Bisexuality and the Kinsey Scale

By Mister Curie

After acknowledging being attracted to men, I struggled with where to place myself on the Kinsey scale and how to interpret that placement. Despite how much I felt I had denied being attracted to men for my entire life, I couldn't deny that I had also had feelings of attraction for women. I quickly recognized that I was not a "6" on the Kinsey scale, but it was also apparent that I was not a "3" and I felt more attracted to men in general than to women. I felt that a bisexual should be equally attracted to men and women, so I accepted the gay label.  I returned to one of my earliest thoughts that I had not recognized my attraction to men because I focused more on my attraction to women, whatever amount of that which existed. I anticipated that as I acknowledged my attractions to men I would experience a sudden swing on the Kinsey scale, but that hasn't happened. While I am more able to actively recognize and appreciate my attractions to men now, I have not felt a major shift in my Kinsey scale. It appears that while years of being married to a woman couldn't remove my attractions to men, acknowledging my attraction to men also cannot remove my attractions to women (most notably, of course, my wife).

What does the research show with regard to Kinsey scale and self-labeled heterosexuals, bisexuals, and homosexuals?  Again from the "Dual Attraction" questionairre, for sexual feelings 97% of heterosexuals reported 0-1, 97% of homosexuals reported 5-6, and bisexuals spread out across the kinsey scale with 2% reported 0 and another 2% reporting 6, only 20% reporting 3 and in general exhibiting a slight over-representation toward the lower (heterosexual) end of the Kinsey scale.  For sexual behaviors, 100% of heterosexuals reported 0-1 (8.8% reported 1, which is a small degree of homosexual behaviors) and 100% of homosexuals reported 5-6 (8.8% reported 5, which is a small degree of heterosexual behaviors), and bisexuals were again spread out across the scale with 11% reported 0, 8.3% reported 6 and a more pronounced skewing of the data toward the lower (heterosexual) end of the scale.  For romantic feelings, 97% of heterosexuals reported 0-1, 97% of homosexuals reported 5-6, and bisexuals were widely dispersed, 23% reported 0, 4.5% reported 6 and the most pronounced skewing toward the lower (heterosexual) end of the scale. 
 
The researchers then looked at composite scores of sexual feelings, sexual behaviors, and romantic feelings for individuals.  65% of heterosexuals were pure heterosexuals (0 on all three measures on the Kinsey scale) and 58.3% of homosexuals were pure homosexuals (6 on all three measures).  Only 6.9% of bisexual men were pure bisexuals (3 on all three measures).  The largest category of bisexual men were heteroseuxal leaning bisexuals with 43.1% of bisexuals reporting an average of 2 or less on all three measures).  21.6 % of bisexual men were mid bisexuals with 2-4 on all three measures, 17.6% of bisexual men were homosexual leaning bisexuals with an average of 4-6 on all three measures.  The researchers also identified a category they called "varied bisexuals" who had a separation of at least 3 points between two of their Kinsey scale measurements.  In general "varied bisexuals" had significantly more  homosexual behaviors than their sexual and romantic feelings would predict. 
 
Based on these criteria, I would be classified as a "varied bisexual", but my behaviors are significantly more heterosexual than my feelings would predict.  The researchers noted one subject in their survey that seems to be a close match to my profile. "Only one bisexual showed a discrepancy of 4 scale points or greater across the three dimensions.  It was produced by having more homsexual sexual and romantic feelings but no homosexual sexual activity. (The profile was 404.)"
 
As expected, heterosexuals clustered near the low end of the Kinsey scale, homosexuals clustered near the high end of the Kinsey scale, and bisexuals were spread out, but seemed to cluster near the lower end of the Kinsey scale rather than the middle of the Kinsey scale. Thus bisexuals appeared to be significantly attracted to men, but slightly more attracted to women than men. This contradicts with my own feelings of attraction toward men being stronger than toward women in general.



The researchers also looked at the overlap in Kinsey profiles among the heterosexuals, bisexuals, and homosexuals.  They found that 87% of the heterosexuals that were not 0 on all three Kinsey scales overlapped with the heterosexual leaning bisexuals Kinsey profiles.  Similarly, 81% of the homosexuals that were not 6 on all three Kinsey scales overlapped with the homosexual leaning bisexual Kinsey profiles.  The researchers suggest that these areas of overlap may be people beginning to experience a change in self-labeling as they find that their feelings and behaviors do not entirely match their self-label and would be a particularly interesting group to study for researchers studying transition in sexual identity.  The researchers also suggest that "varied bisexuals" may be in a particularly unstable situation as behaviors tend to match closely with feelings.  These results also show that there is significant overlap in Kinsey scales among different self-labels. 
 
How does your self-label match with your Kinsey scale rankings of sexual feelings, sexual behavior, and romantic feelings?  How closely aligned are your Kinsey scale rankings?

