Why are Bisexual Men So Underrepresented ̶i̶n̶ ̶Q̶u̶e̶e̶r̶ ̶S̶p̶a̶c̶e̶s̶ Everywhere?
Historically, bisexual men get a bad rap all around.
Bi guys are low on the LGBTQ+ totem pole. No one will dispute that more bisexual men exist in the shadows than in the light. Let’s explore why that’s the case and work collectively to change it once and for all.
I write from experience and vibes. Statistics aren’t my style. If they were, I’d show you that there are tons of bi guys all around us. I’d show you that fewer bisexual men are “out” than gay men, lesbians, and bisexual women, even though there are more of us. That’s cool, in that if I need a bi guy, I can find one quickly on Grindr or Feeld, but how can we advance our amazing community of bi men if we don’t start coming out from the darkness and showing our Pride in our identities along with the rest of the queers? How many bi guys do you know? How many guys do you know that are bi — but no one else does? Why are we hiding?
Why are bisexual men so underrepresented? This question was on my mind a bunch this week as I navigated various queer spaces and published my first piece for Visible Bi+ on Medium.
I’m going to outline a few theories, all based on my own experience, then I’d like to open the floor to others’ thoughts, opinions, and experiences.
My first theory is simple, and obvious, at least to me. Navigating the world as a bisexual dude is fucking hard. And that can only happen once we get to a place of comfort with our identity — which is EVEN HARDER. Let’s face it, there isn’t a pathway paved in velvet that we can venture, getting us to where we need to be. While this is changing, there are still generations of men that didn’t have support growing up, and still don’t have support. To those men, I first want to say: I SEE YOU. I HEAR YOU. I FEEL YOU. YOU ARE VALID. There are men in their thirties, forties, fifties, and beyond, that have never had an ounce of validation for their bisexual identity. No one has ever said to them, “It’s okay that you’re bi,” let alone, “It’s really fucking cool that you’re bi. Yay.”
As much as it’s important to have authentic validation from within, as humans, we need validation from all kinds of sources. Especially when it comes to dating and relationships, with our partners, family, and friends. When I came out as bisexual and continued to date women, I prayed that I’d find someone that accepted that part of me. Y’all, I would have settled for acceptance. Luckily, I didn’t have to settle. If you ask my partner, Shannon, she’ll tell you it’s one of her favorite things about me. I knew she was the one, when on our first date, at an Italian restaurant that happened to be both of our favorites, she inquired why I took my first few forkfuls of cheesecake from the wide end of the slice.
“I wanted you to have the tip,” I told her, smiling.
She leaned in, her beautiful face lit with candlelight and admiration, and whispered seductively, “Casey, we can share the tip.”
I’ve never paid a bill in a restaurant faster in my life. She grabbed my hand as we walked to her car and hasn’t let go since. We made out in her Prius until we were the only ones left in the parking lot. These days, we’re still making out, we both come with plenty of bisexual humor, we swoon over the same guys, and girls, and wear each other’s clothes while we slow dance in our 500 sq./ft. apartment in downtown San Diego. We are the queerest of the queer, and I can’t imagine having a relationship any other way.
Since I started having conversations openly about my identity, I’ve had many straight and bisexual women tell me, “Ohhh, you’re bi, that’s so awesome, do you know any other bi guys, can you introduce me? Where can I find one?” At first, I assumed it had to be the sexy thought of guy-on-guy action or their desire for the hottest possible threesome dynamic. Nah. I learned quickly that the thing they recognized in me, as a bi guy, and hoped to find in other guys, had absolutely nothing to do with sex. (Though in some cases it did play a part.) What they found attractive was the level of self-awareness, introspection, and emotional intelligence that is almost guaranteed to exist in any guy with the confidence to openly claim a bisexual identity, aloud, in conversation, upon newly meeting someone. Qualities that, I’m sad to say it, but most straight men just don’t possess. While I won’t go as far as to say every bisexual guy is woke, a feminist, and not powered by patriarchy, show me an openly bisexual man who is blissfully unaware, who hasn’t spent considerable time looking inward, who doesn’t have at least a basic handle on expressing his emotions, who hasn’t spent time exploring his identity around things like gender, sex, and how women are treated by men, individually and systematically.
