From: elf@halcyon.com (Elf Sternberg)
Subject: Our heroes!  
Organization: The 23:00 News and Mail Service
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 19:27:38 GMT

CONVENTIONS:  I attempted to make this as accurate as possible;
occassionally conversations overlapped where in text I have had to
string them along serially.  Also, Charles, bless his sexy heart, was
exceptionally expressive, and if I had italics I would have used them
extensively.

SINCE this was a talk show, there will be Unidentified Audience Members,
now known as UAM's.  They'll be numbered, and an M/F next to them will
identify the sex of the speaker.

As usual, pinched from the usual sources :-) without permission.  I *did*
ask our heroes if there would be any objection, and I got none.  Thanks,
guys!


     [ Clips from a Madonna Video ]

Geraldo:  Ah, Madonna.  In 1990, that video, "Justify My Love" was
banned from the airwaves, at least most of them.  The pop stars steamy
and explicit look at bisexuality was apparently too hot for most
broadcasters to handle.  Well today's studio panel has experience
bisexuality up close and personally. While some of them can talk openly
and honsetly about it, and they will talk about their dual sexuality,
others like our first guest on the right, Tom, has led a secret double
life.  Tom has been married for 45 years and has two children.  He tells
his story in his new book, "Half Straight, My Secret Bisexual Life."
Now Tom, how do you  define bisexuality?

Tom:  I am not heterosexual and I am not homosexual.  I'm bisexual.

Geraldo:  But let's get this straight.  You're married, you have two
children, but isn't it a fact that you have ceased having sexual
relations with your wife?

Tom:  No.  My wife isn't the sexy girl I married 45 years ago

Geraldo:  Boy, I bet she'd say that about you too, buddy.

Tom:  That could be true.  I'm sure it goes both ways.  But, yes... I'm
sure we don't read a normal man and wife life, but, uh...

Geraldo:  Reading excerpts from your book, Tom, with all due respect, it
really does seem to me that your marriage is one of convenience and
virtually every opportunity you've had over the years, beginning with
your years in the Navy and your days hitchhiking around, you have had a
bent towards homosexual relationships.  Why couldn't you be described as
a gay man who is married for convienence?

Tom:  I have had had heterosexual experiences, too, in those years.

Geraldo:  Far fewer.

Tom:  Yes.  Sex comes easier with men.

Geraldo:  Hold that thought everybody, because the issue of what a
bisexual is or is not is smoething that will be debated over the course
of this hour.  Jane is a married bisexual, she's sitting alongside Tom
there.  She has a daughter.  She says her husband does not interefere
with her female lovers.  Jane when do you realize you weren't a regular,
eh, a straight woman?

Jane:  In my late teens or early twenties, I was living as a homosexual.
And, that was working out any better than living as a heterosexual.  So
I eventually found myself in the middle.

Geraldo:  When you got married, did your husband understand your... I
don't know.  Is it sexual confusion?

Jane:  I don't know if it's confusion so much as it is a lack of
definition from society.  I'm not confused.

     [ Sudden cheers from the bisexual contingent in the front row ]

Geraldo:  I think Jane brought a cheering section there in the first two
rows.  We'll talk to them later.  People wearing buttons are always
plants, I know that now.  But, Jane, how would you describe yourself?

Jane:  I would really have to say that I don't have a preference either
way.  What I do is choose to exclude.

Geraldo:  Are you still married?

Jane:  Yes.

Geraldo:  Does your husband know about your refusal to exclude?

Jane:  Yes.

Geraldo:  And how does he feel about it?

Jane:  It's a part of me he lives with.  It's a part of me he accepts as
a whole human being.

Geraldo:   Let me jump back to Tom.  Does your wife know about your
secret?

Tom:  Absolutely not.

Geraldo:  She does not know.  How about your kids?

Tom:  No.  No way.  None of my lifelong friends.  None of my business
assocaites.  No one knows.

Geraldo:  Tom's in disguise, he doesn't, uh... that's not him.  Your
husband knows.  Does your daughter?

Jane:  She's not old enough to intellectualize that sort of concept.

Geraldo:  How old is she?

Jane:  Five.

Geraldo:  Does your husband also share your lack of being tied to
monogamy?  Is he allowed to go out and have affairs with other men or
women?

Jane:  He's free to as far as I'm concerned but he chooses not to.

Geraldo:  So your husband's monogamous.

