘must be discreet’.
I love how an article on how men have more sexual limitations ends with a lament on female sexual oppression.
Anyway, I don’t buy that men had more sexual freedom in the past than women, at least not in America. Having a strong sexual drive was considered more normal for males; however, sexual urges were at the same time demonized. In the US, there was an attempt to promote circumcision as a means to prevent masturbation in boys and girls, but it only became a widespread operation to commit on boys, while for girls it has become illegal. Yes, women have had much of the true extent of their sexuality denied, but it wouldn’t surprise me if that allowed them to do a lot of “experimenting” under the radar, while men’s sexuality was being actively prevented and corrected.
I can see why there’s such a prohibition on male bisexuality, though. Societies curb sexual liberty as a means of forcing people into becoming dutiful citizens. Islamic countries don’t stifle female sexuality because they hate and fear women, they do it because it’s easier to convince sexuality frustrated young men that it’s worth becoming a human bomb if you’ll be rewarded 72 virgins in the afterlife. A man who is able to free express any sexual desire he may have cannot be sexually bartered into fulfilling unfavorable societal expectations, and that frightens a lot of people.
QED.
You know, we really shouldn’t be rooting for the acceptance of male bisexuality, because if it ever comes about they won’t need us lot any more.
Socially accepted male bisexuality would seem to represent a certain kind of sexual liberation, but I suspect that if it comes about it will take a form that has its own in-built repressions.
“Coolness” is the issue, not reality. Doubt less, a large number of gay men seduced by the myth of genetic disposition , accept the correlary that the bi claim is claptrap; They hard work hard at acting masculine,but would not be caught dead anywhere near a snatch. A correlative is that they don’t believe in the verity of anyone’ else’s claims at having that exotic proclivity.
For some fellows, for varying social reasons, usually some form of closetedness, claiming to be bi is fashionable. That has the advantage of standing up to straight masculine superego standards(being a man) but yet getting away with being caught bedded with men. It also serves married men who ‘wander’: far off in the wrong direction depending on their wives, My experience with many of these guys is that they spend most of their sexual time with other men in uncommitted situations.The fact is that with most women, a degree of trust and commitment is necessary; a person truly searching out bisexual encounters would have to be willing either to pay hookers or to not expect a lot of anonymous sex.. When I lived in San Francisco their was a large Straight /Bi bathhouse with several stories, entertainment etc. My impression of what happened was that straight men were looking for lose women or gay men were voyeurs wanting to watch straight men perform. Despirate women or nymphomaniacs would go.
There are not many situation where straight men try to pass as being homosexual, that happens only to deceive usually women who are convinced that they can turn you.on or for some criminal
It is terribly naive to believe that ones sexuality amounts only to the kinds of acts one performs; which the question about ‘coolness’ implies a further question about life style
Although I think that one has to go through certain ego adjustments to enjoy both sexes, amounting almost to a sort of split-personality agenda, it is possible, in my experience to be bisexual. I don’t think really that it is easy to live comfortably and with authentic intimacy with people who believe you to be bisexual, because one way or the other, you cannot share the exclusivity of interest that most people have, homo or hetero, there is always a complex intrinsicality to one’s relatedness to others in the world. which is connected to sexual choices. This difference disappears with intelligence and empathy but is clear with people who are inflexible.
So it really depends on what you mean by “cool” . If it means that “people really understand and accept you, no! If it means that you can ‘pass ‘ in certain’ otherwise difficult situations, yes.; I think that it allows many men to not have to admit to being queers and still be caught at sodomite affairs.
Bravo!
Coolness aside, trend or no, it has been around, and will continue to be around – sexuality is far more flexible than societal contstraints. In a world that produces Queer studies, Black Studies, Women’s Studies
etc…it seems we are only happy in fracturing the human experience.
I’m just thinking of the shock on people’s faces when I marry the woman of my dreams and how this will fly in the face of so many pre-conceived notions that people have of me. I’m not bisexual or gay, I’m just human.
Alas, Mr. Simpson, I sorta agree with you – that were there to be a revolution in ideas about Bisexuality – there would be a drying up of certain types of trade – but also a veritable explosion of others. Think of how many are held back because they dare not walk across that line in the sand. They might however pair up with each other – since it would be so easy, and as common as dirt.
This is not that different from the heady salad days of the eighties when everyone had to go to the queer dance clubs in order to really have fun. Yes some went as a way of putting their toe in the water, to test out some sexual identity they might later inhabit – but also lots of people were blurring the lines at the time in an adrogynous way – allowing for more fertile combinations.
The difference now – is it is talked about more, and hence becoming more inhibiting. Pretty soon – a girl will not worry if her boyfriend had some gay fling, but how many. The more out things become the more they get driven underground.
Prime Example – Gay Marriage has turned us into the citizens next door – even Brothers & Sisters did an episode where the gay married couple was offered a three way – and they declined – too much trouble, or some other something. A blatant cop out to portray what seems to be the party line. I hardly think if Jarrod from Sex & the City fame can’t seduce a couple – then all is lost for homos worldwide!
Alas tho’ as you have noted earlier – if they can turn Harvey Milk into a saint, and sanatize that bathhouse of SanFran in the 70s then they can do just about anything.
Keep up the good work, and call me when you get the grant, or if you need help writing the proposal!
Mark Simpson clearly has considerably more experience of public schoolboys than I do, but I would have thought that all that boy on boy action at school was a result of sexual frustration – zoologists tell us that caged lions mate with their feeding bowls if they cannot find a mate. I don’t think single men are doing that yet – at least not in large enough numbers to warrant a club night in Vauxhall – but I wonder how many men are tempted into their brother love by sheer laziness and the discovery of a quick means to an end. As the gay brother in ‘I Love You Man’ says to Paul Rudd: ‘Hook-ups are easy, it’s friends who are difficult to find’.
Thanks for the zoology, but I don’t look that much like a feeding bowl. Even when I was at school.
And as for ‘I Love You, Man’ – I don’t know how to break this to you, but Rudd isn’t being entirely honest here. The difficult thing in Hollywood movies has always been male hook-ups not friendships.
[...] bi-curiousness may not be as ‘cool’ as The Daily Beast thinks, but banana-curiousity is clearly all the [...]
I suppose I asked for it by quoting a character in a Hollywood film, but my comment was really meant as a reflection on real life rather than the movies. Loved the ‘Valkyrie’ piss-take by the way.
Add A Comment