Miley Cyrus: I'm Bisexual

"I am literally open to every single thing that is consenting and doesn't involve an animal and everyone is of age. Everything that's legal, I'm down with. Yo, I'm down with any adult -- anyone over the age of 18 who is down to love me. I don't relate to being boy or girl, and I don't have to have my partner relate to boy or girl. I remember telling her [Miley's mother] I admire women in a different way. And she asked me what that meant. And I said, I love them. I love them like I love boys. And it was so hard for her to understand. She didn't want me to be judged and she didn't want me to go to hell. But she believes in me more than she believes in any god. I just asked for her to accept me. And she has." - Miley Cyrus, speaking to Paper Magazine. (Note: Photos at the link are not work-safe.)

FOTF Founder James Dobson: The "B" In LGBT Totally Stands For Orgies

RELATED: Dobson is also the founder of the Family Research Council, which began as a division of Focus On The Family in 1981 and separated in 1992.

Perkins Attacks Oregon's New Governor

"When Kate Brown takes over as Governor of Oregon, voters may not know anything about her record, but they will certainly know about her love life. The leading stories about the state's new leader have nothing to do with Brown's legislative accomplishments and everything to do with her other conquests. As a self-professed bisexual, most of the headlines surrounding Brown's promotion are about the visibility she can bring to the 'bi-community' - not the unity and progress she can bring to the state as a whole. It's a truly sad commentary on the devolution of our nation that leaders are not defined - not by their skill or expertise - but by their sexual experiences. As a society, we've become so obsessed with sex that we're almost incapable of considering anything else. Of course, the question on every Oregonians' minds should be: will Brown's public policy be as fluid as her sexuality?" - Hate group leader Tony Perkins, via email. Brown will be sworn in today.

Debbie Harry Comes Out As Bisexual

Debbie Harry has revealed that she is bisexual in an interview with a German magazine. Britain's Daily Mail tabloid has the story:

When asked whether long-standing rumours of her affairs with girls were true, she said, "Yeah," adding: "Let’s say women are more sensual." Harry, who enjoyed a long-term relationship with fellow band member Chris Stein, did not name any of her female lovers. She also insisted that her most enduring relationships had been with men and that she longed to fall in love again. "I don’t know if I have any specific requirements," she said. "Just somebody nice, who has a good sense of humour and loves to have sex. What more could you ask for?"

Harry also referred to Blondie's refusal of an offer to perform at the Sochi Olympics and denounced Russia's crackdown on LGBT people. "Why make such a big thing out of a personal choice or a natural instinct? It seems barbaric and idiotic." Harry's use of the word "choice" is somewhat unfortunate, but perhaps less so in the context of bisexuality.  (Via Towleroad)

Bisexual...

Unlike with the words gay, lesbian, and transgender, Google's search engine provides no predictive drop-down menu for the word "bisexual."

Sarah Prager, author of a Change.org petition against Google, said the move is another example of “biphobia” and “bi-erasure.” It had about 1,600 signatures on Friday morning. “Finding communities and forums and realizing there are other people like you going through the same things — you can’t put enough value in that. It’s life saving,” said Prager, creator of Quist, a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and queer iOS app. “So when you start to type something in, and you don’t think that there is anything out there, you might think there is no one else out there like you, and you don’t think there are other people who care about you, and we don’t want to put barriers on life-saving resources.”

Prager's petition is here.

Lou Reed Posthumously Forgives Mother For His "Ex-Gay" Electroshock Torture

In an interview published in the 1996 book Please Kill Me: An Oral History Of Punk, the late Lou Reed described the electro-convulsive therapy his parents ordered because they wanted to cure him of his bisexuality. 

"They put the thing down your throat so you don't swallow your tongue, and they put electrodes on your head. That's what was recommended in Rockland State Hospital to discourage homosexual feelings. The effect is that you lose your memory and become a vegetable. You can't read a book because you get to page 17 and have to go right back to page one again."

Reed famously railed against the abuses of his parents in his 1974 song, Kill Your Sons.

Reed's will was filed in a Manhattan court on Monday. While he left 75% of his fortune to his wife Laurie Anderson in a bequest that includes homes, boats, and publishing royalties, Reed also left a quarter of his estate to his sister in the hopes that she'll care for their 93 year-old mother.  From the will: "It is my hope and desire, without imposing any legal obligation, that my said sister will use a portion of this cash bequest to help care for our mother, Toby Reed, for the balance of her life."