Bisexuality Coming of Age

By Mister Curie
After finally acknowledging to myself that I was attracted to men and I began applying the gay label to myself, there were moments that I felt frustrated that I hadn't accepted it earlier.  Certainly life seems more complicated when one comes out as gay after getting married and have a child with a woman.  Reviewing my life, there were plenty of experiences that should have given me a clue that I was attracted to men.  Somehow I had dismissed those experiences and managed to find a wonderful woman to marry.  I blamed my Mormon worldview for giving me the wrong idea about what "gay" was.  I blamed society for stigmatizing homosexuality beyond what Mormonism did.  I blamed myself for being in denial.  Yet somewhere among all of that, I managed to maintain a wonderful and fulfilling relationship with my wife, and having that relationship did not seem to contradict my core identity. 

Still, it was hard not to imagine how life might have been different if I had accepted being attracted to men earlier.  I got caught up in the challenges and triumphs of the younger MoHo community.  I wondered how many believing MoHos could be so aware of their attraction to men and struggle with it in their believing Mormon worldview, when I had been in complete denial of it, largely due to my Mormon worldview.  I felt that I had perhaps missed out on some gay coming-of-age event that I could have experienced if only I had come out to myself earlier in life. 

So it was with some surprise and potential self-recognition that I read the statistics compiled by the researchers who wrote "Dual Attraction", which I recently reviewed.  They sent out questionaires to people of all sexual orientation: heterosexual, bisexual, and homosexual. Part of the questionaire asked about age of first attractions, behaviors, self-labelling, and coming out.  Heterosexuals reported their first heterosexual attraction at 10.2 years, bisexuals at 12.8 years, and homosexuals at 14.5 years (yes, some homosexuals did report heterosexual feelings).  For first homosexual attraction, homosexuals reported 11.5 years, bisexuals 17.1 years, and heterosexuals 21.9 years (yep, even some heterosexuals reported homosexual feelings).  Perhaps most interesting, homsexuals first used the homosexual label for themselves at 21.1 years (right at the age when young missionaries are returning home - and I've certainly read lots of MoHo accounts about coming out to themselves while on a mission or shortly thereafter) while bisexuals first labeled themselves as bisexual at 29 years of age (I first acknowledged to myself that I was attracted to men shortly before my 30th birthday).  Homsexuals first came out at an average of 23.6 years (so a couple of years after labelling themselves as homosexual) while bisexuals first came out to others at 29.2 years ( very shortly after coming out to themselves, which parallels my experience coming out soon after acknowledging to myself that I am attracted to men).

While one's age at self-labelling and coming out is probably not a reliable indicator of whether someone is gay or bisexual, and the standard deviations on the means I reported above are very large (on the order of 10 years in either direction), it was interesting to me that my story seemed to fit more into the bisexual pattern.  Rather than being a gay "late-bloomer", perhaps I fit squarely in the mean of the bisexual. 

As an aside, I don't really fit either pattern with regard to first attractions, I clearly remember having a crush on a girl in 1st grade and inviting her over to watch a movie and share a drink from a romantic glass with two straws and I also had a guy friend about the same time that I thought was very cute and I kissed on the cheek, for both experiences I was younger than the mean age at first attraction for either heterosexuals attraction for women or homosexuals attraction for men.

What has been your experience?  How old were you when you self-labeled and when you came out to others?  How old were you when you experienced your first attraction to men and/or women?

Book Review: Dual Attraction: Understanding Bisexuality by Weinberg, Williams and Pryor

By Mister Curie

For my studies of bisexuality, another book has been influential and I wanted to introduce it before delving into the details in future posts. 

"Dual Attraction: Understanding Bisexuality" is a highly scientific book and largely reads like a particularly long scientific article, complete with tables and graphs.  It is based on a sociological observation study of self-labelled bisexuals living in San Francisco in the early 1980's.  The authors note that according to the Kinsey report, "nearly half of all men in the United States are not exclusively heterosexual or homosexual in their sexual feelings or behaviors" and that "most persons in the United States who behave bisexually do not adopt a bisexual identity."  In contrast, this report studies people who do self-label as bisexual, and thus may not be generalizable outside of self-labeled bisexuals or even outside of bisexuals living in San Francisco in the 1980's.  Of course, in my future posts I will ignore this as I try to generalize the information to my own situation and determine if the label bisexual seems to fit my situation and if it conveys the message I am trying to send.

The study began with observation and interviews with members of the San Francisco Bisexual Center.  In order to compare their observations of bisexuals with heterosexuals and homosexuals, the team utilized the information they gathered at the Bisexual Center to create an extensive questionnaire that was mailed to heterosexuals, bisexuals, and homosexuals identified through other San Francisco organizations, The Pacific Center for homosexuals and the San Franscisco Sex Information Service and the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality for heterosexuals.  The information was all gathered largely before the AIDS crisis, which erupted while they were compiling their initial results.  They decided to return to San Francisco to do a follow-up study on the impact of AIDS on bisexuals in San Francisco.