Jane:  Yes, he is.

Geraldo:  When you go outside the marriage do you go with men and with
women or basically just with women?

Jane:  With women.

Geraldo:  Well, er, uh... I guess, when we get to Lorraine, our expert
at the end of the panel, we'll be clearer on these definitions.  But
couldn't you, Jane, be defined as a lesbian who has chose marriage as a
kind of societal... not ploy, I dont' mean to be mean, but for saving
face or status in the community or to give your daughter a stable
environment to be raised in?

Jane:  No I wouldn't say that.  The part of me that is heterosexual is
involved in a happy, healthy marriage.  There just happens to be another
part of me that doesn't belong there. 

Geraldo:  Let's say.  I dunno, you're how old?  Thirty, thirty years
old?

Jane:  Thirty.  Something like that.

Geraldo:  I'm about thirty-two.  Soon I'll be about fifty.  Would you
please stop the commentary back there?  Viola has this running
commentary about my age.

     [ Camera closeup of "Viola", an attractively aged black woman. ]

Geraldo:  When you have some more years, is it safe to say that when you
chose to settle down for the twilight or golden years of your life that
you'll settle with another woman?

Jane:  Yes, probably.

Geraldo:  So what will you tell your husband?  That he's served his
purpose, the party's over?  Go take a blow, Joe?

Jane:  There's quite a few years between my husband and myself so the
later part of my life I'm assuming will be without him.

Geraldo:  Maybe your secretly married to Tom and don't know it because
you're both in disguise.  Just a joke, I don't know why I'm being so
annoying today so I'll shut up right now.  Charles and Janice have a two
year old son.  Both are bisexual-- that's unusual because in the first
two cases only one partner in the marriage was bisexual, but in the case
of Charles, he   has had relationships with same-sex partners outside
the marriage.  Janice, you, again, outside the marriage as opposed to
your marriage with Charles.  Is it fair to say that most of your
relationships are with women?

Janice:  No.

Geraldo:  Really?  Well, define for us what goes on.

Janice:  First off, I'd like to say that for me wanting to be physically
close to someone follows want to be emotionally close to them.  And to
me, sex is probably the furthest along the scale to being physically
close to someone.

Geraldo:  You mean you don't give it a high priority?  That there are a
lot of thing more important to you than sex?

Janice:  Yes, very much so!  Very much with sex.  And as a matter of
fact there aren't that many people that I am that good of friends with
that I would even want to have sex with.  And, for me, it just seems
that locking out  half of the human race that I'm very good friends with
doesn't make sense.  I just don't understand it.

Geraldo:  Okay, now I understand what you're saying.  But, bisexuality.
Are you, Janice, a bisexual?

Janice:  I consider myself one, yes.

Geraldo:  So you have sexual relations with both men and women?

Janice:  I don't think who you have sex with actually matters as to
whether or not your bisexual.

     [ More cheering from the front two rows ]

Geraldo:  Again, there's the button-wearers in the front two rows.  It
may or may not, but I'd like you to answer the question.  Do you have
sex with both men and women?

Janice:  I have in the past.

Geraldo:  But do you.. currently.

Charles:  Do you want her phone number?

     [ Sudden outbreak of laughter an 'Ohhhhhs' from the audience ]

Geraldo:  Viola, you gonna let him say that to me?  You gonna let him
say that?  I'm having a rough time today, man, I just got here, I'm
trying to do my job.  Getting beat up by my guests.  Charles and
Janice... you are, in essence, neither of you is monogamous.  True?

Charles:  Right.

Geraldo:  You're married but your not monogamous.  Now, Charles, do you
have relations outside the marriage?  Do you have relations with men?

Charles:  With both sexes.

Geraldo:  With both sexes.  Janice, does it bother you that he has
relations outside the marriage?

Janice:  It depends on who it's with.  And we have rules about that.

Geraldo:  Okay, and can you tell us the rules?

Janice:  First off, it has to somebody that I like.  I don't like it if
it's with somebody I don't know very well or someone I dislike.

Geraldo:  Does it matter if they're men or women?

Janice:  No.  [ Charles leans over and says something the Janice, and
she breaks out laughing suddenly ] Nope.

Geraldo:  Just as long as you like them.

Janice:  That's right.  Yeah.  As long as they're nice people that I
like.

Geraldo:  And Charles, how do you feel about Janice's extramarital
affairs?

