Bisexual - Somewhere in the Middle
by Ralph Seland © 1999
Although most men identify themselves as straight, some will say that they
are gay, and there are a others who would rather be called "bi."
I have trouble with these labels, for I am not sure whether a person is
talking about orientation or actions. Instead of representing human
sexuality as three separate boxes, I believe that sexual orientation can
be represented best as a color bar which gradates from yellow
(heterosexuality) on one end to red (homosexuality) at the other.
Some men who say that they are straight probably could have a little
erotic attraction for men under the right conditions. With the exception
of people who are at the gay end of the spectrum, most have had varying
degrees of attraction towards the opposite gender some time in their
lives.
Just as surely as the color bar has two ends, it also has a middle. I
believe that a high percentage of people occupy this
middle ground. And most of them don't even give it a second thought. A
few years ago, even men who were quite gay-oriented would marry because
that was what a man was expected to do. Orientation wasn't even discussed.
But with the present awareness of the gay population, these same men
will at least experiment with gay sex. And gay sex is addictive.
That swells the number of people that are counted in any gay census.
Ministries under the umbrella of Exodus
International probably have their best success with people whose
orientation is toward the yellow end of the spectrum. There are some
people who feel so poorly about themselves that they will go into an
unhealthy relationship because they need a friend who will meet their
emotional needs. Unfortunately predators, gay or straight, take advantage
of such people and lure them into relationships which are more than
emotional. This adds guilt and lowers a man's self-esteem still further.
Can a marriage between a bi and a straight work?
Most certainly!
True, some men who are gay have married to prove that they were
straight. This is not a valid reason to marry. Such a marriage
starts out on the wrong foot and has a high risk of failure.
Of the straight population, over half of the marriages end in divorce.
(What excuse do they use for the breakup?) And of the other half,
only a few are truly happy. I know of no evidence that gay-straight
marriages cannot have at least as high a success rate as straight-straight
marriages.
The person who finds himself on the middle ground has to make an
intellectual decision to make the marriage work. Without his veins
throbbing with hormones, he has a better chance of building the
relationship on a more solid footing than the shifting sand of sexual
desire. And building on a foundation of unselfish Christian love and
mutual commitment will result in a better marriage than the average.
A woman who marries such a man will not have to concern herself about
her husband chasing skirts. He just isn't interested.