The book is largely a sociology study and does not attempt to integrate biology with the observations.  The authors specifically note that "the approach we take, in contrast to the biological one, emphasizes the standpoint of the people we are examining and tried to capture how they construct their sexual lives."  As a biologist myself, I found the book illuminating due to its alternative perspective as well as occassionally misguided due to its failure to take biological explanations into consideration.  As it was an observational study, the researchers emphasized behaviors, although they tried to account for self-reported feelings (sexuals and romantic) using the Kinsey scale.  The authors treated each number on the Kinsey scale as a discrete category and when comparing sequential Kinsey scale rankings by the same person, the authors noted changes in Kinsey scale.  Examining the data showed most changes were small, perhaps due to changes in interpretation of the meaning of numbers on the Kinsey scale rather than actual changes in Kinsey scale rankings, however the authors considered any change in Kinsey scale number as highly important. The emphasis on specific Kinsey scale numbers and behavior resulted in reports of the ability to change one's sexual orientation, which I don't think most of the study participants would agree with.

For me the most valuable part of the study is the rich demographic information collected from homosexuals, bisexuals, and heterosexuals.  This data provides a quantifiable description of the different categories that I can compare myself to.  It also provides data to refute or support the myths of bisexuality.  The data also enables me to compare the perceptions of bisexuality with its reality, enabling me to see what messages I am sending about myself with the bisexual label.

Myths of Bisexuality

By Mister Curie

On page 11 of the book I recently  reviewed, "Bi America," there is a list of thirteen myths about bisexuality, compiled by bisexuals at a Bisexual Empowerment Conference: A Uniting Supportive Experience (BECAUSE).  Here is the list:

1. Bisexuals are easy; they are indiscriminate about whom they have sex with.

2. All bisexuals are swingers.

3. Bisexuals have the best of both worlds and are twice as likely to get a date.

4. Bisexuals are unable to commit to either gender.

5. Bisexual women are all wives just trying to please their husbands, and bisexual men are all  married  guys cheating on their wives.

6. Bisexuality is just a phase on the way to being lesbian or gay

7. Bisexuals are unable to be happy, have low self-esteem, or are mentally ill.

8. Bisexuals are disease carriers.

9.  Bisexuals are a very small part of the population.

10.  Bisexuals are just trying to maintain heterosexual privilege.

11.  Bisexuals can't be feminist.

12.  People call themselves bisexual to be trendy.

13.  Bisexuality is a choice.

Belief in myth #6 is one thing that led me so quickly to adopt the gay label without fully considering the bisexual label previously, along with feeling resonance with stories of others who now identify as gay.

Have you or do you believe any of these 13 points about bisexuals?

Book Review: "Bi America: Myths, Truths, and Struggles of an Invisible Community"

By Mister Curie

"Bi America" was  written by William E. Burleson and published in 2005.  William Burleson is bisexual and had been publicly involved in bisexual politics for nearly 15 years when his book was published.  The book is filled with quotes from bisexuals which come from the Bi History Project in Minnesota, personal interviews conducted by Mr. Burleson, and a bisexual online support group.  Mr. Burleson also collected data from an online survey of bisexuals.

Mr. Burleson heavily relies on the stories of others to document bisexuals living in America.  In the introduction he states, "What is important are the stories of living people, living their lives.  That is what I set out to do with this project: tell our story. . . I believe what really matters are the people and their stories . . . Bi people, as is true of many other groups, are often reduced to stereotypes.  I hope to reduce bisexuality to its humanity."

I felt the overriding theme throughout this book revolves around the word "community."  What is a community?  What is the bisexual community?  What does it look like?  Where can it be found?  Mr. Burleson explores bisexual communities across America and reports on the stories of the individuals composing those communities, creating a landscape of bisexuals in America.  He concludes with an exploration of how the internet has shaped the bisexual community and what the future holds for the bisexual community.

Many times throughout the book, I found myself reflecting on the MoHo community and asking myself the same questions of the MoHo community that Mr. Burleson was trying to answer about American bisexual communities.  Mr. Burleson defines a community as a "functional group brought together by commonalities and sharing a culture of some kind to some degree."  For there to be a community, people must feel a part of that community, and the community is known to outsiders through its institutions.  It seems to me that the MoHo community is largely held together by the MoHo directory, which is a primary source for visibility to those outside the community and is a very visible reminder of those who belong to the MoHo community. Another defining institution of the MoHo community is the monthly meet-ups hosted by Scott and Sarah, which have expanded to other regular MoHo meet-ups that I am aware of in the Northwest and Northeast.   I believe one of the intentions of the MoHo Map is to help to organize such meet-ups in resonable geographic areas. The MoHo facebook group provides an online gathering place.

