There is no simple definition of bisexuality because bisexual people are a very diverse group. Some of them tend to monogamous relationship, others may have more than one partner. There are several theories about the different models of bisexual behavior. Thus, there are 13 types of bisexuality based on the sexual desires and experiences. According to Flanders and Hatfield, alternating bisexuals may first have a sexual relationship with a man, and then can choose a woman, and then again return to men. Bisexual on the circumstances are mainly heterosexual, but can choose a partner of the same sex only in those situations where there are no persons of the opposite sex. For example, in prison, in the military or in schools with separate education for boys and girls. Bisexual with simultaneous relationships mainly come into contact with one sex, but may at the same time have random or insignificant relations with persons of the other sex. Bisexual, depending on the conditions, are heterosexual or gay / lesbian, but may come into contact with the other sex for the sake of financial or other purposes. For example, young heterosexual men who become gay prostitutes or lesbians who marry men to be accepted by their families or have a child. Emotional bisexuals may have a personal emotional connection with both men and women, but have intercourse with only one of the sexes. Integrated bisexuals may have multiple connections at the same time, with both men and women. Bisexual researchers are straights or gays / lesbians who come into contact with the other sex to satisfy the curiosity to "see how it happens." Bisexual-hedonists are mainly heterosexuals who come into homosexual only under the influence of drugs and / or alcohol. Isolated bisexuals are currently 100% heterosexual or gay / lesbian, but they had sexual experiences with the other sex in the past. Latent bisexuals have completely heterosexual or gay / lesbian behavior by a strong desire to have sex with the other sex, but that desire is not fulfilled. Motivational bisexuals are straight women who have sexual intercourse with other women because it excites their male partners. And the last type is unstable (transit) bisexuals, who are temporarily identified as bisexual, but are in the process of transition from straight homosexuals and vice versa.
Many of them may not call themselves bisexual, but since they are attracted and have relationships with both men and women, in fact they are. Many bisexuals complain that they feel like outsiders in the world of straight and gay people, that they cannot "integrate" into any of these worlds and because of this; they have the feeling of isolation and confusion. According to Helt, studies have shown that bisexuals suffer from social exclusion even more than gay or lesbian, because they have no "community", where they can find understanding and their role models. Many gay men feel that bisexual men are in fact gay, but they refuse to admit it and must "overcome" themselves. Many heterosexual men are homophobic and hate or fear both bisexual and gay men, often insulting and beating them. Many heterosexual women turn down bisexual men due to incorrect fears about AIDS and convince them to "stop hesitating and make a choice". Bisexual women often cause distrust among lesbians because they "sleep with the enemy", the privileges enjoyed by heterosexual via relationships with men and women betraying feminism. Heterosexual women often reject bisexual women because of fear that they will force them to join with them in a sexual relationship and try to "turn" them in bisexuality.
As can be seen, the straight community and the gay community define themselves by only two possible models of bisexuality, neither of which truly describes bisexual men. The first is a "transit model", in which all bisexuals are considered actually gay or lesbian, who still have not made their decision. Another is a "Pathological Model", which considers bisexuals mentally unstable, as they are in conflict with each other and are not able to solve it. Both models consider bisexuality as a temporary condition, or a phase and not as authentic sexual orientation, such as heterosexuality or homosexuality. Some believe that bisexuality is fatal for nature, since it blurs the boundaries, pushing heterosexuals and gay men and lesbians into sexual ambiguity.
As a result, bisexuality challenges concepts of sexuality, traditional relationships, family structures, monogamy, gender and identity. Bisexuals cannot meet moral principles; otherwise, they would not have been bisexual. Instead, they must re-establish their lives and relationships that would meet their needs, even though they will not fit no one's rules. Some researchers say that bisexuals are reminiscent of representatives of mixed race. People who belong to this group do not usually feel comfortable and are not accepted by representatives of any of the races. According to Helt, they feel they do not belong to any group and cannot "integrate" to any group, since their very existence challenges the concept of race and they also spend most of the life as bisexual in "move" from one community to another, each of which no one understands and accepts them completely. Like these people, bisexuals have to fight for finding their own identity, which would correspond to their personal experience. Formation of bisexual identity helps to find meaning and to define their reality.
