Two Days Early

A lot of my blog posts are anchored to dates.  On a specific date if it falls on a Sunday or Wednesday.  Or as close as I can get to a specific date if it doesn’t. 

Recent examples:  I posted about the LEGO SHIPtember build challenge on August 28^th, just a few days before the event started.  I posted about Star Trek on September 7^th, the day before it’s 56^th anniversary.  I talked about the 5^th anniversary of me being in my apartment on its 5^th anniversary (September 21^st).  I posted about the Muppets on September 25^th, which was the day after Jim Henson’s birthday. 

My blog topic schedule list includes potential posts about National Novel Writing Month, Halloween, NnoVVember (the LEGO Vic Viper build challenge), Doctor Who, the Advent Season, Christmas, and so on.  All on or near dates that are specifically appropriate to their topic. 

The topic of today’s post centers around October 11^th.  So my options here were to post this piece two days early or one day late.  I have chosen two days early (obviously).  

Previously on Writer’s Blo(g/ck)…

Back in late February, I posted a piece titled “My So-Called Sex Life” which was all about my woeful lack of sexual experience. 

I explained why I haven’t done much.  I talked about the two women that I almost had sex with.  Why I’m generally considered an undesirable prospect as a partner for a woman.  Discussed the difficulties I have even searching for a consenting woman as a potential partner when I’m a disabled near shut-in.  Some of the personal challenges I would have if I did manage to convince a woman to come to my apartment for adult-style shenanigans.  That kind of stuff. 

Throughout that entire post, anytime I made reference to a partner, or the lack of a partner, or even just the concept of a partner, what I was specifically talking about was a woman.  But even while I was writing that post, I was fully aware that I was leaving out about half the story there. 

I knew that I would eventually address the other half of that story here in the blog.  Welcome to today’s post. 

National Coming Out Day 2022

I’m just going to say it.  I am bisexual.  In addition to having the desire to have sex with women, I also have the desire to have sex with men. 

This is not the first time that I have revealed this information to anyone.  This is, however, the first time that I have revealed this information to more than just a select few people, or that I have done so outside the protection of a pseudonym. 

So that’s it.  I’ve now come out.  If you’re reading this shortly after I’ve posted it, then you’re pretty much smack dab in the middle of my coming out story. 

My coming out story isn’t impressive.  It won’t inspire anybody.  It isn’t a tale of bravery.  It most likely won’t become a story about having a tragic aftermath to face. 

My social circle is tiny to begin with, plus I waited until anyone who would be personally offended by the announcement was dead or otherwise out of my life.  Then I came out… in a blog post. 

It would be nice if everyone who chose to come out on Tuesday (or indeed, on any day) would have as easy a time as I just did.  But sadly, I know that won’t be the case. 

No, Seriously

There have been times in the past where someone has called me gay.  These people weren’t trying to indicate that I was homosexual.  No, these people just thought that ‘gay’ was a good and hilarious insult to use.  Probably the biggest in their entire arsenal of insults. 

I grew up in a small mostly Catholic town.  My artist friend Michael Reinsch once summed it up perfectly when he observed that the town’s flag should be the image of a hick passed out on the steps of the church next to an empty liquor bottle.  People insulted one another by calling them gay a lot. 

Although not a native of the town, my Dad also used gay as a pejorative a lot.  Mostly after Mom died.  And mostly toward me.  Anytime I’d do something he didn’t like, he’d remark, “Yeah, I always knew you were gay” or something similar. 

For years now, my standard response to being called gay was to simply scoff at them, and then say, “I’m not gay, I’m bi.”  Did I say this as if I was serious?  Probably not.  Did anyone take me seriously when I said it?  I doubt it. 

If anyone had challenged me on it and asked for confirmation, would I have admitted that, yes, I actually am bi?  Maybe.  I’d like to think that I would have, but who really knows? 

Curiosity

Even when I was being obviously serious when informing someone that I was bisexual, I would almost always follow it up with something like, “Well, technically, I guess I’m actually bi-curious, because I haven’t had any experience with men and therefore don’t know for certain whether or not I’m into that.” 

Which I now realize was a cop-out.  Leaving myself an escape route that I could back-pedal into.  No, I’m not really bi, I’m just curious. 

I was recently talking with some people online about this.  Questioning my identity and/or coming to terms with it.  A couple of points were made that made me really stop and think about my situation. 

One of these points was that ‘curiosity’ isn’t a concern that straight people have.  Or most gay people, for that matter.  Straight virgins don’t consider themselves merely ‘straight-curious’ until they’ve confirmed it by having successful (and enjoyable) intercourse with someone of the opposite sex.  The same applies to people once they realize that they’re gay.  They don’t usually consider themselves to be gay-upon-the-condition-of-successful-sexual-activity. 

