What I've Learned Along the Way - Part Two

As I said in the first part of this post back in December, "Gay men have won their battle to be accepted into the culture. That is not to say there is no work left to be done, there certainly is, but they won the war."

I went on to say that the same is not true for bisexual men. They have a very long way to go. There

are many reasons for this. Perhaps that is the reason this post was delayed so long, letters and phone calls just kept coming in to give me background input.

A caller said: "bisexual men just don't know what they want." And, he is right. Even a casual look around the bisexual scene will confirm this. To be fair, let's start with what the caller considers should be the definition of a bisexual man. He is a man who knows from experience that he can perform with both men and women and be satisfied performing with both. Gender has little to nothing to do with those he sees as possible  life partners.

A personal friend of mine agrees fully, married for 24 years, his marriage existed on paper, and it produced children, but besides the children, nothing good ever came of the marriage. It was just a 24 year long fight which ended in divorce. After the breakup my friend found his life partner, another male. He said, he loved Charles greatly, but if Charles had been Charlene, he would have loved her just as much.

My friend and the caller agree that to a bisexual man, gender has little or nothing to do with whom they form a long term partnership. When you think about it, this is really a pretty nice thing. The problem though is not many bisexual men subscribe to this way of thinking, or don't subscribe to it soon enough to prevent a lot of pain for themselves and others.

The second, and perhaps the most common confusion that "bisexual" men create for themselves, and

everyone they interact with, are those men who call themselves bisexual simply because they are married to a woman, but enjoy sex with a man. There are two subsets for this kind of man:

1. the man who really loves his wife, but also loves sex with another man, or other men.
2. the man who does not love his wife, but stays married for convenience while he has sex with other men.

There are millions of men in the category. Most of them are in the 40 and above age bracket. They are the ones who cause people to say that bisexual men are self-centered. All too often, they are right. I'm not casting stones at these men, I'm one of them. If there is any difference in me it is that I was so bothered by the experience that I began to do a lot of critical thinking about what should be done about it.

The third way bisexual men stir up trouble for themselves is the clash between the bisexuals who want a monogamous relationship and those who want to use their bisexuality as a license to party hearty, or even engage in regular sexual orgies. Some of these guys say they practice safe sex, but the reality is there is really no way to practice safe sex in a sexual orgy scene. For those who are married, their wives were at that orgy too even though were not physically there.

All of the things that lead to confused thinking about bisexuals, both inside and outside the bisexual ranks, have flaws that do not serve the bisexual man well, and give way to just cause for criticism to those outside the bisexual community.

There is a fourth reason men turn to active bisexuality that has some reasonability about it. In the case of a man whose wife becomes incapacitated, but he is not ready to become celibate. Sex with another man is less binding. Rarely does one man try to sue the other man. Usually, there are no expectations of marriage between two men in such a situation. Of course, this still leaves the other man in such a relationship? That must be a consideration too.

About four years ago a young man contacted me and asked if I would meet with him. We arranged a meeting. At the meeting, I met a very attractive young single man who was so uptight it was beginning to affect every part of his life. At this first meeting and many to follow he only wanted to talk generally and avoid telling me anything that might identify his real name to me. I respected that.

After a while, he began to open up and tell me what concerned him. It boiled down to his feeling he was homosexual. Since he was not married, it didn't seem to be too big a deal to me, but there was a catch: he didn't want to be gay. The thought of being gay was driving him nuts.

He's a very athletic guy (not that athletic guys can't be gay). But just a casual meeting with him would never cause one to walk away thinking: "What a nice gay guy." I told him that. I think it helped, but
not much. He continued to be consumed with this "what if" question.

I told him I thought I could help him find out if he was gay, bisexual or straight, but he had to promise to answer all my questions honestly and completely. He agreed. One of the first questions I asked of him was why he thought he might be gay. He said that he loved to look at pictures of good looking men, and he noticed good looking men he might see in public.

I told him I like art of all kinds. I've spent all day in the National Art Museum of several countries. It doesn't mean I ever expect to own something that would be in there.  I told him also, I like to look at good looking men. Doesn't mean I want to have sex with any of them.

He had previously told me when he was a kid, he was small and had been pushed around by other guys. That had caused him to become a gym rat, so such abuse would not happen. He accomplished his goal. I told him he knows how much work goes into building a body that people would notice. That could be part of his attraction to good looking well built men - an appreciation of the work they have done to sculpt their bodies.

I asked him if he had had sex in college. He said he had a lot of sex in college. I asked if that was with men or women, or both. He said it was always with women. He had never been with a man.
I asked if he enjoyed straight sex. He said that he enjoyed it very much.

We continued to talk for weeks. Our custom was to get something to eat and then just drive around in the car. He still had not told me his real name. One day a strategy came to mind. I was driving and just headed west. We came to one of Houston's many gated neighborhoods. I avoided the guard and approached the gate through the resident's lane. It opened immediately as it would for any resident. All residents have to have an electronic sticker on the windshield to trip the gate. I drove to my house and pointed it out to him and giving him the address. My thought was that now that he knew where I lived, he would soon tell me his address. A few days latter he did. This was important because it showed trust on both sides, and would encourage him to talk openly about his life.

A lot of water has flowed under the bridge between this young man and me in the last four years. He's  one of the most impressive men I have ever met. We've become great friends though we are separated by almost 35 years in age. I give him free access to the store of wisdom I've accumulated during seven decades on this earth. He gives me a measure of confidence that when I'm dead and gone, the world will still be in good hands because of guys like him.

He's married now to an exceptionally beautiful and gentle woman. It seems to me that they could me my wife and I starting over again. Together, they are going to go to places they never dreamed of just as my wife and I have done. "What about his sexuality?" you ask. He's come to realize he is not gay. He's bisexual. We talk a lot about his bisexuality and mine and what he must learn if his life is to be as satisfying and successful as he hopes it to be. What I tell him is something that I would have once thought ridiculous, but now I think it is the real answer for every bisexual guy for whom morality is important.

As those of you who have read much of my writing know, I am a Christian. As a Christian, the moral complications of bisexuality have always been a grave concern for me. How could I be both bisexual and a Christian? There are actually several parts to the answer of that question, that I came to understand well in my personal struggle. But the one thing that always continued to nag me was the fact that I was cheating on my wife who trusted me not to do such a thing.

The problem, of course, is that morality is not important at all for a staggering number of men all around the world. In India, gangs of men are roaming the streets looking for young women whom they can rape and murder. It is a national past time. The same is becoming true in Egypt. Sexual assault against women is open and rampant. After all, boys will be boys!

Throughout the middle east and spreading quickly to other countries around the world women are the property of their husbands. They have no rights other than those he decides they can have. They are kept hidden away behind  the dark burqa or the black abaya and niqãb depending on what part of the Muslim world the reside in.

