First I’ll start off with a
disclaimer; I know that as a phenotypically white 18 year old girl with no
completely glaring physical deformities and a middle-class background, my life
is easier than the lives of most people in the world, I don’t actually know the
statistics, but I would guess that my sheer luck in terms of being born into my
own life has placed me within the top ten percent of humans on earth that have
it the easiest, and therefore have no real reason to complain about any
perceived hardship that they’ve overcome. I completely understand, and agree
with, any of you who might already be dismissing what I’m about to say, but I
ask that you give it a chance.
One of the perspectives that I have
heard the least in terms of LGBT issues is that of bisexual women. We are
acknowledged and accepted by our community, but our problems are, albeit
rightfully, overlooked. This is surprising to me due to the amount of bisexual
women in the world, again, I don’t know what the exact number is, but I know
that it’s enough for me to make the possibly lofty assumption that my issues
are shared by a relatively large amount of people. I’m dedicating this blog
post to unearthing some of the problems that bisexual women face. I would love
to give readers some advice in handling these problems, but I have absolutely
no clue how to handle them in the very limited and petty scope of my own life,
much less in general.
The problems that I face in my own
endeavors are; the assumption that my life is easy enough for my voice to be
completely ignored by other members of the LGBT community, the reluctance of
other women who love women to accept that I am sexually interested in them, the
near impossibility of ever finding any of these women who haven’t been in a
happy relationship for a ridiculously long time, and the incessant cat-calling
that I receive from men.
As you’ve all probably guessed, I
feel marginalized by just about everyone and I’m almost hurt that my community
seems to be rejecting me as a part of it. How am I to grapple with this? Should
I get a giant tattoo spanning across my forehead declaring that I am indeed
“BISEXUAL”? This is obviously a terrible idea, but every so often I find myself
seriously considering it. Our community hosts widely publicized events advocating
for just about every one of its members, which is really necessary and I’m very
happy about it…except for the fact that I, and others like me, seem to be the
only members whose sexuality goes without celebration.
On the other side of this,
bisexuality is seen as some kind of a party-trick by essentially everyone, even
allies and other LGBT folk. I encounter so many women who I have fondled for a
surprisingly long amount of time and to a surprisingly great extent who
identify as heterosexual, and who have even uttered extremely offensive,
inappropriate, and homophobic sentences to me without even the semblance of a
thought that I could be bothered by such a thing. They couldn’t be more wrong
because this bothers me to no end. It is also extremely confusing, which isn’t
fair to women who want to interact sexually with one another for better reasons
than remedying their boyfriend’s terrible case of whisky-dick. You sorority
stars and super-groupies are leading us on and no one benefits from it, so
would it kill you to see me as more of a human being and less of an accessory
for helping you seduce men? Chances are, if I’ve been sucked in by your
advances, you’re attractive enough to ensnare those men without making me feel
just as useless as your slutty lingerie. And to the boys who encourage this
behavior (because you certainly aren’t mature enough to enjoy the title of
“men”), I am not bisexual to help you live out some porn-fueled fantasy that
you can brag about to your friends. I’m bisexual because I happen to be
bisexual. That’s all there is to it (well, that’s all there would be if y’all
weren’t interfering with my life).
As a random person who specifically typed in "The Bisexual Dilemma" to see what came up, I wanted to acknowledge your post. I'm a gay male who for the last few days has been in turmoil over Tom Daley's admission to being in a relationship with a guy but not actually coming out as gay or bisexual. And the whole issue got me thinking that I don't really know much about the experiences of what it is to be bi.
ReplyDeleteI think I have the usual stereotypes in my head of "Bi people are less trustworthy in a relationship because how can they have everything they want in only one person" and "Bi is s stepping stone to being gay". But really I know very little about the actual perspective and the actual struggles of a bisexual person. However, this week has drawn from me two issues that I have that seem in contention with the bisexual community:
My two main issues of contention with the bi community are:
1. Their assertion that EVERYONE Is at least a little bi and therefore we should be moving towards a labeless society, which is something I can't agree with. I'm gay. Not remotely interested in women, and I worked hard to earn my label and I'm proud of it.
2. That a lot of bisexuals don't seem to want to come out at all. They'd rather go on pretending they're straight, because they can, something that as a gay I find unthinkable. Everyone should come out, shouldn't they?
Any thoughts on either of these issues?