Does BI Erasure exist?

ManchesterTom

Legendary Member
Verified
Gold
Joined
Jul 28, 2006
Posts
1,016
Media
31
Likes
1,623
Points
443
Verification
View
Sexuality
80% Straight, 20% Gay
Gender
Male
I have picked up that a lot of gay guys are not accepting of bisexuality and seem to feel that BI guys are actually just gay people who are in denial.

Straight people seem to build up an image of you which then turns out to be shattered when they are told that you are bisexual.

To me it feels like bisexuals are not really accepted and are often invisible.
 
It has taken me a long time to come to grips with bisexuality. I guess because I saw bi guys always end up with men and bi girls with men too. And bisexuality was oferten used as a stepping stone for gay guys to be open about their non-hetero feelings But it's definitely a valid sexuality

I think the hookup culture among gay men makes it easier for bi guys to have sex with other men so they appear more visible that way and society pushes women to settle down so they appear more visible in a heterosexual relationship but the younger generations are much more open and this are now fluid now
 
I'm not sure bi has ever been accepted to the point where it can begin to be erased! :laughing:

In my experience no one trusts the label. Straights think I'm gay. Gays think I'm straight. I don't have a significant other. No one trusts that. What? You're not in a relationship? What's wrong with you?

You know who ruined it for my (boomer) generation? Elton John. He started off straight, narrowly avoided marrying a woman (did a great song about it called Someone Saved My Life Tonight), then he was bi, then announced he was gay.

Everyone but everyone said, "See? This proves bi guys are really gays who haven't worked out their sexuality." Thank you Sir Elton.

Okay. To be fair it's not his fault--massive though his influence was. It's the fault of people who can't or won't think outside the box of black-or-white. This-or-that. Up-or-down. Right-or-wrong. No exceptions. No middle ground. Do they lack imagination? Or are they so indoctrinated or invested in one identity they are unable to see or accept the obvious?

Absolutes bind us absolutely.

IMO we BTQI+ people are the poor cousins of the LGBTQI+ movement. Despite the conflicts and disagreements within I will never stop supporting the entire movement. :heart:
 
Popular media portrayals don't help, although, they are getting better. Usually a character's bisexuality isn't acknowledged but they will acknowledge that the character can fluidly change from straight to gay and back depending on their current partner. So close.

If a bisexual does exist in media, they often have a vibrant sex life with many partners, often at the same time.

Then there's the whole "bi means two" camp that insists that bisexuality must be trans exclusive because they are a master of linguistics. Some bisexuals might have a preference for cisgender people but that doesn't mean the identity can't be, or has not always been, an attraction to people of all gender.

We don't need to get into the whole bi vs pan discourse, but I do think this can also be an area of bi erase.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Supersteel876
Yep. Erasure exists but as halcyondays above says, it was never a thing to be erased…. But it’s treated with suspicion. Women frequently don’t want to be a man who also has sex with men. They see that as competition they can’t compete with and don’t want. Others have commented on what str8 and gay men think.
but for me this bi-sexual feelings have existed in a fairly stable way for most of my life. The ebb and flow as time or circumstance changes but I can’t say that I have ever just exclusively hankered after just one sex. Are we all just greedy?
 
In my experience, bi erasure exists because almost all bi men I know are not out at all. They tend to pursue relationships with women and present as straight, whereas gay men don't have that option. I love bisexual men, and I believe in and support sexual fluidity, but the whole bi erasure complaint does leave me scratching my head. I'm certain the bisexual population dwarfs the gay population, so if bisexuals would be out and not intentionally present as straight, there would be no such thing as bi erasure. For context, I live in Wichita, Kansas, USA, but most of the United States is like this with maybe the exception of large coastal cities. That said, if the complaint targets the media, then yes, there needs to be more representation, which might lead to more discourse that could eventually help bisexuals be comfortable with being out.
 
My whole life has been an exercise in "bi erasure," it feels like.

When I was younger, it was the gay men actively telling me that I was gay but just lacked the balls to come out completely, and straight women telling me I was "gross."

(I got "gross" on a date once. We didn't go out again, lol.)

Nowadays, especially younger people who've been marinating in gender ideology seem to think that "bi" and "non-binary" are somehow synonymous.

Same fecal material, different decade.
 
I have picked up that a lot of gay guys are not accepting of bisexuality and seem to feel that BI guys are actually just gay people who are in denial.

Straight people seem to build up an image of you which then turns out to be shattered when they are told that you are bisexual.

To me it feels like bisexuals are not really accepted and are often invisible.
I don't think that society at large can even consider bisexuality as a reality.

I was listening into a conversation at work where some colleagues were talking about one of the managers and saying that they had always thought him gay, however "He is married with children. "

That Married with children was the absolute certification that this manager is a straight as an arrow.

I jokingly said that lots of people in the company fly beneath the radar. Everyone laughed.

Once again there was me, a bisexual person in the middle of a discussion where I was completely invisible. One of the people in the discussion is a lesbian and she seemed to buy into the Married with children = straight.

I wasn't going to get the tambourine out and start bashing it because it would have been unprofessional.

Societally I really believe that bisexuality is just not recognised or even thought about.
 
My whole life has been an exercise in "bi erasure," it feels like.

When I was younger, it was the gay men actively telling me that I was gay but just lacked the balls to come out completely, and straight women telling me I was "gross."

(I got "gross" on a date once. We didn't go out again, lol.)

Nowadays, especially younger people who've been marinating in gender ideology seem to think that "bi" and "non-binary" are somehow synonymous.