So why was I hung up on the label of bi-curious and the insistence that I didn’t qualify as bisexual without some experience? 

The other point was made after I explained my history with this so-called bi-curiosity.  What the guy said to me was basically, “So, let me get this straight: You’ve been having fantasies about having sex with men for over 35 years, and don’t yet know if you’re bisexual?  Dude, you’re bisexual.” 

I had absolutely no valid arguments for either of those two points. 

Origin Story

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Adult Magazines

When I was growing up, Dad had a lot of adult magazines.  Some Playboy, some Hustler, miscellaneous others… but the bulk of them were Penthouse publications.  New magazines would come into the house and go under his side of Mom and Dad’s bed.  To make room for those new ones, older ones would end up in paper grocery bags on a shelf in the garage. 

There would be occasions when both Mom and Dad were both gone, and I knew that they’d be gone for long enough, that I would lay on their bed and look through the recent arrivals to Dad’s magazine collection. 

Like Dad, Penthouse was my favorite.  I’d look at the pictures first, then go for the letters.  The letters to Penthouse were my favorite part.  One day when I pulled the magazines out, there was a new one called Penthouse Letters.  Yes, it had a few pictorials, but it was mostly devoted to those letters that I liked so much.  It eventually disappeared from under the bed and reappeared in the garage.  It then disappeared from the garage and reappeared in my room. 

It would be years and years before I was actually diagnosed as having obsessive compulsive disorder, but looking back, I had always exhibited a lot of obsessive compulsive behavior.  (I’m sure that I’ll eventually do a post about OCD.) 

One day while I was reading through the magazine for the umpteenth time, I caught myself skipping over a couple of letters, and I suddenly realized that I had read almost every letter in the magazine.  Almost.  And that ‘almost’ nagged at my OCD brain. 

The magazine was organized by category, with suggestive section headings like, ‘Head & Tails’, ‘Crowd Scenes’, ‘Domination & Discipline’ and so on.  One of those headings was ‘Girls & Girls/Boys & Boys’.  And while I had read all of the Girls & Girls letters – because what growing American boy doesn’t like erotic tales of lesbianism – I had passed over all of the letters detailing sex between men.  And now for some reason that seemed to bother me. 

So, I decided to read them.  I wasn’t gay, so obviously they weren’t going to be my thing, but what would be the harm in reading through them once?  Maybe I’d’ve been grossed out or something.  But I would have completed the magazine, which was what the OCD wanted me to do.  So, I sat there and read them. 

The possibility that I would enjoy reading them hadn’t even occurred to me.  The idea that those letters would slowly become my favorite letters in the magazine over the course of the next few weeks certainly hadn’t been even a remote possibility in my mind, and yet… there it was. 

When I was much younger than I am now, I used to credit/blame Penthouse Letters for making me bicurious.  Which was obviously a ridiculous notion.  Now of course I admit that it was simply that the magazine allowed me to realize that I was (at the time, an incredibly closeted) bisexual. 

[Years later, I found the remains of that magazine and discovered that it had been eaten by mice.  I sadly threw what was left of it away.  But a couple of years ago I found a copy in good condition listed on eBay for a Buy It Now price of only $10.  Ten bucks to regain a formative piece of my sexual development?  A bargain!] 

Bisexual and Monoromantic

So, I’ve started actively searching for a sexually compatible man on the internet.  For a one-time-encounter if that’s all that can be found.  Someone interested in recurring encounters would be better.  But what I would ideally like to find is the infamous friend-with-benefits.  I want someone that I can hang out with.  Do stuff with.  (Other stuff, not just the naughty stuff.) 

What I’m not looking for is a boyfriend.  Not looking for a boyfriend, certainly not looking for an eventual husband.  I still would like a girlfriend.  Girlfriend-turned-fiancée-turned-wife. 

Sex with men and women.  Love and romance with women only.  Because while I am bisexual, I am also monoromantic.  Specifically, heteroromantic.  (Heteromantic?) 

There have been a couple of friendships in my life where I’ve loved the guy.  But it was platonic, not romantic.  The sort of thing where I would have been willing to put my life on the line for him, but I wouldn’t have been willing to kiss him. 

Recently looking through personal ads and the like, I’ve noticed that some men (seeking men) actually state in their ad that they are looking for kissing and cuddling and whatnot.  And I’m very glad that they do, because I know not to pursue those men. 

I’m suppose that I’m going to have to eventually redefine what my personal parameters of things like affection and intimacy are regarding members of my own sex. 

Vanilla

In addition to romance not being present in my want-sex-with-males half, kink is something else that is absent.  The sex that I want to have with men is vanilla.  Completely vanilla.  No mix-ins, no toppings, no sprinkles. 

