The Other McCain

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Never Trust a Bisexual

Posted on | September 13, 2016 | 1 Comment

Has everyone forgotten the AIDS epidemic? It sometimes seems that way. Now that effective treatment means that HIV is not an automatic death sentence, and Obamacare requires insurance coverage for “pre-existing conditions,” some people seem to think sexual promiscuity is now basically risk-free, as if the wake-up call we got during the 1980s never happened. This crossed my mind when I read a column by Joe Kort, a psychologist whose practice focuses on gay men, about bisexuality:

Think about this: If someone identifies as heterosexual, it’s as if they have won the lottery. In the majority culture, they are accepted and celebrated in songs and movies. Anywhere they go they can hold hands or kiss, and no one gives them a second look. They are not at risk of being arrested or harassed. They are not a threat. They are heterosexually privileged. . . .
As a longtime therapist, I know that there are so many shades of sexuality that they defy categorization. I have seen the myriad configurations of bisexuality — how sexual attraction and romantic love can exist for both genders; how someone can be romantically attracted to one gender, and sexually attracted to another, and on and on.
And I have seen in the therapy room the grief of my bisexual clients that comes from the loss of gay or lesbian privilege. In seminars where I have spoken I have asked for a show of hands of women who would marry a bisexual man, and been stunned by seeing not a single hand in the air. I have counseled men who remain secretive about their bisexuality because they don’t want to lose the woman they love to the misinterpretation that they are unable to commit to her. I have known men who unknowingly date and fall in love with bisexual women, then find out and flee from the fear of competition with other women. . . .

Dude. If women don’t want to marry bisexual men, or if men “flee” from bisexual women, who are you to question their preference? Isn’t it possible that this alleged “biphobia” may be entirely rational?

Let me explain to Dr. Kort, in case he doesn’t understand, that women tend to be very possessive about their husbands, requiring absolute loyalty, so that even the most casual acknowledgment of other women’s beauty — e.g., noticing Kate Upton’s breasts — can land him in the doghouse. Never mind that Kate Upton is a world-famous supermodel who is engaged to a major-league baseball star, and that she is therefore not remotely a threat to your relationship. No, the married man is expected to be so completely devoted to his wife that he is blind to the beauty of any other woman in the world.

As I say, Dr. Kort may not understand this because his practice involves gay men, and gay men certainly are not as possessive toward their boyfriends as wives generally are toward their husbands. I say this not out of prejudice, but on the basis of actual evidence:

In 1982, the CDC reported that that the “median number of lifetime male sexual partners” for gay men diagnosed with AIDS was 1,160.
Repeat: One thousand one hundred sixty.
To comprehend what that means, if a man was diagnosed with AIDS at age 30, after having 1,160 partners since becoming sexually active at age 18, he would have had 97 different partners in an average year, i.e., nearly two new partners every week, or eight new partners per month. This was the “at-risk” population among whom the epidemic was incubated in the late 1970s and early 1980s . . .

Of course, not every gay man is so fantastically promiscuous, but in general, gay men are less inclined to monogamy than heterosexuals or lesbians. This is why, since the legalization of same-sex marriage, about two-thirds of such marriages are between women. In other words, lesbians are twice as likely as gay men to seek long-term commitment with their partners. This is one reason why lesbians have very low rates of sexually transmitted disease — and why heterosexual women are understandably averse to getting involved with bisexual men.

Antibiotic-Resistant Gonorrhea Is on the Rise.
Should Gay and Bi Men Be Concerned?

That’s the headline on a Slate article reporting about a CDC report that found rates of antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea (ARG) are about the same in homosexual and bisexual men. The story included this quote:

“A lot of these things that we’re seeing now in increasing rates and also resistance are the warning signs—they’re sort of the clouds that are starting to come together on the horizon, telling us that there is a perfect storm brewing,” [Dr. Robert] Kirkcaldy said. “The question is what can be done and what are people willing to do now to prevent this brewing crisis?”

What’s sad is that people seem to have forgotten so quickly what the AIDS crisis should have taught us. It’s easy to laugh at silly feminists who think it is “empowering” to announce their herpes infections to the world, but their mentality — the belief that getting rid of the “stigma” of sexually transmitted diseases will make everything OK — is really quite dangerous.

There is a “stigma” about herpes for the same reason there is a “stigma” about promiscuity. These are very bad things — harmful and unhealthy — and disapproving of dangerous behavior is not an irrational fear. As for Dr. Kort’s claim that people are unfairly prejudiced against bisexuals, who gets to determine which prejudices are unfair? I mean, obviously gay men are prejudiced against vaginas and lesbians are prejudiced against penises, but does anyone expect them to apologize for their biases? At least homosexuals are not confused about their preferences, whereas the bisexual’s preferences are as ambiguous as a Rorschach test. Do you want to deal with that kind of perpetual confusion? No, you don’t, and it is not your fault that other people have problems you don’t want to deal with.

 

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One Response to “Never Trust a Bisexual”

  1. Word from the Dark Side, 9/14/16 | SovietMen
    September 14th, 2016 @ 7:59 am

    […] Never trust a bisexual.  Different reasons to mine, […]