Charles:  Well, I wouldn't call them affairs.

Geraldo:  Okay, Hey! I'm doing a great job here.

Charles:  Because they are friends of mine.  Likewise for me, the rule
that we have is that we know who are sexual partners are, we have rules
about what kind of things we can do with other people.  And it's always
with people I know and like and have known for a while and personally
feel very close to.  And so, no, it doesn't bother me.

Geraldo:  You're not talking threesomes here.  That's a whole other
show.  That's not what's at issue here.

Charles:  That's a completely different subject.

Geraldo:  Right.  But, you are both allowed to have extramarital
relationships with members of either sex as long as the other partner in
the marriage consents to the other person.

Charles:  Basically, right.  And we have other rules as well, basically,
each of us come first emotionally, that we won't do anything that wil
threaten our relationship, that we acknowldege our commitment and the
primacy of our relationships over the others.

Geraldo:  Janice as you sit there can you honestly say you are not
jealous of Charles' extramarital relations?

Janice:  There have been times in the past when I have, but we've talked
them, we've worked it out, we've worked out the rules that we have and
it works very well for us.

Geraldo:  Can you remember one incident and explain why that, among the
others, made you jealous?

Janice:  I can remember one where the woman, it was a woman, did not
seem to like me.  And so, I didn't see any reason to like her.  That was
before we'd worked out some of our rules.  

Geraldo:  Did you, in that case, think that Charles was cheating on you.

Janice:  No, because I knew about it.  That's one of our rules, that I
always know about anybody that he has a relationship with.

Geraldo:  From the tone, do I gather that Charles is more active outside
the marriage then you, Janice?

Janice:  I don't think that's important.

Charles:  [ To Janice ] Have we been keeping score?

Janice:  I don't think that's relevant to bisexuality.

Geraldo:  All right, all right, all right...

Janice:  Well, what is the topic of the show?

Geraldo:  Marie, in the green dress, is the sad side of this story.  The
others have all, to various degrees reached some accomodation, either
with their partner or in their own mind with their sexuality.  Marie had
a tragedy in her marriage not to long ago... her second husband, Doug,
died.  Actually, he died two years ago.  Two weeks after his death,
Marie discovered the extent to which he had been living a sevcret double
life.  He died of AIDS.  Today, Marie is also infected with the deadly
virus, so the laughter is over.  Marie, are you really resentful of the
fact that he did not disclose to you what was going on outside the
house?

Marie:  Yes, I am.  I'm not judging a person's sexual, if they want to
be bisexual.  Even in a normal relationship to be dishonsest and bring
something like this back to your home... that's where it's so wrong, as
far as I'm concerned.  [ Applause from the audience ]  He went out and
risked his life and lost.  But unbeknownst to me he risked mine, and
lost, and I had a lot of anger.

Geraldo:  Was he bisexual, your husband, or was he secretly gay and kind
of posing as a straight man?

Marie:  I think he was secretly bisexual because after he died, there
were things happening in the late years of our marriage that made me
wonder.  And after he died I was cleaning out his wallet and I found all
the membership cards to gay bathhouses in Seattle.  And he was always
taking off on the weekends, he wanted to have his own space and to be by
himself, and whatnot.  And everything fell into place.

Geraldo:  And it became clear to you that he had been living a
hypocracy?  A secret.

Marie:  I'm sure he was living a secret life.  As I said, there wree
things that were happening late in the marriage that made me wonder if
maybe something was going on.

Geraldo:  Is it true that everyone around you suspected but you didnt?"

Marie:  After he died, yes, people commented that they'd suspected he
was.  When I look back now I can see signs, but I think I was living in
a little fantasy world that everything was alright and a person just
doesn't see what's right in front of them because it's too painful.

Geraldo:  Is your story, well, obviously it is an example of the dangers
involved in bisexuality or in, at least, not safe sex.  How do you feel
about bisexuality?

Marie:  I'm not going to judge anyone, those are my feelings.  People
should be free to do what they want, but when you do someothing that
risks the life of someone that you so love, that is different.  I draw
the line there.

Geraldo:  [ To Camera] Getting down with bisexuals!  The doubt, the
dishonesty, the danger!  We'll be right back.

UAM 1(F):  My question is to the lady in the green dress [ Marie:
Contracted AIDS from Bisexual Husband (caption) ].  How did you not know
when you married that your husband was bisexual? 

