Q: I’m a gay guy in my late 40s with a straight sister in her early 50s. She’s been married for a bit over two decades to guy who always registered as a “possible” on my average-to-good gaydar. But I put “BIL,” aka my brother-in-law, in the “improbable” bucket because he actively wooed my sister, was clearly in love with her, and fathered four boys with her, all in their late teens now. I’m sure you already saw this plot development coming: It turns out BIL has been far more “probable” than I thought. He has a boyfriend but is still very much closeted and denies he is gay. My sister has apparently known about this arrangement for four years, but has kept it a secret for the kids’ sake. But she recently filed for divorce and told our parents and me what’s been going on. Their kids have been informed about the divorce, but not about their father’s boyfriend.
I shall now say something that will delight my bisexual readers: I’m sure you’d like to live in a world where everyone is out, DGBIL, or, even better, a world where no one ever had to be in. But in the world we live in now, bisexuals are far less likely to be out than gays and lesbians, DGBIL, and the belief that a guy is either gay or straight keeps many bisexual guys closeted. Because if a bisexual guy who’s married to a woman knows he’s going to be seen as gay if he tells the truth—if no one will ever believe he loved his wife or wanted all those kids—he’s unlikely to ever come out. So you can’t fault BIL for not being out, DGBIL, when it’s attitudes like yours that keep bi guys closeted in the first place.
And then butt the fuck out.
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