Houston is one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the United States. Still it did not stop a Muslim father from killing his own daughter recently because by marrying an infidel (a U.S. Citizen who was not Muslim) she had brought dishonor to the family! How anyone much less any group of human beings could have arrived at the point of seeing such a thing as an honorable act is simply beyond my understanding. I know very well that most American Muslims would never do such a thing, but why would any Muslim who would even want to come to the United States?

So, we are all still immersed up to our necks in the human condition. Some of us get it. Some of us never will.

I've always been proud to be a Texan. "Texas", as we say, "is a whole nother country." And it's true. Texas is a state of mind found nowhere else in the world. It's a can do spirit mellowed with a readiness to help a neighbor in a time of need. It's a feeling that "I worked hard for mine, and you should damn well work hard for yours."

No matter what one may think of this Texas Spirit, reality tells the real tale. If Texas was still an independent nation, it would be the 14th largest economy of all the countries of the world. Is it any wonder that Texans worry that the millions of immigrants pouring into Texas may bring with them the old ideas, old feelings and old politics that served to keep them poor and subdued in their old home states or counties.

Don't get me wrong, even Texas has its share of assholes. I even know a few of them personally. They are guys that only care about looking out for number one, and they don't care whom they crush to stay on top. As an example, 7000 delegates to the recent Texas State GOP Convention overwhelmingly voted to endorse Repairative Therapy for gay men. They might as well have voted to cut off their dicks and their balls. It would be the same type of thinking. The American Psychiatric Association has not endorsed Repairative Therapy in years and no reputable therapist has used it for an even longer period. Who are these 7000 ignorant assholes. Well, for the most part they are members of the radical Christian Right Wing who actually know nothing about Christianity and don't want to know anything about science. Their idea of God is an all powerful being who just happens to hate homosexuals just as they do. But I digress (as I often do).

The world will always have those who choose to not bind themselves by morality. The rest of us simply have to carry on as best we can. Oh, don't get the idea that I'm saying one has to be a Christian to be moral. These days, some of the most immoral people I know call themselves Christians. As a young child, a Sunday School Teacher once told us that only Christians could be moral. Even as a young kid, I thought he was some kind of troglodyte.

So, the immoral, like the poor, will always be with us. How do we as bisexuals keep our membership in the moral humans club in good standing? To begin with, we don't allow our problems to become problems for those we love.

A young man I know recently came home to his wife and infant son and told her he didn't want to be married anymore. He didn't want the hassle and he didn't want the responsibility! More than likely to his great surprise, she said, "OK".

All of this is actually connected, I promise.

Recently, national news sources reported that for the first time in our history as a nation, female college students and female college grads outnumber males. What the shit is going on in this country?

According to a recent report by the Pew Research Center, 36% of young people ages 18 to 30 are still living with their parents. Forty percent of these are young men while only 32% are young women. Again the question, "What the shit is going on in this country?"

I think the fact is that more and more men are simply choosing to become Peter Pans. They prefer to remain boys rather than grow into men with with responsibilities! To be sure, a huge number of these young men had help in becoming irresponsibile idiots. They had the help of their mothers who gave birth to them as a single parent with no responsible man in her life. On top of that they had help from their baby daddies who didn't give a damn about them and never even tried to help raise them into men. In my younger, more liberal days, I use to rail against the idea that a child needed both a committed and involved mother and the same type of father. I was wrong. A mother's job is to love her children unconditionally and express that love to them often. A father's job is to kick their asses and assure them the world doesn't give a damn about them. To succeed in this world takes never ending amounts of judgment, brains and courage.

I never was a hippy, but I was part of that generation. The hippy culture has never gone away. It just got older. The kids that smoked dope and dropped out are now the old farts who are still smoking. Many of these guys were either physically or emotionally absent from their sons in their formative years. It shows.

If there is any good news, and I believce there is, it is that many young people have seen enough of the kind of parents they were raised by. They are determined to be a different kind of parent to their own kids. Kids these days don't want anything to do with organized religion. They see it as an hypocracy, and they are dead right in too many cases.

The good thing is that doesn't mean they don't have morals. They do have them and they really intend to live by them. They just might end up being the salvation of this country and the American way of life.

My wife and I were actually surprised at our recent 50th class anniversary how many couples had stayed together over the almost 50 years. We all married young, but we were all brought up in conservative rural Texas. Those moderate conservative values have seen us through a lot of tough times.

Ok, Ok, I know your screaming at this point. How does all this relate to a new moral philosaphy for bisexual men. Well, actually it's pretty simple. Moral heterosexual men have always had to make a choice in their adult lives. Just because they married, often young in decades past, did not mean they went blind. They still reacted viscerally to the sight of a pretty woman, but they made the choice to enjoy the scenery without trying to possess it.

I think the time has come that bisexual men must take the same stand. Fifty years ago it would have

been much more difficult, but today it can actually be pretty easy. Young people are marrying at a much later age now than in decades past. They date much longer. They are exposed to a huge number of people. Homosexuality is a won battle. Not many people these days care who one is sleeping with, male or female.

I think a young male who thinks he might be gay or bisexual has a moral obligation to find out before he commits himself to another person in his life. I've never believed that sex should be something between two married adults. Sex is much too important in a relationship to leave to chance. Responsible mutual exploration, to me, is a must whether it be between two males or a male and a female.

Only when one decides, "I may be bisexual, but traditional marriage is what I want for my lifetime," or conversely, decides, "I'm bisexual and I can relate well to either sex, but a commitment to another male is what I want for my lifetime, should he submit to a long term relationship.

Like moral heterosexuals for generations, he won't be giving up his appreciation of his brand of sex. He'll just tried it all and arrived at what meets his needs the best.

Over the years, I had same sex relations with a bunch of guys. It eventually dawned on me that never once had I found a guy who rivaled the woman I had at home in any way. She out classed them all. I'm a bisexual man, but I know without a doubt that my wife was the life mate for me.

Jack Scott

A Comment on "What I've Learned Along the Way"

A follower of this blog who writes me on a regular basis sent me a long comment on my blog piece, "What I've Learned Along the Way." He was afraid it was too long to publish in the comment section. I told him I would post it for him.

His story fits well in the context of "What I've Learned Along the Way." He has had, as many of us do, some very difficult decisions to make in his life. He has tried his best to make those decisions based on what is best for him and his family. The results have not been entirely satisfying to him, but neither have they been altogether bad. Many of you will most likely recognize yourselves in his comment.

Hey Jack,

I just read your latest blog post.  Interesting to me, because I fall into the category of folks you described, the ones who choose to stay married and monogamous.

