Browsing through a bookstore

[fred fencesitter]

I dropped by the Lesbian and Gay section. There were a gazillion books for gay men, a quarter gazillion for lesbians, a few for bi women, and exactly one (the awesome Bisexual's Guide to the Universe) that included bi men. I'm sure there were sound marketing reasons for this, but it still annoyed me. First, I spent years listening to the voices in the broader community telling me that my desires for men must be repressed. Then, I spent years listening to the voices in the gay community telling me that my desires for women couldn't be real. After all, if there's no bi, and I've had sex with a man, then I'm gay, and a gay man wouldn't desire women. I've got issues.

[M. Wolfe]

Surely that's indicative of our prevalence and visibility in the western world, though. Haven't read the book yet but I really wanna.

You must have learnt by now that other people cannot tell you what you feel about other people. If people taught that instead of "You're either gay or straight" then people would be a lot less confused.

[M. Wolfe]

There are books for bisexuals and bisexual men out there.

Just look for them on Amazon.com and a whole bunch of titles come up.

Tru dat but you wouldn't really expect an off hand bookstore to have many - at least not one that was a LGBT speciality bookstore anyway. - that was my point.

[elduderino]

The bisexuals guide to the universe is a very short and light read. It was entertaining, but it was kind of like eating a bowl of whipped cream, nothing really nutritious. It's not the groundbreaking psychological/sociological masterpiece I hoped it would be. I am also disappointed by the lack of bisexual books in my community...and even on the internet. I can only seem to find the same things over and over, little FAQ's like "what is bisexuality?" as if that's something that's new to me

[fred fencesitter]

Yes, the Guide is what it is. Most of what I read about bisexuality for years was written by gay men, so it usually said something like, "male bisexuality is very, very rare. So even if you think you are bisexual, you probably aren't. If you have had sex with a man, you are gay." I almost never saw anything written by a bisexual man telling his story. Even better would have been a piece written by a woman in a happy relationship with a bisexual man. I thought that, if you have any attractions to men at all, you should never pursue relationships with women. Now I realize how insane that attitude was.:flag4:

[bimwmdecatur]

I think this all boils down to what you think of yourself. Do NOT let other people put you in a pigeon hole. Do NOT let others label you with whatever they want. YOU are the one who knows what YOU want and desire. The hell with the others. You should just enjoy what you enjoy and let the others enjoy what they enjoy.

This crap of bi/gay/straight is nothing but that, crap. You know what turns you on today and that is what you need to satisfy your desire. Tomorrow it might be different, but you do tomorrow what you desire as well. If you want to have sex with a man today, do it. If you want to have sex with a woman tomorrow, just do it. Don't try to figure it out, you can't.

Be yourself, no one else has to know what you think you are or what you don't think you are. Just be happy and enjoy life.

Off my rant.

[sparkmaster69]

I think this all boils down to what you think of yourself. Do NOT let other people put you in a pigeon hole. Do NOT let others label you with whatever they want. YOU are the one who knows what YOU want and desire. The hell with the others. You should just enjoy what you enjoy and let the others enjoy what they enjoy.

This crap of bi/gay/straight is nothing but that, crap. You know what turns you on today and that is what you need to satisfy your desire. Tomorrow it might be different, but you do tomorrow what you desire as well. If you want to have sex with a man today, do it. If you want to have sex with a woman tomorrow, just do it. Don't try to figure it out, you can't.

Be yourself, no one else has to know what you think you are or what you don't think you are. Just be happy and enjoy life.

Off my rant.

Thats what is called hitting the nail on the head! :bipride:

[roy m cox]

hmm i must be the weird one hear cuzz i have always been attracted to both sexes and have had sex with and enjoyed both equley and if i had my way about it i would have a bf and gf at the same time ,,
you need to believe in your self not in books its just some one else idea , i know i am 100% BI every sins kindergarten i would look at other boys and then look at the girls and d~ rule i would go wear you hart is if you like men more than women theirs not a thing wrong with it i would hug you all the same :)

:bipride::three::bipride::three::bipride:

[fredtyg]

Did you try looking on Amazon.com. Use the book link this site provides. Amazon.com show 32,697 bisexual books, although certainly many are duplicates. Just the first page (http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/105-8542237-5022069?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=bisexual&x=20&y=18) of hits shows some I wouldn't mind reading.

The other folks are right, though, that there's no perfect way of describing an individual's sex preferences or accounting for them. As I've mentioned elsewhere, I've had sex with men (and boys when I was a boy) off and on my whole life. I've had sex with women, too. Like Roy, I've enjoyed both.

At this point in my life I'd consider myself mostly homosexual as, If I jacked off 365 days year, I'd be fantasizing about guys each of those 365 times. Yet, I find most women sexually attractive to me but few men, at least from their looks.

I'm 54 and I think I've changed over the years. I think I might of been more along 50/50 in regards to my preference for men and women back in my 20s. I'd consider that solidly bisexual (but I wonder if it might actually lean more homo back then as I often suppressed my homo self back then due to social pressure). Now, since I'm almost completely oriented towards men, I'd consider myself fully homo, except why did I get a bit turned on when I was checking undie and lingerie sites yesterday and came upon some good looking women in hot lingerie? Would of jumped those gals bones in a second if I could manage to get it up.

