Hey, guys! I am opening this thread as someone who is dealing with transcendence of old boundaries and societal agreements and as someone who's been hurt by those who are stuck in those old boundaries and societal agreements. ;))))) Know what I'm talking about? That's right, the notorious bisexual ambiguity.
I had several loving connections in my life that caused a lot of pain to both because the other party would sacrifice his love to his "straight" imprinting. Unfortunately, that choice is not a happy one: time shows that they get depressed and move through life like robots.... But! - relationships are the realm of social organization which is based primarily on gender roles, etc. , and not many people have courage and necessity to step out of their comfort zones in general....
So.... I've been thinking... Since I work on global paradigm shift and stumble upon those problems personally, it's time to get some clarity. I would greatly appreciate your feedback, ideas, sharing. That would give us some greater picture.... Thanks!
- M
I had several loving connections in my life that caused a lot of pain to both because the other party would sacrifice his love to his "straight" imprinting. Unfortunately, that choice is not a happy one: time shows that they get depressed and move through life like robots.... But! - relationships are the realm of social organization which is based primarily on gender roles, etc. , and not many people have courage and necessity to step out of their comfort zones in general....
So.... I've been thinking... Since I work on global paradigm shift and stumble upon those problems personally, it's time to get some clarity. I would greatly appreciate your feedback, ideas, sharing. That would give us some greater picture.... Thanks!
- M
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California
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Re: male identity shift
Wed, July 12, 2006 - 10:57 AMI know exactly what you're talking about. This has happened to me a few times and I just ended a relationship with someone because he wanted to keep a girlfriend even though he said he loved me. I was supposed to "wait" until he left her. Whenever that was going to happen. And yes, they do become robots.
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Re: male identity shift
Wed, July 12, 2006 - 3:18 PMYou work on "global paradigm shift". Quite a job! Who's your employer?
It took a long time before I realized everything is the way it should be. The world is as we are.
(It does seem so trite to take a lifetime of seeking and boil it down to 13 words.. but it did take a long time.) -
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Re: male identity shift
Wed, July 12, 2006 - 4:15 PMPaul, your posting is kinda off topic but I can answer your question.
My employer is my consciousness and I know how individual minds are interconnected.
Have you ever speculated on that phenomenon? -
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Re: male identity shift
Wed, July 12, 2006 - 4:24 PMConsciousness is the unified field. Been there; done that. -
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Re: male identity shift
Wed, July 12, 2006 - 4:24 PMAnd where are you now? Heh -
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Re: male identity shift
Wed, July 12, 2006 - 4:26 PMHere. Right now. Just being with you. -
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Re: male identity shift
Wed, July 12, 2006 - 5:57 PMGreat. I'm glad I made a mistake thinking that you were against me, Paul. Questions like "who do you think you are?" are not very good conversation openers for me: I get intimidated :-)
Anyway, it would be interesting to know what you think on the subject, Paul.
Chris: thank you for sharing. Your story feels so similar that I am wondering if they have one and the same script going... If it's so, then it's easy... Paul - what do you think?
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Re: male identity shift
Wed, July 12, 2006 - 5:43 PMOkay, back on topic... I think part of the point that Michael is making is until recently we've never even had to think about gay or straight or love and desire for that matter. Traditionally men have married women to make children and for duty's sake because that's the way the world runs. The new shift that we are going through is that for the first time desire, choice, and love are coming to the fore and everyone really has to ask authentically--especially men, and this is really what Micheal was talking about--what do I want? We have always asked "what should I DO?" and this is a good question provided we also ask "Why should we do it?" -
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Re: male identity shift
Thu, July 13, 2006 - 5:42 PMMy ex, the person who is now completely my ex has decided to be straight (good luck to him) In reading the letter he wrote to me I was aware of something: they live in their own world. His story of our relationship has become, suddenly, very different from mine. It's almost enough to make me think i really was crazy. I had to check with several friends to make sure our relationship really did happen. He is building a world where it didn't, where two men never loved each other. This is one of the reasons gay kids are tied to polls and taunted to suicide: because for some people if in their world two men loved each other, that world would cease to exist. And what do you when the world is gone?
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Re: male identity shift
Sun, July 16, 2006 - 5:15 PMEven though I was born str8. I have growen up in the homo world.
You no. I have always been ok with that. I was just the rest of the world whom had trouble with it.
Now after working for the gay community, and being in it. I dont want to be aprt of the gay world anymore. It tis a cold, hard mean, artifical, fantasy world. Sure with real people, just not living in the real world.
I was born a man, happy to be a man, and when I die. I will come back as a man.
But I was not born a homo. This must be why I do not feel at home, in the gay world. But I do in the fag world; it tis more of a real place.
