What causes people to be bisexual?

TrinSF
Sun, 15 Apr 2007 18:45:12 +0000

SuNa: I think corranged really answered this well. While some bisexual people do choose to be non-monogamous so that they can date people of more than one sex at a time, many of bisexuals are just like you, but recognize that they have attractions that are not based on the genetic sex of the person. As I said before, it helps to think of it like hair color. If Jane has a boyfriend who has red hair, and breaks up with him to date a guy with blond hair, that doesn’t necessarily mean their relationship will be “unstable” because she might decide she wants a red-haired guy instead.

How do bisexuals deal with family wishing they were one way or another? The same way that other people deal with having family that wishes they dated only a particular faith, or only a particular race or ethnicity. Sometimes, it means saying, “I know this is what you want for me, but that’s not what I choose.”

As far as wondering why a bisexual won’t “make a choice”, that’s a common fallacy about bisexuality from both sides of the fence, so to speak. And there are people who identify as bisexual and later decide that they prefer one sex over another – I have a close friend who is like that. But for the majority of bisexuals, it’s not that they can’t choose, it that they don’t find biological sex to be a determining factor in their relationships. If you sometimes are attracted to tall skinny people, and sometimes to short, plump people, does that mean you can’t decide? No, it probably means that what attracted you to them is not their size/shape, but other qualities – sense of humor, common interests, things like that.