Kagan MacTane (he/him)
"Why do so many bisexuals end up with opposite-sex partners?"
The subtext seems to be: "Aren't they just straight but trying to seem cool?", and I'm 😒 AF at that subtext... which is why I'm going to *take it seriously* and really analyze it. 🧵 1/x
#bisexuality #BisexualAwarenessWeek #biphobia #BiVisibility #bisexual #LGBTQ
Kagan MacTane (he/him)
In recent surveys, we find roughly 3% of the population identifying as gay or lesbian, and about 5% as bisexual. (https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/06/23/5-key-findings-about-lgbtq-americans/; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_demographics_of_the_United_States#2023) The numbers have been climbing steadily for a long time, but bisexuals have been a similarly large proportion (roughly 55-65% of the LGBTQ community) for the whole time. 2/4
Kagan MacTane (he/him)
So let's convert that into a sample 1000-person population. We'll stick with a strict gender binary as well, to simplify things a lot. And we'll assume a 50-50 gender split, again just to make the math easier.
So we have 500 women, 15 of whom are lesbians and 25 of whom are bi, and and 500 men, 15 gay and 25 bi. The other 460 men and 460 women are straight. 3/4
Kagan MacTane (he/him)
So if I, a bisexual man, look at this as a potential dating pool, I see 40 men who might be interested in me... and 485 women who might.
40 times 12 is 480.
Based on simple math, we would statistically *expect* to see bisexuals wind up with same-sex partners about once in *every 13 pairings*.
The fact that we find same-sex partners as often as we do is testament to the fact that we're really, truly looking for them.
(IOW, fuck you, we're not straight or pretending.) 4/4
Lintra
@kagan as a bi woman married to a straight man I also have to attribute some of the result to patriarchy making it so much easier to meet an opposite gender partner. And then there are the ones like me who got married at 19 and didn't yet even know they were bi.
sortius
@kagan this is literally my 44 years of bi life.
"Oh, you've got kids, had a woman partner for 16 years, you're not bi".
No, I fucking am, and have known I was since I was 14 and in bed with a girl and a guy, and having the time of my life
Ben Evans
@kagan I reject the entire premise of the question. Every serious relationship I've been in has been with ... other bisexuals. (There's one person from my teens that I'm not sure how they would identify now, but apart from that it's all of them). In my circles that is not unusual. Bisexuals date other bisexuals a lot.
If other people want to make assumptions based on the gender presentation of the folk I'm dating, then that is scarcely my problem.
𝚆𝚒𝚕𝚕 :mastodon:
@kagan In my case, it's because I wasn't ready to face that part of myself until after I was already married and my spouse has been nothing but supportive. We're now exploring polyamory and falling more in love with each other all the time. I'm so happy to live in a world that is steadily, despite the battle-cries of the narrow minded, waking up to the ways we can, and SHOULD love one another.
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