Lately, I have been very frustrated on many fronts.  My life just didn't seem to work out like I wanted.  

My marriage is mediocre.  Our sex life has dwindled to nothing (literally, have not had sex since January [last year], and last year was a nearly no-sex year too).  

My career is mediocre.  I got a decent education, with a couple of degrees.  I have fumbled in the work world.  I make a decent living, over the six figure mark. But, I have never really felt connected to my work in a way that is satisfying.

Family life is hard. I am thankful to have kids. I think I am a mediocre parent.  I wish for something better for my kids than I seem to be able to provide for them.

I am bisexual.  I was in some sort of denial about that for many years, even though it was as plain as day to me from an early age that when I watched porn it was the hard dicks that got me hard.  I never tried same-sex sex, and always assumed I never would.  But, the same-sex arousal caused me incredible shame and I know it had a serious impact on my life overall.  

But, the truth is, I can't blame my life circumstances on my sexuality.  I have struggled with depression.  I can be pessimistic.  This challenge runs in my family.  This is yet another burden I must bare. 

I was raised by a bipolar dad who was emotionally distant and at times emotionally abusive.  It left me scarred and self loathing.

I am quite introverted.  That has been yet another burden.  

I've done counseling, prayer, introspection.  Somewhere along the way, I finally started sharing the whole truth about myself, including the sexuality issues.  That was a necessary step, for me.  I had to come to grips with the fact that I am not completely straight.  It's hard to put a number to it, on the Kinsey scale, because I never tried same-sex sex. But, I am confident I could enjoy it. Maybe I'm a 2, because I've never bothered to try it. Maybe I'm a 4, because, damn, those porn images are hot. In the end, it doesn't really matter. I dig gay porn and it provides a useful release for me.  But, I like straight sex, and if I had a more engaged partner, I'd enjoy having a lot more of it.  As I have shared with you previously, coming to grips with who I really am sexually was helpful for me.  It was life changing, in that I was able to release the longstanding shame.

But, because the sexuality issue is not my only struggle, coming to grips didn't solve all my problems.  I'm still a work in progress.  I don't know that I'll ever be "happy" in the sense of being free from the trials of my life.  But, I am happier.  And, I am more at ease.  And, I know better who I am.  Or, rather, I can accept it better.  So, I am thankful.

Your blog has been helpful to me, as have your emails.  I enjoy reading what you write. And, I enjoy writing you about my thoughts on what you write.

I don't have a big network of people I can be the "real" me with, but I have a few people now, online friends with whom I can be fully honest with.  Only one is someone I would call a real friend in the truest sense.  But, I would consider you a "friend" in the sense that I have felt a degree of useful support.

I appreciate you sharing my version of bisexuality on your blog. I wonder how many people like me are out there. I think we tend to live quietly, in the closet.  But, I assume (now) that I can't be the only one.  I think part of my struggle to accept myself was that I felt I could not be me if I was gay or bisexual. To me, for years, accepting that I was gay or bisexual would have meant I should be acting gay or bisexual in the real world, not just in my head.  But, having gay sex, especially as a married man with a family, just simply never felt like an option I could or would consider.  I think that would have shattered my world too much for me to recover.  So, I hid from the whole thing, feeling I had no other options.

When I went into the discovery mode, it was not really by some active choice. I hit the lowest period of my life, and I was suffering from crushing depression and anxiety.  I felt that I had to deal with the sexuality issues. I suppose I felt prompted by God to finally deal with it.  That pressure to face it started three years ago.  I was absolutely terrified.  I didn't know what facing it would mean. But, even if my world turned upside down, I had no choice, because I was suffocating and seemingly dying the way things were.

Now, I am past that crushing, terrifying, ominous sense of doom.  

I'm finally able to see and accept who I am, and I know that gay is a word that applies to me to some extent, even if I can't put a percentage to it.  But, tangibly, in my daily life, things have not really changed.  And, for me, I think that is the right choice. It's not because I have a great marriage or a great sex life that I can't give up.  It's because I have a family and a sense of duty and responsibility and loyalty and honor to the people that I live with.  Honestly, I could think of plenty of reasons why living single would be easier, and sexuality is probably lower on the list than you'd think.  But, if I left my family, I know I would not be happy with myself, and I would not be doing what I believe to be the right thing, in my life.

So, I am making the right choice, for me, at this time.  That seems clear to me.

A Reader

*************

Every decision we make, and even the decisions we do not make affects our lives for better or worse. This reader has tried to make the best choices he can for himself and those he loves. Sometimes that is all one can do, and sometimes it is the right thing to do.

Sometimes, even though we feel like we're not satisfied, we are where we are supposed to be. For instance, I'm always talking about how blessed I am, and how happy I am. That does not mean everything is just as I want it to be. I rather not have my cancer to deal with. I'd like to be a billionaire. But I'll never be a billionaire, and my cancer will kill me at some point. I basically have the choice to cry and complain about these problems or choose to ignore my wishes and appreciate the good things I do have in my life. Sometimes we cannot control what problems we encounter in life, but we can always control how we react to them.

I appreciate those of you who have commented on "What I've Learned Along the Way." One reader noted that he enjoyed the blog although he didn't agree with all that I had written. He is right on target. If I write about scientific fact such as, the sun rises in the east every morning, no one who is sane can refute that. But I rarely write about scientific facts. I usually write about social and cultural controversies, and my opinion concerning them. Wheather its my opinion or anyone else's opinion, there is always room for disagreement. I'd like to hear from those of you who have not commented on the blog yet. Part Two will be posted soon.

Hope all of you have been able to survive the record cold across the U.S. in the past few days.

Jack Scott

Giving Life A Second Look - A Follow Up

I never receive as much comment as I would like in response to my blog postings. I truly do learn and grow as a person by considering the opinions and experiences of others; and thus, hearing from others through their responses to my postings is vital to me.

My recent post, Giving Life A Second Look only garnered two comments. I was hoping for many more, but the two comments I did receive meant a great deal to me. One was from a gay man who praised my even handed approach to bisexuality. Gay men are not big fans of bisexual men, so to find favor with a gay man in my writing is a real accomplishment. I hope to remain worthy of his trust.

The second comment was from Bob, a married bisexual man who found my response to Geoff caring and supportive. To be honest and yet caring and supportive in my writing is a constant imperative. To have that imperative recognized means a great deal to me. It is especially welcome in this instance since I have not heard back from Geoff. As I wrote the response to Geoff I was constantly revising it to try to keep its tone caring and supportive; and, at the same time, frank and tough enough to impress Geoff with the need to listen to his own words and set his life's priorities in order. Bob has dealt with the same issue as Geoff and he found the letter's tone to be "caring and supportive." But Bob dealt with the issue and overcame it while Geoff is still very emotionally involved in his fight. It makes a difference, so I am still afraid Geoff might not have recognized the response as a supportive one.

