Label Substitution Phenomenon: The Truth Behind an Alleged Philippine Epidemic of Bisexuals (Part1)

Disclaimer: My dear readers, I don't intend this article to be offending or misleading in anyway. I am simply thinking out loud. I apologize in advance if there are concepts, statements, and theoretical deductions that you may find inaccurate, biased, opinionated, or unacceptable. However, if your feelings and thoughts agree with what's written, cheers!!! The names and situations used in this article are not intended to identify a particular persona. They are mainly for illustrative writing purposes. JJJ

One foreigner I was able to converse with asked me why everyone in the Philippines is bisexual. I found it funny at first. It was an exaggerated and an unfounded statement since he only based his generalization from people he met in chat rooms. However, when I gave it a careful thought, I thought that perhaps there might be some truth to it. So with my little brain, I tried to investigate, observe, and make crude assessments.

True enough in our country, I observed that many discreet homosexuals would rather have themselves called bisexuals than "gay". In chat rooms, in gay-oriented social networking sites, and dating sites (a place visited by discreet homosexuals, like me), you will discover that many, if not majority, of Filipino male homosexuals align themselves under the “bisexual” rather than the “gay” category.

Although a bisexual can be thought of as a heterosexual and a homosexual combined, by definition and simple logic bisexuality and homosexuality are obviously not the same. The overlap between the two cannot not be a cause of confusion so as to equate one with the other. So what could have probably brought about this "label substitution phenomenon"? It cannot be attributed to ignorance or convention. Filipinos are smart, intelligent people. There must be something else.