Can't we just define them as douchebags and leave it at that? Gay, bi, whatever... They're not in my sexual orientation, that's clear.

Seeing they're humans means they're Dan's and Kim's as well. I missed you in sane København, Dan.

If they are married to women, then technically they would be bi, if they ever have sex with those women they are married to. Not that I care to know.

I don't think you're biphobic Dan. You're just an asshole.

The very next line of the actual article you quote?

"Bisexuals are more visible than ever, but our cultural default, the shortcut we take to understand a person, is still: gay or straight?"

Now that's an interesting point, one that we could really have a discussion about. But you should probably just make this about yourself, using one anonymous person's quote as the word of the whole community.

For the record, you already compared bisexual advocates who are tired of being mistrusted to Hinkle et al in your earlier post. Again - not biphobic, just a selfish asshole.

What??? Butthole on Grindr? Did I miss something?

Stop being such a dick Dan. They are hypocrites, can we leave it at that? This is the most trolly post you've ever put up on slog.

Jeez, Dan. I'm one of those non-angry, non-touchy, non-validate-my-identity-now, non-Dan-is-biphobic Bis...but that is a dick move you just pulled.

Well, at least a few of them are positively buy-sexual.

Wonder where Dan picked up the hornet in his undies that precipitated such random bi-baiting?

Speaking of which, Dan seems to have a problem with bisexuals. And since most homophobes turn out to be gay, maybe this is just evidence that Dan Savage is a closeted bisexual. It's OK, Dan. You can come out and we'll all still support you.

I'm a Long-time bisexual reader and fan, and I never thought you were bi-phobic. But seriously, did a porcupine crawl up your ass today? Sure they could be bi-sexual but why point that out in such a "I hate all of you, go away right now" kind of way?

What's dickish about this? It's probably true. Homophobic choicers fear the normalization of sexual behaviors they consider deviant because *they made a choice* to "be normal" as they've defined it.

They feel threatened when once agreed upon definitions of normalcy and deviancy get yanked out from under their own miserable choices, especially when they've had to get their kicks on the down low.

Self loathing bis or self loathing homos: it doesn't make much difference. But in most cases involving conventionally married men, you're probably not dealing with a Kinsey 6.

Few of them will ever self-identify as either gay or bi, and neither "community" is obliged to welcome them. They tend to be sad men who embrace proscriptions against behaviors associated with the parts of themselves they despise.

It's difficult even to label it as "hypocrisy," because it's really more of a psychological disorder, one the APA recognized in 1976 when it reclassified "homosexuality" and recommended any treatment be directed toward self acceptance rather than behavioral modification.

All you Kinsey 2-5s out there: you are most of the population. Stop oppressing yourselves.

Ahaha. Love you, Dan.

Boy, that's a list of names that I wouldn't want to be on. Scuzzballs all.

Jesus Christ, Dan. Give it a rest.

I wonder how many comments a post about bisexual pit bulls would get?

I have a question. Is bisexuality as an orientation based on who you have sex ith or who you "want" to have sex with? For example: is a gay but closeted man who really wants to have sex with men but who is married to and has sex with a woamn, truly bisexual? Same goes for women. I'm not being snarky, I would just like to know. There are all these coming out stories about married people finally living the life they want to.

Ok Dan, me love you long time, but knock it the fuck off.

We get your point. Sometimes, in the flush of identity expression, people get prickly and go too far and cast things in black and white. I'm sure some "bi activist" or other hurt your feelings. But you aren't on the playground any more. Get over it. This post is just nasty and mean.

And you know what, that dude had a good point. Why when we see a man who has public relations with both men and women (such as a married man with kids who has affairs with men) do we immediately go to "self-denying gay" and not to "practicing bisexual"? He could be either, we don't really know until he tells us, but either way is jumping to a conclusion on incomplete evidence.

Gay folks (like me, so I'm officially invoking the Richard Pryor Exemption) like any folks tend to cast others behavior and experience in the light of their own. Just because you were a gay dude who forced yourself to date women doesn't mean that all guys who have sex with men and women are a 17-year-old Dan. That commenter was questioning assumptions commonly held, and that's a good thing. Don't be a dick just because someone was a dick to you once. Don't universalize your experience. In a way it's the mirror image of the rigid activist mindset you lament.

It is true, though, that we tend to be very binary in a multifaceted world.

A commentator on another blog (someone with a history of conservative stances, for what's it's worth), defended this douche by saying that not every guy who experiments with other guys is gay, and that he wasn't necessarily a closeted fag. Leaving aside random situational circumstances (experimenting as a pre-teen, fulfilling a lost bet or dare, etc.), I would venture that essentially none are totally straight, but while some may be closeted gays, there's a bigger chance that most are bisexuals who rounded down.

