First pornography confession: my first "pornography erection" was at a friend's birthday party. I was in fourth grade. He lived in a spacious house, and the kids were allowed to roam (he had brave parents!). I found his bedroom, a bedroom that had its own TV and a Playboy and Penthouse collection. I turned the TV on, jumped on the bed, and leafed through one magazine. One particular pictorial caught my attention, so much that if I had any sense I would have jacked off. A woman was standing in a washtub and being bathed by a man. She had long legs and brown skin, but what intrigued me was the couple. How did he get into the scene? Does he like bathing her? Does she like being bathed by him? The union of the two, completely different from the centerfold, held my interest so much that I stayed in my friend's bedroom for the whole party.

Second pornography confession: the first porn magazine I owned was stolen from a store. All the big kids were stealing from this store, so I figured I would give it a try. I do not even remember the name of the magazine (Cheri?), but there was a pictorial that made me spend many hours in my bedroom. She was a librarian. He was a student. No need to continue because you know the storyline, and if you don't, use your imagination. Once again, this particular pictorial moved me beyond anything else in the magazine, except for the erotic fiction. There was something about them, together, that I wanted to be a part of. I had to throw the magazine away because I was scared my parents would find it.

Last pornography confession: the first pornography video I bought was a bisexual compilation. I bought it because of the cover. There were three folk: a woman and two men. One of the men was in the middle, while the other two leaned on each of his arms. All three smiled into the camera, although the middle guy had a sexy smirk on his face. Before I ever watched the tape, I jerked off to the box cover.

What do these confessions add up to? Aside from an expansive pornographic history, they are the building blocks to (dare I use the word?) a sexuality that can be described as bisexual. There I said it. No hissing please! I get a bit anxious describing myself as bisexual because of all the baggage associated with the word. Some baggage that is unfair, and other baggage that is deserved because we bisexuals are bags of wind. The whole "I love people, not genitals" line is witty rhetoric, but has a smug smell to it. As if gender love is a big sin. Also bisexuals are bothersome. We use ugly words like "bi-phobia", complain constantly about having no safe places, cry over the disdain from gays and lesbians, cry over the disgust from straight folk, and assume we are the vanguard of some glorious revolution that will bring KY to every household (the sound you now hear is my bisexual card being ripped at the center). Maybe all of the above will happen when people define themselves only by sexuality, as if sexuality is some progressive force that is going to change the world. If being fucked by a woman with a strap-on, as my face is buried in some guy's (or woman's) hairy bush, would end world hunger I would do it in a minute -- I would even do it if it would not end world hunger -- but that personal act does not change the material world, a world that is simultaneously independent and authoritative. Sexuality, while fun, is not revolutionary and will not bring the walls of oppression down. The attempt to make bisexuality, or any sexuality for that matter, into the Holy Grail, or the cure for the common cold, is a fool's game.

If sexuality, or bisexuality, is so benign, then why write about it? Good question, and if I am bitter, or drunk, I say I write about it because my sex life is wretched. If I am neither bitter nor drunk, then I paraphrase a line from Bernard Malamud's The Tenants: I write about sexuality because I know so little about it. Claiming an identity as a sexual being is effortless, but what is not so effortless is looking at the history that created that claim. Am I bisexual because I watched pornography, or did my bisexual nature seek out pornography?