Earlier this week, I casually mentioned that Alan Cumming is bi, a fact that, I also noted, many people routinely forget. To back up my assertion, I included a link to Cumming’s own website, where he mentions his bisexuality in the FAQ. 7% of readers clicked that link, seemingly illustrating my point: the idea of Alan Cumming as a bisexual is befuddling, confusing to people. It’s not enough to simply hear that it’s the case, one needs independent confirmation from Cumming himself. (If you need more proof, here’s The Advocate, Huffington Post, and Washington Blade, all reporting this same basic fact.)
At this point, Cumming’s bisexuality should be a settled question. And yet I suspect that for at least some of you, there will come a time in the next few weeks, or months, or years, where you will find yourself surprised once more by the very same fact we have just established. Alan Cumming is bi? Who knew! No matter how many times you’ve been told, the cycle will repeat again and again and again.
It’s this act of forgetting that I’m specifically interested in, far more than Cumming’s orientation or the details of his private life. What is it that leads so many of us to memory hole the bisexuality of a bona fide out bi celebrity? Why, in a world that claims to be hungry for bisexual — and especially bi male — representation, has a man who has repeatedly and loudly asserted his own bi identity consistently been erased?
I think, fundamentally, it’s because Cumming does not comport with the common conception of what male bisexuality is — which is, of course, incredibly limited. I think in most people’s minds, male bisexuals break down into two basic categories. There are the “fake” male bisexuals: the gay men who merely cling to the fig leaf of bisexuality in order to avoid fully committing to this whole homosexuality thing. And theater are the “real” male bisexuals: basically straight men who are just so horny they’re willing to stick their dicks in anything, even a man’s butt (gasp!). I wrote about the latter type in an essay a few months back; he’s the archetype we see in media again and again (most recently, with a deleted scene from House of the Dragon in which Daemon Targaryen exchanges a glance with another man leading to entire fucking news stories about Daemon Targaryen, bisexual king, truly, make it stop).*
With his fifteen year marriage to a man and his slightly swishy gender presentation, Cumming doesn’t fit with the box of a “real” bisexual man — indeed the very fact that he’s married to a man eliminates any possibility of existing in this category, despite the fact that marrying other men is something that bisexual men are fully capable of and often do. By entering into a queer partnership, Cumming immediately shifts to the category of “fake” bi guy — sure, he says he’s bi, but he probably means that theoretically, right? That he thinks women are pretty?
Never mind that in his stint as the emcee in Cabaret, Cumming gave off pretty intense “horny for everyone” energy, never mind that before he married his husband, he had an eight year marriage to a woman, or that he’s been publicly romantically involved with both men and women. In a world that sees male bisexuality as suspect from the very jump, as a coward’s refusal to commit to gayness, Cumming has not done enough to convince the world that he’s really bi**; thus, the mind rejects his attraction to women and classifies him as “actually gay.” It’s not just Cumming that this happens to, of course: how many times have you heard people insist that Freddie Mercury was gay, despite his numerous assertions of bisexuality?
Indeed, the men most likely to be “believed” bi are those who aren’t actually publicly embracing it: the Tom Hardys, the Taika Waititis, the Harry Styleses, and so on and so forth. Nothing more bi than being a straight-identified man who seems comfortable leaning outside the rigid boundaries of heterosexuality, I guess.
And I find this all a bit tragic, not because the world desperately needs to know what gets Alan Cumming or any other male celebrity’s engine revving, but because in collectively rejecting Cumming’s stated bisexuality, we are tightly circumscribing the boundaries of male bisexuality — and in the process, making it harder for bi men to understand themselves as bi, or, once they’ve come out, explore the textures and nuances of their own bisexuality. Because while bi men can and do come in the super horny straight guy configuration, they’re also slightly swishy guys who fall for people of many genders, androgynous alien creatures who seem to defy human limitations, little sissy boys who love to bend over for any kind of butch, awkward nerds whose sexual tastes run the gamut, and so on and so forth. There are as many ways for men to be bi as there are bi men; and the more we allow ourselves to recognize that, well, the better off we’ll all be, I feel sure.
* David Bowie might be one of the rare exceptions here, as people seem to believe he is really bi without him having to go full bore into demonstrating his masculinity. But given his whole androgynous alien vibe I think he might be the exception that proves the rule.
** Yes you should imagine me rolling my eyes as you read that line