A new study published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior came to this conclusion after surveying a group of 203 bisexual men who hadn’t told their current female partners about their same-sex attraction. Of the men studied, 63 percent said they’d never told anyone about their bisexuality.
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But…why? The majority said they were worried about how other people would react to the news. The men listed a number of reasons why they kept their bisexuality in the closet, but these were the biggies:
- They worry that their partners would be upset
- They worry it would negatively impact their relationships
- They think other people have crappy attitudes about homosexuality
- They’ve had a bad reaction from others after revealing that they’re bisexual
- They want to be perceived a certain way
- They worry that the person they told would tell other people
- They worry that they’d be rejected on a cultural or religious basis
The findings are a bummer, especially given that a survey from the Centeres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released in January found that people are more accepting of same-sex behavior now than ever. Not only that, they’re engaging in it more.
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The CDC study found that more than 17 percent of women reported having some sort of sexual contact with another woman. The study also found that more than five percent of women and two percent of men labeled themselves as “bisexual,” an uptick from the last time the survey was conducted.
While you can’t—and shouldn’t—force someone to talk about their sexuality if they’re not comfortable with it, showing your partner that you’re accepting of all forms of lovin’ can go a long way toward getting him to open up.