English is one of the richest languages in the world. It can convey almost any idea or concept well; yet because of its very richness, the message one intends can be misconstrued because so many English

words have many different connotative meanings which are subjective and understood differently in various cultural and emotional associations. Much of what we hear is interpreted based on what we are seeing, and we trust what we see much more than what we hear. When we read, we are deprived of sight and the help it can give us in interpreting what is being said. Thus misunderstanding the intent of the writer is always a possibility. With the advent of the "Instant Message," there is an attempt to address this problem through the use of emoticons, the "smiley face" and all his emotional friends. Such devices help, but even they are not always successful.

In a blog, the only real way to handle the problem is with give and take discussion, and that is why I value the comments
of my readers so much. By their comments I can confirm they have taken or not taken the true meaning of my words. When misunderstandings occur, I can elaborate in a reply to a comment in a further attempt to correct any misunderstanding. Just as importantly, a reader and I can reach a point at which we understand each other perfectly and also understand that we disagree. It is at such a point that I tend to re-examine my own beliefs to see if I want to hold on to them, modify them or change them. It is by this process that I learn and that my viewpoints evolve.

All of us do the same thing, whether or not we are aware of it. As a nation, indeed as a world, our viewpoints on homosexuality and bisexuality are evolving and changing at an enormous pace. As more and more people come to accept homosexuality as a biological and social normative life style, the pace

of change will continue to grow because all of us are influenced by accepted social norms. We don't want to be on the outside of normal. We don't want to be anti-social. It is a process which may seem questionable in the short term, but which promotes the best in humanity in the long term. Without such a process we would be stuck back in the Dark Ages.

So, to Geoff, I hope you will think about what I had to say to you knowing it was meant to be supportive and caring. To all my other readers, whether you agree with me or disagree vehemently; I hope you will take the time to comment on my blogging and give me the benefit of your viewpoint.

As a nation and as a world, we are coming to realize that social norms can encompass concepts, ideas and even institutions that at first glance seem to be directly opposed to each other. Once such institution is marriage. The old concept was that marriage is between a man and a woman. We haven't really believed that as a society in a very long time. Long ago we modified that concept to recognize marriage as between one man at a time and one woman at a time to recognize the fact that divorce and remarriage had become a social norm.

Today, we are redefining marriage again and recognizing it to be between two people who love each other regardless of gender. Isn't it great that love wins! And that is the answer to Geoff in a nutshell - love should win.

Jack Scott

The Passing of The Iron Lady

I try not to talk about politics too often in this blog, and when I do talk about it I always make an effort to be even handed. Even handedness is not difficult in talking politics really, for there are so many sins on both sides of the political spectrum that no party should feel superior to the other.

Believe it or not, there was a time, not all that long ago, when politicians of the stature of The Iron Lady were not an uncommon thing. They had names like Roosevelt, Teddy a conservative and his cousin, Franklin, a liberal in every sense of the word. There was also Sam Rayburn, a Texas Democrat, who became Speaker of the Texas House at age 29 and Speaker of the House in the U.S. Congress at the age of 58. Any listing of political leaders of great stature would be incomplete if it did not include Everett Dirksen, a Republican member of first, the House of Representatives; and then, the United States Senate for a total of 36 years representing the State of Illinois. Rest assured no one of Dirksen's stature has come out of the State of Illinois since Dirksen. He played a pivotal role in the passage of the Civil Right Act of 1964 and the Open Housing Act of 1968, both landmarks of civil rights legislation.

Today most minorities think civil rights legislation came to them solely as a gift from Democrats. Nothing could be further from the truth. True, another political leader of great stature, Lyndon B. Johnson, a Democrat from Texas was instrumental in the civil rights movement, but many other Democrats resisted civil rights initiatives to the bitter end. In the south, it was Democrat Governors and other Democrat elected officials who barred school house doors to keep out black students and administered rigged tests to prevent blacks from receiving voter registration cards.

Reagan and Thatcher were the last of their kind. With them ended the era of great political statesmen and the era of political hacks began to take their

place. The political hacks are so numerous in the halls of power these days it is difficult to remember there was a time when men and women of good will disagreed with each other but worked together for the good of the country rather than to have their own way and secure their own ever increasing wealth.

Today we have politicians who consider it a badge of honor to pledge to turn down the smallest of tax increases even if spending cuts that accompany such increases are far greater. Such a pledge was taken publicly by every Republican candidate for President in the televised debates during the 2012 election. Such demagoguery is hardly the mark of a man or woman of political and personal stature. But we have no politicians of great political and personal stature today. For the most part, all we have are self-serving demagogs. The few politicians who are personally honest and dedicated to making a difference for the citizens they serve are denigrated by their colleagues and marginalized by the lack of discourse that is the hallmark of political negotiations in today's politics.

Have you noticed, the few things that are getting done these days are not getting done because of anything our political leaders are doing, but rather getting done in spite of all they are not doing? One case in point is the growing support of gay marriage and equal rights for gay couples. No politician has had the political courage to lead this movement. Most of them, even now when the will of the people is evident, stand against it. Those that have come to support the movement are Johnny Come Lately's who have carefully measured the prevailing winds before offering their support to an issue that is revolutionizing cultural mores in this country.

In its weekly issue this week, Time Magazine reported it made no difference what the Supreme Court Justices think about the two gay rights cases before them. "The American People," Time said, "have already made up their minds." They support gay marriage and equal rights for gays because they have come to realize gays are their own sons and daughters, their brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews, grandsons and granddaughters.

Time is right. This has been one of the fastest reversals in American thought ever to take place and the change took place with virtually no leadership from the political class; or for that matter, from the country's religious leaders. No wonder the political class is now the most mistrusted and most despised groups in the world. They are correctly seen as not giving a damn about anything other than their own perpetuation and enrichment.

Rest in peace Mrs. Thatcher! With your death, the door has closed on the era of great political leaders who had the courage to stand, not for what they thought was right, but to stand for what they thought was right for the country they served.

Rest in peace Mrs. Thatcher! You helped to bring down the Berlin Wall, defeat Communism and reunite Germany. What would your beloved Europe be right now without a relatively sound German economy to bail out the rest of Europe?

Rest in peace Mrs. Thatcher! Those who would rather live on the state dole than get off their collective asses and support themselves despise you and anyone like you, but rest assured there are still those of us who remember and are thankful for your leadership and your willingness to stand nose to nose against tyranny and against the nanny state.

Rest in peace Mrs. Thatcher! You are already sorely missed! May the world be blessed again soon with an era in which your style of leadership is common and widely appreciated.

