Source: Time.com

MAY 13, 1974 12:00 AM EDT

Males do not represent two discrete populations, heterosexual and homosexual. Not all things are black nor all things white. The living world is a continuum in each and every one of its aspects. The sooner we learn this concerning human sexual behavior the sooner we shall reach a sound understanding of the realities of sex.

So in his famous book, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, Alfred Kinsey explained why it is that some men —perhaps 18% of them—engage about equally in homosexual and heterosexual activities for at least three years during their adult lives. Women, he later explained, could also be rated on a scale from exclusively heterosexual to exclusively homosexual. To people in the middle of the scale, however, Kinsey disliked applying the term bisexual. Biologically, he noted, it refers to organisms that include the anatomy of both sexes.

Today the word is commonly used to describe adults who have sexual relations with both males and females. And it is increasingly heard, for though there has been little research on the subject since Kinsey’s in the late ’40s, bisexuals, like homosexuals before them, are boldly coming out of their closets, forming clubs, having parties and staking out discotheques.

“Very Fashionable.” When Kate Millett, author of the bestselling Sexual Politics, acknowledged to a meeting of feminists and Gay Liberationists in 1970 that although married, she also enjoyed lesbian relationships, the news caused a sensation both within and without the women’s movement. Millett’s latest book, Flying, to be published in June, will tell all about her bisex life to an audience not so shockable. They have by now seen movies like Sunday, Bloody Sunday, in which a male lover is shared by Glenda Jackson and Peter Finch. They have read books like the bestseller. Portrait of a Marriage, in which Nigel Nicolson tells about the affairs that his happily married mother, Poet Vita Sackville-West, had with Novelists Violet Trefusis and Virginia Woolf. Other women, living and dead, whose bisexuality has recently been made known include Singer Janis Joplin, Writer Dorothy Thompson and Actresses Tallulah Bankhead and Maria (Last Tango) Schneider. “It has become very fashionable in elite and artistically creative subgroups to be intrigued by the notion of bisexuality,” says Psychiatrist Norman Fisk of the Gender Dysphoria Program at Stanford University Medical School. It may very well be, he added, “a sociopolitical phenomenon as much as it is a real psychiatric one.”

In part, that sociopolitical phenomenon has to do with the feminist movement, which has created what one sociologist calls “the ideology of sisterly love.” The subculture of feminist discussion groups and lectures on campuses and elsewhere has brought more and more women together, encouraging friendship and even affection between them. It is not only feminism, however, but also the emphasis by Masters and Johnson, among others, on the clitoral orgasm that has led to more sexual experimentation. In addition, according to Psychologist John Money, expert in gender identity at Johns Hopkins University, the single major cause of the new acceptance of bisexuality was the invention of mass birth control, which separates recreational sex from procreational sex and influences attitudes toward “every part of sexuality.”

In this liberal atmosphere, some bisexuals are advocating their life-style as the best of both worlds. They stress the importance of sexual options and of not cutting themselves off from half of the population. Others admit to problems. They say that friends of both sexes shy away from them, fearful of being propositioned. Those bisexuals who turn to the homosexual community for support often find themselves shut out there too. Sociologists Philip Blumstein and Pepper Schwartz at the University of Washington in Seattle have made a study of 150 men and women who claim to be bisexuals. Says Blumstein: “Bisexual men are frequently seen as holding themselves up as better than homosexuals. Most homosexual men tend to doubt the truth of the label bisexual. They think it is just someone working his way to homosexual.” Blumstein adds that lesbians often see bisexual women as “fence sitters.” He says: “They think these women will easily leave a female lover for a man. They think you can’t trust them.”

In fact, researchers in the field of sexual identity have observed that bisexuals can indeed be capricious, jumping from one sex to the other with little emotional involvement. Money, for one, notes that the majority experience only fondness, not love. “Bisexuals,” says he, “generally do not have the capacity to fall in love with one person.”

Manhattan Psychoanalyst Natalie Shainess adds that bisexuality and homosexuality are symptoms of “developmental damages” during childhood. A homosexual, she notes, grows up distrusting the opposite sex; a bisexual is in a sense in a worse plight because he distrusts both sexes. Moreover, the constant ricocheting from one sex to the other, says Shainess, can create unstable friendships as well as a chaotic homelife. If there are children involved, this may confuse their sense of sexual identity. She asks: “Is this invitation for anything-goes sex helping human beings lead more satisfying lives?” Her answer: “It is not.”