Same fecal material, different decade.
This is exactly my experience, hence my significant dislike of labels...
What I have found interesting is bisexual women; some have the "gross" reaction too, but there are others who are mature enough to realise that all forms of sexual intimacy could be considered "gross". One of these women has been a big part of my life for 20 years now and it was something we discussed in jest some time before we realised we were attracted to each other.
 
Personally I've not encountered any gay guys who did accept my bisexuality, and were quite happy to climb into bed with me.
I've encountered both men and women who are willing to sleep with me while still not really accepting my bisexuality.

Having said that, I've also known at least two women who've said they would date me if I was straight, so ‍meh.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Lovetobetouched
I find it ironic that some ppl say bisexual men dont exist while bisexuals or fluid men GREATLY outnumber gay men
Of course bi erasure is real;
In real life bi guys are reduced to "gay"
In show business bi guys are forced to be in closet and only show their str8 side
In gay pornography bisexual men(who are the vast majority of performers) are saw as "Gay-for-pay" straight men especially if they are masculine.
In str8 pornography bisexual men are called crossovers and imagined to be a walking HIV and STD's.
So yeah bi erasure is real really real.
 
I find it ironic that some ppl say bisexual men dont exist while bisexuals or fluid men GREATLY outnumber gay men
Of course bi erasure is real;
In real life bi guys are reduced to "gay"
In show business bi guys are forced to be in closet and only show their str8 side
In gay pornography bisexual men(who are the vast majority of performers) are saw as "Gay-for-pay" straight men especially if they are masculine.
In str8 pornography bisexual men are called crossovers and imagined to be a walking HIV and STD's.
So yeah bi erasure is real really real.
It’s a matter of definition - many say that “married men” are just closer gay and pretend to like women but their real identity is gay…. And yet there are just sooooo many. Each successfully (to some extent) conducting their married lives for years. The binary gay/str8 either/or definition favoured the gay rights campaign where “born that way” had to triumph over the “lifestyle choice (=sinful)” argument. Admitting a more complex range of male sexual expression now undermines the current power balance. This comes at the expense of true sexual liberation from social norms. Recognizing how widespread (and natural) MM sex is could presumably open up a broader range of tolerable sexual preferences in society. Young people are already doing this. Fluidity is the new vibe.
 
Admitting a more complex range of male sexual expression now undermines the current power balance. This comes at the expense of true sexual liberation from social norms. Recognizing how widespread (and natural) MM sex is could presumably open up a broader range of tolerable sexual preferences in society. Young people are already doing this. Fluidity is the new vibe.
It's also possible to over-compensate, which I think you might be doing, by offering one sweeping generalization to counter another. In particular, the naturalistic fallacy. Yeah, male/male sex and relationships occur in nature. But that doesn't make them normative. It's still the case that same-sex attraction and sexual activity is constrained to a relatively small segment of the population, and that the median human happily operates within the gender norms of their sex.

"Fluidity is the new vibe" only governs in very small, very young, and very online segments of the population. What's trumpeted as "fluidity" is recognized by we more experienced folk as natural variations in the relative masculine or feminine affect of individual humans. Today's LGBTQIAXYZPDQ++! crowd seeks to liberate us from binaries by imposing a whole new set of binaries -- e.g., "you're not a tomboy, you're a transman and therefore a man" kind of stuff. Fluidity is celebrated in theory but in practice, you have to fit into various binary boxes -- cis vs trans, gay vs. straight, masculine vs. feminine.

I'd posit that the very worst sociocultural positioning for bi men is to be lumped into "the LGBT community," which neither respects the B nor functions as a meaningful community.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Lovetobetouched
It’s a matter of definition - many say that “married men” are just closer gay and pretend to like women but their real identity is gay…. And yet there are just sooooo many. Each successfully (to some extent) conducting their married lives for years. The binary gay/str8 either/or definition favoured the gay rights campaign where “born that way” had to triumph over the “lifestyle choice (=sinful)” argument. Admitting a more complex range of male sexual expression now undermines the current power balance. This comes at the expense of true sexual liberation from social norms. Recognizing how widespread (and natural) MM sex is could presumably open up a broader range of tolerable sexual preferences in society. Young people are already doing this. Fluidity is the new vibe.

I don’t think sexuality can be liberated. Sex is more than sex. People can have sex for all sorts. How can something that that’s fluidity and sometimes, results in children be liberated? Do you really think that a large society can handle pansexuality?


Even in societies that where bisexual in nature. Those societies had norms and taboos regarding homosexuality. There has never been a sexually free in society.

Speaking a gay male, I don’t want to compete with a woman. I will gladly seat this race out.


It's also possible to over-compensate, which I think you might be doing, by offering one sweeping generalization to counter another. In particular, the naturalistic fallacy. Yeah, male/male sex and relationships occur in nature. But that doesn't make them normative. It's still the case that same-sex attraction and sexual activity is constrained to a relatively small segment of the population, and that the median human happily operates within the gender norms of their sex.

I'd posit that the very worst sociocultural positioning for bi men is to be lumped into "the LGBT community," which neither respects the B nor functions as a meaningful community.

That’s the thing. People assume that sexuality is evenly distributed. But sexuality is heavily titled towards heterosexual. I think that homosexuality or bisexuality only happens under certain conditions, especially among predominantly heterosexuals. Not intentionally doing bi-erasual.

Gender norms are just a set of negotiations on how to handle the natural difference between the sexes. In general, the male and the female body feel and perceived the world differently. So when men and women to interact with each other, there is always some forms of friction. Pagilia did say that reproduction is the only rule of nature.

Personally, I like the current norms and boundaries because it give me the tools as a homosexual to protect myself.