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The Sex Lives of Other Americans...

By Matthew Storey





'Who would give a law to lovers? Love is unto itself a higher law.'

Boethius, 'The Consolation of Philosophy', 524 AD

'You little slut'

John William Hines, Husband, affectionately, to Wife in Fort Worth, Texas Trailer Park

'If a guy's wife ISN'T a slut...he's gonna be needing a new wife'

LaHoma Hines - Wife, in response

'I hate to quote Andrew Dice Clay, but I completely agree with him on this one; "There is no bisexual, either you suck Cock or you do NOT suck Cock." By the way, I'm gay too.'

Gay Man 'Bronco69' in Bisexuality Forum, Online

'I'm not a TV anchor babe. I'm a big lesbian who looks like a man'

Rachel Maddow, MSNBC

'Drag is when a man wears everything a lesbian won't.'

Author Unknown

'... by the time I get through with all the things that I really admire about people, what they do with their private parts is probably so low on the list that it is irrelevant.'

Paul Newman

'One should no more deplore homosexuality than left-handedness.'

Towards a Quaker View of Sex

'Wouldn't it be great if you could only get AIDS from giving money to television preachers?'

Elayne Boosler

'Trust a nitwit society like this one to think that there are only two categories - fag and straight.'

Gore Vidal

'The world is not divided into sheeps and goats. Not all things are black nor all things white. It is a fundamental of taxonomy that nature rarely deals with discrete categories. Only the human mind invents categories and tries to force facts into separated pigeon-holes. The living world is a continuum in each and every one of its aspects. The sooner we learn this concerning sexual behavior the sooner we shall reach a sound understanding of the realities of sex.'

Alfred Kinsey, 'Sexual Behavior in the Human Male', 1948

'Bisexuality is a blessing and a curse, but viewing it as a schizophrenia will make you insane.... I am not a whole person with split desires: I am a whole person with desire. As everyone is, regardless.'

Agavé Powers

'Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself.'

Harvey Fierstein

'There is just one life for each of us: our own.'

Euripides

'Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.'

Dr. Seuss

'The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.'

Friedrich Nietzsche





I've written parts of this column in other forums, and been mulling this particular one over the past few weeks...on the one hand, there is SO much to say about this topic, and on the other - I don't believe there is really much to say at all. That is why the quotes I've included are, for the most part, truisms that apply to every aspect of a person's identity, INCLUDING one's sexuality.

Human Beings are assembled 'a la carte' ('according to the menu'), which is to say that one's eye color, skin color, dominant hand, gender and sexual preferences cannot be ascertained through the knowledge of the other elements. Seeing an order of French Fries does not logically lead to an assumption it is part of 'Combo Meal #5', the odds may say it came with a Hamburger, but that will only make you wrong every time it didn't. You shouldn't 'play the odds' with other people's identity, anything they need you to know - they will tell you.

Unfortunately, in America of 2009, the Digital Age has had a counter-intuitive impact. Surrounded, instantaneously, with more Data than at any other time in Human history, the trend has moved NOT towards in-depth analysis and 'long form' thinking, as one might have surmised. Rather it has resulted in an America that admires quick determinations, choosing to process the deluge efficiently, if not accurately or well understood. As with every trend, we see it reflected in our culture...on TV, 'The Mentalist' processes body-language and circumstantial clues to make sweeping determinations in an eye-blink...the show is such a hit, it has inspired a copy-cat - 'Lie to Me', wherein a guy with a Robert Conrad like Battery on his shoulder (does anyone still get that archaic reference?) DARES people to disguise their true selves from his all-knowing knowledge of humanity.





At the same time, in a political climate that has evolved into three camps;
The screeching right, embodied by the feudalists, FOX, Rush, the Gun nuts, the Holy Rollers and the bigots...

The nanny left, represented by MSNBC, the Anti-War crusaders, the Anti-Capitalist crusaders, the ELF, ALF, PETA, Act-Up...

The undefined middle, whose 135 Million voices require subtlety and nuance to be understood, which, as indicated, takes too much time.

The result of which, even the network that could be loosely defined as being in the 'middle' (CNN) actually does not discuss most topics from that perspective, but simply brings on screechers and nannies to DEBATE.

John Kerry discovered how little interest Americans have in a discussion that does not break down into ONE or ANOTHER point of view. Barack Obama, has thus far managed, brilliantly, to allow others to interpret him according to their own fantasies and then, having gained their trust without deceit, precedes to do what he believes is right - often conflicting DIRECTLY with those fantasies. It is why you will hear people say all the time 'I feel betrayed' when he leans one way or the other, not because of what he SAID, but because of what they INTUITED to be what he 'meant'.