Quote Of The Day - Lady Gaga

"I like girls. I've said that (before). I know people think I just say things to be shocking, but I actually do like pussy. It just depends on whose pussy it is. It's similar to how I feel about guys. I like them because I find lesbians to be way more daring than straight men, when it comes to coming on to you. And I really like that. And it wasn't until I found a guy that could come onto me as strong as a lesbian that I fell in love." - Lady Gaga, on last night's episode of Andy Cohen's Watch What Happens Live.

Today's Gay Etiquette Question

From Steven Petrow's Civil Behavior column in the New York Times comes this question:

Q. Dear Civil Behavior: I’m bisexual (female), and I want to be out at work. I just don’t quite know how to slip it into conversation. It never seems appropriate to say the word “sexual” in a work environment, and it’s simply awkward. If I come out to a straight man, for example, he always seems to take it in a sexual way. Coming out to women I just get scared that they will be uncomfortable or think I’m coming on to them. Also it gets really wordy! I have to spend sentences explaining who I am while someone that is gay can use a single word or two. But, bisexual visibility can only get better if people like me don’t cop out and say we are gay when that’s not true. Any advice on how to make “out bisexual” a little easier? — Erica, East Brunswick, N.J.

Give us your answer then hit the link for Petrow's response.

Clive Davis Comes Out As Bisexual

Music industry legend Clive Davis, the man credited with Whitney Houston's career (and the careers of many others), has come out as bisexual in a new memoir titled The Soundtrack Of My Life.

Davis, who is twice divorced, remains close to his family, which includes three sons, a daughter and six grandchildren, and to friends, with whom he vacations regularly. Soundtrack's aforementioned personal revelation acknowledges "something that my children and close friends have always known, but that I knew I would need to discuss in a biography": He considers himself bisexual. "After my second marriage failed, I met a man who was also grounded in music. Having only had loving relationships and sexual intimacy with women, I opened myself up to the possibility that I could have that with a male, and found that I could." Davis is currently involved with another man (who isn't in show business), "but I never stopped being attracted to women. Bisexuality is misunderstood; the adage is that you're either straight or gay or lying, but that's not my experience. To call me anything other than bisexual would be inaccurate."

Davis has earned multiple Grammy awards and was inducted as a non-performer into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame.

Kesha: I'm Bisexual

"I don't love just men. I love people. It's not about a gender. It's just about the spirit that exudes from that other person you're with. I'm all about standing up to gay/lesbian/transgender bullying, but it's also about my little brother. He's 13 and he gets made fun of because he has a stutter. I just have zero tolerance for people making fun of others." - Pop star Kesha, coming out as bisexual to Seventeen Magazine. Kesha - for or against?

Berkeley Recognizes Bisexual Pride Day

Yesterday the city council of Berkeley designated September 23rd as Bisexual Pride Day, becoming the first city to make such a proclamation.

Councilman Kriss Worthington introduced the resolution, telling his colleagues ahead of Tuesday night's meeting that it was important for the city to support an occasion "conceived as a response to the prejudice and marginalization of the bisexual persons by some in both the straight and greater LGBT communities." "Increasing bisexual visibility is a way of saying, yes, they do exist, and they deserve our support and acceptance," Worthington said. Some bisexuals nevertheless say they feel overlooked or misunderstood, frequently finding themselves portrayed in popular culture as the punch lines of jokes or pathological. And while bisexuals are part of the acronym that makes up the LGBT rainbow, some activists protest that gays are some of their harshest critics. "They think we have 'straight privilege,' and we hide in that," Martin Rawlings-Fein, a director of the Bay Area Bisexual Network, told the Chronicle. "We get pushed to the side in the LGBT community and told we don't exist, that we're actually gay or lesbian and just not totally 'out.'"

ARIZONA: Bisexual Wins House Primary

Yesterday Kyrsten Sinema won the Democratic primary for the U.S. House, advancing her bid to become the first-ever openly bisexual member of Congress. Julie Bolcer reports at The Advocate:

The Arizona Republic called the race for Sinema around 12:30 a.m. Wednesday. She defeated former Arizona Democratic Party chairman Andrei Cherny and state Senate minority leader David Schapira, taking 42.5% of the vote with 64.5% of precincts reporting. Sinema will go on to face the winner of the Republican primary, which remained too close to call early Wednesday. Because the 9th Congressional District based in Tempe is new, whoever wins the general election would become the first person to represent the district, therefore Sinema stands to make history twice.

