Now now, play nicely or I'll be forced to take out my whips and pink feather boas :biggrin1:.
I think that there's breakdown in communication that's taking place between the two of you.
*looks at Redboy*
Redboy, I think that Tulsa didn't express himself properly. I suspect that what he's trying to say is that he is able to understand where the homophobic behavior etc is coming from...BUT, he isn't implying that he condones or supports it in any way. In my instance and much as I'm bi, I can understand why a lot of gay folk have issues with bisexuals, but it doesn't mean that I am supportive of this approach, truth be told, I challenge it.
*looks at Tulsa*
And since Redboy misunderstood where you were coming from, he responded to what you had to say in the way that he did.
Moving on...
Tulsa, I think that you're asking good questions and I respect you for the way that you're taking the time to consider your sexuality and to better understand yourself. It says a lot about the kind of person that you are and I respect you for it.
You're asking a very complex question because there are so many things that need to be factored into the mix...so this may be long and I will most probably overlook a lot of points. My response is based on a lot of discussions that I've had with gay guys, my own experiences of bi men and some of my own personal observations and opinions.
I think that part of the reason why homosexuals have the kind of approach that they do is because of history. They were out there taking risks and facing all sorts of discrimination, victimization and abuse because of their fight for gay rights while we were in hiding...and now that gay rights is becoming more and more prevalent around the world, there's the feeling that we want to claim some of the rights for ourselves even though they weren't part of the "struggle". A therapist at an LGBT organisation in this country who does a lot of work with bisexual women and educates therapists about bisexuality, told me that it will take about another 50 years before bisexuality is accepted and acknowledged completely in this country...and it's not because of opposition but because we're in hiding...save for wanting to hookup for sex. This leads to all sorts of issues for us because the other side of the coin is that we're in hiding because of the misconception and discrimination that we experience. A lot of the misconception etc. is because of lack of education and understanding but that can't be attained because we're in hiding. And so the cycle becomes more and more vicious...
There's the belief that we're greedy and undecided or in denial. I am able to identify where I think a lot of this comes from. I'm blown away by the amount of gay men that there are in my country who tried to ignore their homosexuality and opted to embrace the hetero-normative model of marrying a woman, having 2.4 kids, 2 cats and a dog, a car and a house with a white picket fence. However, their realities caught up with them and they just couldn't continue to live the lie...and it led to them coming out to their wives and getting divorced. I have no doubt that they endured soooooo much pain and angst in the process...and now they are forced to look on and bear witness to the kind of lives that we live where we cheat on our spouses and get to have our cake and eat it. I can understand why they look on and think, "That's just not right!!!!" However, there is the other side of the coin. A lot of us opted to get married etc. with the hope that we'd be able to push away our attraction to men; that we'd be able to rely on our attraction to women to get us out of our pickle. However, things can only be repressed for so long...and when they do, things have intensified a hundred fold. But the situation is very different because a gay guy being in a straight relationship would be unfulfilled on a lot of deep levels, but this isn't the case with us. There are areas where we are fulfilled and happy. There are attractions that we have for our wives. So we opt to come out and get divorced and then what? We opt to be in relationships with men? But what about our straight attraction? We end up in a mirror image of the situation that we were in before we got divorced. So it's a case of damned if we do and damned if we don't. The difficulty is that with monosexual orientations, things are relatively black and white but things are all sorts of layers of grey when it comes to bisexuality and sometimes there are situations where one can only opt for the lesser of all of the evils.
Then of course, there's history... A lot of gay folk have had bad experiences with us. There's the situation where a bi guy shacks up with a gay guy and then ditches him for a woman. There are situations where we don't fully understand ourselves as bisexuals and gay guys are dragged into our issues. There are situations where gay guys are led on and when things become uncomfortable, we bail on them without so much as an explanation let alone, an apology. There's the closeted married bi guy who thinks that since he's closeted and the gay guy isn't, that he's entitled to screw the gay guy around whilst using his situation as a means of justifying the kind of treatment that he'd meted out. It's not that I'm trying to imply that we're bad (after all, I do bat for both teams) but I do think that we also need to face up to how we get things very wrong and people are getting hurt in the process.
I do not see the biphobia of gay folk as being altogether bad. It serves as a challenge for us to pull up our socks. Because ultimately, before we complain about how we're being perceived and treated, we need to stop and look at how we conduct ourselves and hold it against what we're accused of etc....and see if there's any truth behind what we're accused of doing. After all, people are mirrors and the easiest way of identifying how we treat others, is to observe how they respond to us and our behavior.
(I'm soooooooooooo gonna get it for this!! hehe :biggrin1