Stages of bisexual identity. There are at least four steps or stages to achieve full awareness and tranquility with their identity for most bisexuals. Most bisexual people begin to experience a sense of confusion about their attraction to persons of both sexes. They try to understand their nature, and ask "Maybe something is wrong with me?" Some of them linger on this point throughout their lives, hiding their sexual orientation, in isolation and loneliness due to internal confusion with the "dual drive". Many live, identifying themselves as heterosexual or gay / lesbian, to be accepted and reconciled with their sexual orientation. Because their own experience does not match any community, they feel a strong inner tension with the choice of one orientation and identity, associated with it. They try to create their own world without proper words and an appropriate role model or prominent community. Bisexuals have to have enough self-confidence and faith in their own identity in order to overcome this stage eventually. Almost all bisexuals admit that the opening of the label "bisexual" was decisive in the understanding and acceptance of their sexual orientation. Most feel a great relief, the first time they hear the word "bisexual" because, finally, they find a word that reflects their experience and feelings. Some negative stereotypes associated with the bisexual - promiscuous, undefined, neurotic or a carrier of AIDS - become an obstacle to identifying themselves with that label or to applying it to themselves, but most agree that it is the word which best describes their sexual orientation. Many bisexuals invent their own definitions and create a bisexual lifestyle that suits them rather than reject the label.
For many bisexuals, this stage is the most difficult. Intellectually, they understand that it is okay to be bisexual but emotionally they are experiencing violent conflict, living in the real world as bisexual. Often, family and friends despise and reject them, they are also rejected by spouses or potential partner because of their bisexuality, they discover that to realize and maintain a bisexual identity requires inner strength, confidence, courage and independence. Many overcome this barrier, forming their own communities to find suitable friends and lovers, and expressing its orientation, without fear of consequences. For most bisexuals, "coming out" and staying that way is an ongoing process that should be repeated in every new social situation, on each new job, new friends and lovers. Many see this process as the most important form of political action that creates a visible role models and cohesive bisexual community. Due to the fact, that many bisexuals suffer from loneliness and silence during the passage of the first three stages, they want others bisexuals to recognize themselves more easily and took their sexual orientation without spending years of inner turmoil and loneliness. Many also come to bisexual political organizations that becomes a way of removing the light bisexuality and its promotion as a viable orientation. Just as gays and lesbians have been able to achieve some of the rights through the struggle for social and political arenas, bisexuals can achieve political and human rights only after the "coming out" and creating a political force.
Unlike homosexuality, which has been extensively studied over the last 15 years, one should pay attention to bisexuality. It is difficult to estimate the prevalence of this phenomenon in our society today. Many researchers of bisexuality believe that 9% of single women 30 years old and 16% of men of the same age are located between 2 and 4 on a scale of heterosexuality - homosexuality. However, these figures probably overestimate the percentage of active bisexual in American society, which actually are below (if we define it according to the frequency of sexual activity with male and female partners in the past year). This is partly confirmed by recently published data, according to which “only about 2% of married adults Americans reported about sex with men in the previous year. The lack of reliable data on the spread of bisexuality is confirmed by a survey conducted recently by psychiatrists: approximately 5% of the experts evaluated both specialties of bisexual frequency below 1%, while more than 25% of psychiatrists and 36% rated it as 11% or more”. The former president of the American Union of Psychiatrists Fritz Klein noted: “Some deny the existence of bisexuality, and believe that all bisexuals - it's actually a secret homosexual, heterosexual hidden behind the facade. Against the objections of those who say that all people are bisexual by nature, but the initial alternative impulses are suppressed them or society (heterosexuals), or certain early experiences (homosexuals)”.
