Bisexuality 101: Am I bisexual?
Some people would say that everyone is bisexual, but I’m not going to buy into that line. That’s the easiest way to confuse those of you who may be on the fence.
And no, just because you thought about doing something with a friend of the same sex—or maybe even did a little fooling around at one time—it doesn’t mean that you’ve got the “B” label branded on your forehead forever. Nor, does it mean if you’ve never actually had sex with both a man and a woman that you cannot declare yourself a bisexual.
In fact, many people who identify as bisexual have yet to experience full sexual relations with a man and a woman (and it doesn’t have to be at the same time, either!)
Bisexuality, in its simplest form, is the understanding or awareness that you can be attracted physically and emotionally to either gender at some point.
It doesn’t mean that you have to be equally attracted to both, and it doesn’t mean that you have to have regular sex with both genders to be happy or satisfied. And yes, bisexuals can be monogamous, and have one only one partner at a time and be very content. See Bisexuality 101: Am I bisexual?
Examiner.com -
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SF City Attorney ready to lend a hand in federal gay marriage case
Dennis Herrera, San Francisco’s City Attorney petitioned a U.S. District Court Judge Thursday to allow San Francisco to intervene as a party plaintiff in a constitutional challenge to Proposition 8, the voter-approved amendment that bans gay marriage in California. The federal lawsuit was filed in May on behalf of two California couples. San Francisco lead the legal battle that resulted in the May 2008 ruling in favor of gay marriage that was later overruled by Prop 8. “We are long overdue to put anti-gay discrimination on trial based on the facts,” said Herrera in a statement. “The San Francisco City Attorney’s Office has the experience and expertise to aggressively assist in doing precisely that.”See City Attorney ready to lend a hand in federal gay marriage case The San Francisco Examiner
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100 Nations Meet in Copenhagen to Celebrate and Fight for Homosexual Rights
COPENHAGEN, — This week, thousands of people from across the globe will arrive in the Danish capital Copenhagen to take part in the most important international event for homosexual, bi-sexual and transgender men and women – World Outgames 2009. On the agenda is one of the largest and most important conferences on homosexual rights the world has ever seen.
Nearly 100 nations will be represented, and up to 200,000 participants, tourists and Copenhageners are expected to take part in World Outgames 2009 from July 25 – August 2. Apart from focusing on human rights for nine days, a large number of theme festivals and an extensive cultural and sports program will make Copenhagen the place to be.
“By hosting World Outgames, Denmark will send a signal to the rest of the world that it should maintain focus on the right to love whomsoever one wishes, irrespective of gender and sexuality. From Northern Europe to South America, in Eastern Europe and the Far East, there are human rights battles to be fought – particularly for homosexuals. We hope that World Outgames and the thousands of people from around 100 different countries will be able to spread the message to the world,” says Uffe Elbaek, director of World Outgames 2009.
The heart of World Outgames is a major international human rights conference being held in close cooperation with Amnesty International and IBM focusing on the necessity that all people, irrespective of gender and sexuality should have equal rights.
“It is important for Copenhagen that issues concerning homosexual rights and tolerance can be discussed without prejudice. World Outgames enables us to pay tribute to the diversity and openness that is such an innate part of the city. We are greatly looking forward to welcoming participants and spectators,” says Lars Bernhard Jorgensen, CEO of Wonderful Copenhagen.
A great variety of cultural activities will take place in Copenhagen during the event. Cities such as Melbourne, Tel Aviv, Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro and Antwerp will contribute with music, entertainment, dance and much more. Sporting events throughout the city will include some 30 disciplines – such as ice hockey, beach volleyball and triathlon in Copenhagen’s harbor area. Apart from the cultural program and the sport events, the city will be awash with a large number of free activities.
Also, a gay cruise with 2,600 passengers will be docking at Copenhagen during World Outgames, and a mass blessing has been arranged at Copenhagen Cathedral offering gay couples special recognition by the Church to commemorate the 20th anniversary of legally recognized same-sex civil unions in Denmark.
