When a fan
tweeted Mark Hamill asking if Luke Skywalker was bisexual, the actor replied with a sensitive and
thoughtful answer. “His sexuality is never directly addressed in the films,”
Hamill tweeted. “Luke is whatever the audience wants him to be, so you can
decide for yourself.”
He has a point, right? It
only makes sense. Bi people are capable of being attracted to more than one
gender, so you can’t always tell who is bi just from their relationship history.
It’s about potential attraction.
Since the films
didn’t explicitly say Luke was straight, it’s possible that he was bi.
Attraction to Leia (a woman) doesn’t automatically rule out the
possibility that Luke could also be attracted to some
men.
So, it’s best not to
assume. Luke could very well be bisexual.
Gay? That’s not what the
tweet asked! The fan specifically asked “if Luke was bisexual.” And since Luke
apparently did have an attraction to women it seems more likely that he’s bi than
gay, right?
So, what’s that weird
headline asking if he’s “gay” all about? It’s about erasing bisexuality.
That’s what it’s about.
It’s sad, but true.
Bisexuality is often erased in just this way. Some people (even some gay
people) have a hard time wrapping their minds around the fact that bi people
exist, so they do bizarre mental gymnastics to interpret everything that isn’t
100% straight as automatically “gay.”
“That guy kissed another
dude?! He must be GAY,” you often hear people conclude. Never mind the
guy’s epic history of dating girls. “It’s a one way street to gay town,” they
claim. Silly, right? It would be funny if it wasn’t so darn
annoying.
Mark Hamill gave a beautiful
reply to his fan on Twitter, only to have certain
writers in the media totally gaywash the conversation. The whole point of the
actor’s thoughtful answer is that we have no real way of knowing what Luke
Skywalker’s actual sexuality is. But, apparently, according to OUT Magazine,
just asking the question “could Luke be bisexual” automatically means he’s
“gay.”
No wonder so many bi guys
are reluctant to come out.
I know, it’s
just Star
Wars. But come on, OUT Magazine! Way to make a cute story into
something weirdly sinister. Not every guy who is attracted to other guys is
gay. Some of us are bisexual. *shakes head*
Preliminary results from a University of Portsmouth study provide evidence that the human need to bond with others is related to and increases openness to homosexual behavior. Their research is published in the journal, Archives of Sexual Behavior.
Dr Diana Fleischman’s study found that heterosexual women with higher levels of progesterone are more open to the idea of sexual behavior with other women. Heterosexual men with high levels of progesterone similarly are more inclined to exhibit more positive attitudes toward in sexual behavior with other men.
Several studies have shown that homosexuality is more common in brothers and others on the same maternal line. A genetic factor is theorized to be the cause.
But since LGBT people have fewer children than straight people, this theory presents a paradox from an evolutionary perspective: how would this trait persist over generations if the men carrying genetic component do not reproduce?
The hormone progesterone contributes to the inclination to form social bonds in humans. This inclination is beneficial for the survival of humans; the formation of friendly same-sex alliances between males promotes community-building. This research suggests that homosexual behavior may have evolved to promote social bonding in humans.
Progesterone is produced in the adrenal glands in men and in the ovaries in women. The hormone level rises during close and friendly interactions between people. Progesterone levels in women peak after ovulation when the chance of becoming pregnant is dramatically reduced. Other experimental research has shown that progesterone increased when both male and female subjects were told they would have an opportunity to affiliate with others following an experience of social rejection.
Dr Fleischman said: “From an evolutionary perspective we tend to think of sexual behavior as a means to an end for reproduction. However, because sexual behavior is intimate and pleasurable, it is also used in many species, including non-human primates, to help form and maintain social bonds. We can all see this in romantic couples who bond by engaging in sexual behavior even when reproduction is not possible.
“The results of our study are compelling because using two very different methods, they arrived at the same conclusion. Women were more likely to be motivated to think about homosexual sex when their levels of progesterone were higher. Compared to a control group, men’s homoerotic motivation was not increased by priming them with sex but thinking about friendship and bonding caused a measurable change in their attitude to the idea of having sex with other men.”
Having homoerotic thoughts does not necessarily mean they would be acted upon.
Dr Fleischman, an expert in the influences of hormones on the psychology of women, was studying the effect of progesterone on attitudes towards homosexuality. She questioned whether progesterone, a hormone that has been shown to increase motivation to form close bonds, might also underlie the motivation to affiliate with those of the same sex, sexually.
The researchers first developed a measure of homoerotic motivation through an online survey of 244 participants, with questions including: ‘The idea of kissing a person of the same sex is sexually arousing to me’ and ‘If someone of the same sex made a pass at me I would be disgusted’. The researchers then measured progesterone in 92 women’s saliva and found that as progesterone increased so too did openness to the idea of engaging in homosexual activity.
