From: mlloyd@ocf.berkeley.edu (M. Lloyd)
Newsgroups: soc.bi
Subject: Re: Are most of us Hetero guys really that insensitive?
Date: 26 Jan 1993 22:33:07 GMT
Organization: U. C. Berkeley Open Computing Facility
NNTP-Posting-Host: lightning.berkeley.edu

zen@death.corp.sun.com (d   (415) 336 0742) writes:
>mlloyd@ocf.berkeley.edu (M. Lloyd) writes:
>> Still, most hetero guys don't have clue
>> one about anything outside their culturally assigned roles.
>
>  No, mike... most *people* don't have a clue.  Not just het males.

Agreed, quite without complaint.  I was just answering the question as
asked, but you are quite right.

>> It's as true as it ever was: a good man is hard to find.
>> Mike, feeling some of the poignancy of that statement just now.
>
>  Do tell?

Ah, d.  You asking me that is even more poignant than the moment I
referred to, given that you stand as complex contradiction of any
assertion I might make on my inability to find Male+Clue in one body.

First off, I wasn't that upset (although many thanks, Kamal, for the
expression of concern).  I was just expressing a feeling of absence to
some women I know the other day, and it fitted this thread.

I call myself bi.  I really believe that I am.  However, I do have to
deal with a good dose of the extreme-Kinsey paranoia.  You know: near 0
or 6, you badger yourself about whether you're *really* monosexual.  At
first glance it seems foolish to care; why not just be what you are?
But it really matters to me that I am bi, not 0.  It matters to me that
I've done some of the deprogramming necessary to find men attractive.
Gender is a Big Deal to me.  [A million asides spring to mind, but I'll
suppress them in the hope of keeping some focus to this.]

It'd bother me a lot if I found I was only attracted to people of my
race; the attraction would not be an evil, but it would point to some
deeper problem in need of uprooting.  It'd bother me a lot to find that
I am only attracted to women.

Right now, I'm living a poly het-boy's dream.  I'm in a set of
relationships that at times resembles a Celtic knot (only less ordered),
and almost everyone involved is female.  The people I'm meeting through
the people I know are almost all female.  More than that, many of these
people are female-oriented, and I'm loving every moment in these
circles.  It lets me feel I'm getting somewhere in learning independence
from my assigned role.  But it also makes me feel het.

Easy solution: find a good man to get close to.  Problem: it ain't
happening (yet).  A dear (female) friend suggested I get into gay male
circles; it's not a bad idea, but I'm just so damned *picky* about men!
If they don't squick over the stuff that bugs me (especially gender
politics, however manifested), I just write them off as UnEnlightened.

'Scuse me - I'm just questioning myself in public.  Don't let me send a
strung-up vibe, or a morbid one, or whatever.  I just wonder sometimes
about where the line between reality and political stance is.  Anyhow, I
*do* know some good men.  I can count two near here, but both are in
situations that make "pursuit" (or other tortures) not politic.  I've
met a few others that I may try to get to know better.  I'm not posting
in search of a solution - just airing the cupboards.

warm hugs
Mike, who had forgotten what it was like to post this kind of stuff

-- 
Mike Lloyd, B0/1 h- f- t w- g+ k+ s m- e? |    "Bloody nose and burning eyes
      Retro-hippy, music nut, bi and      |  Raised in laughter to the skies"
          backrubber of devotion          |                 - Bruce Cockburn
               --The end of confusion is the beginning of death--
Newsgroups: soc.bi