Facts and additional information about homosexual rights in Denmark:
http://www.visitcopenhagen.com/factsheetWOG
Read more about World Outgames: http://www.copenhagen2009.org/
Official program: http://www.copenhagen2009.org/program
Download photos: http://www.copenhagen2009.org/photo
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Gay rights advocate questions pick for state civil rights chief in NJ
TRENTON — One of New Jersey’s leading gay rights advocates is raising questions about Attorney General Anne Milgram’s pick for state civil rights chief, a day after two state senators also criticized the choice.
Garden State Equality Chairman Steven Goldstein said Milgram’s nominee to lead the Division on Civil Rights, Chinh Le, is “someone completely unknown” to the state’s gay community, unlike former director Frank Vespa-Papaleo.
“The burden is on the attorney general to further demonstrate that her nominee will continue Frank Vespa-Papaleo’s record of outstanding advocacy for every community, including ours,” Goldstein said.
The state Commission on Civil Rights is expected to vote on Le’s nomination today.
“Chinh Le has an extraordinary background and commitment to justice and civil rights,” Milgram said in a statement. “His experience and involvement in the important social and civil issues facing our state make him well-qualified to lead the division.”
See Gay rights advocate questions pick for state civil rights chief NJ.com
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Humpday Isn’t Really About Gay Sex
Lynn Shelton’s Humpday, a sexual sitcom, opens with a pair of breeders in bed. A youngish married couple, Ben (mumblecordeon Mark Duplass) and Anna (Alycia Delmore), confess they’re too tired to procreate that night and then confess their mutual relief. As if in response, the doorbell rings at 2 a.m. and Ben’s long-lost college buddy, Andrew (Blair Witch Project survivor Joshua Leonard), stumbles in from deepest Mexico. Anna, who has never had the pleasure, watches the unexpected bromantic action with grim incredulity. Aggressively loud, demonstrative, and hairy, Andrew is a credible representation of Ben’s id.
Reuniting an uptight married man with a footloose old pal, Shelton’s third feature offers a (much) more extreme version of Kelly Reichardt’s Old Joy, also a sort of buddy movie, also shot in the Pacific Northwest. In this case, the lost weekend is steeped in sexual anxiety. Friday night, Ben has to retrieve merry Andrew from a house called “Dionysus” — home to a bi cutie (the director herself) and an omnisexual assortment of roisterers. No orgies, but plenty of stoned dancing. Anna, who has prepared her signature pork chop dinner, sits home alone. She stews; Ben gets stewed. Prompted by news of an amateur porn festival — sponsored by a local alt-weekly — Ben finds himself proposing to costar with showoff Andrew in a mad art project, dude-on-dude action, totally straight, yet somewhere “beyond gay.” Maybe they’ll be famous. The only problem: Just who is going to bone whom?
Having thus invested its protagonists in a game of “chicken,” played to justify their respective life choices, Humpday delivers some excellent situation comedy. The scene where Andrew and Anna have a get-acquainted drink and Andrew inadvertently exposes Ben’s boastful lie that his wife has signed off on their “project” is pure Honeymooners. (Bang, zoom, straight to the moon!) Ben can’t tell Anna why he wants to have sex with Andrew, only that it’s very, very important to him. And, terrified that Ben might think he really did have a yen, Andrew can only sigh, “I wish I was more gay.” Of course. Just as Brüno is more of a comment on celebrity culture than the love (or hate) that dare not speak its name, Humpday is actually less a queer comedy than a satiric view of macho. Appreciative as Shelton may be of her dudes, she has another agenda. Each in his own way, the guys have been freaked by a manifestation of assertive female sexuality — although the term “pussy-whipped” is never used.
See Humpday Isn’t Really About Gay Sex
Miami New Times
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Ending prisoner rape in Michigan
LINDA MCFARLANE writes:
The Michigan Department of Corrections (DOC) last week settled a class action lawsuit brought by over 500 female prisoners who were sexually abused in the state’s prisons. With the $100-million settlement agreement, hopefully the DOC will also begin to take the proactive steps needed to prevent and address the sexual violence that continues to plague its facilities.