@18 - I personally would venture that the definition should be based on who you have sexual desires about, regardless who you sleep with. A monogamous bisexual still has desires for both sexes even if he or she only sleeps with one, and would therefore, in my book, still count as a bisexual. A man who is married to a woman but secretly has affairs with other men could either be genuinely bisexual of varying degrees or could be a closeted gay man forcing himself to have sex with women (or at least one woman) to remain closeted, even if he secretly has affairs with other guys -- or even just wants to have affairs with other guys.

In all of the cases that Dan cites, we really don't know whether they're closeted gay men or closeted bi men. Either way, they were hiding their same-sex urges while denouncing those brave enough to live the life they secretly yearned for.

@19 - What's the Richard Pryor Exemption? I must have missed a meme.

Oh grow up Dan. I'm with you when you call people for being overly touchy on the subject of their identities, but this constant harping on the subject would appear to show that you are far from immune from drama queenish behavior. This is trolling, pure and simple. The bi folks who go out of their way to defend you deserve better than this bullshit. Knock it off.

Was this post written by Mudede?

Oh, wait...biphobia. Dan after all, then. Carry on.

@22 You didn't miss it, I just invented it. The Richard Pryor Exemption is what allowed Richard Pryor to make this:
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51…

In other words, the Richard Pryor Exemption is the exemption that allows you to say or express things about groups to which you belong that others outside the group are not allowed to say. For example, when white racists like to complain that that "they use that word themselves", it's because they don't understand the use off the Richard Pryor Exemption. I myself hold Richard Pryor Exemptions for gays, whites, mormons, and Americans. Everyone has some RP Exemption or another that they can play from time to time.

I love you Dan, but on the subject of bisexuals, you're just another ignorant redneck.

After years of reading Savage Love/Slog and weeks of considering giving up that habit, I may be ready to walk away. Thanks for making up my mind for me, Dan.

Not that I think you'll miss me, or any one of your cruelly oppressed bisexual readers who's had enough of your venom.

Dan, what Sa-Spence @19 said.

Dan, consider asking yourself this question before you post: "Am I doing this just to be a dick?"

If the answer is yes, and the target is not a registered republican, consider that there might be better uses of your time.

Oh OK Dan, I guess we'll take your dregs 'cause any other sexuality other than that of exclusively straight or exclusively gay should already be suspect just by its sheer muddling of the true and accepted heirachy of sexual attraction of the rightness and purity of either/or.

Because that's when you know someone's bisexual - when they're cheating on their spouse.

It might be funnier if I didn't get this insinuation flung at my face IRL on a regular basis, you know?

yeah your continued obtuseness on this issue is so stunning, Dan. Did a bi-boy break your heart and leave you for a woman in your youth or something?

I read it the same as @34.

@ 34: the reason it is a crap argument is that Dan is far too willing to kick the hell out of or castigate different realities;
from his fat shaming to the evident bi-phobia... I generally like Dan and his opinions, but when he misfires he should rightly be taken to task.

From where I stand, he is not all too different from the new
state Isreaelies marginalising Palistinians for temporary safety...

Congrats Dan, your stance on bisexuals has been compared to Israeli and Palestinian relations. You should get an award for that.

Wiith that said, you come across as a dick here. Maybe that was your intention, but it's not your beat side. You can't win here, true, but don't hand them more ammunition. In this case, keep yourself above the fray.

@37: I don't easily go to that point, but still as you said, WTF was Dan thinking? Let us just say that Dan has normal human blindspots conditioned by being mostly affluent , white and
male.

Differences sexual wise make for good copy, but no so much when they contradict the accepted gay/straight orthodoxy. Which is sad, for rills.

Dan right or wrong, Dan is always right. Ok got it. Even w/the half apology or whatever that was..

Re: the update.
The point of the post you're lampooning is not to angrily accuse others of bi-phobia for the "crime" of not assuming bisexuality in these homophobic assholes Dan. The point was a reflection on how bi invisibility is reflected in an aspect of sexuality (the closet-case) that many people probably never even considered. I'll readily admit that I have never ever thought "oh, so he's bi" when one of these fuckers gets caught, and that's partly a function of the fact that closeted male bisexuals are in fact invisible. It's analogous to lesbians talking about how whenever gay marriage is discussed the conversation pretty much always assumes a male couple. Of course that's because homophobes react more viscerally to two men, but it also means that lesbians have muuuuuch lower visibility in the community.

Really, I think you saw a post about bisexual visibility and jumped the gun, assuming that you (or people like you) were being berated when it was patently not the case. I understand the feeling that you cannot win (I was totally with you on the bisexual scientific study for instance) but in this case, you got it wrong, I'm afraid.