I think one reason the book caused me to reflect so much on the MoHo community was due to its use of stories to illustrate the rich diversity of  American bisexual  communities.  I have similarly  come to know the  MoHo community through its stories, shared on its blogs.  The MoHo community has been, and continues to be, an open and inviting place where I can share my story and compare it to the stories of others as I seek to understand who I am.  It was within the MoHo community that I finally found stories of others that paralleled mine, stories that resonated with my experiences and stories that provide me with insight and  guidance as I forge a path forward.  These were stories that let me know I was not alone in being attracted to men, that let me know my interpretations and responses to those feelings were normal within the Mormon worldview I held, that let me know that other men who are attracted to men also get married to women for a variety of reasons and sometimes before they come out to themselves about their attractions to men.

So I think it is only natural that in my sincere attempts to contemplate the bisexual orientation I would  find a  collection of bisexual stories against which to compare my story and experiences to see if it resonates with me.  References to this book will be frequent in future blog posts, time permitting, that contemplate bisexuality.

Contemplating Bisexuality

By Mister Curie

With it being roughly a year since I began to blog, I have been reviewing some of my early posts and the progress I have made exploring my thoughts and feelings on this blog.  In my first post coming out, I wrote, "I am questioning now, but I think that I am bisexual".  I then wrote a post about bisexuality, noting a study that brought into question the existence of bisexuality as well as the common notion that bisexuality is a transition period as one accepts their homosexuality.  Then I wrote a long series of posts where I explored the past and acknowledged my attraction to men throughout my life.  In the final post of that series, I ranked myself on the Klein grid, determining I was probably about a 5 on the Kinsey scale and wrote, " I definitely can't claim to be equally attracted to men and women, even with the abundance of attraction I feel for my wife, so I don't think bisexual is the correct label for me. I guess I'll embrace the homosexual label."

I then went through a challenging and enriching period of time, struggling to understand what being gay meant and striving to overcome my own internalized homophobia.  Over the summer I came out as gay to my parents and siblings.

And now I am back to contemplating bisexuality.  I have been reading some books on bisexuality, including "Bi America" and "Dual Attraction".  I think my initial dismissal of bisexuality may have been too quick and uninformed.  So, time permitting, I intend to explore some of my thoughts from reading these books and where I identify with these books.  Some of the struggles are different, but many of the struggles of the bisexual person are similar to the struggles of a homosexual person.  Both are attracted to persons of the same gender and both need to decide what to do about those attractions.  As I wrote in my first post, "I think being in the church is probably easier for the bisexual than for the homosexual. . . . Bisexuality [allowed] me to focus on my heterosexual feelings within my LDS belief system and ignore my homosexual feelings. . . . I had heterosexual feelings I could explore. Any homosexual feelings that I chose not to pursue were easily ignored due to my LDS church belief system, as well as the cultural mindset I was raised with."

As I have learned since becoming disaffected from the church, the world is not composed solely of black and white, good and evil, gay or straight in easily and rigidly defined dichotomies, rather there is a rainbow of variation that is good and wonderful in the world.  It was easy to quickly dismiss bisexuality when I was first acknowledging my attractions to men because I was still used to operating in a black/white world view (in fact I still have some difficulties escaping the black/white world view at times, much to my wife's dismay).  So this is going to be a concentrated effort at avoiding black/white dichotomies and instead explore the richness and depth that comes from contemplating the vast middle ground.

QFest: Movie Reviews

By Mister Curie

I really enjoyed Qfest!  I'm sad it is over already.  Here are my reviews:

Is It Just Me? (grade: A)

I thought this was a very cute romantic comedy and follows a pretty traditional romantic comedy script.  I thought the character development in the movie was superb with the characters initially appearing to be stereotypes, but each develops throughout the movie to destroy those original stereotypes.  It was very funny and heartwarming.  The director and the main actor for the movie were in attendance and held a Q and A session afterwards, which was fascinating.  This movie should be available on Netflix around October of this year.

Beyond Gay: The Politics of Pride (grade: A)

I really enjoyed this documentary.  It was very interesting to see how pride festivals differ around the world and to see what types of civil rights exist for the LGBT community around the world.  I found that the movie enhanced my meaning of Pride by showing areas of the world where Pride is a protest and a march for rights, as opposed to the celebration we usually see in the US.  It also highlighted some interesting historical background to Pride and the rainbow flag that I was unaware of.  I think what enhanced my experience with this movie was that a major portion of the film focused on Russia, where Pride parades are banned each year.  I served a Russian speaking mission and so those portions of the film hit me particularly strongly.  I found myself suffering emotional whiplash as the scenery in the film reminded me of my mission and that contrasted with the Russian mobs attacking the LGBT participants. 