I want to preface this first example by saying that my partner doesn’t love it, and I’ll share why after, but it’s true and gets a certain point across. At the turn of the millennium, I was a high school student. At any given high school party on a Friday night, if a teenage girl was questioning her sexual identity and made the decision, at that party, to make out with another teenage girl, that behavior was celebrated. By celebrated, I mean there would have been a crowd around them, made up of mostly teenage boys, cheering them on and encouraging them. When this happened, at school on Monday, students may have considered that the girl was just living her best life. At worst, she would have been experimenting. No one would assume the girl was gay, or even bisexual. Not only wouldn’t she have lost many friends, but she may also have gained a few, as well as plenty of intimate attention. Let’s say instead of a teenage girl making out with another girl, it’s a teenage boy making out with another boy. Let’s get personal and say that teenage boy is me, here’s a photo of me in high school so you can really get into it.
Would my situation garner the same reaction at the party? How would my classmates receive me at school on Monday? Would I be living my best life? Experimenting? Would anyone think I was bisexual? Gay? Would I? I can answer those questions because that did happen to me. We weren’t front and center. No one was cheering us on. We were in my friend’s bedroom, and we kissed, briefly. It was awkward and awful but also lovely. Another male friend walked in. He called us horrible things and bolted, yelling at everyone at the party, “Casey and Zack are gay!” I didn’t go to school for a week after, but when I did return, I had a lot fewer friends and was tormented by shame. I didn’t dare to seek support. I don’t know that there would’ve been any. I’d kissed a boy — and liked it, sorta. I assumed that meant I was gay, regardless of whom I was attracted to, because of messages I received from just about everywhere. That assumption continued to haunt me and was reinforced far more times than it should have been, by far too many people, including a mental health professional.
The reason Shannon doesn’t like that example is because of what it brings up for her, and many other women. The sexualization, by men, of two women kissing. In this case, two incredibly young women, in the midst of shaping their own identities. It’s equally disgusting and could be the subject of many more essays. What’s interesting though, is the root of the problem is the same. The people who ridiculed and ostracized me for kissing a boy are the same people cheering as two young girls make out. Men, straight men. Fueled by misogynistic ideals, toxic masculinity, hormones, and the patriarchy.
I’ve grown to love socializing with queer folx, and while I have plenty of non-queer people in my life, I try to limit my time around them, unless they’re family, or coworkers (though quite frankly I prefer work in queer environments, too,) or connected through a creative endeavor like writing or photography. I’m so enamored with queer energy that I have little bandwidth left for social connections with the super straight. But it wasn’t always that way. Before I came out, I ran far and fast from anything with a rainbow. My homophobia and biphobia fueled my identity so I couldn’t get close to anything remotely queer, another obstacle that bi men face. It’s hard to be an ally from inside the closet.
Not long into dating, I lost my patience with going out with straight women and gay men. I finally saw the years of constant invalidation from those two groups for what it was. As someone who navigates the center of the spectrum, in many ways, I’ve noticed the people who have the hardest time seeing the center are those on its farthest ends. In my little world, I refer to this as “toxic heterosexuality” and “toxic gay.” Concepts that make total sense for me, and that I wonder if other bi guys can relate to — EXCEPT THAT I CAN’T SEEM TO FIND ANY.
Shannon and I are about as monogamous as we are straight, so we’ve spent time exploring dating apps like Feeld, which caters to non-monogamous couples, queer folx, and those with kinks. Though sometimes these apps feel like the men on them think they have a green light to do the inappropriate things that would get them kicked off more mainstream dating apps. Our profiles include photos of both of us and it’s common for an opening message from a guy to include some type of pass at Shannon. “Your girlfriend is fire, bro!” is one of the milder examples. I’ve had more than one straight, or heteroflexible (a label I only became familiar with on Feeld) guy tell me, “I’m bi, as long as there is a woman present,” or “You can suck my dick, but I don’t kiss guys.”