Marie:  When we met and got married we were just absolutely totally in
love with each other.  I mean, he would have seemed to anyone as just
the most quote normal person.  He was very loving, very affectionate,
very virile-looking.  There wasn't anything that gave me a clue, in the
beginning.

Geraldo:  Then how come everybody else knew and you didn't?

Marie:  I guess I was very naive.

Lorraine:  Can I butt in?

Geraldo:  Go ahead!  We haven't introduced you, Lorraine, yet.

Lorraine:  I would like to be introduced.

Geraldo:  Okay.  Lorraine Hutchins, our expert.  She's co-editor of the
book "Bi Any Other Name," 'Bi' with an 'i', get it?  "Bisexual people
speak out."

Lorraine:  Bisexuality is normal.  [ More cheering from the front two
rows ]  And, there's no such thing as bisexuality.  There's no such
thing as heterosexuality, there's no such thing as homosexuality,
there's sexuality.  And we all explore it, and follow our own desires,
and our own hearts and identities as we grow, and as we realize
ourselves.  Does that make sense to people?

     [ Cheers from the front to rows, massed cries of 'no' from the rest
of the audience. ]

Geraldo:  Umm, no.

UAM 2(F):  I have a two-part question.  The first question is, how long
have you two been maried?

Charles:  [ (caption) Charles & Janice, Married Bisexual Couple ]
Married for five years, but we've been living together in a committed
relationship for fifteen years.

Geraldo:  Fifteen years together?

Charles:  Correct.

UAM 2(F):  And my second question is, why is it so important for you to
know and to be friendly with the people that he sleeps with when they're
male or female. Do you wanna sleep with them as well?

Janice:  Because my feeling is that by him being very close, sex is a
sign, I feel, at least with us, of being, um... intimacy and attachment
to another person, a sense of closeness to another person.  And we are
so close that as he has that with somebody else that person in some way
is close to me, is brought into our relationship.

Charles:  Let me see if I can help out a little bit.  The reason I care
is, for me, bisexuality is primarily emotional fulfillment, and I need
or desire close emotional attachment to both men and women.  And for
Janice to be emotionally close to somebody that I don't know is scary.
I mean, what is it about this person that she likes, what is it that's
interesting, what is it that's attractive about them?  So I want to know
this person and I want to feel like this is a good person that's
somebody I like as well.

Geraldo:  Does that sound real to you, or does it sound like just words
to justify extramarital affairs?

UAM 2(F):  It sounds like words to me, because I really don't
understand.  I wanna be fair, along with the lady in the green dress,
don't judge people and things like that.  But you two, I don't know...
Something about you two... was this discussed... okay.  You were married
for five years, but you were together for fifteen years...

Charles:  We've been together for fifteen total.

UAM 2(F):  So when first started meeting, this was... you knew about
each other, you knew you liked men or women, and you liked the same
things.

Charles:  Basically, yeah.  We met at college.  We were college
sweethearts, and I've known I've been bisexual for as long as I can
remember.  And it's never been an issue.

UAM 2(F):  Do you have any children?

Charles:  Yeah, we have a two year old son.  We plan to have another kid
as well.

UAM 2(F):  And raise them in this type of environment?

Charles:  Absolutely!

UAM 2 (F):  O...kay.

Lorraine:  I feel it's important to make a distinction between sexuality
and monogamy.  If we want to talk in this audience about all of us who
have desired and acted on that towards more than one person regardless
of their gender, that's a discussion about that.  If we wanna talk about
what our sexual orientation is, that's a discussion about that.  And
there's a really bad rap that's put on bisexuals that we're more sexual
or differently sexual than other people.  We aren't.  We're just coming
out more and letting you know that it's alright to be Bi-.

Geraldo:  Alright, what I was leading at with Tom and Jane- interesting
psuedonyms, Tom and Jane- And this may be a false stereotype, but it has
always been my impression that there is heterosexuality or predominately
heterosexuality and predominant homosexuality.  You know what I mean?
You're either straight, or you're gay, or you're leaning heavily in one
direction or you're in transition from one to another.  There's no such
thing as bisexuality.  What bisexuality is, is in Tom's case, he's a gay
man who secretly married because it suits his job and his social status.
In Jane's case she's a gay woman who is married again for basically the
same reasons.  That bisexuality is this concept that you like to sleep
with men or women you're something other than the first two...

