Do I care? I’m not homophobic or anti the bisexual lifestyle (never tried either homosexuality or bi-swinging, since I have great taste in WONDERFUL women!) But I am anti-lying and secrecy, especially in this context.
It unquestionably puts a woman at risk when her partner is bisexual and (in effect) promiscuous. I think that’s despicable.
What’s got Prof. going on this, you may ask?
A new paper suggesting bisexual men have higher rates of mental health problems than gay men do, and the speculation by researchers that this burden might stem from their desire to keep their “on the side” sexual relationships with men secret.
Researchers evaluated the mental health of more than 200 bisexual men in the New York City area, over the age of 18, who were married to or in a relationship with a woman and had had sex with a man in the past year. None of the men had told their female partner about their same-sex relationship.
The study found that men who were afraid of people finding out were more likely to experience depression and anxiety and lack positive feelings.
Serves you right would sound too unkind. But I’m not sympathetic.
Notice, this isn’t the same as keeping sexual desires for men secret: they had higher rates of mental disorder than what we might call “regular” gays (is that an oxymoron? Just kidding)
Men who had disclosed their bisexual behavior to someone other than their partner, like a close friend, were not less likely to suffer one of these mental health problems. I’m not surprised. Even common sense says the ONE PERSON that needs to be told is the wife and, no matter the B*S*, a man knows if he is not telling her the full truth.
So I totally don’t go along with the rest of the research, suggesting ways the man can cope with the stress of concealment and lying to his wife. He should just fess up and give the woman the benefit of the truth.
The study was published Jan. 2, 2012, in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology.
Commenting on the study, Brian Mustanski, director of the IMPACT LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) Health and Development Program at Northwestern University, said, “Bisexual groups have not been studied as much, and that is a major strength of this paper.”
Disclosing could turn out to improve bisexual men’s mental health if they received acceptance from the person they told, Mustanski said. The study did not compare the mental health of men who experienced positive and negative reactions after sharing their sexuality.
Pity; seems to have missed the point!
Interesting. I do agree with you that partners deserve to know if they want to know (I believe some prefer to stay uninformed in spite of the danger). If there is a don’t ask don’t tell agreement and the bisexual isn’t misleading his or her partner, then possibly the stress of overt lying would be lessened. I’m not sure. A friend of mine is in a Polyamory group (no restrictions on number or gender of partners, as I understand it), honest disclosure, and as far as I can tell jealousy often becomes an issue just as it does in monogamous relationships; but at least there is not deception. I don’t know what is the best/healthiest policy for sexual behavior, but I vote for honesty.