Jack Scott

The Other Side of Our Lives

I received a letter this week. Of course I receive a lot of letters, but this one was a particularly poignant  one. It was one I wish I'd never received, but one I needed to receive because it reminded me (though I never really forget) that there is another side to the lives we married bisexual men lead.

The other side of our lives is the life the woman we love leads as our wife.

One of the biggest things we as married bisexual men have to adjust to is what our bisexuality is doing to our wives. Whether they know or don't know, our bisexuality affects them greatly. This is a great weight on the shoulders and the conscience of every bisexual man and it should be.

In most situations, our wives are innocent and unknowing participants in a relationship with us and the other men we think about or spend time with. We can put the best light possible on that reality in our own minds, but we can never shed the responsibility for the unintended consequences that accrue to our wives. Most of us actually come to some internal accommodation with this situation and that is good. But we should never get to the point that we forget that we have an innocent and unknowing passenger along for the ride with us when we act on our bisexual needs and desires. We have an absolute moral obligation to do everything in our power to act in a safe and constrained manner and to balance our own needs and desires with those of our wives.

We will draw that line in different places as individuals, but the line must be carefully drawn so that it protects us and those we love.

The letter I received this week from a wife of a "bisexual" man was difficult to read. There is no doubt it was even more difficult for her to write, and I thank her for having the courage to do it.

She began by saying: "My husband has been leaving hints for years."

She goes on to talk about the fact that because she didn't want to face the facts she deluded herself for years. But all pretense ended recently when she discovered she had contracted an STD from her husband.

The shock of learning about her STD made her feel ruined. She had only wanted to be a good wife, the beautiful ONE in his life. To satisfy his desires she had gone beyond her own comfort and performed the "kinky" sex acts he enjoyed. She put up with his "taking" and never "giving" in sex because it excited him; and because it excited him, it made her feel special.

She sees herself as open and honest, passionate and loving; but she has come to see him now as secretive and selfish. However, she still thinks he loves her and their daughter. At the same time she feels he must hate her. He won't explain. He blames her for repressing him and tells her she is selfish. She feels like nothing more than an object. In spite of all of this, she describes herself as still in love with him. It hurts her that HE is suffering. She wants to understand, but he won't talk except to criticize her. She feels desperate and alone.

I have offered to talk with this woman and answer as many questions as I can for her. At this time I have not heard back from her. Obviously, both she and her husband also need professional help. Absent such help they have no chance at all of a future together or even separately.

I have only heard her side of the story, but the passion and the hurt in her letter convinces me she is telling the truth as she knows it to be. One of the things I say to people all the time is that marriages are never an equal arrangement. One partner always gives more and one partner always takes more. Actually that is not a bad thing in and of itself. It can be the prescription for a very happy and solid marriage because the fact is some people are happy to give and some are happy to take. But as in all things in life, this "give and take" must be in moderation. Even the taker must give some of the time.

In this woman's marriage, it seems her husband has long sense stopped giving. It is also clear that he knows he's stopped giving. He understands he takes and takes and demands more while blaming her for not giving. It is a classic male reaction to his own guilt; and though he keeps it hidden from her, he is consumed by his own guilt.

Obviously, this is not a situation any married bisexual man wants to create for  himself and his wife and child. This man will never be nominated for father and husband of the year; but at the same time, I doubt that he ever intended to get into this situation himself. It just simply crept upon him as he made one bad decision after the other until finally he was in such a deep hole, he could not get out.

I say all the time to guys I am trying to help that our lives are simply the sum of our choices and decisions. When we make good choices and sound decisions are lives are enhanced and broadened. When we make poor choices and bad decisions, our lives are eroded and narrowed. To the extent that we are happy and fulfilled in our lives is simply a high ratio of good choices to bad choices. To the extent that we are unhappy, unfulfilled and miserable is nothing more than a high ratio of bad choices to good choices.

Both this bisexual married man and his wife have made a number of poor decisions and choices over the years. I have said many times in this blog that my wife and I married when we were teen agers. I was 18. That meant that we started adult life with 2 strikes against us. There was really no reason for us to expect to succeed, but we did succeed even beyond our wildest dreams.

Add to the strikes against us my bisexuality of which she was not aware and our chances of a successful marriage and successful shared lives were zero! Yet, almost 50 years later, we are still married, happy beyond measure, blessed unendingly and hopeful for yet more years together.

All this did not just happen. We worked so hard in the early years. Looking back I don't see how we had the energy to work so hard. Between us we achieved four degrees after we were married and while we were raising kids. Working, raising kids and going to college is not a recipe for lack of stress. It was damn hard, but we simply did it. These were but 3 of the choices we made. Along the road there were thousands of other choices and decisions. Did we make wrong decision? You bet we did. But in the end, the ratio of good decisions to bad decisions exhibited an extremely high number of good decisions to a very low number of bad decisions.

As a professional psychotherapist and counselor, my wife cannot talk to me or anyone else about her clients. But after a day of listening to other people's problems, some of them heart rending and emotionally draining, she sometimes needs to talk in general terms about her stress which comes from hearing all about these miseries. People do not seek out psychotherapists to tell them about how good their lives are.

Recently, my wife found herself sad and concerned about a married couple who are very unhappy. They love each other. They don't fight about money. They don't fight about the kids. They don't even fight about sex. They just fight. They are always battling each other.

Surrounded and blessed by all the good things in life that many would kill for they just fight. They didn't start out this way. They are simply another example of people who just drifted into a deep hole and now can't get out. It's sad, very sad; and to my wife who sees so many couples in real trouble it was  upsetting to see this couple throwing their relationship away over petty little things. They have simply made a very bad choice.

Like my wife and I, any couple in which one partner is bisexual and one straight starts off with at least one strike against them. There are thousands of chances to screw up and make the wrong decision. One of the wrong decisions the husband of my letter writer made was to have promiscuous sex with other men. By doing so he increased his chances of contracting an STD many fold.

The sad thing about it is he more than likely made that decision for what he thought was a good reason. Most men think of love as love. By that I mean they think love is a severely limited commodity. If they love their wife, they can love no other, and they do love their wife. So, strapped with a desire they cannot shake for sexual play with another man, they opt to have sex with strangers they know nothing about. In their mind, if the sex is just anonymous and without strings, there is no chance of them falling in love with a guy and falling out of love with their wife.

It's a bad choice. In all of the thousands of men I have talked to over the last 20 years, I have never ever talked to a single bisexual man who left his wife and family for another man. Not one.

On the other hand, I've talked at length (years) with many married gay men who ultimately leave their wives for another man. In most of these cases, both the man and his wife end up happier after the divorce.