At the end of 1970, bisexuality has become fashionable: it was considered a sign of sexual sophistication and open-mindedness. But by the mid-1980s, bisexuality definitely become less fashionable due to its obvious connection with AIDS. In fact, many men who first from time to time "dabbled" with homosexuality (continuing to predominantly heterosexual lifestyle), for fear of contracting the AIDS virus, stopped their bisexual activity. However, it had no effect on bisexual women, confirming the view that homosexual women, apparently, should not be considered a serious way to the spread of AIDS, although they can participate in the transmission of HIV theoretically. People come to bisexuality in different ways. For many, this kind of experimentation adds spice to their sex life, but it does not become the main form. For others it is a free choice of activity, the most attractive now. Some men and women varied in choice of sexual partners, depending on the circumstances. However, regardless of all this, bisexuality gives a clear preference for one sex in most cases. Some bisexuals react differently to different sex partners, and to a less attractive partner for the bisexual sex could cause a physical stimulation, requires specific conditions. For example, a man with a predominantly heterosexual orientation may participate in bisexual acts only with the participation of two partners - the other men and women. In another case, a woman predominantly of homosexual orientation could have sex with a man, after having taken a large dose of cocaine.
Masters and Johnson described a subset of bisexual men, which they called ambisexuals: it is a man or a woman, which are completely indifferent to the sex of the partners, never enter into a firm bond and have frequent sex with both men and women. Personality and physical attractiveness of the potential partner has little effect on their choice. There are cases when bisexuals maintained long-term heterosexual relationship and then entered into long-term relationship with a homosexual (or vice versa). After such an experience, a person may have new perspectives on traditional ideas, limiting the choice of sexual partners. In other cases, the latest manifestation of homosexuality in bisexual may be due to recovery after a long illness (such as alcoholism), which blocked or masked homosexual potential. In the study of women's bisexuality, it was found that some women, who called themselves bisexual, had different emotional needs, some of which could be better (or exclusively) to meet the men, and others - women. The same explanation can be heard by bisexual men, but the latter is much more likely to explain their sexual life style by the need for diversity. Some bisexuals engaging in sexual relations with both men and women try to prove the equality of the sexes. The desire to experiment can lead to sexual relations between close friends, two male friends and even between a gay and a woman who are in a friendship. Another way to bisexuality is through experimenting group sex; while the men start to any group activity, women often prefer to have sex with each other. Finally, some people have created for themselves a kind of philosophy of bisexuality as one of the branches of their personal belief systems. For example, some women's movement activists have concluded that they were getting closer to other women because of the overall work and that closeness is sexual expression. However, this is in fact may be a subtle form of coercion.
In psychoanalysis, the term "bisexuality" was used by Freud in the context of human understanding of psychosexual development. His appeal to the issue of bisexuality took place in the late 19th - early 20th centuries and was associated with the Berlin physician Wilhelm Fliess (1858-1928), with whom Freud was in close friendship during the period from 1887 to 1902 and who considered bisexuality as biologically predetermined universal phenomenon. In 1897, during their meeting in Breslau, Fliess expressed to Freud his idea that every living cell was a bisexual nature and all human beings were of bisexual constitution. Freud did not accept this idea, but three years later, he turned to it and even offered to Fliess to write work together on the issue of bisexuality: it was assumed that Fliess would present an anatomical and biological substantiation of bisexuality, and Freud - clinical evidence of it. However Fliess did not support this proposal, and soon they had to leave.
In 1903, the Viennese physician Otto Weininger published the book "Sex and Character", which outlined his views on bisexuality. He was on friendly terms with the philosopher G. Svoboda, who was undergoing treatment by Freud. In 1900, during the analysis of Svoboda, Freud mentioned about bisexuality as a universal phenomenon. Fliess was offended by the fact that the fault of Freud's discovery of his bisexuality without his knowledge became the property of Svoboda and O. Weininger, whom he accused of plagiarism. This incident put an end to the friendship and cooperation between Freud and Fliess. In "Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality" (1905), Freud considered the issue of bisexuality in terms of the normal and perverse, perverted sexual behavior. He stressed that in contrast to the conventional wisdom, according to which a person can be either a man or a woman, there were cases where sexual characteristics appeared to be blurred, resulting in the definition of sex from an anatomical point of view. Such persons combine male and female genitals signs, which is hermaphroditism (in the ancient Greek myth of Hermaphrodite - a bisexual creature). “Androgyny may be true when one's sexual organ is developed, along with others, or a manifestation of ugliness”. For Freud, remarkable about these abnormalities was that they facilitate the understanding of normal education, "a certain degree of anatomical hermaphroditism belongs to normal; each normally arranged by a male or female individuals have the rudiments of the apparatus of the opposite sex, save as rudimentary organs without functions or convert and taking over other functions." Known anatomical facts give reason for admission of "original bisexual predisposition, rolling over the development of monosexuality with minor remnants of the other sex."
