Bi in an Either-Or World

In 2014, Eugene Voloch, writing for the Washington Post, presented some data collected by the National Health Interview Survey:

"Based on the 2013 NHIS data [collected in 2013 from 34,557 adults aged 18 and over], 96.6% of adults identified as straight, 1.6% identified as gay or lesbian, and 0.7% identified as bisexual. The remaining 1.1% of adults identified as “something else[]” [0.2%,] stated “I don’t know the answer[]” [0.4%] or refused to provide an answer [0.6%]."

Voloch then stated, "More specifically, 1.8 percent of men self-identify as gay and 0.4 percent as bisexual, and 1.5 percent of women self-identify as lesbian and 0.9 percent as bisexual… The results are generally in the same ballpark as past estimates — and far below the long-debunked 10 percent estimate."

According to the survey, those who identify as bi (and are willing to say so, unequivocally) are 0.7% of the population over 18. Earth is host to something like 7,362,300,000 humans, and counting while I'm blogging. That's 51,536,100 bisexual people in the entire world. Statistically, we might as well not exist. In real numbers, we're close to the population of the UK—think of the importance of the UK in the world. But we aren't a country unto ourselves, and we don't set the rules for any of the societies in which we quietly live.

It's highly unlikely that the 99.3% are going to actively accommodate the rest of us. But then I also wonder, why fear and revile us? I'm accustomed to being in rare company. I also have the rarest blood type, but I'm not stigmatized for it.

I'm not surprised that the heterosexual world would like bi people to "choose" to be straight. I'm more surprised that gay and lesbian identifying folks generally wish we would "choose" as well. We are a problem for our few political and social allies. Then again, it makes sense that cultures that allow for homosexuality, but insist upon monogamy, will necessarily urge the bi person to express only one aspect of her or his sexuality. Even if each bi person had one partner of each gender, that still leaves plenty for everyone else. That's a tongue-in-cheek remark.

I've been raised in a hetero and monogamous culture. I'm not proud of my own jealous nature that isn't suited to flexible relationships. I wonder, if I had been raised differently, if I could be more tolerant of the relationship structures that would be necessary to live as an expressed bisexual person throughout life.

Of course, expression doesn't only take place in the act of sex. Participating in art, politics, and social interactions, loving who you love whether or not you bed all of them, and allowing the space in your own mind to self-recognize—that's living bi too.