But since I have lived my life as a fag. There is no place for me in the str8 world. -
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Re: male identity shift
Sun, July 16, 2006 - 11:52 PMI feel a good deal of pain in Pattison's posting, like... repetitive attempts to place oneself in the world where one could be peaceful and strong...
IMHO, that place is not between the sexual preferences, it's where happiness is. Where can I feel free expressing my power? my initiative? my tendeness? my joy? my aggression? my serenity? Where can I love freely and who can freely love me? Something like that? -
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Re: male identity shift
Mon, July 17, 2006 - 3:18 PMRe: I feel a great deal of painin Pattison's post. Please don't feel any pain for me. I am fine, no pain. just frustrated, at being born str8, growing up as a fag, when I was born str8.
It tis more that not having love as a child, and trying to find real love in the gay world, when most men spell love like: LUST...............
I have just growen up in a lovless community, the gay, and lesbian one.
But I have it all in hand.............. -
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Re: male identity shift
Thu, July 20, 2006 - 9:55 AMWell, call it frustration, it's stil an unpleasant feeling.
Question: If you were born staright, why were you trying to find real love in the gay world?
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Re: male identity shift
Thu, August 24, 2006 - 1:27 AMThis is going to sound so boring and so mundane, but here's the deal as I see it: you gotta stop falling for straight guys, or guys who think they're straight, or guys who don't know if they're gay or whatever. Or, let me put it this way: Yeah, the whole gay/straight/whatever concept is a construct probably rooted in our own nutty Puritanism or whatever - I think it is, and I have a feeling you think it is to some degree. But what's important here is figuring out what your prospective partner thinks. I arrived at the conclusion that I am primarily attracted to men as the result of lots of investigation, let's say. And I never could figure out why guys I dated would become so antagonized when I would share that with them. They were always scared to death that I was going to ditch them for a chick at some point. I explained it was highly unlikely because I liked men way more than I liked women. I just don't find women repulsive and at times, I find them very sexy - that doesn't mean I have to fuck them.
I've had a few involvements with guys who were bisexual (knowingly and unknowingly) - and there are several things I've noticed. One: You never get invited to share too much of their life; you don't meet their friends, you don't meet their families, etc. Two: Yes, they are crazy about you! Nuts! But the two of you will always have to be fit in amongst all the other stuff. And don't make plans because you never know when they might have twenty minutes, and they are devastated by the notion that you actually have a life. Three: You will never, ever be as important as even the remotest possibility that there is a marriageable woman around. Because that is more important. They have a choice to live outside of societal norms or inside and most humans choose inside, because on the face of it, it seems easier. They may even want to keep you in their lives, but they will be the ones to decide what that will look like. And they assume that you will be okay with whatever that is. Because they don't experience what they have with you with the same level of seriousness as they do what they have with their wives/girlfriends/fiancees/whatever.
But the short version of this is: You gotta stop falling for straight guys. Or guys who think they're straight. Your paradigm may have shifted, but that doesn't mean theirs has. You deserve better, don't you think? -
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Re: male identity shift
Thu, March 27, 2008 - 8:41 PMPete, your post is full of wrong stereotypes about bisexual men/bisexuality and they're based on biphobia.
You can't say that most or even all bisexual men are the way you've written about.
We could even call you bisexual since you've written about how you're sexually attracted to women but don't act on it.
I do agree with you how it's absurd how some homosexual men when they learn that you're attracted to women (even if it's just sexually, like you just find them sexy, have had sex with women, just fantasize about sex with women, or want to have or even try sex with a woman) that it's disgusting or that you're automatically going to leave him for a woman.
Myself and my other bisexual male friends actually have relationships with men (they're closed/monogamous relationships; but I'm more wired for that and my other bisexual male friends are too for the most part no matter who they are with), and while we can fall in love/are sexually attracted to women, if I'm dating/in a relationship with one guy I'm not interested in any other men or women for sex or relationships because I'm already in a relationship with one person.
When I'm in a relationship with a guy I don't hide myself/my life from him, I'll introduce him to my parents (if it's getting serious and if he even wants to meet them, not everyone wants to meet my parents), I'll introduce him to my friends (yes even the het friends) and it's apparent that we're in a relationship together, and while yeah I'm surrounded by lots of "marriagable" women (whatever "marriageable" means? Are you referring to someone's age or women who want a closed marriage? I'm around marriagable/dateable men too) I'm in a relationship with that guy and nobody else.
I've also dated lots of gay men and while it's human nature to be a flake some of time time as nobody is perfect, some of the gay men I've dated really won the award for being non-communicative game players, some flat out lied/fibbed/contradicted major things about their lives, some were REALLY bad at making/keeping plans or it felt like I was just an afterthought being schedueled in to them when we'd go on a date, and I've met my share of men who pretended that they wanted a relationship but actually they were just players.
