Is you is or is you ain’t?

I understand why gay men often dismiss bisexual as either transitional, or gay without knowing or admitting it. But I remember at puberty learning the word “bisexual,” and knowing right away that it applied to me. It had the cachet of broadening the field, and undoubtedly rationalized my attraction to men by equal attraction to women. Whatever: it was mine.

Now, all these years later, it occurs to me that when I first discovered and immediately accepted my same sex attraction as bisexual, I could as easily have seen it as I see it now: homosexual. I must have wondered if my enjoyment with other boys made me homosexual, yet I was attracted to girls too. I couldn’t be homosexual, could I?

In the awakening of puberty, it was easy to exercise my attraction to both sexes. I was attracted to women; all boys lusted after chicks. Nor, after my bisexual epiphany, did I ever feel terribly shameful having sex with other boys. I remember feeling an occasional and displaced sense of guilt, but no long-lived shame. I did, however, generally keep my same-sex experiences discreet (denial?), which was easy because I was chasing after girls. I could never have been gay because unless I was fooling myself—who knows?—I enjoyed honest desire for women. Bisexuality served me well.

But forty years ago it was easier to be bisexual than homosexual. Back then I wouldn’t have been “gay,” but would have been branded queer or fairy. Dirty. The 1960s was not a good time for homosexual men, but in the “free love” atmosphere of social revolution, bisexual was as acceptable as long hair. At least that’s the way I perceived it.

Bisexual was a way for me to keep it all inside the box, but now there is no need for the box we nowadays call a closet. That this realization only surfaced now that I am out of the closet and after the better part of a lifetime of failed heterosexual relationships is best evidence of its veracity. Now I can look back and say: no wonder I was unable to sustain marriage or intimate relationships with women: I’m gay.

With the acumen of retrospect, I can re-affirm that my sexuality and orientation evolved and changed more than once. I do wonder whether my self-identified bisexuality was simply transitional or somehow prefatory to coming out gay, but I don’t think so.

By the same token, it is not surprising that I now gravitate toward and feel desire exclusively for my own gender. I’m old enough and confident that I won’t again be seeking another heterosexual relationship. I am secure and comfortable in my homosexuality. Things change over time, and time has surely changed things over.