Oh, don’t get me wrong here.  I do have kinks.  I have kinks galore, and a list of fetishes that’s longer than my arm.  But the vast majority of those (75 to 90%, maybe?) are all heterosexual.  Some of them heterosexual almost to the point of homophobia. 

(I’m not going to go into detail about what those kinks and fetishes are and why they don’t apply to men, because I fear that would lead to this post being considered TMI instead of the carefully balanced JTRAOI that I’ve been striving for thus far.) 

In addition to kinks and fetishes, I also have a healthy interest in certain BDSM activities.  And while I have no burning desire to include men in that sort of play, I don’t feel any form of aversion toward the idea either.  I suspect it wouldn’t be too difficult to persuade me to accept a male BDSM partner. 

Parts of a Whole

I wasn’t sure about admitting this when I wrote this post, but after spending some time reading threads and conversing with other bisexual men online it seems like this point of view isn’t exactly uncommon among bisexuals.  So, here goes…

I’m not actually attracted to men.  Not entire men, anyway.  My interest isn’t in having someone cute or handsome or sexy.  My interest is in certain parts of a man.  Mainly the traditional sex parts. 

There are things that I want to do to a man.  For a man.  With a man.  And there are things that I want a man to do to, for, and with me.  It’s those specific physical interactions that I’m interested in, and subsequently the body parts used to perform those actions. 

I’m definitely attracted to women, but I have to admit that I give special preference to certain parts aside from the whole package.  And while I want my intellectual, emotional, and social interactions to be with the whole woman, my physical actions want to hone in on certain select body parts. 

I am not one of those people who believe that woman (or men, for that matter) are sex objects.  Certain specific body parts, on the other hand, I’m not as sure of my beliefs about. 

Mix and Match

So I suppose that the best possible sexual experience would be one where you have the full assortment of traditional sex parts to work with.  The most common form of which is the threesome. 

A couple (one bisexual male and one straight or bisexual female) and me.  Take a long night (or a full weekend) and just do everything to one another.  If I had more faith in my desirability, that’s probably what I’d be looking for.  It does seem like the best match for a woefully inexperienced bisexual.  But so far I’ve been unable to find a consenting partner of either sex, so what are the odds of finding an interested matched pair? 

And, of course, there’s one other concept that fits beneath the ‘Mix and Match’ heading, and that’s the recognition of the differences between the cisgendered and transgendered.  I believe that if you identify as a woman you’re a woman.  And if you identify as a man you’re a man.  (And if you identify as a J. K. Rowling fan you really need to research some of the beliefs she espouses, and then maybe reassess your identity.) 

But there are cases – quite a few cases – where there’s a different answer to what your gender is than to what sex parts you have.  I’ve got an online friend that lists his sex as female, his gender as male, and his pronouns as he, him.

My interest in sexual interaction with certain body parts makes me more than willing to engage in activities with trans folk.  I don’t think of it as a case of me fetishizing them (which would be bad), just accepting people for who they are and what they can (and are willing to) do with whatever body parts they currently have. 

(I’m really hoping that I explained myself well enough there.  If I come off sounding like an asshole or -phobe of some kind, please assume that I simply didn’t explain myself well enough.) 

Bi, Pan, or Omni?

So, with there being some dispute about categorization among various members of society, and with there being the existence of the following terms, should I identify as: 

     Bisexual (sexually attracted to “both” genders)

     Pansexual (sexually attracted to all people, regardless of gender)

 or

     Omnisexual (sexually attracted to all people, but WITH regard to their gender)

My answer, of course, is going to be: “Oh, man, I just came to terms with being bisexual! Leave me alone and let me take this in small steps!”

LGBTQ+ Membership

Okay, one last bit of business.  Now that I’m a member of the LGBTQ+ community, do I need to get a Pride Flag?  And if so, which one?  Or which ones?  And how many? 

The standard six-stripe Rainbow Pride Flag is commonly used to represent the queer community as a whole.  But there’s also a specific Bi Pride Flag, so I should probably get that one, too.  Hmm. 

As a male who is interested in sex with other males and is also fat and hairy, I qualify as a bear, and there’s also a Bear Pride Flag.  Do I need a Bear Pride Flag? 

And while it doesn’t fall under the LGBTQ+ umbrella, there’s also a Disability Pride Flag.  If I’m starting to collect Pride Flags, one for disability seems like a must for me. 

There have been occasions where I have downloaded things off of the internet without regard for copyright.  Should I get a Pirate Flag?  And I haven’t played World of Warcraft in over a year now, but should I still get a Horde Banner?  I just don’t know!  

Whatever the case, I see the potential for a lot of flags in my future.