Bisexuals

The first thing that struck me when I first arrived in India was that men of all ages walked around holding hands or hugging each other

Is bisexuality normal?

In the sphere of morality, European thinking operates with clearly defined categories of opposing concepts: good/evil, virtue/vice, right/wrong, from God/Satan, love/lust, and finally, homosexuality/heterosexuality. But it is worth reminding yourself that shame is an unnatural human state. This is what is used for manipulation, along with guilt.

On the contrary, in Eastern philosophy there are the concepts of yin and yang, not antagonistic opposites: male and female, sun and moon, water and fire, black and white. However, no one in the East perceives one as good and the other as bad. Both yang and yin are necessary for the creation and maintenance of life. One is impossible without the other.

The author's own perception of sexuality was greatly influenced by numerous conversations with Indian students during his early career in South India (1954-1966).

“The first thing that struck me when I first arrived in India was that men of all ages walked around holding hands or hugging each other. It was very different from anything I was used to back home in Britain. I tried to find out what my students thought about it.

My Indian students were happy to talk about sex. They liked to talk about such topics with an older man, since such conversations were rare in India. But my questions about homosexuality puzzled them. I tried to explain to the students the differences between homosexuality and heterosexuality. Then they clearly felt awkward - the very concept of two different types of sexuality was alien to them. They were as embarrassed and confused as if I had asked them to eat with European cutlery rather than with their hands.

I soon realized that the opposition between homosexuality and heterosexuality confused them. At the same time, there was a debate in Britain about sexual orientation and the acceptability of homosexuality!”

From the point of view of those students, people simply felt attraction to each other of varying degrees of intensity. It went without saying that they would all eventually marry girls chosen by their parents and have children, but it never occurred to them that married life would in any way limit their affections or sexuality. In southern India, where the hot climate often kept clothing to a bare minimum, it was difficult for those young men to forget that each of them had a body. It was natural for those students to express their affections physically, regardless of gender.

“As soon as their line of thinking became clear to me, I realized that I was much closer to this approach to sexuality, and not to the ideas (if I could call them that) on which I was brought up,” the author summarizes.

It is worth noting that the phenomenon of bisexuality is widespread among Russian MSM. According to some data, 70-80% of MSM have sexual contacts with women, many are in registered marriages.

Excerpt from the book “Coming Clean about Bisexuality” (2000)

Written by Garrett Jones

Translation by Irina Yasinova, especially for Parni PLUS www.parniplus.ru