As the party wound down and the mescaline drained from my system--a piddling dose that induced nothing but a wobbly halo around lights and a general sense of having wasted my evening--I sat next to Kay, who was exciting to me as only a college junior can be to a freshman (not so Olympian as the seniors, but still worldly); a sophisticate with a barking laugh and loose morals. I had a deep, agonizing, unreciprocated crush.

Jack, another freshman, sat on the other side of me. He leaned over and whispered loudly in my ear, "Are you going to bed her?"

It took me a moment to realize what he was talking about. "Uhm, no," I responded. "I don't think she wants to."

He leaned over again: "Well, I'll bed you."

At the time I was openly bisexual but had yet to do anything about it beyond a few boy-boy kisses. Mind you, I hadn't done much more with girls; my high-school years were a wasteland of hapless chastity, brought about by a mixture of self-loathing and long, unkempt hair. I looked like a stoner but didn't even drink, leaving me with no social group to call my own. Finally, in my senior year, I went "punk," or as punk as you could go in Cheney, WA, in 1984. I cut my hair, dyed it coppery red, and started dressing hip (by the standards of my time and place). Almost all my fellow "new wavers" were queer or fag hags; since I thought it would be some kind of rebellious blow to the narrow Cheney world, I decided I was bisexual. But though college opened up a whole new world of opportunities, I had yet to fuck anyone.

Abashed by my poor track record as a bisexual, I followed Jack to his dorm room, where we undressed and I put his erect penis into my mouth and sucked on it for a while, and then--he said he never came from blowjobs, but maybe he was being polite--he lay on top of me, gave me some horrendous hickeys, and masturbated until he came on my stomach, at which point he jumped up and grabbed a towel. I never got erect myself, which at the time I blamed on the mescaline.

That night, I proved I could suck cock, I wasn't afraid of his semen, and I had no particular concerns about my masculinity. Logically, I must be bisexual. So I ran around spouting the bisexual party line: "All human beings are fundamentally bisexual and it's only bad, repressive socializing that forces us to choose between het or homo." (As opposed to the insecure straight-guy party line, which goes something like this: "No hetero guy could, like, ever, ever suck cock. I mean, dude!") My ardent bisexual friends and I would point to what behavioral scientists call "situational homosexuality"--straight people placed in a single-sex environment (say, men in prison or girls at boarding school) who begin having sex with people who share their same genitals--as proof of everyone's fundamental bisexuality.

But years later, when I finally got around to putting my dick in another guy's mouth, I had to think about girls to get erect, and even then I had trouble keeping it up. I had to face it: Despite my best efforts, I was not bisexual. Of course, because I sucked cock once, insecure straight guys will no longer accept me as straight. (There's a joke that goes something like, "You make a delicious omelet, no one calls you a chef. But suck one cock....") Some insecure bisexuals refuse to accept me as straight for the same reason, so on this one issue, it seems, frat boys and switch hitters agree.

Why? Why claim me as a bisexual? Why be so annoyingly strident (as I was back in college) about bisexual identity either way--isn't the larger point about tolerance and accepting everyone's individual sexuality? "Situational homosexuality" only demonstrates that people who have no choice will make do with what's available. Human beings are adaptable. But if sexual desire is about anything, it's about what you're drawn to when you do have a choice. And I'm drawn to women.

Why can't bisexuals grow up and leave us monosexuals alone?

Bret Fetzer is a heterosexual who just happens to love theater.