Navigating more traditional dating apps as a bi guy isn’t any easier. Apps like Bumble, Hinge, and Tinder historically lean pretty “hetero” and aren’t always the most welcoming to those not willing to meet at a bar for drinks and icebreakers, and those not solely attracted to the opposite sex. Straight women were quick to dismiss me once I shared that I was bisexual, and the number of right swipes I got from women impactfully declined once I added queer or bisexual tags to my profile. I often got different versions of “I fully support the LGBTQ+ community, love is love and all that, but I’d never date a bi guy.” “Eww,” sometimes followed, or an insinuation that I’m either diseased or couldn’t be trusted not to cheat. Many gay men I met also had insecurities around a suspected inclination that a bi guy can never be monogamous. Men often fetishized me. I was deemed good enough to fuck around with but not to date. “Bi guys aren’t relationship material,” Adam, 31, in San Diego wrote in a message on Hinge. “How do I know you won’t leave me for a woman?” “Bi guys just need to make up their minds. You can’t have it all.” But I beg to differ, Adam.
Because of my experiences with invalidation and because Shannon and I’s relationship looks like a heterosexual one, the topic of bisexual erasure comes up often. We’ll discuss how we can rep our identities and still live as our authentic selves. Bisexual erasure is common in straight passing relationships. This past weekend at a wedding, we managed to work bisexuality into every conversation where our relationship came up. And the one we didn’t, I walked away disappointed, asking Shannon, “Babe, do you think we least gave the impression we’re bi?” Bi vibes, as we like to call them. When we get ready to go out, our conversation often sounds like this, “Babe, do I look bi enough?!” “Yeah, baby, you look so bi! Do I?” It probably seems like overkill to some, especially the biphobic and homophobic, “you can love whoever you want but why do you need to shove it down our throats?” crowd. These conversations are important the same way as this essay. We want and deserve to be seen, in our entirety, as much as anyone else.
In my last job, I worked with mostly gay men, so I kept a photo of Shannon and me next to my keyboard. I liked to see the wheels turning as people sat down at my desk. He works here, so isn’t he gay? Why is there a picture of him with a woman? Sometimes they asked, which usually led to an important conversation about bisexual erasure or admittance of their own biphobia. The work I do with clients around their problematic substance use is usually heavily intersected with their identity as an LGBTQ+ individual, as it was mine.
Navigating the world as a bi guy is hard and coming out can be torturous. Getting there requires deep, emotional, uncomfortable work and a lot of self-compassion and acceptance. And tons of support and community. Most men don’t want to do the work, and if they do, they don’t know where to go for support. Hookup and dating apps allow men to have their needs and desires met, without having to do any of that. Rarely will someone on an app call them out on their internalized shame and biphobia, and sadly, these men, and all of their baggage, will end up in relationships with women.
Casey Cannizzaro (he/they) is a recovery & lifestyle coach, writer, and substance use disorder counselor. He has been navigating substance use recovery for the majority of his adult life. He’s especially fascinated by the intersection of substance use and identity. He came out publicly as bisexual in 2019. He lives in San Diego with his partner, Shannon. They plan to move to Portland, Oregon in October. Casey serves on the Board of Directors of the secular recovery organization, Lifering, and is a member of the Bi+ Mental Health Justice Coalition. Follow him on Instagram or Medium or hit him up on Facebook. Feel free to say hello — his DMs are forever open.
Visible Bi+ is a space for members of the Bi+/MSpec community to share their voices. We’re striving to increase authentic visibility and dispel the many misconceptions which fuel biphobia and bi-erasure. Join us and SHARE YOUR STORY!