Pupil Dilation Reveals Sexual Orientation

Finally comes the scientific study confirming a long-popular belief. Via Science Daily:

For the first time, researchers at Cornell University used a specialized infrared lens to measure pupillary changes to participants watching erotic videos. Pupils were highly telling: they widened most to videos of people who participants found attractive, thereby revealing where they were on the sexual spectrum from heterosexual to homosexual. [snip] The new Cornell study adds considerably more to the field of sexuality research than merely a novel measure. As expected, heterosexual men showed strong pupillary responses to sexual videos of women, and little to men; heterosexual women, however, showed pupillary responses to both sexes. This result confirms previous research suggesting that women have a very different type of sexuality than men. Moreover, the new study feeds into a long-lasting debate on male bisexuality. Previous notions were that most bisexual men do not base their sexual identity on their physiological sexual arousal but on romantic and identity issues. Contrary to this claim, bisexual men in the new study showed substantial pupil dilations to sexual videos of both men and women.

Remember, you choose to widen your pupils at Ben Cohen.

Gay Secret Behind Adele's Heartache?

Adele's sophomore release 21 has sold more than 22 million copies worldwide and is frequently cited as one of the most blistering "breakup albums" of all time. And according to an unauthorized biography, there's a gay angle to all that heartache.

The heartbreak that inspired Adele to pen her Grammy-award-winning music was inspired by an ex-boyfriend who left her for her gay friend, a new biography claims. "One thing we know is that it was a first love gone terribly bad," Shapiro writes in the book, quotes from which have been published by the Daily Mail among other publications. "Adele had professed her love and he did the same, she had known he was bisexual but, in the rush of romance, felt they could make it work. Four hours after laying their emotional cards on the table, the boy ran off with one of Adele's gay friends!"

Two of the tracks on Adele's debut release 19 were said to be about a bisexual boy she'd fallen in love with. The girl can hold a grudge.

Cynthia Nixon Clarifies

"My recent comments in The New York Times were about me and my personal story of being gay. I believe we all have different ways we came to the gay community and we can't and shouldn't be pigeon-holed into one cultural narrative which can be uninclusive and disempowering. However, to the extent that anyone wishes to interpret my words in a strictly legal context I would like to clarify: While I don't often use the word, the technically precise term for my orientation is bisexual. I believe bisexuality is not a choice, it is a fact. What I have 'chosen' is to be in a gay relationship." - Cynthia Nixon, speaking to the Advocate.

Read Nixon's full statement.

Linda Harvey On Bisexuality

"The practice of bisexuality provides more evidence that choice and flexibility are quite well known and accepted even among advocates of homosexuality. And within the homosexual community are many testimonies of change: sometimes called 'fluidity' and sometimes bisexuality or 'queer' orientations. It doesn't take long to find self-contradictions within the 'gay' community that confirm the known reality of change and choice. [snip] We need to re-educate Christians to stand up for the truth. We must ask non-Christians who also see the problems with homosexuality (and there are many such citizens) to stand with us to oppose the public embrace of this behavior." - Linda Harvey, writing for her hate group, Mission America.

On Cynthia Nixon's "Choice"

Actress Cynthia Nixon has endured a barrage of criticism this week after declaring that she had "chosen" to be gay. Longtime activist Scott Long takes an interesting position:

What, moreover, if sexual orientation itself is not “a deep trait felt to be at the core of one’s being,” one that people miraculously started feeling in 1889 when the word “homosexual” was coined? What if it’s sometimes that, sometimes a transient desire, sometimes a segment of growth or adolescent exploration, sometimes a recourse from the isolations of middle age, sometimes a Saturday night lark, sometimes a years-long passion? What if some people really do experience it as … a choice? What if our model for defending LGBT people’s rights were not race, but religion? What if we claimed our identities were not something impossible to change, but a decision so profoundly a part of one’s elected and constructed selfhood that one should never be forced to change it?

Read the entire essay.

Headline Of The Day

Somebody needs to flog interest in her book.

Quote Of The Day - Bryan Fischer

"A self-identified lesbian by the name of Keori confessed to [Pam's House Blend] readers on Friday that she is now in love with a male Marine. This relationship came right on the heels of a three-year love affair with another woman. She sheepishly admits that 'I didn't intend to love this Marine,' and then ruefully acknowledges that 'bisexuality happens, ok?' which is just another way of saying that even she has been forced to admit that sexual orientation is fluid and is hardly a fixed, immovable thing. She is living proof. So apparently without even realizing what she was doing, she has just dropped a grenade on the foundational plank of the gay activist worldview, that sexual orientation does not change, cannot change, and that those who think that change is possible - like most of us in the pro-family community - are just homophobic bigots." - American Family Association radio host Bryan Fischer.

Read Keori's post on Pam's House Blend.

Ted Haggard's Awkward Family Photo

This awkward photo is from the current issue of GQ Magazine, where Haggard declared himself to be bisexual and confessed to snorting all that crystal meth he'd previously claimed to have purchased to throw away.