As a therapist who has spent years working with clients across the spectrum of sexual orientation, I’ve witnessed firsthand how misconceptions about bisexuality, particularly men’s bisexuality, can cause real harm. These myths don’t just float harmlessly in the cultural ether. They settle into the minds of the people I work with, shaping how they see themselves, how they navigate relationships, and whether they feel they have permission to exist.
Bisexual men face a peculiar kind of erasure. They’re often told, in subtle and not-so-subtle ways, that their identity isn’t “real.” This message comes from straight communities, from gay/queer communities, and sometimes even from within bisexual spaces themselves. The result is a population of men who frequently feel invisible, misunderstood, and pressured to “pick a side.”
In this post, I want to walk through some of the most persistent myths about men’s bisexuality and address them with compassion, clinical perspective, and the data that researchers have gathered over the past several decades.
This is perhaps the most damaging myth of all, and it has a surprisingly specific scientific history. For years, the very existence of male bisexuality was questioned even in academic circles.
In 2005, a study published in the journal Psychological Science made headlines with the claim that men who identified as bisexual showed genital arousal patterns that aligned with either gay or straight men —not a genuine “in-between” response. The New York Times covered this with the now-infamous headline “Straight, Gay or Lying? Bisexuality Revisited.” You can imagine how that message landed for the millions of men who knew their attractions to be real.
But science is self-correcting, and this story has a redemptive arc. In 2011, the same lead researcher published a follow-up study that used more rigorous recruitment criteria. This time, the researchers found clear evidence of bisexual arousal patterns in men who identified as bisexual. The men in this study showed genital and subjective arousal to both men and women.
The most definitive word came in 2020, when researchers published a meta-analysis in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) that pooled data from multiple studies involving hundreds of men. The conclusion was unambiguous: bisexual-identified men do, in fact, show bisexual patterns of genital and self-reported arousal. The lead author noted that the findings should help dispel the long-standing notion that male bisexuality isn’t real.
As a clinician and queer man myself, I find it somewhat infuriating that we needed laboratory studies focused on genital arousal to validate what bisexual men have been telling us all along. But the data is now clear: bisexual men exist.
I hear this one constantly, both from clients describing how others perceive them and occasionally from clients who have internalized it themselves. The assumption is that a man who identifies as bisexual is simply in a transitional phase and not yet ready to fully “come out” as gay.
While it’s true that some men do use bisexual as a temporary identity on the way to identifying as gay, the data tells us this is far from the universal experience. Longitudinal research reveals that bisexuality is, for most people, a stable and enduring orientation.
Dr. Lisa Diamond, one of the most respected researchers in this field, has argued forcefully against the “transitional phase” assumption. Her research, along with that of colleagues, demonstrates that bisexuality functions as a third orientation rather than a way station between heterosexuality and homosexuality.
If bisexuality were merely transitional, we wouldn’t expect to see such stable representation across age groups, including among older adults who have had decades to “settle” into a final identity.
The clinical reality is this: pressuring a bisexual man to declare himself “really” gay (or “really” straight) doesn’t help him find his authentic self. It just teaches him that his honest experience is unacceptable to others.
This myth conflates orientation with behavior in a way that simply doesn’t hold up. The underlying logic seems to be: if someone is attracted to more than one gender, they must be incapable of commitment or fidelity.
There is no credible evidence that bisexual people cheat more than heterosexual or gay people. Attraction to multiple genders does not translate to an inability to commit, just as a heterosexual man’s attraction to many women doesn’t doom him to infidelity. We don’t assume that a straight man can’t be faithful simply because he finds many women attractive, yet we apply exactly this faulty reasoning to bisexual men.
What research does show is that bisexual people, when in monogamous relationships, are just as capable of fidelity as anyone else. Some bisexual people choose consensual non-monogamy (see my other article on CNM in my blog profile, or hyperlinked here), but so do people of every orientation, and that’s a relationship structure choice rather than a feature of bisexuality itself.
In my practice, I’ve seen how this myth poisons relationships. A partner may harbor suspicion that has nothing to do with their bisexual partner’s actual behavior and everything to do with a cultural stereotype. This kind of unwarranted distrust can erode otherwise healthy relationships. The healthier path is to evaluate a partner based on their actual character and conduct rather than on a myth about their orientation.
This is a subtler myth, and one that even well-meaning people get wrong. The assumption is that “bisexual” must mean a perfect 50/50 split in attraction. When a bisexual man reveals that he’s, say, more drawn to women than men (or vice versa), people sometimes use this to dismiss his bisexuality entirely.
But bisexuality has never required a balanced ratio of attractions. The classic Kinsey scale, developed in the 1940s, conceptualized sexuality as a continuum from exclusively heterosexual to exclusively homosexual, with many gradations in between. A man can lean significantly toward one gender while still experiencing genuine, meaningful attraction to another.
On this roundtable episode of the Men’s Therapy Podcast, Marc Azoulay, Shana James, Melissa Ryan, and Jack Lambert unpack why relationships fail, how avoidant and anxious attachment patterns shape men’s intimacy, and what emotional safety and respect truly require.
The widely embraced definition offered by bisexual activist Robyn Ochs captures this beautifully: bisexuality is “the potential to be attracted—romantically and/or sexually—to people of more than one sex and/or gender, not necessarily at the same time, not necessarily in the same way, and not necessarily to the same degree.”