This decision came after more than ten years of litigation, during which the courts repeatedly ruled against the state.
Although the prevalence of sexual abuse in Michigan prisons is well documented, leading officials have insisted that this type of violence is not a serious problem. In 2008, DOC Director Patricia Caruso opposed national standards being developed to address sexual abuse behind bars, stating that they would require that a “disproportionate amount of resources be dedicated to an issue that affects less than 1% of the DOC prison population.”
This claim is in blatant defiance of the facts. A 2007 national survey by the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics, which surveyed inmates at three Michigan prisons, found that the proportion of prisoners experiencing sexual victimization in the past year alone ranged from 4.6% to 7.9%.
Rape and other forms of sexual violence cause long-term harm to survivors and their communities. Prisoner rape survivors suffer physical injury, contract HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, and experience severe psychological trauma. The vast majority of inmates ultimately return home, bringing their experiences and medical and psychiatric conditions with them.
See Ending prisoner rape in Michigan
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San Jose’s Billy DeFrank Center embarks on ambitious fundraising campaign
For 28 years, the Billy DeFrank LGBT Community Center has been the go-to place for Silicon Valley’s diverse gay community. But on Tuesday, interim executive director Paul Wysocki sent out a desperate plea: the DeFrank Center will close its doors unless it raises $50,000 by Sept. 1. “Our government funding has ended, and in today’s economy, we can’t count on corporate support,” read a weekly newsletter that is e-mailed to supporters. “Our current income from memberships and events no longer meets even the most basic level of Center operations.” The DeFrank Center has three main programs: support services for youth, another for seniors, and an HIV/AIDS testing program. But funding for the HIV testing from Santa Clara County and for the senior program from the city of San Jose have dried up as both the county and the city struggle with their own budget deficits. The Center has cut expenses and now has an annual budget of $310,000, down from $800,000 a few years ago. Wysocki became interim executive director four months ago after former executive director Aejaie Sellers and former board President PJ Matarese were ousted amid internal power struggles over the center’s long-term vision and escalating financial problems. “I have a lot of empathy for Barack Obama,” said Wysocki. “You inherit a situation where a lot of things were done poorly.”
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On Gay Issues, Obama Asks to Be Judged on Vows Kept
WASHINGTON — President Obama defended his policies on gay rights on Monday, telling an audience of gay men and lesbians that he remained committed to overturning the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” rule and that he expected to be judged “not by promises I’ve made but by the promises that my administration keeps.”
Mr. Obama made his remarks at a reception in the East Room of the White House to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion, the 1969 uprising that gave rise to the modern gay rights movement. Joined by his wife, Michelle, the president directly addressed criticism from gay and lesbian leaders that he had not been a forceful advocate for them.
“I know that many in this room don’t believe progress has come fast enough, and I understand that,” Mr. Obama said. “It’s not for me to tell you to be patient any more than it was for others to counsel patience to African-Americans who were petitioning for equal rights a half-century ago.
“We’ve been in office six months now. I suspect that by the time this administration is over, I think you guys will have pretty good feelings about the Obama administration.”
Many lesbians and gay men supported Mr. Obama’s election, but their leaders have grown increasingly impatient and critical of him as president.
See On Gay Issues, Obama Asks to Be Judged on Vows Kept
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What will parents do to avoid having a gay son?
In the early 1990s, when genetic research was far less advanced than today, Jonathan Tolins posed the question: If a woman knew in advance that her male baby would be born gay, would she still go through with the pregnancy?
That’s the premise of his 1992 drama “The Twilight of the Golds,” which was filmed for cable television in 1997 and which receives an emotionally gripping staging courtesy of Theatre Out.
Through her husband’s medical research firm, which has devised genetic testing of fetuses, the pregnant Suzanne Gold-Stein (Jennifer Pearce) has discovered that her baby boy has the genetic markers of homosexuality.
