Text of Biphobic article on MSN/Match.Com by Nick Burns of POZ magazine.
Original URL for article (now yanked, YAY):
http://msn.match.com/msn/article.aspx?articleid=4038&articleSrc=6&lid=165
Why bi guys aren’t for me
By Nick Burns
I refuse to date bisexual men. That might sound strange coming from an out and proud gay guy—after all, if I expect other people to accept my sexuality, shouldn’t I be welcoming of theirs, too? The thing is, I am—but just because I welcome them, it doesn’t mean I take them home to Mom. Let me explain my stance.
1. A bi guy isn’t sure of his identity. It confounds me to think that some people can hop from side to side without tripping over the fence. Frankly, plenty of bi guys will eventually come out on one side or the other and reveal that they never really liked the neighbor’s garden. “I don’t date bi men because they are usually just gay but haven’t coped with the fact that they’re really gay,” says my friend Harry. “They have a lot of baggage that I don’t want to deal with.” Harry’s thoughts are common for gay men, and that’s why bi guys are often not fully accepted in the gay community.
2. He sleeps with women—yuck! Ask most gay guys if they’d date a bi man and you’re met with the response: “Oh no, you don’t know where they’ve been!” Well, we have an idea where they’ve been; we just don’t want to think about it. Gay guys (including myself) get squeamish when conversation swerves into a discussion of hetero sex and the accoutrements of a woman’s birthday suit. Perhaps we never outgrew the idea that girls have cooties, and we’re afraid that we’ll catch them from being with someone who plays on both sides.
3. He has twice the opportunity to cheat. If I did I end up in a monogamous, long-term relationship with a switch-hitter, he’d have to sacrifice more than most—starting with an entire gender. Bi men have a larger dating pool, which means a larger cheating pool, too. Sending a gay boyfriend out into the night with his girlfriends is fine, but when he’s bi, any friend he spends a lot of time with is a potential threat. So you can understand why I’d be left with a hefty case of paranoia that my man is stepping out on me. I’m sure that there are plenty of bisexual people in happy relationships, but I know just as many couples that have broken up because the bisexual partner decided to sniff the flowers across the way.
As for me, I’ve decided to stick to my side of the fence. Getting involved with a bi guy is just a gamble that I’m not ready to take—at least for now. Perhaps I need the right guy to come along and prove me wrong. But until then, I prefer being with a man who knows what he wants and that what he wants is me—and only me.
Nick Burns is an editor at POZ and a contributing editor at Cargo. He lives in New York City.
