Dear Tiggy,
I’m a man in my 20s who is very likely bisexual with a slight leaning towards women. From all outward perspectives, I’m a traditionally masculine man and have no issues with dating women.
The thing is, I am going to attend cosmetology school and we all know there is a stereotype about men who are hairdressers. As stupid as it is, I’m really worried that if I am bisexual, women will just assume that I’m a closeted gay guy because of the double whammy of saying I’m bisexual and being a hairdresser.
I shouldn’t care what people think, but I still want to have a fairly wide dating pool of women. Of course, I’m probably the one who sounds bigoted by asking for advice about this.
-Ryan
Is “sincere, thoughtful dude asking a question to which thousands of people want an answer” the new definition of “bigot”? Ah, semantics, you shape-shifting chameleon in army fatigues.
I recently made a new friend on OKCupid who identifies as a lesbian. She said something typically fabulous, to which I responded that she is a truly righteous bi ally. She explained that she’s more than a bi ally – that, in fact, the only reason she doesn’t date men is because her “milkshake does not bring any of the boys to the yard.” For some reason, her milkshake appears to be only of interest to girls.
We all do this to some degree; we “market” ourselves according to our strengths. I’ve said before that how you identify sexually is typically based on your crushes, fantasies, romantic history, sexual activity, politics, culture, and your view of yourself. These many ingredients make up a fairly complex and subjective reality. At the end of the day, how you choose to identify comes down to how it makes you feel about yourself.
In the simplest terms, it seems that you’re grappling with feeling like you’re lying if you identify as straight vs. missing out on the lady hook-ups if you identify as bi. (And for any Pollyannas out there saying, “You wouldn’t want to have sex with a biphobe anyway,” well, that’s easy to say when you’re not jonesin’ for it. As the Bible tells us, let he who is holding an unwanted milkshake in an empty yard cast the first stone.) But you have a lot more options than that.
Read up on how other bi guys handle this issue in Getting Bi and start following the Facebook pages for the Bisexual Resource Center and Bisexual Men. You’ll quickly see that there are an array of labels that might work for you (including “no label”) and tons of choices for who, when, and how to disclose your sexual identity. I bid you go forth and identify yourself in the most personally authentic manner that scares away the least booty.
© 2012 Tiggy Upland. Tiggy Upland reserves the right to use all submitted queries anonymously, in any medium.