Lorraine:  So all of us here say they're bisexual or may even feel it in
our minds to not say it out loud today: We're invisible, we don't exist.

Geraldo:  Or maybe you're gay and you don't admit.

Lorraine:  Honey, I'm 44 years old.  I know what I feel.  I know that I
respond to more than one gender and that's who I am and that's alright.

Charles:  It's just because you haven't known very many out bisexuals.
There aren't very many of us.

Geraldo:  Maybe that's true.

Charles:  Well, we're here to try and make more.

     [ Laughter from the audience. ]

Geraldo:  He means, he's here to...

     [ Louder laughter. ]

Charles:  What... Uhm, what DID I mean by that?

UAM 3(F):  Let me ask the couple.  Why did you bother getting married?
What's the point?

Charles:  Well, that was a good question.  I mean, we talked about that
for a long time.  We got a ten year relationship, it's going really
well, why in heaven's name would we try and do something as serious to
it- that might destroy it- as getting married?  Well, couple of reasons.
Was is that we felt strong enough, that it was safe.  The other one was
to stand up and make a public committment in front of all of our family
and friends that this was a permanent relationship and this was the
person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.

Geraldo:  Janice, does Marie's experience scare you?

Janice:  No.

Geraldo:  Is that part of the knowing who the other person is, knowing
that they're safe?

Janice:  I think it's part of having open communication with each other.
I think AIDS is not a bisexual or homosexual disease.  Anybody in this
society that has sex with anybody needs to worry about it and the more
sexual partners you have the more you need to worry about it.

UAM 4(F):  You said that you feel that you're committed to each other.
How could you figure you're comitted if you're still out sleeping with
other people?

     [ LOUD and extended general applause from the audience ]

Charles:  Well, that would take a long time to answer but basically the
question seems to be more one of emotional intimacy.  Do you begrudge
your life-partner's closest friends, and if you do, is it the emotional
intimacy or the physical act?  Is it the kissing, the touching, the
holding that bothers you?  Or is it the closeness?  For me it's the
closeness that's the most threatening.

UAM 4(F):  But Why do you have to go out to someone else?

Charles and Janice (simultaneously):  We don't have to.

UAM 4(F):  So why do you do it?

Charles:  Because we like to.

     [ Laughter and expression of disbeleif from the audience ]

UAM 4(F):  You guys, I don't understand you....

Charles:  Put it another way.  Why shouldn't we?

UAM 4(F):  Why shouldn't you?  What about God?  What about marriage?
What about being faithful?

UAM 5(F):  What about marriage?

Charles:  You've got it turned around.  It's a part of my sexuality.

Lorraine:  There's a lot of married people who are totally straight so
they say who also go out of their marriages.  It's particular to
bisexuality.

Charles:  Absolutely.

UAM 6(F):  How can this first gentleman, Tom, keep such a secret and be
so unfair to his wife?  He's been married to her for what?  45 years?

Tom:  She was my high-school sweetheart.

UAM 6(F):  And you don't think that being faithful, or at least letting
her know what's going on.  At least these two people...

Tom:  It's created a hell of a guilt syndrome in my life, there's no
doubt about it.

UAM 6(F):  And what's gonna happen to her?  Are you ever gonna tell her?

Tom:  It's affected my personality, it's affected my life spiritually,
mentally, emotionally, physically.  It's affected me many ways.

UAM 6(F):  Well it's time for you to go home and sit down and let her
know.  Let her make some choices for herself.

Tom:  It isn't all that easy.  As a matter of fact, the preface of my
book was written by Doctor Vern Beuhler, a professor of psychology at
New York State Univeristy in Buffalo, and there is such a thing as
bisexuality.

Geraldo:  But that's not the point of honesty with your partner, though,
is it?

UAM 6(F):  It's not fair not to tell them.

Geraldo:  Carolyn says it's not fair.  Carolyn knew her husband was
bisexual before she married him, but says that it didn't matter because
he was a great husband.

Carolyn:  He was a great husband, a great lover.  He was my best friend.
Y'know.  And, we met, we both worked in a psychiatric hospital and we
met there and the first time I saw him it was instant chemistry.

Geraldo:  But you're not married to Fred anymore.

Carolyn:  No, unfortunately, he's an alcoholic and as far as I'm
concerned that was the total ruination of our marriage when he became
almost totally dysfunctional because of the alcohol.

Geraldo:  The alcoholism bothered you but the bisexuality did not.