One of the complexities of life is that we can make poor decisions by refusing to make a decision at all. This is exactly one of the poor decisions that the husband of my letter writer has made. He has purposely chosen not to make a decision as to whether he is bisexual or homosexual because he is scared to find he is homosexual. By failing to know himself and recognize himself, he is ruining his life, his wife's life and more than likely his child's life.

One has to remember that very rarely is a man absolutely straight or absolutely gay. He is somewhere along a continuum between these two extremes. The middle of these two extremes is bisexuality, but not many men are there either. Most are to the left of the middle along the long continuum or to the right of it along the continuum. It is probably clearer to me than to this man that he is left of the middle very close to the homosexual extreme. He is straight enough to have sex with a woman, but not straight enough to be fulfilled by a woman or enjoy having sex with her. She is just an object, a substitute, for the male/male sex he is compelled towards. His wife feels like an object because that is exactly what she is to him.

That does not mean he doesn't love her. It simply means that he cannot love her, is not capable of loving her, as she needs to be loved.

I was able to finally tell my wife about my bisexuality because I knew beyond a doubt that our marriage, our relationship, our love for each other was strong enough to withstand it. I was also absolutely sure after many years of self analysis and study that I was a bisexual man - not a gay man.
I was right and the marriage did survive and remain strong. But that wasn't all it took. It took me opening up and talking with my wife for hours and hours about things I didn't particularly want to talk about. But I had to keep in mind that she was dealing with something new and shocking. She was now dealing with something difficult to understand that I had been dealing with for years and did deal with for years before I understood it.

I had no right at all to think that I just could tell her, "Oh, by the way, I'm bisexual." and expect to leave it there. It would take her a long time to understand and I had to be willing to talk to her about the core of my being and help her to understand. Keep in mind that she is highly educated and a professional psychotherapist. She knows that homosexuality and bisexuality are part of the natural order of human sexuality. In addition to baring my soul to her I had to support her in going to a therapist herself to get help from another angle in dealing with what I had laid on her. It took a while, but in the end it all worked out for the good.

Unfortunately, my letter writer's husband has clammed up. He refuses to talk to her except to blame her. There is no hope for him or her in this relationship except a miracle. Miracles happen. I'm living proof, but they are rare.

If you are a married homosexual or bisexual man, you cannot change your sexuality. But you can make good decisions about how to live your life. Most of the time, those good decisions will be hard ones. One big clue to a bad decision is if it seems easy, its probably a bad decision. If you are a homosexual man, most likely the best decision for you is to admit it to yourself and your wife and get a divorce. The likelihood or either you or she ever being happy in your marriage is nil. If you are a bisexual man, you have more choices but none of them are easy. If you are going to have sex with both your wife and men, then you are absolutely obligated to do it as safely as possible and not bring an STD home to her. You are also obligated to keep her as the main object of your love and desire. If you find she is loosing that status to another man, you've more than likely incorrectly identified yourself as a bisexual man. You're gay!

Of course there are other factors that can enter into all of this, but to discuss all of them would take a book. I hope you'll give real thought to your situation and live up to your responsibilities as a married man. If you can't, you need to get out of the marriage. If you need to talk about your particular situation, I'd be glad to talk with you.

My thanks to my letter writer. This is not a pleasant subject to talk about. Human misery is never an easy subject. But it is a subject that is appropriate to talk about. It has to be talked about.

To my letter writer and to those of you who identify with her, the good news is, it is never to late to change your life. It just takes good hard decisions. The easy bad decisions? You've already made those. Honestly look around your life and see where they have gotten you. Are you ready to begin making the hard decisions?

Jack Scott

Why Men Need To Cheat

Early this year, Vicki Larson, a journalist, mother and thinker posted a blog piece on the Huffington Post  entitled Why Men Need To Cheat.

The article is compelling to a person like myself who considers himself to be a realist and a pragmatist. That said, as is generally the case, while Ms. Larson presents a convincing case, she does not suggest that all men are compelled to cheat, just most of them. She also correctly reports that in the present era many women cheat too.

As a young child, I was shocked and confused when I first learned that adults cheated and lied about what they were doing. As I have mentioned many times in this blog, I was raised in a fundamentalist church which looked upon the Bible as the literal word of God. Even as a young child, I had my problems with that. It was obvious to me that parts of the Bible seemed to contradict other parts, but since this didn't seem to bother the adults I didn't say anything about it at first. I just became suspicious and began to pay close attention and to make a mental list of things the church taught that didn't add up.

Little did I know when I first began to be suspicious that it wouldn't take long to confirm that adults, even Christian adults, didn't always live up to what they portended to believe.

In this particular church members who were caught doing something significantly out of line with church teachings and wanted to remain within the church body were often compelled to go before the church and confess their sin publicly. The first time I witnessed a public confession turned out to be a two part presentation that was very revealing to me.

Mr. Brown (his real name but a very common one) was a prominent member of the church. He was married to a beautiful woman and all seemed to be as it should be. However, Mrs. Brown found that her husband was cheating on her with another woman. She brought the matter to the pastor. The pastor called Mr. Brown in and he confessed to the allegation. Mr. Brown was brought before church and confessed his sin and asked for forgiveness from God and the church in a ceremony presided over by the pastor. I remember it as a very emotional, probably embarrassing, tearful few minutes for Mr. Brown.

Ordinarily, this would have been the end of the matter, but life often takes unexpected twists and turns. This was to be such a time.

My family and I lived next door to the church parsonage. My Dad was a deacon in the church. A little while after the Brown confession, I began to pick up on whispered conversations between my Mom and Dad. Soon the conversations spread to include my Dad and other adults. At church it was obvious something was up. It didn't take long to burst wide open.

The church secretary was the young adult daughter of a prominent church couple. Without notice, she resigned her position and left town. This was quickly followed by the pastor of the church, in a tearful and emotional confession of his own, telling the church he had sinned against God, against his wife and against the young secretary by having an affair with her. He asked for forgiveness. He did not say, and probably didn't need to say because everyone already knew the affair had resulted in a pregnancy for the young secretary. The pastor announced he was leaving his ministry and resigning from his pastorship.

I wondered what must have been going through the pastor's mind a few weeks before when he had presided over the confession of Mr. Brown. I wondered what Mr. Brown was thinking as he listened to the pastor confess his own sins. I think it was a turning point in my life because even at my young age it was blatant proof that there were religious ideals and their was reality. I think these incidents were two of several incidents in my early life that planted the seeds for what would become my realist and pragmatic leanings in life. I'm thankful for that. Now, with at the stage of my life where there are many more years behind me than ahead of me, I've come to realize that realists and pragmatists handle life so much better than idealists. It's not that idealists don't play an important role in society, they do. But idealists must often be profoundly disappointed in the realities of life. Realists are seldom shocked. Idealists often provide lofty goals for society, but it is always the realists who bring the goals to fruition it seems.