Not that there's anything wrong with being a player, or just wanting sex only with someone; but if it's obvious that someone just wants sex I'd rather that they tell me this instead of flat out lying about it and pretending that they want to date/have a relationship when we both know and can tell they don't want to date/have a relationship.
That's absurd to say that bisexual men somehow don't experience the same level of romanance or a relationship with a man that gay/homosexual men do, that a relationship between a bi man and a gay man won't work, or that a bisexual man's love for another man isn't somehow as true, pure, or as valid as you're assuming that it is between two gay men.
Lots of bisexual men are really bisexual, lean towards men (they prefer sex/relationships with men) and yet they aren't homosexual, aren't closeted gay men at all, and gay/homosexual wouldn't describe their sexuality.
Also not all bisexuals can fall in love or have relationships with both genders like some bisexual men can only fall in love with men but just want sex with women.
I'm not flaming you when I write this. I'm just writing things about bisexuality that go against the stereotypes and myths that get spread around about bisexuality, that people who don't understand bisexuality propagate that are rooted in biphobia, myths, stereotypes, and assumptions.
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Re: male identity shift
Fri, March 28, 2008 - 3:55 PMI don't think that Pete's comments are entirely inaccurate. I think your description is accurate for men who are publicly willing to admit that they are sexually attracted to men. There is a whole swath of men whose behavior and attractions are bisexual, but are unwilling to identify as such. I would think that many of Pete's generalizations are true in such cases. -
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Re: male identity shift
Fri, March 28, 2008 - 4:23 PMyes, and the AIDS prevention communitiy has coined the term "men who have sex with men" to identify these individuals.
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Re: male identity shift
Sun, March 30, 2008 - 5:10 AMAww, sexuality is so complex. There are men out there who are only attracted to straight men and there are tons of married men who get online and need to ahve sex with otehr married men and wouldn't consider leaving their wives. Being on tribe and actually talking about sexuality has been a real eye-opener for me. The oppression comes with the "one size fits all" model whether that be in the straight variety or the gay variety. And, believe me, ther is as much pressure and conformity in the gay world as there ever has been in the straight world. The world of the clone and the objectification of a certain male body image and everyone rinning out to the gym to try to be attractive to the men who are conditioned to this body type is NOT LIBERATING our sexuality. -
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Re: male identity shift
Fri, April 18, 2008 - 8:41 PMWhat about guys like me? The homosexual that lives with his boyfriend and thinks about maybe having a sexual relationship or just some sex with a woman or even letting myself fall in love with a woman? It always seems like it's the other way around, with a married guy cheating on his wife and getting men on the side. When we first became a couple we agreed that having sex with other guys was allowed though not necessarily actively persued (The open relationship) even though neither of us acted on it until a few years into our relationship. We happen to have different sexual tastes and desires. But he told me to not have sex with women! I didn't think that was a problem as I'd not done that since the mid eighties and am not particularly attracted to most women. As they say, time loves a hero. Here it is today and I'm thinking about it and it would indeed be a reversal of the steroetype if I was to actually have sex with a woman without letting him in on my doing so. Or even telling him that I was going to go on a date with a woman for more than just a friendly night out if things went that way. As it is now, when one of us wants to have a guy over or go on a date with a guy, we just do it and usually keep the details of it to ourselves. I have a few boyfriends who I do things with and sex is often not the primary focus of our being together that have met my boyfriend and know he is indeed my boyfriend. He has met them and knows that we probably have sex or has had sex with them with me present or that I have told I have had sex with depending on which one it is that we are talking about. Similar interests with a homosexual or gay man kind of thing, like going to the ballgame or other things.
Yeah, well, it confuses me too, but only lately have I started to wonder about it and myself in a more serious way and what I should do with my life and relationship with my boyfriend and boyfriends. We really don't have good words for these kinds of relationships, do we? Straight women have girlfriends, but straight men don't have boyfriends. "Lover" doesn't seem the right word for someone that is more or less like a husband to me, but husband would seem to require marriage and has a lot of associations to it. Oh well, that's how it is. Monogamy certainly eliminates a lot of these kinds of considerations when compared to an open relationship or polyamory.
I think this is on topic, even if rather ramblingly written. :) At least to this thread of Druben's and complexity.
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Re: male identity shift
Sun, April 27, 2008 - 2:44 AMI wouldn't even go so far as to label it "male" identity shift. It's an all inclusive cultural movement. We just tend to be too hung up on what we think and, consequently, what other people think. None of it rightly matters. One need not wait until they are in their 80's to finally realize this.
It's all just sexuality. That's the only enduring and meaningful label that's really appropriate. And absolutely everything is permissible, given that you're not hurting someone, especially yourself. The contrary opinions to this viewpoint are all complete b.s. constructs and defense mechanisms; a complete waste of time.
Just be. Exist. Enjoy the expression of your sexuality, in whatever form that takes.