For Americans, Sex, like Race, Faith and Money is one of the 'Four Assumptions of the Apocalypse'. Which is to say that these issues, none of which is the least bit complicated, have so been hijacked by polarized positions of flawed conventional wisdom that truth becomes impossible, lest society be forced to abandon the roles we've played since OJ.

The 'Red' Team and the 'Blue' Team. 'They' believe this, 'We' believe that.

Only there is NO SUCH THING as 'Teams', we are not a nation of groupings, no matter how hard some would wish it to be so. There is no 'Straight' team or 'Gay' team, Democrats and Republicans do not break down neatly into categorical separation, some women like Hillary, others Sarah, still others Barack...there is no 'female' view, 'black' view or 'Catholic' view.

'There aint no good guy, there aint no bad guy, there's only you and me and we just disagree'

Dave Mason

Or agree! The point is we are all individuals and ALL assembled from a different batter.

As always, my basic approach is always to identify my own biases and to provide auto-biographical detail that fleshes them out. Given the topic area - this is NOT designed to tittilate OR offend, if sexual frankness and BLUNT honesty are difficult for you - hit that 'X' up top and go in peace. Furthermore, I speak about my OWN sexuality to be understood, not from a sense of obligation - because as far as I believe, none exists.

My most fervent belief is the only sex life one should venture an opinion upon is one's own.

Going Both Ways

Guru is an 'Out' Bisexual.

If he was in the 'Watchmen', he'd be all over Silk Spectre AND Dr. Manhattan and he'd look hot in the Spandex to both of them. He engages in 3 dimensional Emotional and Sexual relationships with women, as a man and enjoys role playing in a feminine, submissive role with men, typically brief and anonymously. Ideally with my female lover involved in our play. When I was younger, the women I loved were able to identify with my sexuality, enjoying both my masculine and feminine selves, as I got older, it became harder and harder to find a straight or bisexual woman who wasn't turned-off by it.





The world got more conservative, just as it did in regard to the body conscious clothing this former Stripper prefers...being a Bi Male and being a Male who shows off his ass became about as 'Out' as they could be. Kinda of a drag, when that's YOUR thing! Guru is a serious ballplayer and knew who he was sexually when he was 14, by the time I was 16, I was a dominant talent in the Men's League where I used to play. Dealing with a mouthy kid wearing skin-tight outfits that showed off his body and bludgeoned your team on the field, all the while shaking it and talking smack was a challenge for many of the boy-boys in the league. One guy always derisively called me 'Pretty Boy' and damn if I didn't hit more L-O-N-G Home Runs against his team than any other...nothing in the WORLD beats shaking your hot ass as you S-L-O-W-L-Y trot around his Third Base position on into the knowing/laughing/loving arms of your hot Girlfriend waiting on the bench.

How you like me now, Richie?

Being Bisexual has echoes of being Mulatto in the America we've just described. If everybody can be broken down into 'teams', how to think about those who, by definition, cannot be?

When confronted with the REALITY of a mixed-race son of a Kenyan Father and White Kansas Mother, a collective decision was made to reframe the candidate's identity in terms of what could be easily identified in his look. He became America's first 'Black' President.

Faced with the REALITY of a Mulatto teammate, when seeking to claim racism in Yankees management, baseball player, Gary Sheffield, claimed that Derek Jeter remained favored because he 'was not really Black'. Derek, of course, has the same White Mother/Black Father mix as Barack.

For whatever reason, it is necessary that his blackness, or insufficient blackness, be his identity. Even though that is NOT his identity.

As a Bisexual, you learn pretty quickly that the Right is repulsed by those elements that are homosexual and the Left demonizes you for being insufficiently so!

On the Right, Flamboyant Homosexuality is Society's indication of dysfunction and Flamboyant Heterosexuality is a sign of vigorous good health. On the Left, Flamboyant Homosexuality is a vigorously championed right of expression and Flamboyant Heterosexuality?

Society's indication of dysfunction!





Only stop me if I say something that isn't true.

Bisexuality is the ONLY topic known to unite the positions of Neanderthal Mysogynyst Andrew Dice Clay with those of Politically Active Feminists. Where 'Dice' says 'you either suck cock or you don't' in his disavowal of Bisexual EXISTENCE, the Feminist lobby decries the closeted armies of Bi-Men who go off to play their 'Down-Low' games before making it home to wife or girlfriend. In this conception, on the Right, a person who DOES Suck Cock cannot claim to also Lick Pussy (and, it should be noted, millions of bi men do NOT like cock and millions of straight men do NOT lick pussy!). On the Left, a man who claims to be Bisexual is an insufficiently brave Gay man, whose unwillingness to declare boldly for the 'Team' deprives the cause of needed advocates.

