It took me a few days to read the 3 January, 2014 New York Times article entitled, Bisexual: A Label With Layers, Tom Daley Comes Out as Bisexual, Igniting L.G.B.T. Debate.

I’d quickly scanned the article at first and could see that writer Michael Schulman did an admirable job highlighting the full spectrum of our current cultural biphobia and bidenial, which is what caused me such distress and made the article so difficult to read.

Mr. Schulman begins by questioning Tom’s motives for coming out: “Was it a disclaimer? A cop-out? A ploy to hold on to fans? Was he being greedy, as some joked? Or was he, as the video’s blushing tone suggested, simply caught up in the heady disorientation of first love, a place too intoxicating for labels?”

Umm…. Hey! Here’s an idea: could it be that Tom Daley has come out as bisexual because HE IS BISEXUAL? Nah. This is all about “The Great Bisexual Debate”.

Mr. Schulman diligently brought up all the usual biphobic suspects in his article (including Dan Savage, who, upon reading my Salon.com article about coming out as a bisexual man to my wife, sent me a congratulatory tweet on the quality of the article – so Dan has come around. We know that, but he’s still being raked over the coals).

Here are the biphobic elements addressed in the article:

bisexuality doesn’t exist (Hello? I’m here! Call or write for confirmation)

bisexuality is a train stop on the way to homosexuality (I see homosexuality as a train stop to bisexuality – see my last blog post)

people claim to be bisexual for publicity (LOL! As he himself says in the article, bisexuals are popular with neither straight nor gay communities)

it’s a cop-out (I’m too afraid to be seen as gay, so I’ll have everyone dislike me for being bi? Huh?)

bisexuals are greedy (straights and gays greedily hoard all of their prey – bisexuals are the ones who share and share alike)

male sexuality is not as fluid as female, and men cannot be bisexual (brought to you by Andrew Sullivan – who for some reason has the final say in all things about male sexuality – as a gay man.)

Grrr…. These asseverations truly make my blood boil. Thank you for telling me I do not and cannot exist!

To his credit Mr. Schulman does a good job of stirring up every erroneous nugget from the very bottom of the bowl about this “debate.” But I question the value of once again referring to bisexuality as a subject of “debate”.

In reply, I’ve herein written an open letter (along with my book, “Confessions of a Bisexual Husband“, which details the nuances of male bisexuality, and how coming out to my wife saved our marriage) to all the doubters, putting an end to the “non-debate” once and for all:

Dear Mr. Schulman and others,

There is no debate. I stand here before you as an openly bisexual man.

I am in my twentieth year of marriage to my wonderful partner, Lianna. Together we have raised two amazing progeny who are now teenagers. Lianna and I have a robust, highly stimulating and satisfying sex life together. This is a marriage of passion, love, romance and companionship. And still, I have my attraction for men as well. Our relationship is able to accommodate my m2m desires, and both of our desires for a committed, healthy, sustainable love life involving others.

I am not gay. I understand what it means to be gay, as my father is gay – something I’ve known since I was 8 years old, way back in 1970. Yes, I have questioned my sexual orientation. But the one impediment I kept on hitting when I posited that I may be gay is that I love women sexually. Women are by far my primary sexual attraction, and if I had to choose one sex for a desert island existence, it would be a woman – and not just any women: it would be my wife; however, I am attracted to men as well.

My motto is I love women, and like men a lot.

This has nothing to do with greed, and everything to do with desire: for some their desire is focussed on one sex; for others we have a desire for both; there are those with no desire for either, and some with a desire for connection, regardless of biological sex.

What I can see from my own experiences, and by speaking with multitudes of other bisexuals, straights and people of all sexual varieties on a daily basis, is that most people are afraid of identifying as bisexual, despite the fact that they have stepped over the line themselves; that most people have at least a curiosity; that secretly the majority are intrigued.

On a scale of 1 to 100, where 1 is purely straight and 100 purely gay, it is the 1s and 100s who are in the vast minority: most of us reside somewhere in between.

I know many who began in long-term, straight relationships and then ended up in gay relationships (both my father and his “gay” partner for one, and others), and many who have gone the other way as well – from gay to straight. Yet these people do not identify as bisexual. How can that be? If not you, who?

It is typical of those who have jumped the fence to deny what they felt on the other side, desperately wanting to belong to one team or the other, as the in-between land of bisexuality is treacherous indeed, with wrath from either side.

As a bisexual man I spend much of my time wondering how it is those who identify as straight or gay cannot appreciate in some way all that both sexes have to offer. How can that be? It makes no sense.

Therefore it is I who call you into question: you gay and straight ones who hide behind your purported monosexuality, denying your own experience while publicly decrying those of us brave enough to admit our true desires. I have slept with many of you and then watched you slink back to your wife and heteronormative lie, or homosexual lie, as you’ve joined my wife and I and then went back to your “gay” partner.

So I put this to you, my friends of the straight or gay persuasion: it is time for you to stop hiding behind your monosexual identification and come clean about your own amorphous sexual desires; it is time that you step up and admit to the fluidity of your own sexuality; it is time to speak about the doubts and curiosities which plague you while surfing all manner of porn in the wee hours, too frightened to admit publicly that “Yes!” there is something appealing in the human body in all its forms, and there can be erotic excitation with different kinds of people in different configurations and situations, and that “Yes!” I too have bisexual leanings.

I’m available for counselling when you get your head around that!

Bi for now,

Mark