Bisexuality - Is It a Temporary Spectrum?

Introduction

Bisexuality is defined by the American Psychological Association (APA) as an identity of attraction to several gender or sexual identities. Someone identifying as bisexual may feel sexual or romantic desire, while an emotional connection to several genders or sexual identities may also indicate bisexuality. Of course, having several attractions is also a sign of bisexuality. Those who identify as bisexual comprise the largest group of the three identities within the lesbian, gay, and bisexual populations. However, although bisexual people constitute the largest of the three most well-known sexual and gender identity groups, there are several misunderstandings about bisexuality and stigmatized impositions such as bi-negativity, bi-erasure, and bi-invisibility.

What Are the Myths and Facts About Bisexuality?

• Sexuality exists on a scale. It is not fixed but can change over time and vary endlessly across people.

• They cannot squeeze their sexuality into tidy little boxes that define them and what they are. Bisexuality does not exist in reality; it is a myth.

• People who identify as bisexual are going through a phase, confused or unsure. They will eventually come to terms with whether they are gay or straight.

• Some people go through a phase of bisexuality before embracing a lesbian, gay, or heterosexual identity. For many others, bisexuality is a lifelong orientation.

• Homosexuality was a transitory period for several bisexuals when they came out as bisexuals.

• Many bisexuals may feel perplexed, living in a culture where homosexuals and heterosexuals reject their sexuality, yet this perplexity results from oppression.

• The term "fence-sitting" is misleading; there is no "fence" between homosexuality and heterosexuality other than in the thoughts of those who firmly separate the two.

• Whether a person is experimentally heterosexual or bisexual is determined by how they identify themselves rather than by some external norm.

• While there are people for whom bisexual behavior is fashionable, this does not diminish the people who come to a bisexual identity through suffering and confusion and proudly declare it. Bisexuality is an accepted sexual orientation.

• Many bisexuals are entirely out of the closet, but not on the terms of the lesbian/gay community. It is important to emphasize that many lesbians and homosexual men are still in the closet, and their process is primarily accepted.

• It is also worth mentioning that the lesbian or gay group whose "terms" are in dispute here has historically been white and middle-class.

• Bisexuals in this country share the crippling experience of heterosexism (the idea that everyone is heterosexual, rendering alternative sexual identities abnormal or invisible) and homophobia (the hate, fear, and prejudice towards homosexuals) with lesbians and gays.

What Causes People to Have Varied Sexual Orientations?

It is unclear what causes people to have distinct sexual orientations. They do know that biology is essential. Most experts think that sexual orientation is something that people are born with rather than something they select. They know that heredity significantly impacts what individuals are drawn to. If a person is not straight, they are likely to have relatives who are not either. Sexual orientation, like romantic attraction, occurs on a scale. Bisexuality is assumed to be caused by comparable causes to being gay or lesbian, just as there are biological reasons that lead people to be straight.

Bisexual people are sometimes mixed with the gay or lesbian categories or excluded from research. Perhaps there will be a more concrete explanation for bisexuality eventually. Someone who identifies as bisexual is drawn to people of both sexes. This frequently implies being attracted to both men and women. Bisexuality may exist in both men and women. Someone who is bisexual does not have to be equally interested in men and women but may prefer men over women or women over men. Bisexuality is frequently contrasted to homosexuality or lesbianism. A homosexual guy is often a male who is attracted to other men. A woman who identifies as a lesbian is usually a woman who is attracted to other women. Someone who identifies as straight is frequently drawn to people of a different sex than themselves (for example, a man attracted to a woman or a woman attracted to a man).

If DNA Is Involved in Sexual Orientation?

While scientists are unsure which genes are associated with sexuality, it is evident that DNA has a role. According to research, LGB men and women have more LGB siblings than straight men and women. They also discovered that LGB people have more LGB relatives, aunts, and uncles. Twins are an excellent tool to investigate how much heredity impacts sexual orientation. Identical twins have identical genes. If sexual orientation were solely hereditary, all identical twins would have the same sexual orientation. If environmental influences are considered, they may have distinct sexual orientations.

Is Bisexuality Inherited or Acquired?

• All patterns of bisexual behavior appear to be attributed to heterosexuality, homosexuality, or perverse developments, whether bisexuality is considered transient, a transitional phenomenon, or a protective form of sexuality.

• According to this viewpoint, there are no bisexuals, just "pseudo-bisexuals," monosexuals, or perverted males who, briefly or for a longer time, behave bisexually.

• However, neither the premise of a homosexual or heterosexual sexual orientation dichotomy nor the generalization of the defensive bisexuality theory appears experimentally supported.

• Thus, what seems clinically defensive about bisexuality may manifest a dilemma over homosexuality.

• At least for some of the guys who have had this experience, the difficulty is accepting the gay part of their bisexual composition.

• The belief that bisexuals are differentiated by a certain degree of flexibility is commonly associated with the short-sighted idea that bisexuality is a freely chosen choice.

• This image can arise because, when observed from the outside, bisexuals have a broader range of options for forming their sexual relationships than monosexuals.

• This is correct, at least on the assumption that they are not only aware of their bisexuality but practice it.

• Suppose they have satisfying sexual interactions with both men and women. In that case, they are flexible in that they can live monosexually for short periods without giving up their bisexual choice.

• However, this does not imply that the bisexual orientation was voluntarily chosen. It is not a personal preference.

Conclusion

Bisexuality, or the contemporary form of bisexuality, is wholly the result of a social construction process, as constructionism asserts. Bisexuality appears to be determined to a greater extent by the constructive activity of the individuals involved than the already established forms of homosexuality, and above all, as that broad rest of sexual reality, defined through the criterion of non-deviation from the so-called normal, which has not risen to differentiated sexual constructs and will continue to be included under the residual category for the time being.