However, in the field of biology, a look at bisexuality was moved to the mental area. Inversion (sexual orientation, in which preference is given to persons of the same sex) has been regarded by some doctors as a "psychic hermaphroditism" in its various forms. However, according to Freud, the relationship between the anatomical and psychological androgyny is not as close as it sometimes seems. Soon, scientists recognized that there was really no coincidence inversion with physical and mental signs of hermaphroditism, and that inversion and somatic hermaphroditism were independent of each other. Thus, the replacement of mental problems is anatomical, according to Freud, is equally senseless and unjustified. Considering the problem of bisexuality, the founder of psychoanalysis relied on precursors, while referring to this issue. In particular, he noted that E. Gley was the first who appealed to bisexuality at explaining the inversion in 1884. In "Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality," Freud also mentioned the name Fliess, who, by his own admission, stressed quite rightly that "the experimental tests "do not invalidate the general doctrine of innate bisexual predisposition of higher animals." Freud proceeded from the fact that, without paying tribute to bisexuality, it was difficult and even impossible to understand the sexual manifestations of men and women. Although the concept of "male" and "female" seem unambiguous, however in science, they are among the confused and uncertain. These concepts can be explained, as Freud believed, at least by three points of view: biological (the male and female are characterized by physical, bodily differences); psychological (male and female as an analogue of "active" and "passive"); sociological (observations of real-life men and women show that neither biologically are nor psychologically no clean masculinity or femininity, and that there is a mixture of its biological characteristics and biological characteristics of the other sex and the connection active and passive in every person). For psychoanalysis, the most important is the psychological point of view with its emphasis on activity and passivity in relation to the understanding of male and female.
In his various works, Freud repeatedly appealed to the discussion on the relations between displacement and sexual desire, male and female, active and passive, in order to clarify the understanding of bisexuality in psychoanalysis. He made corrections, adjustments and refinements in its interpretation of the repressed, primary drives, male and female, as it became clear that the phenomenon of sadism and masochism require interpretation in light of psychoanalysis, and that in some cases, a woman may be less active than men and a man - more passive than a woman may. For example, in "Child beaten": the question of the origin of sexual perversion "(1919) Freud criticized the two theories, explaining his attitude to the displacement of sexual desire. One of these theories belongs to Fliess, it relied on bisexual rights; and the constitution was based on the assertion that motivated acts of repression struggle between androgynous sexuality. The core of the repressed unconscious in man is there is there anti-sexual, that is, a man is reduced to the repressed unconscious women's instinctive impulses, a woman - on the contrary. Another theory belonged to the founder of individual psychology A. Adler (1870-1937), who nominated the idea of "masculine protest" and considered the struggle between the sexes as a decisive factor of repression. The difference between them lay in the fact that Flies based on biological data, and A. Adler – on sociological facts. A common feature of both theories is, according to Freud, "sexualization of the process of repression." Unlike similar representations, psychoanalytic theory insists that "the motives of displacement cannot be sexualized" and it that forms the core of the unconscious "archaic heritage of man."
Bibliography
Boyer, C. Reyn, and M. Paz Galupo. "Attitudes Toward Individuals in Same-Sex and Cross-Sex Encounters: Implications for Bisexuality." Journal Of Bisexuality 15, no. 1 (January 2015): 57-58.
Flanders, Corey Elizabeth, and Elaine Hatfield. "Social perception of bisexuality." Psychology & Sexuality 5, no. 3 (July 2014).
Fuhrmann, Hollie J., and Eric R. Buhi. "Masters and Johnson's Sex Research and Sex Therapy Program: A Critical Appraisal From Down Under: A Review of: “Sex Research and Sex Therapy: A Sociological Analysis of Masters and Johnson. By Ross Morrow.”." Journal Of Sex Research 46, no. 5 (September 2009).
Helt, Brenda S. "Passionate Debates on "Odious Subjects": Bisexuality and Woolf's Opposition to Theories of Androgyny and Sexual Identity." Twentieth Century Literature 56, no. 2 (Summer 2010).
Storr, Merl. "Bisexuality: a Critical Reader." London: Routledge (2002): Internet resource.
