Bisexual men and the question of visibility

Bisexuality, meaning attraction to more than one gender, is one of the commonly reported sexual orientations. Even so, bisexual men have often found their identity questioned. The argument has played out partly in laboratories and partly in daily conversation, where bisexual men have sometimes been called undecided, in transition or in hiding.

Two moments from Chicago and Toronto show how that argument travelled from academic journals into community health work in Canada.

A question that kept returning

An early study from a Chicago university measured physical arousal in men and reported that bisexual arousal was not evident in its sample. Some commentators read that as support for an old claim: that men who call themselves bisexual are really gay men not yet ready to say so.

A later study from the same institution reached a different result. With a more carefully recruited group, the researchers found that some men did respond to both male and female stimuli. Many observers saw the finding as stating the obvious, while others pointed out that a measured result still counted for something in a field that has often treated self-description with suspicion.

What arousal tests leave out

Studies of this type record bodily responses while participants view images. Critics, including some bisexual writers, note that a reaction to a picture is only one piece of orientation. Romantic attachment, identity, community ties and life history fall outside the test. Bisexual identity also does not depend on how many partners of each gender a person has had.

Bisexual commentators have often described feeling asked to prove an orientation that other people are seldom asked to prove.

Biphobia and erasure

Two terms recur in the discussion. Biphobia means prejudice or hostility toward bisexual people, and it can come from heterosexual people as well as from lesbian and gay communities. Bisexual erasure describes the habit of explaining bisexuality away, for instance by calling it a phase or by assuming a person is gay or straight depending on the gender of a current partner.

Health researchers have linked this stigma to poorer reported mental health among bisexual people than among some other groups, which is one reason the subject has drawn public health attention.

A Toronto poster campaign

A Toronto research team called Re:searching for LGBT Health joined the agency Rainbow Health Ontario to launch an anti-stigma poster series about biphobia in LGBT communities and the health sector. Four posters each focused on a group within the bisexual population: youth, parents, trans people and people of colour. A survey on bisexual mental health was launched at around the same time. The launch came shortly before Celebrate Bisexuality Day, observed every September 23.

The campaign is cited as a historical example, not a description of current programs. It shows how advocacy groups in Canada have treated bisexual visibility as a health and community matter, not only a question of definitions.