My personal sexual experience does not support some of Ms. Larson's assertions. My wife and I married when I was 18. We have been married almost 50 years now and contrary to Ms. Larson's suggestion that marital sex always becomes stale, my wife and I never found that to be the case. I'm not saying we never got in a rut, we certainly did from time to time. But we were always able to recognize the rut and renew the fun and the excitement of genuine desire in our sexual play.

But for the most part, I agree with Ms. Larson. Just because men have sex with someone else does not necessarily mean his marriage is unimportant to him, that the marriage is failing or that he doesn't love his wife. As a married man in an exceptional marriage, I have to admit that I have had affairs with both other men and other women.

Among other things, the heterosexual affair was the product of getting married at age 18 with very little experience with other women besides my wife. I wondered what I might be missing. What I found was that I was missing nothing at all. Sex with my wife was much better and much more satisfying.

The more numerous affairs with men were fulfillment of needs my wife, as good as she was in sex, simply could not fulfill as a woman. Being able to fulfill them with other men actually made my sexual life with her better because all of my needs were being met.

I have to confess that I never felt my play with other men was cheating. I never thought of it that way and never gave in to others who wished to saddle me with that description. I wasn't cheating. I was simply meeting the needs that came with the way I was born. I love my wife and she fills an irreplaceable role in my life. While I accept the description of cheating to describe my play with another woman, I do not regret that it happened. It showed me that the best sex was at home. After a brief exploration, I was never tempted to be with another woman. Everything I needed from a woman was at home.

That is the problem with those who are always on the lookout for sin in others. Sin, by definition, is that which separates us from a relation with God. I am a firm believer based on my own life experience that God sometimes sends us down roads that might ordinarily be sinful to give us a chance to learn a life lesson.

For her Huffington Post Article, Ms. Larson interviewed Eric Anderson, an American sociologist at England's University of Winchester and author of the provocative new book, The Monogamy Gap: Men, Love, and the Reality of Cheating (Oxford University Press, $49.99). It was refreshing for me to read this quote from Mr Anderson, "Honesty is good sometimes, and horrible other times. There are good reasons to lie; it is an essential skill for keeping community and relationship peace. The reason men lie about cheating is mostly because they know that if they ask for permission to have recreational sex: 1) they will be denied 2) after they are denied, they will be subject to scrutiny and increased relationship policing; 3) they will be stigmatized as immoral, and most likely broken up with. Thus, honesty doesn't meet their desires of having both a long-term partner and recreational sex with others.

The way cheating men see it, it's either cheat or don't cheat, but telling their partners they want sex outside the relationship, or telling their partners that they actually cheated, is viewed as a surefire way of achieving relationship termination. When men cheat for recreational sex -- not affairs -- they DO love their partners. If they didn't, they would break up with them."

Mr. Anderson is absolutely right. Honest can be a terrible weapon when it is used for the wrong reasons. Sometimes, for instance, gay or bisexual married men confess their sexuality to their wives because of guilt. In such cases they are NOT trying to do the right thing. They are simply trying to relieve the guilt that is bothering them. How can such men who more than likely struggled with their sexuality for decades expect their wives to deal with it successfully when it is sprung on them without warning? In reality, they can't and usually women don't deal with it well.

The idealist of the world insists that honesty is always the best policy. The realists will more properly insist that we don't live in an ideal world and sometimes the truth can cause more harm than quietly and sympathetically embracing reality.

The views I have expressed here are not a license for men to go wild, party wildly and throw their marital responsibilities to the wind. I suspect Ms. Larson would say the same. As a married bisexual man, I came to see that I essentially had two and only two choices. I could deny my desires and live in as a desperate agitated and unfulfilled state or I could embrace my bisexuality and live it quietly and carefully within the boundaries of a few rules designed to keep me and my wife as safe as possible. I choose to take the latter course and from the very beginning I was a different man. For the first time in my adult life I felt calm and satisfied. I no longer felt needy and anxious. 

Living that life worked out so well, that I was happy and my wife was happy too. Our life together, which had always been great, became even better because I was no longed dogged by my bisexual needs. When I did decide to tell her several years later, it was at a time that she could understand it and accept it. I don't mean that it was the best news she ever got, but it was not news that threatened our marriage and the life we had built together.

The reality is that most men cheat at one time or the other. Married bisexual men are in a situation where they almost have to have a relationship outside the marriage. In most cases this does not mean they do not love and value the straight side of their life and love their wives. Women would do themselves a favor in considering carefully what their course of action should be when they find their husband is "cheating."

It does no good at all to throw away a number of good years, end a marriage, upset kids caught in the middle and get into a second marriage with another man who is just as prone to cheat.

Emotionalism seldom serves anyone well. Thinking realistically and unemotionally often serves one very well.

Jack Scott

P.S. I write this blog not to hear people agree with me, but rather give people a starting point for realistic thoughtfulness and self examination. I also write it to inspire feedback to me in the form of comments from my readers. I am convinced that a life lived well is a life in which learning never ceases.

What I have learned so far in my life has served me well. My life has not been and is not now without its challenges, but my life has been blessed beyond measure. I believe that the blessings of life come when one is ready to handle them. In spite of the blessed life I have lived, I believe that there is always more to learn. I hear from a lot of people but I never hear from enough people. 

Frankly it is rare for me to hear something new, but I often hear something in a new way that causes me to have that "ah ha" moment when everything comes together and I have a new understanding of and new insight into an issue I have known of for years.

That kind of new insight for me, more often than not comes from comments from and conversations with my readers. For that reason I am always glad to hear  your comments whether you agree or disagree with me.

Please take a few minutes to make a comment. You'll find the comment box below the Huffington Post piece of Ms. Larson. Commenting is easy. There are no screwed up words to decipher. All you have to do is comment and send.

Thanks. I look forward to your comments on this post and all on posts that interest you.

***************

Vicki Larson

Journalist, mother, thinker              

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Why Men Need to Cheat

Posted: 01/04/2012 1:00 am

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Monogamy is failing men.

Not only is it failing them, but it's a "socially compelled sexual incarceration" that can lead to a life of anger and contempt, or so says Eric Anderson, an American sociologist at England's University of Winchester and author of the provocative new book, The Monogamy Gap: Men, Love, and the Reality of Cheating (Oxford University Press, $49.99).

Cheating, however, serves men pretty well. An undiscovered affair allows them to keep their relationship and emotional intimacy, and even if they're busted it's a lot easier than admitting that they wanted to screw someone else in the first place, he writes.