In the next study, the researchers measured levels of progesterone in the saliva of 59 men before all were randomly assigned to one of three groups and asked to complete word completion puzzles, one using friendship words, one using sexual words, and a third using neutral words. Men asked to complete the affiliative/friendship word puzzle showed 26 per cent greater homoerotic motivation compared to the men in the sexual or neutral conditions. In addition, those men with the highest progesterone in the affiliative condition showed 41 per cent greater homoerotic motivation compared to high progesterone men in the other two groups.Studies of other animals in the great ape family also point to homosexual behavior being used to maintain and forge new friendships.
Dr Fleischman said: “Humans are among a group of animals who have sex for many reasons, not just to reproduce. Reasons can include pleasure, a reward, a way of saying ‘please be nice to me’ or exerting dominance. It’s very complex, but it’s clear there’s a continuum between affection and sexuality and sexuality is fluidity, that is, the ability to engage sexually with those of the same sex or the opposite sex is common. In humans, much, if not most of same-sex sexual behavior occurs in those who don’t identify as homosexual.”
The researchers will now explore other contexts and hormonal influences that could increase homoerotic motivation in men and women. They are also interested in seeing how bisexual people might react differently to social cues.
Dr. Joycelyn Elders—one of the most outspoken and controversial
U.S. Surgeon Generals—says that it is important that bisexuals be open about who
they are, and tell their doctors in order to get the best care and
treatment.
In an exclusive
interview with BiMagazine.org in Minneapolis, Minn., Dr. Elders says she is well
aware of the increased health risks that bisexual men and women have over other
parts of the community. She also says she doesn’t understand why, and that more
studies need to be done. But, she says identifying yourself is the first
step.
“Bisexual people must
not be afraid to tell their doctor what they do and who they are,” Dr. Elders
insists. “And I know that there’s an issue about the doctor not knowing how to
handle that information once they have it, but the first step is to identify
yourself. We’ll train the doctors.”
Dr. Elders, now 81, was
the first African American and second woman to be appointed as Surgeon General,
which is essentially the top doctor in the United States. She was appointed in
1993 by President Bill Clinton who knew her from working with her in
Arkansas.
She resigned a little
more than a year into her service following her controversial statements about
drug legalization, abortion and masturbation. She suggested that legalizing
certain drugs may reduce the crime rate, and she once said, “We really need to
get over this love affair with the fetus and start worrying about children” when
asked about abortion.
As far as the
masturbation issue, she says she is often misquoted as saying that it should be
taught in schools.
As she tells it: “I was
at a United Nations conference on AIDS and a reporter asked me if promoting
masturbation would be a better way to prevent young people from engaging in
riskier forms of sex. And I said, ‘I think that it is a natural part of human
sexuality and maybe it should be taught’ and I meant it should be taught as a
natural alternative of our sexuality. I never said that it should be taught in
schools. Nobody has to teach anyone how to masturbate.”
And decades later, after
kicking up a firestorm with the right-wing Republicans in the day, her views
haven’t changed much. She teases, “You never get hair on the palm of your hands
when you masturbate, and you’re having sex with somebody you know, and hopefully
like.”
She adds, “Not every
sperm is destined to be a baby.”
Dr. Elders was at the
University of Minnesota in May to dedicate the Joycelyn Elders Chair in Sexual
Health, which is the first endowment of its kind in the nation for a professor
to study human sexuality. Dr. Michael W. Ross, from New Zealand, will be
representing the chair at the university. Donations came from 23 organizations,
26 states and eight countries. Part of the $2 million for the chair came from
the California Institute of Contemporary Arts, which was created by Dr. Fritz
Klein, who also created BiMagazine.com and the American Institute of
Bisexuality.
“Bisexuals weren’t
identified separately in many studies when I was Surgeon General, but they
should be,” Dr. Elders recalls. “They were lumped in with gays and lesbians, and
that was wrong. They should identify themselves properly.”
Too many labels confuse
the issue, she says, but for scientific and medical reasons it is
important.
“It’s a simple question.
Do you have sexual interest in men and women? OK, you’re bi,” Dr. Elders
explains. “That’s important for your doctor to know.”
Dr. Elders knows about
the statistics for bisexuals. “Yes, it may be obvious why bi youth are more
prone to depression and suicide—they get discriminated by the gay community,
too. But why do bisexual women have more incidents of breast cancer, I don’t
know? Why do more bisexual men have anal cancer? Are they having more anal
sex?”
“We need to know what
bisexuals are doing, and break them out from the others, but the community has
to feel comfortable about coming out about it first,” Dr. Elders
insists.
