Cockroaches make great bisexual dads

June 19, 8:46 PMBisexuality ExaminerMike Szymanski

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Cockroaches show bisexual tendencies among males

Now, some people would say that bisexuals can't be good parents, and bisexuals certainly can't be good dads. Well, this Father's Day not only will our two boys be giving my partner a father's day present, but also to me (their uncle).

We're good bisexual dads. And those "some people" (some of you reading this column, too), will say that bisexuals as dads is "unnatural."

Now, I want to prove you wrong. Plenty of animals are shown to have bisexual tendencies in the animal kingdom, but most recently, a study shows that cockroaches, yes, COCKROACHES, are ideal bisexual fathers!

This whole thing is kind of funny because I was quoted in a recent documentary, "Bi the Way" as a cultural commentator (along with Michael Musto), as saying that bisexuals are like cockroaches and will always survive and be around on the planet. That's before I found about this:

"In a lab test, some 20 percent of male giant hissing roaches went romantic when they met another male, says David Logue of the University of Lethbridge in Canada. Males can’t actually mate, but flirtatious Gromphadorhina portentosa males, some outweighing a mouse, hissed gently and made the thrusting gestures of courtship among male roachkind.

Same-sex courters had no objection to females and, given a chance, courted them with unusual ardor. These linked tendencies, flirting with males and wowing females, define a behavioral syndrome, Logue said at the Animal Behavior Society meeting held in Snowbird, Utah, this week. That link, he speculated, may end up explaining the evolutionary puzzle of male flirtation among roaches."

 

The study shows that cockroaches can be heterosexual, of course, but that they still interested in same-sex liaisons, and that they have incredible parenting skills.

And, in fact, broods of baby roaches tended to be larger if the dad had shown a taste for courting other males. Prof. So, could that be extrapolated to mean that human bisexuals may grow happier, healthier kids?

Now, some people may use this information to compare bisexuals to cockroaches (sort of like I did unintentionally in "Bi the Way"), but others may see this as another exampe of how we all can learn from each other all sorts of things—even from cockroaches, and bisexuals.

* The bisexual cockroach study.

* Bi things across the country to do.