The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister (grade: B)

Jane Austen period piece and a lesbian romance.  What more is there to say?  It was actually fascinating to see LGBT and feminist themes in a very different time period before the word lesbian was even coined.  I'll leave the details of this review to Madame Curie.

The Four-Faced Liar (grade: A)

This film focused on sexual fluidity and finding someone who compliments you in every way.  The main drawback was that the two men didn't get together and instead the movie focused on the lesbian romance.  The most memorable thing about this movie is the music, which I thought was amazing!


Fashion Victim (grade: A)

This movie was hilarious and very well done.  The main message seemed to be about accepting our differences and how that makes the world a better place.  The main drawback was that it is a non-English film with subtitles, so the many quotable lines will never become mainstream because there is no inflection to imitate when repeating the lines.

Shut Up and Kiss Me (grade: F)

Don't waste your time with this one.  I have seen better cinematography from high school filmmakers.  The equipment used was sub-par and the sound was terrible.  The actors lines were often lost because the equipment would pick up the scrape of the chairs louder than the dialogue.  The acting was terrible and the story unremarkable.  There was no chemistry between the actors and I couldn't believe the romantic side of the film.  The film also devolved into a preachy moral that I disagreed with and did not think was adequately illustrated by the film.  The film does have a couple of scenes with full frontal male nudity, if you are into that sort of thing.

Eyes Wide Open (grade: B)

This was a pretty interesting story about another conservative religion, orthodox Judaism.   While the specifics are different from Mormonism, the attitudes were largely similar.  The more I learn about other religions, the more I see the similarities.  The love story was compelling and the music was fantastic.  The film did lean toward attempting to be artistic rather than entertaining, so many of the scenes move slowly.  The film did provide food for thought regarding the mixed-orientation marriage portrayed in the film. 


You Should Meet My Son! (grade: A)

This was a fast-paced comedy that was hilarious.  The acting was a bit melodramatic, but it added to the charm of the film.  The end of the film did get a bit preachy as regards a self-professed homosexual entering into a mixed-orientation marriage.  While I disagreed with the films pretense that such marriages are always loveless, many of its points were well taken, including the propensity of highly religious people to think a mixed-orientation marriage is the only way to please God.

Undertow (grade: A+)

This was my favorite film of the festival and I highly recommend to everyone, but particularly to those who have only accepted their homosexuality after marriage who now find themselves in a mixed-orientation marriage.  The film really surprised me with the intensity of the emotions I felt.  The film really spoke to me.  I cried through nearly half of the film as it dealt with the story of how one man grapples with fully loving his wife and child, but also being gay and falling in love with another man.  The cinematography and location were beautiful and the acting fantastic.


Children of God (grade: A)

Beautifully done and powerful, I really enjoyed this movie.  The main message seemed to be to portray how religion messes up everything, a feeling I regularly identify with.

Again, I am quite sad that the film festival is now over.  I had a great time and really look forward to next years film festival.  In the meantime, I only was able to see 10 of the 125 films presented and I know I missed several that I want to see.  I'm really hoping that many of them will show up on Netflix over the coming year and provide plenty of entertainment to come.

QFest: Tuesday

By Mister Curie

Date night!  We are going to attend a triple-header at Qfest.  Movies are as follows:

The Four-Faced Liar


Named after a clock that fails to keep the same time on each of its four faces, The Four-Faced Liar is the Greenwich Village Irish bar that provides the backdrop to this screwball comedy of sexual confusion with lesbian inclinations!
Bridget, who prefers to have a girl of the moment rather than a meaningful relationship, is drowning beers with her best-friend/roommate Trip and his girlfriend Chloe at The Four-Faced Liar. Greg and Molly, childhood sweethearts and new transplants to New York, venture in. Call it destiny, kismet, or being in the right place at the right time, but sparks are instantaneously ignited. While Greg and Trip bond over sports, Bridget and Molly discover a mutual appreciation for Emily Brontë and Wuthering Heights. As sexual tensions build, Bridget realizes she’s falling in love for the first time with the unavailable, soon to be married Molly. This delightful sexy take on love and life amongst a group of twenty-something friends is crisply shot, tightly scripted and 100% engaging. Writer, producer and principal star Marja-Lewis Ryan is charming, witty and believable as Bridget, and director Jacob Chase proves he is a talent to watch as he masterfully transitions from short to feature length filmmaker. A must-see for any young adult questioning their not-so-platonic friendship!

