Behind the door | To put an end to biphobia

The Press offers you a weekly testimony that aims to illustrate what really happens behind the bedroom door, in privacy, far, far from statistics and standards.
Today: Francis*, in his fifties.


Francis is “tanned”, downright “disgusted” at being “misunderstood” and victim, according to him, of “biphobia”.

“I have wanted to write to you for a long time, but I have never had the guts “, confides the fifty-year-old with soft blue eyes, barely arrived in the café in the northern crown where he gave us an appointment, at the end of last year. “I don’t talk about my business to many people, it’s one of my problems as a man,” he said, visibly stressed.

However, he answers our questions with the utmost transparency. His first sexual experience? At 16 years old. “With a guy my age. But no, there’s nothing premeditated about it. It just “got”. “Two guys in a tent. We just played one after the other. »

It was after that he “worried”: “Am I gay”? “Repressed gay? A question to which he instinctively answers in the negative: “In my dreams, it has always been women…”

Parenthesis: “Bisexuality, I didn’t even know it existed! […] When you have no sex education like me [et contrairement à aujourd’hui], you have no idea! »

Still, a year or two later, Francis is walking downtown and a guy “accosted” him. “I was very lonely. I often went to the city center around 17-18 years old, I drank a few beers and I strolled on Sainte-Catherine, cocktail, in a good mood. ” And then ? “I boarded, I was interested, and I masturbated in his car, then we continued at his place. Fact of note: “I didn’t think anything bad about it.” »

In fact, it happened on one or two other occasions in the years that followed. “I thought neither bad nor good of it. It was just part of a need I had. ” Point.

After a first experience with a dancer (in a car!), Francis finally makes his first blonde, with whom he stays for several years. And then ? “Those were the beginnings. You learn… ”

Throughout his twenties, he chained his girlfriends in this way, but each time, they were the ones who took the first steps. “I’m an extremely shy person…” And in bed? “I have a totally normal sex life, no ups or downs, pretty much neutral. He marries through it all and even has a child.

Nothing to report? If still. “I like women, I like that, but when I’m alone…” When he’s alone?

It’s when I’m alone that my sexual energy comes out. Something is missing. What ? I do not know. Man-to-man contact…

francis

Something is missing, but he doesn’t talk about it, “pantoute”, to anyone. Until, and for all sorts of reasons, Francis ends up separating from yet another relationship, in his mid-thirties. And it is there, for the first time in his life, that he dares. “I am doing my first moves to find a man,” he solemnly declares.

He ends up meeting someone, a gay man, he says, “interested”. “We sleep together several times, sexually, that’s my business […], but like most gay men, he is biphobic. “Biphobic? He does not believe in bisexuality, and is convinced that Francis is rather gay. “But me, it comes to me, because I sincerely believe that I am bi. “It must be said that in the meantime, he has done his research, read “a lot” on the subject, and fully recognizes himself in this two-way sexual orientation.

It was during this time that Francis had a significant, albeit short-lived, encounter. A trained sexologist – “the first woman I told I was bi” – who greets him without flinching. For good reason: “she was also bi! The story lasts only a few months, but Francis gains unprecedented confidence.

Moreover, with his next girlfriend (a story that this time lasts a few years), he asserts himself from the outset. “This is the first time that I spread my vision of life as a couple,” he said. For me, love and sexuality are two completely different things. He goes even further and claims not to believe in monogamy. “I know I’m bi […] And bisexuality and monogamy, it goes wrong together! »

Coup de theater: Madame sees life like him. “And there it begins…” he said, smiling. In bed ? “Extraordinary, everything I do makes her crumble. I feel like a man for the first time in my life. “Better: she introduces him to the world of swingers clubs, and is open to a lot of openness, precisely, but on one condition: “We do nothing without the other. » With men, women, or both at the same time.

Is Francis finally happy? Yes but no. It is that with the adventures, Madame ends up having “panic attacks”. “She was getting jealous. “Except that they do not talk about it, “never”, because we have said it, Francis is not a “big talker”, and they also end up leaving each other.

The story continues. Francis (in trouble with a relationship) finds himself once again in a relationship, and when he confides that he is bi, this time he sees “dread” and “fear in the eyes” (of Madame). And then ? “Don’t worry, it’s under control, he says. A big lie…”

Mid-forties, Francis finds himself single for the umpteenth time. “But I still believe in love, I believe in it, but I don’t know how it can happen. With the insecurity I have, I’m starting to cry…”

He meets a new woman (“I will never look for a man, seriously, no”), with whom, and for once again, he dares to be transparent. “I don’t believe that as a species, we are monogamous, etc. »

It’s “ecstasy” at first (“we woke each other up at night!”), then when Madame realizes that Francis sees men nearby, it’s “dread” again. And again, “we continue, and we don’t talk about it…”

You are spared the free fall, because nothing helps. “She doesn’t like my bi side, but it’s me, so I feel stuck again…”

A new separation later, Francis is destroyed. “I feel so alone on earth. […] Cuddle […]. I will be misunderstood all my life, ”he drops here. That’s why he wrote to us. “To exorcise […]. It sucks: bisexuality is beautiful for women, but ugly for men. […] Me, I call that a calvary. »

* Fictitious first name, to protect his anonymity


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