It's Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones' birthday again.  This time he's 69 and still blazing trails as performing rock idol.

As happens from time to time, Jagger biographer Christopher Andersen has again alleged that Jagger had a long-term love affair with David Bowie in "Mick: The Wild Life and Mad Genius of Jagger".  This bisexual relationship has been bouncing around since the 70s Glam Rock days of 'Bisexual Chic', as well as when Angela Bowie suggested it in 1990 on Joan River's TV talk show dishing dirt on her famous ex-husband with Joan.

'Bisexual Chic' was a casualty of the 80s AIDS epidemic. Back then, promiscuous' bisexuals were seen as likely carriers to the straight populace. As a result, many of the declared bisexuals retracted their orientation. That was then, more recently Katy Perry's song  'I Kissed a Girl' with its openly bisexual theme hit a major success. Katy’s song paralleled an American study’s results that a larger number of female college and high school students are experimenting with other women than ever before.

Nowadays, there are so many celebrities and public figures that consider themselves Bi; the list would go on forever.  Here's only a few, past and present to illustrate the just the sheer diversity:


Hans Christian Andersen
Billie Joe Armstrong (Green Day)
Joan Baez
Tallulah Bankhead
Drew Barrymore
Marlon Brando
Lord Byron
Nell Carter
Margaret Cho
Montgomery Clift
Sammy Davis, Jr.
James Dean
Marlene Dietrich
Don Dunstan (former SA Premier)
Megan Fox
Anne Frank
Sia Furler
Lady Gaga
Greta Garbo
Alec Guinness
Katharine Hepburn
Missy Higgins
Angelina Jolie
Grace Jones
Janis Joplin
Frida Kahlo
Burt Lancaster
D. H. Lawrence
Madonna
Margaret Mead (Anthropologist)
Herman Melville (author of Moby Dick)
Mika
Vincente Minnelli (Liza's father)
Lord Mountbatten
Nero (Roman Emperor)
Anna Paquin
Édith Piaf
Pink
Lou Reed
Eleanor Roosevelt
Cybill shepherd
Anna Nicole Smith
Dusty Springfield
Barbara Stanwyck
Sharon Stone
Jeff Stryker
Katie Underwood

Funnily, a lot of Bi's aren't trusted or believed in either the gay or straight communities. They are often dismissed as being confused, going through a transition to gay or just in a phase.  Sure, some are in the process of 'Coming Out'. However, some of the people on this list had long-term relationships with both genders. So, what is a phase or transition?

Many of these people are not 'confused', but have the guts to pioneer their own way and go with their flow. Just like some straight men or woman shut themselves off physically from relationships with their same sex, some of us same-sexers may be shutting ourselves off from the opposite sex.

We have gay bars and gay rights, yet I never hear of bi bars and bi rights. As humans, all our bonds are built on relationships.

I've known many straight guys have a man-crush on their sports hero friend and well up with pride in their friendship. What if that proud affection flowed into expressing itself physically? After all, we're all human.

Perhaps Bis can say it better than me, so here's a few quotes on Bisexuality by famous bisexuals…

"I'm Anna Paquin. I'm bisexual and I give a damn."
Anna Paquin

"Sex is a continuum. You go through different phases along life’s way … and if you don’t, you’ve been sort of cheated."
Gore Vidal

"The time has come, I think, when we must recognise bisexuality as a normal form of human behaviour. . . we shall not really succeed in discarding the straitjacket of our cultural beliefs about sexual choice if we fail to come to terms with the well-documented, normal human capacity to love members of both sexes."
Margaret Mead, Redbook (1975)

"I think people are born bisexual and the make subconscious choices based on the pressures of society. I have no question in my mind about being bisexual. But I'm also a hypocrite: I would never date a girl who is bisexual, because that means they also sleep with men, and men are so dirty that I'd never sleep with a girl who had slept with a man."
Megan Fox

Cybill Shepherd has always been open that she was "turned on" by the woman-woman sex scenes in the 'The L Word'  "If you look at what we know about men, women and our sexuality, a great majority of people are bisexual. So what's wrong with that?" "I have wondered about lesbianism ... At various times in my life I wanted to be open to the possibility of having a woman as a lover. I am not actively pursuing it but it is not over yet." Cybill has confessed to having a long-time crush on Salma Hayek.

“A lot of my peer group think I'm an eccentric bisexual, like I may even have an ammonia-filled tentacle somewhere on my body. That's okay.”
 Robert Downey, Jr.


And then as Woody Allen famously pointed out, "Bisexuality immediately doubles your chances for a date on Saturday night"


As for Mick Jagger, whatever he is, good on him and "Happy Belated Birthday".