Fashion Victim


A truly original 16th century comedy about a gay fashion designer who is selected to make a wedding gown for a Spanish noble. "Project Runway" meets “Monty Python” in this hilarious farce.
Experience a totally different kind of French farce! Stylists are fussing over the models; the curtains are drawn; the candles along the runway are lit; the orchestra begins to play; and then it’s the special moment—the models in spectacularly wild clothing walk the runway to the audience’s oohs and aahs. No, it’s not fashion week at Bryant Park; it’s gay designer Pic Saint Loup’s (star/co-writer/director Gerard Jugnot) fashion show for the rich and famous in 1577 Paris. The Madonna-like show so impresses King Henri III that the House of Pic Saint Loup is selected to make the gown for the wedding of his nephew to the daughter of a Spanish noble. Yet behind the scenes, the esteemed fashion house is in trouble. Age and new fashion trends have caught up to the 60-ish, fussy, always-in-a-tizzy boss. With the designer’s creative well dried up, he's secretly depending on others for his ideas. Commanded to make the gown, he and his entire staff (including Arabs, Jews and homosexuals) travel to Spain which is in the midst of the Inquisition, not exactly a happy time for the aforementioned people. The overwhelmed designer is about to become a fashionista up to his neck in medieval craziness – what’s a queen to do?

Shut Up and Kiss Me


Ben’s friends think he is catch – smart, successful, sexy…and a commitmentphobe. Ben thinks he just hasn’t found the one. Find out who's right.
Straight from the heart, screenwriter/star Ronnie Kerr’s autobiographical romance hits home because it’s his story, and it’s a sweet one. Ben is attractive, successful, and looking for love…in all the wrong places. Failed attempts with video dating, his uproarious friends setting him up, and bad gym run-ins have this perennially single 35-year-old ready to call it quits. He figures maybe romance is just not in the cards for him. Except there is this hot stud who runs by his house each morning as he waters his lawn. It takes a fair amount of courage for Ben to speak with Grey, well actually, he’s pushed into it by his best gal pal Callie, and the chemistry is instant. But there’s one small problem, Grey’s got some commitment issues and Ben’s “a one man guy”. Shut Up and Kiss Me is the classic story of boy meets boy -- one of the boys likes to sleep with multiple boys -- the first boy wants it all to himself. Fresh, sharp and witty; this one’s a romance for the rest of us.

Reviews to follow . . .

Friday Movie: Goldfish Memory

By Mister Curie

As I noted in my post titled "Bisexuality", from Wikipedia:

Sexual attraction, behavior and identity may be incongruent. For example, sexual attraction and/or behavior may not necessarily be consistent with identity. Some individuals may identify themselves as homosexual or bisexual without having had any sexual experience. Others have had homosexual experiences but do not consider themselves to be gay, lesbian, or bisexual. Further, sexual orientation falls along a continuum. In other words, someone does not have to be exclusively homosexual or heterosexual, but can feel varying degrees of both. Sexual orientation develops across a person's lifetime-different people realize at different points in their lives that they are heterosexual, bisexual or homosexual.

Some of the comments have discussed this sexual fluidity and the inherent inadequacies of labels. Madam Curie and I recently watched a hilarious romantic comedy, available for instant viewing on Netflix, that seemed to be a great example of sexual fluidity. The movie is titled, "Goldfish Memory." The movie follows several individuals through multiple, intersecting homosexual and heterosexual relationships, with all the hilarity that such intersections can bring. I also appreciated that the homosexuality presented did not fit the American gay counter-culture stereotypes and essentially all the relationships were treated with respect, while still allowing for comedy. Five stars, two thumbs up, and highly recommended.

Anyone else out there seen this? What did you think?

Out Update

by Mister Curie

***Out Update: My brother (not TBM) who is aware of this blog contacted me last night on Facebook. It was great to come out to him as me and not as Mister Curie. He says that his wife knew I was gay too. WTF?!?! What is it with these gaydars? We had a nice discussion and it was a really positive experience. It definately increases the liklihood that I will come out to more people. I really appreciated him letting me know that he had read the posts - it made it so much less awkward knowing that he already knew from the blog.

Now, back to the regularly scheduled programing . . .***

Labels

By Mister Curie

This post is a continuation of the discussion on labels we have been having all week.

Why do we, as humans, use labels? Here is my take on it: life is an essentially chaotic existence and humans seem to have an innate need to make sense of that chaos. I think that humans use labels and categories as a method of reducing the complexity of chaos down to manageable bite-size portions.

Animal, plant, mineral.
Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species.

Labels are useful to humans so that we don't get overwhelmed with the complexity of existence.

When it comes to other humans, we seem to find labels and categories that split society into us vs them.

Christian vs non-Christian.
Member vs non-member.
TBM vs NOM.
Black vs White.
Heterosexual vs homosexual.

Labels serve a useful purpose of allowing us to function effectively in an essentially chaotic existence without getting distracted by unimaginable complexity. We use labels to build alliances and to create enemies. But life is messy and no label ever fits anyone perfectly. I am convinced that if we could know even a single person in all of their infinite complexity, we would go crazy.