Carolyn:  There were moments when it did, yeah, but for the most part,
no, and he really did not go out that much.

Geraldo:  What about the aspect of fidelilty?  Forget about with who he
was sleeping.  Didn't it bother you that he was being an adulterer?

Carolyn:  It would have it had been with another woman.  But men were
not  a threat to me until, um... we were married in '81, and that was
before AIDS was a...

Geraldo:  The plauge really was well established.

Carolyn:  The way I feel it's okay to be straight, it's okay to be
bisexual, it's okay to be gay, but until society accepts gay people as
being human beings they're gonna be in the closet.

Geraldo:  Well, I agree, and being in the closet's a different issue.  I
don't want to lose sight of one thing you said which I find very
provocative.  As long as your husband, Fred, was sleeping with men, that
didn't bother you.  If Fred were to go out with another woman, that
would have bothered you.

Carolyn:  That would have bothered me.  Because, there's nothing another
woman could have given him that I couldn't.  But I surely couldn't give
him something that another man could have.

Geraldo:  "Half Straight," the new book by "Tom Smith," who apparently
kept not only his sexuality but the fact that he was writing this book
secret from his wife. 

UAM 7(F):  Terrible.  I wanted to know, Jane.  You have a five-year old.
Do you enjoy sex with your husband?  Because you forsee later years with
a woman.  Why not a man?  If you're bisexual how do you know you're
gonna end with a woman?

Jane:  I'm emotionally closer with women and yes, I enjoy sex with my
husband.

UAM 7(F):  You do.

Jane:  Absolutely.

Geraldo:  Tom, did you really keep this a secret or are you just putting
us on?

Tom:  I am not putting you on.  You were talking about the honesty thing
a few moments ago...

Geraldo:  "The honesty thing."  I've never heard it quite described that
way.  [ Scattered laughter ]   That ol' honesty thing...

Tom:  The thing about it is, there is a such thing as bisexuality and it
is not curable and... it's no more curable... homosexuality and
bisexuality are no more curable than heterosexuality.

Janice:  Well, "curable" expects that it's a disease, which it isn't,
Tom.

Geraldo:  Sexuality is not a disease, I'm not sure what the point is.

Tom:  I saw a young man of the mormon faith on a national televsion show
a few months ago saying that he had been cured of his homosexuality
through spiritual therapy.  That's a bunch of bull!

UAM 8(M):  I'm just curious about the percentage.  Is it like you're
fifty/ fifty gay/straight, ten percent/ninety percent?  I'm just
curious, like, does it click in and out?

Lorraine:  Can I answer that?  Well, everyone is different.  These
people  say they're a hundred percent Bi-.  That's because they're
trying to tell you that they don't necessarily say "Hey, I'm 70%
attracted to women and 30% attracted to men."  Because it changes, and
everyone has their own story to tell, there's no one way of being
bisexual.  You can be bisexual and monogamous, you can be bisexual and
celibate.

UAM 9(M):  This question is for the couple in the center, Charles and
Janice.  In what path are you leading your children at this point?

Charles:  I don't understand the question.

UAM 9(M):  What sexual preference are you encouraging?

Charles:  He's not old enough to tell us yet.

Geraldo:  Alright, I'll give you a hypothetical.  Is it a he or a she?

Charles:  He.  Well, actually, he's not old enough to tell us if he's a
he or she, either, but.

Geraldo:  I bet you could tell, though.  Okay, he's sixteen years old
and he says "Dad, I wanna be a bisexual."  You say "That's cool?"

Charles:  I say, "Are you or aren't you?  What is this 'want to be
bisexual?'  It's your sexual orientation."  If he knows what sexual
orientation is, if he knows he attracted to both sexes, he's bisexual.

Geraldo:  Do you know the old Woody Allen joke, "What is a bisexual?
It's a person who wants to double his chance of a date on Saturday
night?"

     [ Loud laughter and applause from the audience ]

UAM 10(F):  For the gentlemen in the center, in the purple, Charles.
You said earlier that you needed to be emotionally close to both men and
women.  And yet, my question is, why does emotional closeness have to
manifest itself sexually? 

Charles:  It does not.  I would be bisexual if I never had sex with
another man in my life.

UAM 10(F):  But I mean, even in the marriage...

Charles:  Bisexuality is not about who you sleep with.

UAM 10(F):  Well what is marriage about?  Isn't marriage about who you
sleep with, who you commit your life to?