What both fail to grasp is that Bisexual men use the closet NOT because they like cock (or having their cock handled by other men, dressed as women or not) - that does not come as a source of conflict for the overwhelming majority of bisexual men, but rather because they like PUSSY. A man who is openly Bisexual becomes a dual pariah, to Gay and Straight alike - and, upon declaration, seriously undermines his ability to 'get any'. Guru is still a hottie, although an older one, and women are as scarce in my life as is hair. NOT because I don't love them as much as I ever did.

The result? Instead of being a Bisexual, getting off on both sides of the gender line, I've been living the one lifestyle that nobody on the sexual continuum wishes to play...

The Involuntary Celibate!





Is that Bisexual man more dishonest than the woman he is dating, who has had sex with multiple men herself, not revealing those details to HER partner? Debatable. Is that the way the issue is framed - as having roughly equal merits on either side?

Please.

Disease. Violence. Economics.

Those are not issues that have to do with Sexuality.

In cases when any of them IS what is going on, then Sex is not the reason. Disease prevention is a HEALTH issue and an EDUCATION issue, period. Violence towards or coercion of the unwilling is a criminal issue requiring law enforcement.

Economics were originally the driving force behind much of the Women's Liberation Movement, as women sought to decouple their lives in the bedroom from their assigned roles in society. Go back and read the letters section from an early '70s Womens magazine or 'My Secret Garden' , the groundbreaking compilation of Women's Sexual fantasies from that same period. What you will hear is long-form, whereas those same publications today will publish a half dozen letters of a paragraph or less on a single page, these women write in detail and nuance, feeling their way around their newfound freedom, embracing whatever they are aroused by, not shying from the destination because they refuse to be defined externally.

What you will NOT find, in the hundreds of stories, is a sense of economic entitlement or extension of the sexual realm into the cultural. These were women who were FLEEING from those sorts of entanglements and they were the women that I learned from, understood and prepared to love on.

By the time I was a man, they were also a dwindling resource as Reaganite '50s Fantasies created new hybrids of female expectation and a new generation of feminists, never having known economic subjugation adopted formerly male senses of personal identification with their economic circumstance and looked at everything, including their sexual partnerships, with that lens in mind.

Sex is not love. Sex is how you make yourself cum. Sex with yourself is still Sex. Sex with a partner when you DON'T cum is still sex (because I am guessing you will make yourself cum later, you sly devil!).

It takes courage to come out. That is a DIFFERENT courage for Bisexuals than it is for Gays or Lesbians. Gays or Lesbians declare for one of the 'teams' and are then welcomed, 'Survivor - like' by one or the other tribe and equally reviled by the other. A Bisexual declaration is akin to an admission that you will not EVER be suitable for the team, in its particulars.

'Gee, Guru...um, that's great... I guess'.

One dear friend, reconnecting with Guru after 25 years, who is a brilliant academic and a feminist responded to my identification with 'at least you're not living a lie', made me feel all warm inside.

Nobody gives you a hug for being Bi, you are not perceived as 'brave', but rather duplicitous, maybe even in denial!

See the Dr. Seuss quote up top for guidance on dealing with those responses.





This, That, The Other Thing...

In summary, Guru is going to break down literally EVERYTHING you need to know about 'The Sex Iives of Other Americans' (and Race, Faith, Finances...but those are other columns!);

Some people are 'This', others are 'That'.

Many who are 'This' are attracted to 'That' and often, those who are 'That' also enjoy 'This'.

Some who are 'This', prefer others who are also 'This'. Some 'That' desire 'That'.

Others who are 'This' like 'This' AND 'That' and some 'That' like 'That' AND 'This'.

Some, like Guru, are 'This' and desire 'That' and also enjoy role playing as 'That' for others who are 'This', particularly when they can share the play (and underwear drawer!) with 'That' which they adore.

Others who are either 'This' or 'That', feel uncomfortable in those roles and experience themselves more as being 'That' or 'This'.

Then there is 'The Other Thing', which I have NO IDEA about...but the important thing to remember is...

Just worry about YOU and YOUR sex life, let others do their thing in peace, free of judgement or interrogation.

If we S-T-O-P exerting so much energy on social engineering that is doomed to failure, perhaps we could build some windmills, solar panels, new vehicles, space ships, robots or some other cool shit and then, when we're finished, instead of all this talking, opining and teeth gnashing...

We can all be happily fucking and sucking in the privacy of our own lives.

Sounds good to Guru.

Image Composites - Mary Hannington 2009




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Comments

you should write a memoir. there's been so much fake bullshit people have been putting out, why not try to get your true-life experiences published? a cross-dressing/jock/intellectual/ex wall st dude will blow people's minds and contribute to the dismantling of a lot of stereotypes. in the process, you can include all your ideas about politics, sports, etc. i would most definitely read something like that, and would rather see it all in one place then have to ingest it piecemeal on a blog. and don't forget to include walking on the subway tracks ...
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