The question of whether to keep the baby is, in fact, illuminated by the family’s firsthand experience: Suzanne’s brother David (Tim Woods) is gay, a factor that has, despite their denials, always affected his bond with her and with their parents.
The play is told from the opera-loving David’s point of view, its title a pun drawn from “The Twilight of the Gods,” the fourth opera in Wagner’s “Ring” Cycle. He frames the play’s focal issue when he asks, “What difference does being gay make?” As the story progresses, its ethical complications are magnified, even as Tolins takes time out to assail the materialism of the 1980s.
Complicating the ethical dilemma posed by Tolins is the way it splits the family. For David, who is, ironically, pro-choice, aborting the baby is tantamount to killing him. As much as she dotes on David, mom Phyllis (Karen Harris) has to admit that “it hurts to see your child become something different.”
Seeing genetic testing as a boon to mankind, Suzanne’s husband Rob (Eric James) insists that he and Suzanne “don’t need David to tell us how to live our lives,” while patriarch Walter Gold (Rick Kopps) maintains that “it’s Rob and Suzanne’s decision.”
See What will parents do to avoid having a gay son?
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Church ponders next step on gay vows
Episcopal bishops in New England and Iowa, the only parts of the nation where same-sex marriage is legal, are preparing for a wave of requests to allow priests to oversee the ceremonies as the result of a decision last week by the Episcopal Church that opens the door to church weddings for gay couples.
In interviews yesterday, none of several bishops interviewed said they were immediately prepared to allow priests to officiate at same-sex weddings, which remain prohibited by the canons of the Episcopal Church.
But, citing the denomination’s decision Friday to allow bishops in states where same-sex marriage is legal to “provide generous pastoral response’’ to same-sex couples, the bishops indicated that they are looking for ways to allow priests to at least celebrate, if not perform, gay nuptials in church.
“The problem is the prayer book says that marriage must conform to the laws of the state and the canons of the church, but if we respond to the laws of the state, we are in violation of the canons of the church,’’ said Bishop Stephen T. Lane of Maine, where the situation is further complicated by a possible referendum to overturn same-sex marriage. “We’re trying to respond pastorally, but not to get so far beyond the bounds of what the church understands that our clergy are just sort of hanging out there.’’
Lane also said bishops of New England, where same-sex marriage has been approved in every state but Rhode Island, are hoping to reach a common plan, because “we don’t want people running back and forth between the New England states.’’
“The folks who would like to be married are members of our congregations and will have a legal right to marriage should the law be upheld,’’ Lane said. “Clergy are caught trying to be faithful both to the canons of the church and the laws of the state, and some flexibility will help us make good pastoral judgments while the church wrestles with the definition of marriage and the rites in the Book of Common Prayer.’’
The Episcopal Church is one of several mainline Protestant denominations grappling with how to respond to increasing societal acceptance of same-sex couples. But the issue is particularly thorny for Episcopalians because the denomination and the global Anglican Communion to which it belongs have been riven by controversy over the 2003 election of an openly gay priest, the Rev. V. Gene Robinson, as bishop of New Hampshire.
In an interview yesterday, Robinson said he expects to get married to his longtime partner once same-sex marriage becomes legal in New Hampshire, in January. Robinson said Episcopal priests in New Hampshire have been long been allowed to bless same-sex couples, including those in civil unions, and that he expects to continue to ask priests to bless, but not legally officiate at, same-sex weddings.
“My feeling is that it’s time to separate the civil action from the religious action for all couples, and my guess is that we will continue that practice, which is to say we will ask clergy to get out of the civil marriage business and continue to offer the church’s blessings of civil unions and of same-gender marriages,’’ said Robinson. As a practical matter, that means marriages are solemnized by justices of the peace, who sign the legal documents, and then blessed by clergy.
In Eastern Massachusetts, Bishop M. Thomas Shaw has been one of the most vocal supporters of same-sex marriage, but also one of the most determined to differentiate between civil and religious marriage.
See Church ponders next step on gay vows
Boston Globe -
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