Charles:  Marriage?  Marriage is about commitment, and emotional
support, and love.

UAM 10(F):  Right, sexual, spiritual, emotional...

Charles:  Trust and respect and communication and honesty.

Lorriane:  It's not about ownership and control.

Charles:  If that's what you want, if what you need is monogamy, by all
means negotiate that, communicate that, get that up front.  But not
everybody needs that.

Geraldo:  What do the mainstream gay organizations have to say about
bisexuality?

Lorraine:  They're coming along.  They a lot of times, also said, as
straight people did, that there was no such thing as bisexuality.  But
that's because it's so hard to be gay in the society that everybody ends 
up having an investment, in denying bisexuality.  But the roots of where
it starts is in heterosexism, not in gay people's uncomfortability with
bisexuality.  Do you understand what I'm saying?

Geraldo:  No, I didn't understand it.  There's a lot of big words there.

Lorriane:  Heterosexism is not that big a word.  What's it's saying that
if there's supposedly only one correct way to be...

Geraldo:  Or two.  I think it's pretty well established there are two.

Lorraine:  No, no.  The reason homosexuality exists, the reason people
are labeled homosexual or heterosexual is to put a wall between... is
because heterosexuality needs homosexuality to prove that it's normal
and the other is the other, and not.  If you don't have homosexuality
over there, and people are more free to be bi, or straight, or gay, then
it's easy to condemn other people or your own feelings as something
that's wrong.

Man in front row wearing NOBODY KNOWS I'M BI t-shirt:  If I claim that
I'm bisexual, then somebody who would like... there are people who would 
like to think that anybody who is gay has to be that way.  If a man
wants to sleep with another man, it must be because he's not able to be
attracted to and make love with women.  If I'm able to and interested
and love being with women then the fact that I'm also with men or also
attracted to men negates their idea that it must be because I have to be 
with men, I have no other choice.  The fact that I'm able to love men
and women indicates that, yeah, it's a threat to that heterosexism.

Geraldo:  Um.. right.  We'll be back!

UAM 11(F):  I want to know... this is to everyone... why is it such a
big deal, like the coming out of the closet thing?  If you sleep with
who you wanna sleep with, and it's okay with the other partner, what
difference does it make to tell everyone else about it?

Charles:  You don't have to.  But you do have to tell your partner.  And
the critical thing there turns on the question of AIDS and other
diseases.  If your partner doesn't know that you're bisexual, and you
come down with some STD...

Geraldo:  Sexually transmitted disease.

Charles:  And you have to start practicing safe sex with your life
partner, you are going to be out, or you're going to infect your
partner.  You have to talk to your partner.

UAM 11(F):  I understand the partner business, but why everyone else,
why is it such a big deal to get more of the community involved with
this?  Who you sleep with is your own business.

Charles:  The second time you see a kid kicked out of their house,
commit suicide, because they're bisexual and their parents can't accept
that, you'll stop asking that question.

Carolyn:  When my husband and I were married, there was a young boy who
was a good friend of my daughter's, and he stayed at my house probably
as much as he did at home.  And this was started when he was about
twelve.  He had a lot of problems at home, he tried to commit suicide a
couple of times.  Well, fact of the matter was he was gay, and his
mother absolutely... there was no way she was gonna deal with that, she
tried to put him away.  So my husband and I got custody of him from the
courts.  He graduated from high school, he's a college graduate, he's
doing very well, so...

Geraldo:  You know, Carolyn, that's good, and I know for the record that
there are many many gay support groups because it is deplorable, the
suicide rate among gay young people.  It's phenomenally and outrageously
high.  But I suspect there aren't many support groups for bisexual kids,
and I suspect that there aren't very many kids who define themselves as
bisexual.

Carolyn:  There was, and I don't know how many states or cities this is
in...

Geraldo:  If you don't mind, Carolyn, I want to ask you a more personal
question.  When Fred first brought home a male lover, how did you react?

Carolyn:  Well, it wasn't until the last days of our marriage and we
were on our way out that he did that because that was our agreement that
he would not do it.  And, he wound up doing it anyway.

Geraldo:  And your reaction when you saw this other fellow in the house?

Carolyn:  Well, I was pretty P.O.'d about it, to be honest.  I was
angry, I didn't like it at all.

Geraldo:  What did you say?  "Fred, get out of here?  And take that
trollop with you?"