In his study of 120 undergraduate men, 78 percent of those who had a partner cheated, "even though they said that they loved and intended to stay with their partner." Contrary to what we may think, most men aren't cheating because they don't love their partner, he says; they cheat because they just want to have sex with others. And society shouldn't pooh-pooh that.

Monogamy's stronghold on our beliefs -- what he calls monogamism -- brings ostracism and judgment to anyone who questions or strays from its boundaries. That doesn't make sense to Anderson, who wonders why we stigmatize someone who has a fling more than couples who divorce -- throwing away a marriage rich in history and love, upsetting their kids' lives -- over something like sex.

Monogamy isn't the only "proper" way to be in a relationship, and he says it's time that society finds "multiple forms of acceptable sexual relationship types -- including sexually open relationships -- that coexist without hierarchy or hegemony." It's especially important for today's young men, for whom monogamous sex seems more boring than in generations past because of easy premarital sex and pornography.

Dr. Anderson was kind enough to answer my questions by email:

Your study includes just 120 undergraduate men, straight and gay; isn't that too small a sample to really know what's going on for men?

If I were attempting to determine what percent of men cheat, then, yes. Large-scale surveys show us that cheating remains the norm... I wanted to examine the very notion of monogamy, not morally, but rationally. I wanted to know why men want monogamy but nonetheless cheat.

You say men want to be emotionally monogamous, but their "body craves sex with other people somatically." People crave food, drugs, booze, sometimes to disastrous results. If there can be self-control with other cravings, why can't men control their body urges?

Humans are largely lousy at controlling our bodies' desires. We say we don't want to eat that Snickers bar, but we also really do want to eat it. We eat it, we feel guilty about it, and afterwards we promise ourselves not to eat one again; but we nonetheless do. It is this same phenomenon, only with cheating, that I explore.

The men in your study experienced a sharp decrease in the frequency and enjoyment of sex after two monogamous years. Since no one can sustain the kind of thrilling sex couples have in the beginning of a relationship, isn't it a healthy thing that it decreases?

I wish young men got two years of good sex before it dropped off; it's a lot less than that! It may, however, be good that the sexual desire for one's partner weans; it means that we end up staying with our long-term partners for the socioemotional connection and not for the sex. If a couple is going to raise a family, it is the emotional connection that counts, not the sexual.

Our physical desires don't die; they just change from our partner to people other than him/her. We falsely believe that when the sex dies, the relationship has also died. The reality is the opposite; when the sex dies the relationship has just begun.

What about the idea that long-term relationships make sex become deeper, more intimate and more meaningful?

The diminution of sex is simultaneous to one's emotional bonds growing stronger. Long-term partners may have more intimate sex (most just have very little) but when men see a guy or girl who turns them on, it's not intimate and meaningful sex they are craving.

Honesty is a huge part of a relationship. How good a relationship can one have when there's deception, especially since you say after men cheat spontaneously, they are more likely to plan cheating?

Honesty is good sometimes, and horrible other times. There are good reasons to lie; it is an essential skill for keeping community and relationship peace. The reason men lie about cheating is mostly because they know that if they ask for permission to have recreational sex: 1) they will be denied 2) after they are denied, they will be subject to scrutiny and increased relationship policing; 3) they will be stigmatized as immoral, and most likely broken up with. Thus, honesty doesn't meet their desires of having both a long-term partner and recreational sex with others.

The way cheating men see it, it's either cheat or don't cheat, but telling their partners they want sex outside the relationship, or telling their partners that they actually cheated, is viewed as a surefire way of achieving relationship termination. When men cheat for recreational sex -- not affairs -- they DO love their partners. If they didn't, they would break up with them.

Wouldn't it be less harmful to relationships if we became serial monogamists -- marrying two, three or four times as our sexual needs change?

Rather than marrying 20 times or more in one's life via serial monogamy, we can keep one emotional lover and just have casual, meaningless -- and hot -- sex with strangers. This gives us the long-term emotional stability we desire psychologically, alongside the hot, carnal sex we desire somatically. It makes much more sense than lying and cheating , or the difficulty of breaking up with a loved one simply because you want someone else's body for an hour.

Infidelity breaks up many marriages, but often it isn't the act of sex that's so upsetting -- it's the deception and lying, clearly problematic for the emotional intimacy you say men want. So cheating for sex may be "just about the sex" for him, but not for his partner.

Infidelity does not break marriages up; it is the unreasonable expectation that a marriage must restrict sex that breaks a marriage up. One of the reasons I wrote the book is that I've seen so many long-term relationships broken up simply because one had sex outside the relationship. But feeling victimized isn't a natural outcome of casual sex outside a relationship; it is a socialized victimhood. I'm not advocating cheating; I'm advocating open and equitable sexual relationships. When both in the couple desire this, when both realize that extradyadic sex makes their partner happy, and they therefore want their partner to have that sex, a couple will have moved a long ways toward facilitating emotional honesty, while simultaneously withering at jealousy scripts, which can be very damaging to a relationship. But if one can't achieve this with a partner that's hostile to the idea, cheating is the reasonable action.

Most of the men in your study were OK with sex on the side for them, but not their girlfriends. That seems unfair and incredibly selfish.

Monogamy is culturally compelled, so the decision has been made for us. How much of a chance would a man stand to have a second date if on the first date he said that he was interested in an open relationship? At the point men enter into relationships they, too, think they want monogamy. It's only after being in a relationship for months or years that they badly want sex with others. But by this point, they don't want to break up with their partners because they have long-standing love. Instead of chancing that love by asking for extradyadic sex, they cheat. If they don't get caught (and most don't) it's a rational choice.

But it is indeed selfish for men to want sex with others but not to want their partners to do the same. This however is not just a "man" thing. Women also cheat; they also lie about it; and they also want to be able to cheat without their partners doing the same. Monogamy is a problem for all sexes; it builds in an ownership script regardless of gender.

You say love is a "long-standing sense of security and comfort." So, wouldn't open relationships potentially pose a threat to that security since, even if couples play by their own sexual rules, there's always a chance one could end up preferring a new lover over one's partner?

People in open relationships structure their engagements as to reduce emotional intimacy. But, yes, of course it can happen. What I find from those in open relationships, however, is that once they have had sex with that person they fancied, they tend to get over them.
If we really want to prevent our lovers from developing the lust of others, or worse, emotional intimacy with others; if we really want to prevent men and women from cheating, we would be best to sex-segregate our jobs, our classrooms and social arenas, too. Emotional intimacy is the real threat to a relationship, not a one-off hour with a stranger from Craigslist. Ultimately, there are no guarantees that one's partner won't find love elsewhere. But controlling one's partner to prevent it only makes matters worse -- it makes them want to leave you. A better strategy is to be open, emotionally and perhaps sexually, too.