In an unprecedented
historic move, Elders was honored by three other Surgeon Generals in the
dedication of the chair, and a day-long panel discussion about human sexuality.
Dr. David Satcher, the first black male to be surgeon general; Dr. Richard H.
Carmona who served under George W. Bush; and Dr. Kenneth P. Mortitsugu, the
first Asian-American Surgeon General, were all in attendance.
“No matter what our
politics, we are all Surgeon Generals and we are for life,” says Carmona,
pointing out that his colleagues have different ideas on abortion and other
issues. He also felt that the press often baited the Surgeon Generals with
sticky questions, like they did with Dr. Elders.
Sather pointed to the
controversial “Surgeon General’s Call to Action to Promote Sexual Health and
Responsible Behavior” which came out in 2001 and they all participated in, but
faced widespread political disapproval. “We almost didn’t get that out, and it
is an important document and I appreciate that it is being displayed here,” he
said.
Dr. Mortitsugu says that
Surgeon Generals have an important responsibility to let the general public know
about health issues. “Right now, obesity is the number one reason why people get
rejected from the military and foreign service. I don’t think many people know
that.” He said he was also concerned about the availability of sexual
misinformation on the Internet and worries about his 12-year-old
daughter.
“In this YouTube
generation, porn is not a positive portrayal of sexual health,” Mortitsugu
says.
Dr. Carmona adds, “It is
the responsibility of the media to do more about education of sex and sexuality
and not just the prurient nature of it. The media need to be more positive about
sexual health.”
At a reception at the
Weisman Art Museum on the University of Minnesota campus, Elders talked about
being a great-granddaughter of slaves and raised by a sharecropper family in
Arkansas. She still lives in the same family house.
Dr. Michael Ross, whose
position is being funded by the Elders chair, says, “So much sexual health
education is devoted to adolescents but, in my experience, adults are simply
large adolescents. In many cases, they’ve had less sexual health education than
adolescents have.”
Dr. Ross’s focus of his
science-based sex research will reflect Elders’s long-held belief that sexuality
is from birth to death.
“One of the things that
surprised me from some research a few years ago,” Ross says, “is that for
adolescent males, the average age at which they saw porn on the Internet was 11.
That’s a really important finding. We don’t have the choice between sexuality
education or no sexuality education. The choice is between responsible education
or sexuality learned from pornography.”
Eli Coleman, who
spearheaded the four-year drive for the Dr. Elders Chair, explains, “We don’t
just talk about contraception or HIV or sexual dysfunction. Our students learn
about all sexual health issues they will encounter as physicians, from pregnancy
to the impact of chronic illness and medications on sexual functioning, to
sexual violence and assault, which often get overlooked. There are not a lot
of individual donors ready to attach their name to sexual health, It is still a
stigmatized area. Dr. Elders was willing to lend her name, and we honor
her.”
Dr. Elders interned in
1960 at the University of Minnesota’s Medical School and then served as the
director of the Arkansas Health Department where she worked to reduce teen
pregnancy, HIV infections and infant mortality.
Ross points out, “Only
half of medical schools in the United States have courses on sexual health
education for physicians. That is a disturbing figure. There’s a groundswell of
opinion that this is something we’re falling short on.”
But, Dr. Elders
announced that the University of Arkansas is also now trying to raise money to
create a similar chair on Human Sexuality at their school under her
name.
“Let’s put one in every
school!” she declares. “The best contraception in the world is good
education.”
Dr. Elders concludes by
saying that “the most important part of sexuality is ‘pleasure’ and that could
be as simple as holding hands or a kiss on the face. Pleasure is
key.”
At that, none of the
other Surgeon Generals added to Dr. Elders’s conclusion and the symposium
adjourned.
Ryan romances Kamilah
to get close to Lukas. As she tracks the killer, Helen develops an unexpected
emotional connection with Ryan. Meanwhile, Gabe uncovers a clue to his wife’s
mysterious past.
When a fan
tweeted Mark Hamill asking if Luke Skywalker was bisexual, the actor replied with a sensitive and
thoughtful answer. “His sexuality is never directly addressed in the films,”
Hamill tweeted. “Luke is whatever the audience wants him to be, so you can
decide for yourself.”
Since the films
didn’t explicitly say Luke was straight, it’s possible that he was bi.
Attraction to Leia (a woman) doesn’t automatically rule out the
possibility that Luke could also be attracted to some
men.
“That guy kissed another
dude?! He must be GAY,” you often hear people conclude. Never mind the
guy’s epic history of dating girls. “It’s a one way street to gay town,” they
claim. Silly, right? It would be funny if it wasn’t so darn
annoying.
