Where are the bi men? Getting to know one of the most hidden parts of the LGBTQ+ community
“It’s just a phase.” Bisexual men are one of the LGBTQ+ community’s most closeted groups. When faced with biphobia such as this, who can blame them? Here, Attitude investigates how bi boys became the “ultimate unicorns”
“I get bisexual women: girls are hot. But bi men? Nah, that’s too far,” a straight guy said to me on a recent (bad) date, neatly summing up the gendered differences with biphobia today.
For bi women like me, our over-sexualisation by the male gaze grants us a mainstream currency — albeit with plenty of pitfalls — that our bi brothers don’t have. While we’re fetishised as ‘unicorns’ (sought-after thirds in a threesome), bisexual men are emasculated with overt biphobia that comes from within queer spaces as much as straight ones.
Bisexual people make up 44 per cent of the LGBTQ+ community, according to the 2021 census, but consistently fewer men self-identify. This year, ONS reported that 5.6 per cent of young men (aged 16–24) identify as bisexual, compared to 9.2 per cent of women in the same age bracket. Yet, given that a 2013 Pew study found that only 12 per cent of bisexual men are out, it begs the question: chicken or egg?
I’ve certainly noticed this imbalance: from dating apps (it’s rare to see bisexual men’s profiles) to the Bi Bitch bi-specific events I organise in London, including speed-friending and singles nights, where men are a minority — in my experience, bi boys are the ultimate unicorns.
So, with Bisexual Awareness Week approaching in mid-September, I went on a mission to answer a simple question: where are all the bi men, and what’s keeping so many in the closet?
According to Mark Cusack, a 36-year-old Liverpool-based sexuality and gender coach and author of Fluid, who is bi and nonbinary, society deems men’s sexuality so important that you cannot be in between. “Masculinity is a competition to be won. You can’t just exist; you must perform it through actions: bodies, clothes, hair, sports, even drinks — and, yes, by exclusive attraction to women.
“There’s such pressure on men to conform that those on a spectrum must turn it off to maintain their position in the masculine-hetero hierarchy, or risk coming down off that step,” he explains.
Consequently, when Cusack started experiencing attraction to multiple genders, he felt confused. “It was scary. I thought, ‘Am I in denial?’ I had no one to speak to — this was before Instagram — so it was all in my head.” He was secretly having casual encounters with guys, of which he says, “I felt so ashamed, kept it all inside and got depressed, obsessive. It was a
dark time.”
He is not alone: bi men are in an invisible crisis. According to Stonewall’s 2018 report LGBT in Britain – Health, 56 per cent of bi men have experienced anxiety, 18 per cent have deliberately self-harmed, and 43 per cent have felt that life wasn’t worth living.
After falling for a woman in his mid-twenties, Cusack eventually came out to her. “Her reaction changed my life: she said, ‘Oh my God! That’s awesome, so sexy.’ This was huge, because not only was she OK with it; she thought it was hot!”
Now he supports other men to break free of toxic masculinity’s not-enough-ness. “If you say, ‘Screw you, I am who I am, the end,’ that is the most assertive, strong thing you can do — and where real masculinity comes from: confidence in yourself.”
To read this feature in full, check out issue 366 of Attitude magazine, available to order here, and alongside 15 years of back issues on the free Attitude app.
*Name has been changed
