I recently came to accept that I am bi. I was puzzled how most of my life I only ever had luck with bi/pan women as I had refused to acknowledge that side of me due to rampant homophobia where I grew up. Something about us just repels cis women in my experience. My wife even had gay friends insisting she was a smokescreen and that I was forcing myself to be with her. Part of my trauma growing up was hearing people have the stereotype that bi people are just horny sluts and that it wasn’t just how they were born.
There seems to be a stigma against bi men in general just as bad as gay men in my experience (I’ve even heard tales of gay men hating bi men). Any straight woman I dated, or tried to, always seemed to be repulsed by me. My guess is that it is in the body language, since her gay friends insisted I was too. Society as a whole is getting better at accepting people but it is still fucked.
Sorry to hear about your experiences. It does provide some small feeling of solidarity to know we’re not alone!
Well done for accepting yourself. I do have the privelege in some sense that if I wanted, I could pretend to be straight. Maybe that’s an aspect that riles some gay people up. I can confirm I don’t repulse women :) until that is, they figure out or find out that I’m not straight. Then it’s almost always the instant evaporation of attraction.
As far as I understand it, for some women, their idea of attraction to a man is still (despite the clamouring for equal rights) tied to how macho the man is. Sex with men, or trans people, destroys that machoness. Then you’ve got the insecure ones who assume because you also find another gender attractive, they can never be enough for you, or that you will cheat. I’ve never, ever cheated on a partner. Finally you have the ones who assume that not being straight, you’re highly promiscuous and therefore riddled with STIs. I can’t speak for other guys but before I realised I was pan I used to joke I’m not bi, I’m bi myself. Very much not promiscuous, and very much take the necessary precautions whenever I sleep with someone (which is rare).
Notice how just speaking about my experience caused someone to downvote my comment. We can’t even exist without offending some people.
I seemed to pass as straight to cis gendered people, but like you said they are looking for that macho man vibe and despite my trying they could always see through it. Only gay and bi people ever showed signs of or did question it. I think much of what makes people uncomfortable about LGBTQ+ is because they see things that they see in themselves they don’t like. Society forces people to conform when things are far from black and white.
For example, despite saying that I am bi I have a strong preference towards women. I only crushed hard on a guy once, but never mentioned a word of it and was just best friends with him until we went our separate ways, due to the aforementioned homophobia around us. I wonder now, at this point, how different my life would have been if society was more open. I strongly suspect he wasn’t strictly het either as his wife is pan as well among other things.
You know, having a preference is completely normal. I don’t think many bi people have their preference split 50/50! Not sure if you’re familiar with Kinsey Scale, worth looking into.
Interestingly, my ‘type’ for women is almost completely the inverse for guys. Similar to you, I have a preference towards women / trans women, though I sometimes wonder if that’s still some inbuilt shame from society.
I recently came to accept that I am bi. I was puzzled how most of my life I only ever had luck with bi/pan women as I had refused to acknowledge that side of me due to rampant homophobia where I grew up. Something about us just repels cis women in my experience. My wife even had gay friends insisting she was a smokescreen and that I was forcing myself to be with her. Part of my trauma growing up was hearing people have the stereotype that bi people are just horny sluts and that it wasn’t just how they were born.
There seems to be a stigma against bi men in general just as bad as gay men in my experience (I’ve even heard tales of gay men hating bi men). Any straight woman I dated, or tried to, always seemed to be repulsed by me. My guess is that it is in the body language, since her gay friends insisted I was too. Society as a whole is getting better at accepting people but it is still fucked.
Sorry to hear about your experiences. It does provide some small feeling of solidarity to know we’re not alone!
Well done for accepting yourself. I do have the privelege in some sense that if I wanted, I could pretend to be straight. Maybe that’s an aspect that riles some gay people up. I can confirm I don’t repulse women :) until that is, they figure out or find out that I’m not straight. Then it’s almost always the instant evaporation of attraction.
As far as I understand it, for some women, their idea of attraction to a man is still (despite the clamouring for equal rights) tied to how macho the man is. Sex with men, or trans people, destroys that machoness. Then you’ve got the insecure ones who assume because you also find another gender attractive, they can never be enough for you, or that you will cheat. I’ve never, ever cheated on a partner. Finally you have the ones who assume that not being straight, you’re highly promiscuous and therefore riddled with STIs. I can’t speak for other guys but before I realised I was pan I used to joke I’m not bi, I’m bi myself. Very much not promiscuous, and very much take the necessary precautions whenever I sleep with someone (which is rare).
Notice how just speaking about my experience caused someone to downvote my comment. We can’t even exist without offending some people.
I seemed to pass as straight to cis gendered people, but like you said they are looking for that macho man vibe and despite my trying they could always see through it. Only gay and bi people ever showed signs of or did question it. I think much of what makes people uncomfortable about LGBTQ+ is because they see things that they see in themselves they don’t like. Society forces people to conform when things are far from black and white.
For example, despite saying that I am bi I have a strong preference towards women. I only crushed hard on a guy once, but never mentioned a word of it and was just best friends with him until we went our separate ways, due to the aforementioned homophobia around us. I wonder now, at this point, how different my life would have been if society was more open. I strongly suspect he wasn’t strictly het either as his wife is pan as well among other things.
You know, having a preference is completely normal. I don’t think many bi people have their preference split 50/50! Not sure if you’re familiar with Kinsey Scale, worth looking into.
Interestingly, my ‘type’ for women is almost completely the inverse for guys. Similar to you, I have a preference towards women / trans women, though I sometimes wonder if that’s still some inbuilt shame from society.