That phrase “not necessarily to the same degree” is liberating for many of my clients. It frees them from the impossible standard of perfectly balanced attraction and lets them embrace the full, idiosyncratic reality of their desires.
The “confusion” narrative suggests that bisexual men don’t understand their own feelings, or that they haven’t thought hard enough about who they really are. This framing is paternalistic, implying that the bisexual person knows themselves less well than the outside observer does.
In reality, many bisexual men have done extensive, sometimes painful, self-reflection to arrive at their identity. Far from being confused, they often have a more nuanced understanding of their own desires than people who never had to question the default of heterosexuality. On the reverse side, this myth often stops bisexual men from seeking greater understanding of their sexuality for not wanting to appear confused.
Luckily, our understanding of sex/sexuality/pleasure has expanded enough that even a Kinsey 0 (an exclusively heterosexual male) might want to explore his fantasies and desires. But even the term explore is more forgiving than the “confusion” that can be placed on bisexual men.
What can look like “confusion” from the outside is sometimes the result of living in a world that gives bisexual people very few mirrors. When the culture insists that you must be either gay or straight, it can take time to recognize and name an experience that falls outside those categories. The confusion, when it exists, is often a product of cultural erasure rather than any inherent uncertainty in the person.
Here’s where I want to shift from debunking myths to talking about consequences. These myths are not academic curiosities. I have seen them have measurable effects on the wellbeing of bisexual men.
Research consistently shows that bisexual people experience worse mental health outcomes than both heterosexual and gay/lesbian people on several measures. This phenomenon is sometimes called the “bisexual health paradox.” Bisexual individuals report higher rates of depression, anxiety, and suicidality.
Data from the Trevor Project’s research on LGBTQ youth consistently highlights that bisexual young people face significant mental health challenges. And broader reporting has documented elevated rates of mood and anxiety disorders among bisexual adults compared to their monosexual peers.
Why would this be? It’s not that there’s anything inherently unhealthy about being bisexual. Rather, the explanation lies in what researchers call minority stress and, more specifically for bisexual people, a phenomenon sometimes called double discrimination or bi-erasure. Bisexual men can feel rejected by straight communities for not being straight, and by gay communities for not being gay. They may feel they don’t fully belong anywhere.
Bisexual people face unique forms of invisibility and stigma that contribute to these disparities. When your very identity is constantly questioned, when you’re told you’re “lying” or “confused” or “really gay,” that takes a psychological toll.
There’s also the issue of disclosure. Studies show that bisexual men are less likely to be “out” than gay men or lesbians. According to Pew Research, only a small percentage of bisexual people say all or most of the important people in their lives know about their orientation. This concealment, while often a protective strategy, is itself associated with worse mental health outcomes because of the chronic stress of hiding an essential part of oneself.
If you’re a bisexual man reading this, I want to speak directly to you for a moment, as I would to a client sitting across from me.
Your orientation is real. Your attraction is valid. The science now backs this up unequivocally, but you never needed a laboratory study to validate your own experience. You’re allowed to be attracted to more than one gender. You’re allowed for that attraction to be uneven, fluid, or hard to put into words. You don’t owe anyone a tidy explanation, and you don’t have to “pick a side” to make others comfortable.
The mental health disparities I described are not a reflection of something broken in you. They’re a reflection of the stress that comes from living in a world that hasn’t yet fully made room for you. The problem is the stigma, not the orientation.
If you’re struggling, please know that support exists. Connecting with bisexual-specific community resources can be profoundly healing. Being around others who share your experience helps counter the isolation that fuels so much of the bisexual health paradox. And working with an affirming therapist, one who understands bisexuality rather than treating it as a problem to be solved, can make a real difference.
For the partners, friends, and family members of bisexual men: your understanding matters enormously. The research is clear that family and social acceptance is strongly protective for the mental health of LGBTQ+ people.
You can be part of the solution by examining your own assumptions. When you catch yourself thinking a bisexual man is “probably just gay” or “can’t be trusted to commit,” recognize that as a culturally inherited myth rather than a fact. Listen to the bisexual men in your life when they describe their experience, and believe them.
If you’re in a relationship with a bisexual man, his bisexuality is not a threat to your relationship. His attraction to other genders is no more a danger to your bond than a straight man’s attraction to other women would be. What matters in a relationship is commitment, communication, and trust. All qualities that have nothing to do with orientation.
As a therapist, I hold onto hope that more people are understanding the nuances of sexuality because I see change happening. Younger generations are more comfortable with more fluid sexuality and the many terms that exist beyond gay/straight/bisexual. Research institutions are taking bisexuality seriously. And bisexual men themselves are increasingly finding their voices and their communities.
The work ahead is to keep replacing myth with knowledge, suspicion with understanding, and erasure with recognition. Every time we correct a misconception about men’s bisexuality, we make the world a little safer for someone to live authentically. And in my experience, authentic living is one of the most powerful foundations for mental health that exists.
Bisexual men deserve to be seen, believed, and embraced. The data supports it. Compassion demands it. And the men themselves have been waiting for it far too long.
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***If you or someone you know is struggling, the Trevor Project offers crisis support for LGBTQ+ young people, and the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is available 24/7 for anyone in distress.***
Jack is a psychotherapist in private practice in Manhattan specializing in therapy for those in the LGBTQ+ community. He has had several years of experience working with a diverse population with varied concerns in both inpatient and outpatient settings and completed his training at Columbia University.
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