Bisexual Math
Feb. 16th, 2012 03:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rinueThe past few days, I have had several math-based flashes of insight, in which I realize that a phenomenon I have observed over time could also have been predicted in advance if I'd thought the numbers through. I don't know why; I haven't particularly been thinking about math, or even doing sudoku puzzles. I have been counting out loud when I exercise, as a shortcut to warm up my voice before I go on air, but I can't imagine it's related. I've also been listening more, and listening more actively, to music than usual, and more drawn to the piano, but I think this is coincident rather than causal.
My realization today was to do with the fact that I know vastly more straight-identified bisexuals than gay-identified bisexuals. Past explanations I've heard for this have made some assumptions I don't like - mainly that it's easier for bisexuals to conform to social pressure and live hetero, and that if a bisexual is in a gay relationship it's safer for them to identify as gay so as not to be stigmatized from that community after already being left out of a number of hetero traditions. This makes sense, although it's pessimistic, but is contrary to my lived experience; I've known too many straight-identified and gay-identified bisexuals who are vocally bisexual, and I don't think they/we are doing it to be cool, considering it mostly makes us seem uncool and pointlessly non-conformist, and makes people wonder if we're unhappy in our current monogamous relationships, since there's a perception that bisexual equals polyamorous. We do not, in other words, try to pass. Rather the opposite. Which would not make sense if we mostly went straight or hid as gay to avoid social pressures.
The argument usually goes that to be really bisexual you'd have to date a roughly equal number of men and women and have a roughly equal chance of ending up with a man or a woman in the end, and since that doesn't usually happen, most bisexuals are "experimenting" or "spicing things up" but are only serious about one gender. There is a certain amount of bitter lesbian "I've dated a lot of bisexual girls and they all wound up with guys, so I don't date bisexuals now" - and these women are not lying about the number of bisexual girls they've dated who wound up with guys. That's real; it happens.
However, I don't think it happens because bisexual women get out of college and into "the real world" and suddenly realize they wanted men all along. What I think happens is math.
The generally accepted figure is that 9 out of 10 people are straight. That means that even if I'm equally interested in both genders, perfectly 50/50, the share of people I meet who are likely to be attracted to me is 90% heterosexual. Since I'm not dating theoretical people, but real people, that 9 out of 10 is going to be a more significant predictor of my relationships than my no-preference preference. In order to date 50/50, I have to actively seek out environments where the ratio of lesbians is greater than in the general population. Places like theater and visual arts and women's colleges, places where "all those crazy girls go lesbian." If I'd rather train as an engineer or a teacher, I'm out of luck.
Bisexuals exist, is what I'm saying. They're not secretly straight. They're just in a world where most of their choices are.
My realization today was to do with the fact that I know vastly more straight-identified bisexuals than gay-identified bisexuals. Past explanations I've heard for this have made some assumptions I don't like - mainly that it's easier for bisexuals to conform to social pressure and live hetero, and that if a bisexual is in a gay relationship it's safer for them to identify as gay so as not to be stigmatized from that community after already being left out of a number of hetero traditions. This makes sense, although it's pessimistic, but is contrary to my lived experience; I've known too many straight-identified and gay-identified bisexuals who are vocally bisexual, and I don't think they/we are doing it to be cool, considering it mostly makes us seem uncool and pointlessly non-conformist, and makes people wonder if we're unhappy in our current monogamous relationships, since there's a perception that bisexual equals polyamorous. We do not, in other words, try to pass. Rather the opposite. Which would not make sense if we mostly went straight or hid as gay to avoid social pressures.
The argument usually goes that to be really bisexual you'd have to date a roughly equal number of men and women and have a roughly equal chance of ending up with a man or a woman in the end, and since that doesn't usually happen, most bisexuals are "experimenting" or "spicing things up" but are only serious about one gender. There is a certain amount of bitter lesbian "I've dated a lot of bisexual girls and they all wound up with guys, so I don't date bisexuals now" - and these women are not lying about the number of bisexual girls they've dated who wound up with guys. That's real; it happens.
However, I don't think it happens because bisexual women get out of college and into "the real world" and suddenly realize they wanted men all along. What I think happens is math.
The generally accepted figure is that 9 out of 10 people are straight. That means that even if I'm equally interested in both genders, perfectly 50/50, the share of people I meet who are likely to be attracted to me is 90% heterosexual. Since I'm not dating theoretical people, but real people, that 9 out of 10 is going to be a more significant predictor of my relationships than my no-preference preference. In order to date 50/50, I have to actively seek out environments where the ratio of lesbians is greater than in the general population. Places like theater and visual arts and women's colleges, places where "all those crazy girls go lesbian." If I'd rather train as an engineer or a teacher, I'm out of luck.
Bisexuals exist, is what I'm saying. They're not secretly straight. They're just in a world where most of their choices are.