I agree with Lynx above. It's not that Dan cannot express his frustration at not being able to say anything uncriticizable about bisexuals. He can do that if he wants. But Dan is going way beyond that in this post, both by his tone and by misjudging the intention of the original article he criticizes.

Dan doesn't have to make fun of 'bisexual invisibility' or feel offended when someone mentions that either-or thinking makes people jump to the conclusion of 'pure gayness' when a hypocrite Republican hires a rentboy. Neither thing is meant as an offense against gays, or even against Dan personally. Just as comments on the 'lower visibility of Lesbian couples' like Lynx's above are not necessarily 'against' male gay couples.

On a more practical note: maybe we do need a cover term for 'non-straight', i.e. bi and/or homo, to use when Republican closet cases are outed. Isn't it a bit awkward to replace everywhere "gay" with "gay and/or bi"? Couldn't we, for instance, extend "gay" to mean "either homosexual or bisexual" and invent a new term to mean "exclusively homosexual"?

@43, changing the language is very much an uphill battle and it would be a downright herculean effort to change "Gay" into "Gay or bi". I guess you could use "queer" but that has two downsides; It damages what is supposed to be an affirming inclusive term for progressives and it reinforces the negativity associated with the term "queer" for the less enlightened who still see it as a term like "fag" or "fairy". I think "closet-case" works pretty well and maybe people could try to use that generic term more often than "gay". Still, the entire point of pointing and laughing at these assholes is showcasing their hypocrisy. It's hard to beat "Anti-gay bigot is gay" in terms of brevity and easily digested news.

On a side note, why aren't there any "Anti-gay bigot is lesbian" stories? You do get the occasional laughable "ex-gay" woman, but Schafly has yet to be found getting whipped by a biker-dyke (meant as a compliment!) in a dungeon.

I thought the whole point of the book you love so much (which I have read) is diversity in sexuality in comparison to social mores that deny that diversity.
So just keep telling yourself not to expect much more from Republican or Christian assholes than you would from a Bonobo. Makes total sense!

@34 Spot-on.

Love ya Dan. Hilarious!

Don't let these high-strung, pearl-clutching, easily offended bi phaggots get you down!

Lynx(@44), who said: " It's hard to beat "Anti-gay bigot is gay" in terms of brevity and easily digested news."

Which is the main reason why this "don't contribute to bi invisibility" thing is difficult to solve. Such headlines are doing good work for the visibility of all non-straight people and pointing out hypocrisy in those who fight against them, so it's a good thing.

Perhaps we should embrace the idea that history progresses in small steps. Getting mainstream people to accept even the either-or straight/gay dichotomy as non-threatening is already a step forward, and one that is clearly still far from complete. Introducing bi and a continuum from gay to straight may come later on. Progress isn't all-or-nothing either... even progressive people may still have some unresolved prejudice/dislike/squick (e.g., Dan has a thing against scat fetishists) that will hopefully gradually change in the future.

Bi guy here. I thought the post was funny.

@44 Lynx
Why use a label at all? If a reporter covers a new one of these revelations all they have to do is juxtapose the facts. Let the reader draw the conclusion. I'm guessing that then the label will be "hypocrite" rather than gay or bi. That's the important conclusion.

Oh, and this: I don't care to have this sort of thing be the mechanism of increasing my visibility. I'd rather do that myself in more positive ways.

stop, Stop, STOP!!!

If Dan and the Bi-ables can't make nice, I will borrow the "Grand Poohbah of the Heteros" hat and pronounce: We don't want him either. But then I had a flash that will settle it all:

He's a 'W' lover!

Peace.

@34

"He sounds grouchy because he's frustrated: no matter what he writes, some butt-sore bisexual is going to be offended."

I have never thought Dan to be biphobic. I have shaken my head bemusedly at those who snap at the smallest percieved slight. Hell, I've made fun of them. In my local queer community I have never felt excluded or mistrusted or invisible or whatever for being openly Bi, so I don't think I am carrying around some shoulder-chip. But this headline felt like passive-agression.

"Many of the comments remind me of Rick Santorum--you can dish it out, but you get all butt-sore when you get push back."

Wait what? I think most of the comments in this thread are fairly reasonable. Not a lot of vitriol. Dan tosses out a little jab, individuals respond with a reasonable distaste...and that's like Santorum?

Dan certainly doesn't need to lead the charge for "Bi acceptance"--whatever that is--but this post was disingenuous at best. Why we non-straights gotta be hatin' on each other yo?

Yeah, this post does not thrill, to say the least. Profound "meh". Dan's 1st experience w/ bisexuals, one male, one female, is chronicled in his short story collaboration w/ cartoonist Ellen Forney in her book "I Love Led Zeppelin". They were both pretty flaky, but he's nicer to the guy half of the couple, 'cause they fooled around.

Back to meh.