Carolyn:  No, I didn't.  We went to therapy and went to a group called
Gamma, Gay Married Men Association, and we started to lead that group.
There was four wives in there of Gay Married Men and there was about
twenty, twenty-five men whose wives knew absolutely nothing.

Geraldo:  Like Tom's.

Carolyn:  Right.  I'm talking about dentists, lawyers, y'know... it's
not  fair.

UAM 12(F):  I have a question.  Do you feel this is necessary for you
guys to be happy and are you happy?

Jane:  Is it necessary for you to be all that you are to be happy?

UAM 12(F):  Yeah, but I'm normal!

Jane:  Same with me.

UAM 12(F):  That's the problem.

Charles:  No, it's not a problem.  For you it is out of the normal, and
for you it might be something that makes you unhappy.  For me to NOT do
it, would make me unhappy.

Geraldo:  One point upon which Charles and I and the rest have no, or
should have absolutely no disagreement:  If you're out there and you're
not monogamous and you're having unprotected sex then you are a fool.
You're worse than a fool, 'cause you go home after you have unprotected
sex you could be a murderer, a murdering fool.  Regardless of what your
sexual preference is, please!  Please please please...  Tom, I want to
ask you a question.  You're married, and you have men on the side.

Tom:  Not 'men.'  I did at one time.  My promiscuity ended about eight
or nine years ago with the onset of AIDS.

Geraldo:  But isn't it a fact that you still have a steady?

Tom:  I have a friend.  I have never had a serious bisexual
relationship.  I don't believe that I could ever cohabitate with another
man.  I am so involved and have been for so many years in family life
I've been described by someone as a homophobic bisexual!  It's just a
strange situation.

Geraldo:  But you have a steady boyfriend?  Do you see him every friday?

Tom:  I have a friend, yes.  I don't say that we have an affair, we have
an encounter.  Let me tell you about him.  He is my age, he's been
married about as long as I have, he has a daughter and two grandkids and 
his wife knows nothing about it.  He has a professional business...

Geraldo:  Let me ask you about this, Tom.  So you meet this guy every
tuesday at lunchtime.  Let me finish.  Is it fair to say that that is a
purely sexual encounter, or is there also an emotional aspect to it as
well?

Tom:  There's no emotion about, nothing emotional about it.

Geraldo:  So you use him for physical satisfaction and he uses you for
the same thing?

Tom:  Sex for the moment.

Marie:  Tom?  I wanna know if you practice safe sex with your partner?
Because what about your wife?  You don't wanna bring... I've got AIDS
now from my husband.  You don't want to bring that home.  Are you
careful?

Tom:  I have had the HIV test once a year for the last three years.

Marie:  But you can get infected the next day after your test.

Tom:  I do... No.  This man I'm talking about, we trust each other.
He's got just as much involved...  

Marie:  But I trusted my husband!  You can't trust him...

Geraldo:  Charles, what do you say?

Charles:  Yes?

Geraldo:  Isn't Tom playing Russian Roulette with his wife's health?

Charles:  And his own and his partner's and everyone else he comes in
contact with.

Geraldo:  Tom...

Lorraine:  I would like to say that the wife is playing Russian Roulette
with her own health, because we each have responsibility... [ cries of
outrage from the audience ]  Wait, wait, let me explain... let me
explain what I'm saying.  My assumption, and I think everyone's
assumption needs to be that we need to protect ourselves...

Geraldo:  But against your faithful husband of forty-five years?

Lorraine:  Look at the divorce statistics, look at the promiscuity
statistics in this society, and you tell me what your choice is.  It's
your choice.

Charles:  Geraldo, in the last five years fifty percent of married men
have had an outside affair.  ONE HALF in the last five years.  Yes, your
faithful partners.

Lorraine:  That's why I said take the responsibility yourself.  Don't
blame it on anyone else.  It's your life.

Geraldo:  I think if you can't trust your mate of forty-five years, it's
pretty pathetic.  Okay, "Bi Any Other Name," Lorraine Hutchin's book,
edited by her and another person.  I notice it has the Lambda Excellence
for Literature award, so I guess you are getting some recognition from
mainstream gay community.  And there's Tom's book, "Half Straight, My
Secret Bisexual Life."  Tom was probably the most controversial of our
guests on the panel today.  But I'd like to thank you all, good luck,
long life, good health, wisdom, happiness...

     [ End ]