No accounting for one's tastes and I'll be comfortable whether any of you want to call me a homo or bisexual.:male:

[_Joe_]

I dropped by the Lesbian and Gay section. There were a gazillion books for gay men, a quarter gazillion for lesbians, a few for bi women, and exactly one (the awesome Bisexual's Guide to the Universe) that included bi men. I'm sure there were sound marketing reasons for this, but it still annoyed me. First, I spent years listening to the voices in the broader community telling me that my desires for men must be repressed. Then, I spent years listening to the voices in the gay community telling me that my desires for women couldn't be real. After all, if there's no bi, and I've had sex with a man, then I'm gay, and a gay man wouldn't desire women. I've got issues.

Dare I ask...does this book have pictures ? Or perhaps was a pop-up ?

[Herbwoman39]

Sadly there is still the societal perception that Bi men either don't exists or you get the "Eeewww that's gross!" reaction OR you get the "Bi men spread disease" bullshit. Because of all that, there won't be much if anything at all in standard book stores. Like you, I wish more Bi men would write books.

It's tough being stuck in the middle of two worlds like that. Until society's ideas change, it will keep being difficult. But the great thing is we have this community here where we can all be ourselves and be accepted for who and what we are.

[12voltman59]

I am thinking that I want to try my hand at doing a fictional piece with bisexuality as its theme----I have started doing some writings trying to flesh out the basic outline of story--at least as a basic template for a story--and also to start creating characters---of course---any story I would do would be "the story" of those characters and their experiences--the work would not necessarily be a universal story for all bisexuals---that would be an impossible task to totally cover the subject-----I do think I have learned enough about this subject at this point that I could do a credible story at least----I promise that any character having a resemblence to you is purely coincidental! lol

There certainly does seem to be a relative dearth of "bisexually themed" stories out there----especially ones that deal with it in a respectful, and reasonable and real manner.

My work on this is VERY preliminary at this point----so progress is slow--and I get to what I am doing when I can----but I do think that there is a place for a well done story about "bisexuality" as it gets played out today--at least from my culturally centric vantage point of being a white, middle aged, American middle class male.

[fredtyg]

I am thinking that I want to try my hand at doing a fictional piece with bisexuality as its theme-

By Golly, DO IT:bipride:

It probably woudn't surprise most here to know that I wrote a book of sorts about myself and bisexualism about 6, or so, years ago. Mine was actually non- fiction and was basically just some of the stories about myself I posted here recently along with a number of other smaller stories. The story started with my first homosexual experience when I was around 10 or 11 and told my sexual story all the way up to back when I wrote the book.

The title, if I'm remembering it right was, No Regrets: The Life of a Bisexual, or some such. Not exactly a truthful title as there are any number of regrets I have in my history of meeting other men. Most of them are things I didn't do, because of guilt. That was secondary reason for writing the book: So others can avoid the same mistakes I made.

It didn't include all my sexual experiences, especially the ones with most women, as that would of taken too long and, quite frankly, I couldn't remember a lot of them very well. It was actually part of my coming out- at least to the extent I wanted to, and have, come out. I gave enough information in the book that, if someone knew me half well, they could tell I was the one writing it. So, if someone I knew stumbled on to it on some gay web site, they'd be certain it was me.

I didn't want to make a big public coming out as I don't know that's necessary or even a good thing to do in all cases. I just wanted to semi- publicly state to myself and anyone who happened to stumble on to the "book", that I was a homo or bisexual. I think I just wanted to put my homosexual experiences in writing thus saying Fred, you are a bi- homosexual. You enjoy it and have nothing to be ashamed of.

One problem was trying to shield some of the other people mentioned in the book so I had to change things around a bit in some incidents.

I actually ended up really enjoying both writing the book and sharing it with others. Most of "the others" were people I'd met online. I'd considered maybe even publishing it online in its entirety- perhaps through some gay or bi websites- but at the time I thought that was a little more public than I wanted to go at the time.

Not sure the book I wrote would of accomplished my secondary objective. First, of course, was stamping a seal of approval on myself for my homosexuality. Second, I wanted to reach out to others- especially younger folk who might feel guilty about their sexual feelings for the same sex- that guilt can be normal after being involved in homosexual activity, especially if your social group is opposed to such activities. Luckily, I don't think younger folk today have as much pressure in that regard as we did back in the 70s and 80s. But that guilt caused me to miss out on many things I regret today and there's no going back.

That was one thing wrong with my book. Although I dealt with the subject a bit and always brought up the guilt I'd feel the next day after having had sex with some guy, I don't think I spent enough time on guilt. That assuming, of course, that my guilt wasn't an aberration and most younger guys feel at least some guilt when they first start homosexualizing.

I also failed miserably in not exploring the issue of my coming out, in whatever stages I did come out. That would of been worth dealing with more.

Maybe I'll have to start that book over again? I don't know if I still have it on a disk around here, or not. Couldn't find it when I wanted to use it for reference in the stories I posted here. One of those silly things when I'd sent it via e- mail to various people and posted parts of it online, but didn't want it found around the house. I tuck it away somewhere and then I can't find it myself.

It's just me, but I think that would be what a good book on bisexualism might include: Dealing with guilt, coming to grips with your own bi/ homosexuality and how you let others know about you sexuality, assuming you need to tell anybody at all. Of course, you gotta have some sex in there, too.

I say write the book!

[loupstein]

Not sure it counts as bisexual, but Le Guin's "Left Hand of Darkness" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left_hand_of_darkness) is a nice book, that bends gender in an interesting way.