"Big Brother 9"'s James discusses being bisexual, wins a viewer favorite prize

So, this past Big Brother season started with a little bit of promise, and quickly lost my interest, as the show frequently does. The Big Brother casting directors found people cretinous enough to make me long for the likes of Jase, Scott and, yes, Ivette. I might have been interested in the potential showmance between Neil and Joshuah but after Neil suddenly left the house, the obnoxiousness of this season became too much for me to bear.

However, Joshuah and Neil weren't the only houseguests on this Big Brother season who got noticed by gay viewers. It quickly turned out that James had appeared on a gay porn website, something that started debates on discussion boards on whether or not James had defined himself as bisexual on the live feeds. Aside from that, there were also moments like the time when Joshuah talked about being a top and James told him, essentially, 'You don't know what you're missing.'.

Well, if it weren't clear then, in a post-finale interview, James identifies himself as bisexual and saying he was open about his bisexuality in the house but avoided discussing it in the house because of worries about homophobia.

The interviewer asks James why he didn't "make a play for" Joshuah, but James either dodges or misunderstands the question, explaining that he never felt Joshuah was being singled out for being gay. (I'm guessing "misunderstand" since James struck me as the someone blunt enough to say "I didn't make a play for Joshuah because I spent time with him.")

While James didn't win the season, he did win a $25,000 "favorite jury member" prize, voted on by the viewers. I have to admit I find that interesting that viewers didn't hold James' gay porn past against him and that, while the series has yet to see a queer contestant win, one did end up becoming a "fan favorite" ... even though he wasn't one identified as queer when the series began.

You can check out the whole interview here.

We haven't talked about Big Brother since Joshuah was evicted (and there wasn't much of a response then) but now that the season's over does anyone have any final thoughts? We had one gay man and two bisexual men in the house and ... well, Joe and Dustin got more buzz among gay pop culture fanatics. Is this season one of those best forgotten?