And yet, I think that labels are a double-edged sword. While they are useful for understanding existence and developing alliances, they also obscure the true nature of existence. When we are on the "them" end of a label, we feel unjustly judged because we know that we are not what they are judging us to be. A single label has as many meanings as there are people who use that label. As EvolvingLesbian commented and others agreed with: "The best approach is to use a label when it fits you, but to assiduously avoid trying to fit yourself to a label."
We should embrace labels when they help us to make sense of the world and unite us with others, all the while remembering that others will use those labels in different ways from our own (and sometimes entirely at odds with our own). Furthermore, we should not grow too attached to a label and be ready to discard it when it no longer fulfills its purpose.

How do you know you are gay?

By Mister Curie

I'm sure most faithful MoHo's have had this question asked of them. How do you know?

Continuing our theme of the inadequacies of labels, while on a DAMU group recently, homosexuality was being discussed and someone posted a link to StraightGuise, a website about straight men who have sex with men (SMSM) and are not gay. If having sex with another person of the same gender does not constitute homosexuality, what does? The website is complete with a list of at least 20 reasons straight men may have sex with men, but are not gay (perhaps #21 can be love potions, as illustrated in the above picture from the movie "Were the World Mine").

And yet, as far as labels go, many faithful MoHos have never had sex with someone of the same gender, yet they still consider themselves gay. Of course many single mormons have never had sex with someone of the opposite gender and know they are heterosexual (heck, I've had tons of sex with my wife and I still didn't know I was gay - of course my wife claims that she knew. . .). Perhaps we need to compile a list of how you can know you are gay if you have never had sex with a man or are having sex with your wife (for those in mixed orientation marriages). That ties into my questions on bisexuality. Can you be gay and still enjoy sex with a woman, or does that automatically put you into the bisexuality group? As we have noted, I suspect labels are inadequate for this circumstance as well.

Bisexuality

By Mister Curie

One clue to my-sexuality not being strictly heterosexuality was alluded to by Madam Curie in a post that has now disappeared by her request, but will probably reappear at some point in time. I had been reading a blog post about human sexuality which cited a scientific article stating that while women could be bisexual, men were primarily either heterosexual or homosexual and that they largely lacked the capacity to be bisexual. Interestingly, I followed links in the comments on my wife's Jan 1 blog post to a very similar article, titled Straight, Gay or Lying? Bisexuality Revisited.

From the article:

In the new study, a team of psychologists directly measured genital arousal patterns in response to images of men and women. . . .Using a sensor to monitor sexual arousal, the researchers found what they expected: gay men showed arousal to images of men and little arousal to images of women, and heterosexual men showed arousal to women but not to men. . . .The psychologists found that men who identified themselves as bisexual were in fact exclusively aroused by either one sex or the other, usually by other men. . . .about three-quarters of the group had arousal patterns identical to those of gay men; the rest were indistinguishable from heterosexuals.

The titled summed up the studies findings, "You're either gay, straight or lying". I knew that I had experienced some attraction for the male body, but I had always explained it away somehow. Now, science seemed to be telling me that if I experienced arousal in response to the male body, I could no longer be grouped with the heterosexuals (as a scientist myself, I tend to listen to science). The implications of the study really bothered me (I was still TBM at the time) and I thought about it a lot and looked into other studies, most with similar findings. Eventually I let it go by focusing on my Celestial marriage, knowing that I found it fully satisfying, and self-righteously congratulating myself that despite any feelings I had, I could be exhalted in the Celestial Kingdom because I hadn't acted on those feelings, and now I could see that acting on homosexuality really was a "choice." Paradoxically, at the same time I refused to believe I was homosexual (hey, we all know TBMs aren't always logical) so it didn't matter anyways.

Since the disaffection, I've had to readdress my understanding and stance on these issues. I wonder if I am bisexual, despite what science is currently seeming to stay. While visiting another blog earlier today, I came across the joking response to professed bisexuality of "Bi now, gay later." (Obviously referencing "Buy now, pay later"). So what is bisexuality and does it really exist?

From Wikipedia:

Bisexuality is sexual behavior or an orientation involving physical or emotional attraction to both males and females. . . .Despite misconceptions, bisexuality does not require that a person be attracted equally to both sexes. In fact, people who have a distinct but not exclusive preference for one sex over the other may still identify themselves as bisexual.

Of course, a lot of this could just be labels and their inevitable breakdown in the messiness of life. As I learned in medical school and as Wikipedia notes later:

Sexual attraction and/or behavior may not necessarily be consistent with identity. Some individuals may identify themselves as homosexual or bisexual without having had any sexual experience. Others have had homosexual experiences but do not consider themselves to be gay, lesbian, or bisexual.

So, am I just lying when I consider myself bisexual? Or is "bisexual" inevitably as flawed a label as any that we try to use when understanding life? I can't deny my attraction for the male body, but certainly nearly 6 years of sexual attraction for my wife and a fantastic sex life where I have never had to resort to male imagery in order to perform (and the fact that I never thought of myself as homosexual) would argue for some level of bisexuality. However, my only response to the poster on another blog who said "Bi now, gay later" was "could be, could be . . ."

Coming Out

By Mister Curie

“Coming Out” is typically thought of as the process of revealing one’s non-heterosexual sexual orientation. The DAMU has co-opted the phrase “Coming Out” from the LGBT community to refer to revealing one’s disaffection with the church. Both terms suggest a period of time of hiding in the closet behind culturally accepted norms (such as a heterosexual orientation or believing the church is “True”) when one no longer believes that “norm” applies to oneself, but then seeking the freedom and self-affirmation by revealing one’s sexual orientation or true beliefs. For me, the two definitions of “coming out” are closely tied to each other.

I was a typical TBM (30 year old returned missionary, married in the temple for nearly 6 years with a 3 year old son). I was raised with the conservative outlook espoused by much of the intermountain west, with all of its biases and narrow-minded (I dare say even homophobic) views. Moving to the East coast for school challenged many of my conservative views and I like to think that I became much more progressive and open-minded. However, I believed the church was “True” and led by a modern Prophet of God. Prop 8 came and went without me worrying too much about it. DW and I followed a blog of a person who really struggled with the church’s stance on Prop 8, which led us to have a discussion between ourselves. While I no longer necessarily believed it was appropriate for the church to be politically active on the issue, had I been in CA, I would have voted with the Church on the issue because a Prophet of God told me to.

Then, one day, DW told me that she no longer believed in the Restoration as taught by the church (those who have followed this blog for a while are familiar with her journey). It was very difficult and heart-wrenching to have her "deny the faith", so to speak. I was distraught for a couple of weeks. However, I love my wife very much and I very much value her judgment and insight. I decided that I should do some research into the history of the church, as she had done. My belief system and testimony quickly came crashing down. From that wreckage, I sought to understand who I really am and what I believe. That is the journey I am still on. Without the church-imposed beliefs, I soon recognized a pattern in my life suggesting that I am not strictly heterosexual, but my belief system had kept me from recognizing that pattern for what it was. However, my sexuality didn’t match the stereotypes or labels I had been raised with. I didn’t identify with the LGBT counterculture that I believed defined homosexuality. I sought out the stories of others in an attempt to understand my own. I read some MoHo blogs, corresponded with a DAMU-associated gay, heterosexually married Mormon, called an Elder from my mission who was now “out” and homosexually married, and of course talked with my wife. I soon recognized that people did not fit the stereotypes I had narrowly constructed behind LGBT labels and in many ways I am still unsure of how to label myself. I don’t necessarily feel that I am defined by homosexuality, heterosexuality, or bisexuality. It is just my-sexuality. I want to explore my-sexuality and who I am in a safe and constructive manner. Participating in this blog is one attempt at that.

Hearing stories from others, it seemed that many people struggled with reconciling their sexual orientation with the teachings of the LDS church. I recognized a recurring theme that a MoHo’s sexual orientation often led to their disaffection. So why was it that I was barely aware of my non-heterosexual orientation until after my disaffection? I am questioning now, but I think that I am bisexual. Bisexuality has allowed me to focus on my heterosexual feelings within my LDS belief system and ignore my homosexual feelings. I, unlike many MoHos, was not made painfully aware of my homosexual feelings because I had heterosexual feelings I could explore. I had several fulfilling relationships with girlfriends and of course have a wonderful, fulfilling marriage to DW. I never felt untrue to myself or my sexual orientation in pursuing those relationships. Any homosexual feelings that I chose not to pursue were easily ignored due to my LDS church belief system, as well as the cultural mindset I was raised with. I think being in the church is probably easier for the bisexual than for the homosexual.

This post makes me anonymously “Out” to the world. However, I am not fully “Out” in either sense of the word, LGBT or DAMU. A disaffected sibling and a few other close friends are aware of my disaffection with the church, most are followers of DW’s blog, so I guess I’m “Out” in the LGBT sense of the word to you now. To the rest of the world and my family, however, I still attend church weekly and faithfully fill my calling and appear heterosexual. I am beginning to realize that coming out is not a single event, but a process, repeated over and over again in a variety of circumstances and to a variety of people. For me, it is also a process that must be repeated to the same people about different aspects of coming out, LGBT and LDS. Somewhere in the process, however, I guess I need to understand where I stand and come out to myself. My upcoming series of blog posts will be an attempt to do that, come out to myself. I look forward to hearing the comments and experiences of others as I seek to understand my-sexuality and my-spirituality better.