Daisy posts on Fun Home:
http://daisysdeadair.blogspot.com/2007/08/bisexual-invisibility.html
I loved Alison Bechdel’s fabulous graphic novel FUN HOME, but am I the only one who wondered why she labeled her father *gay* rather than bisexual? If someone has been married for decades, but still enjoys periodic sexual relationships with their own gender, to me, that makes them bisexual.
Perhaps because the parallel between her own (gay) sexuality and her father’s became much more poignant and obvious; it makes for a great dramatic narrative. Nonetheless, as much as I adore the book, I feel as if the reality of bisexuality is ignored and downplayed, here as elsewhere.
This strikes me as a good point built on a bad example. Take another example. A man who has not the resources or the safety to screw around with gay men but who is not currently in a straight relationship–even on an official level–is not asexual. Bechdel assumes that her father was gay rather than bisexual because she assumes that his marriage was a closet.
This assumption is arguably biphobic, but it is true that queer people (not “predominantly homosexual,” either, to paraphrase Dan Savage at his most irritating) sometimes identify as straight and form straight relationships. They do this in order to mask or even counter same-sex attraction, out of a sincere belief that they are or can become straight, or because they have no alternative. Up until very recently, queer people did not come out in their teens; it was much more typical for people to come out much later in life. Not long before that, most queer people never came out at all.
Historically, it was very common for men who liked men to marry women, simply because there was no other option. (Not counting the priesthood.) In another place and time, they might have identified as bisexual or they might have been shacking up with men and only men. I think, though, that the tendency to seek out male sex partners in the face of such severe social punishment and such a hateful cultural understanding of same-sex attraction is evidence that at least many of these men were not simply open to both kinds of partners.
A decades-long marriage is no proof of orientation at all, not under those circumstances. And I think it’s wrong to consider bisexuality inclusive of sex under social pressure. If our society were homonormative and heterophobic, so much so that straight sex had been illegal until just a few years ago, I think it would be fair to wonder about gay closets.
That having been said, Daisy asks some interesting questions about bisexuality. I’m kind of interested in the intersection–or potential disjunct–between “bisexual” and “queer.” I remember–this was right after I started passing fulltime again as female but had not internalized that yet–walking around after dark with a queer woman friend. We passed a nightclub with a bunch of twentysomething men and women and she said, “Ewwww! Straight people!” And I was sort of taken aback. Partly because I’d been covertly ogling the boys and the girls, and partly because I was–still sort of am–going through a reactive boy-crazy phase.
Bisexuality has been a tough thing to negotiate because each side tends to assume that you’re one or the other, or–not quite sure how to say this–that bisexuality is one or the other. Gay or straight, queer or straight. Bisexuality has always seemed to me to be much more amorphous, if only because it’s been so very vulnerable to appropriation by both sides. It seems kind of like the tendency to either fold transsexual and transgender into queer or to assume that transpeople are are all straight-identified and obsessed with gender congruency.
Daisy asks any interested transpeople whether their partners have suffered anxiety over whether they’re gay or straight–rather, whether their gender identity messes up their partner’s sexual orientation. (I’ve had the opposite problem: people assuming that their desire makes them the queerest of the queer.) This encapsulates the false dichotomy for me. It’s wrong to pretend that people partnered to transpeople are not potentially queer, and to assume that a gay man who falls in love with a transwoman has turned straight–or is seeking something out in her that he didn’t somehow get from his other partners. On the other hand, it’s equally shallow to assume that anyone attracted to a transperson will necessarily have a queer orientation, or that people partnered with transpeople lose or reverse their orientation over their partner’s transition.
Bisexuality is tough. I consider myself bisexual but leaning more towards males. How do you explain that to someone? I’m attracted to both sexes, have fooled around and enjoyed myself with both sexes, but I tend towards males more. Maybe it’s social pressure but I’m not sure because I really do enjoy PIV sex. And at the same time, I can’t stand the assumptions people make. I mentioned it to a guy I was thinking of dating and his reaction was “oh cool! threesome!”, as if because I’ve been attracted to females, I’ll be willing to participate in his fantasy no questions asked. To be honest, I told him I’d do it if we could do a MMF threesome first, which shut him up :)
sometimes I’m accused of having a boyfriend because it’s “safe”. I know friends are sort of joking when they say this, but it irks me, nonetheless.
it’s really not like that at all.
oh, and I really, really dislike “bisexual” as a label. with all of the teenagers (who really aren’t, but you know: they EXPERIMENTED- it’s not what is really at the heart of their emotions/attraction) who claim to be such. maybe I’m just jealous. once I found what would describe “my problem” as a junior in high school (’93-’94); it was not considered a hip problem to have.
nobody was going to get more friends by falsely claiming to be attracted to both sexes. it’s now something teenagers (I teach them in the same metropolitan area I grew up in) readily claim, whether that’s what they’re feeling or not.
Well, maybe he considers himself gay. Cole Porter was married for years and years, he loved his wife, but not sexually. Defining one’s relationships solely by the sexual component can be limiting. Marriages, partnerships, are built on many emotional and social considerations.
I think that trying to paint Bechdel’s father as bisexual is a bit of a stretch. My interpretation of Fun Home was that Bechdel’s father knew he was gay, knew it was dangerous to be gay, and so thought he’d give being straight a try. So he met a nice, intelligent gal that he got on well with. Figuring “I can make this work” he married her and even managed to perform a few times. But he didn’t love her — their relationship grew increasingly abusive as he found himself resenting a life he didn’t want.
Not that I’m trying to make the connection that sexuality can only exist with love, but it would seem to me that the point of bisexuality isn’t that you fuck both sexes, but that you’re at least attracted to both sexes. I don’t get that he was attracted to his wife at all — she was there to present him with the cover of normalcy so that every once and a while he could treat himself to a young man. So if you want to be technical, yeah, he was bisexual. He did have sex with both sexes. But I really hope that he doesn’t become the standard-bearer for bisexuality. (shudder)
Holly — as a teenager who “experimented” I really have to take issue with what you’ve said. I’m not going to pretend that what I did existed outside of patriarchal male gaze, but the feelings I had for close girlfriends was very real and very confusing. I’m sure, if you’d known me back then, you’d make a snap call to say that I was just fooling around with other girls to make the boys like me because I ended up Straight After All. But being a teenager means that suddenly you’ve got hormones going, you’re trying to come to a firmer understanding of your identity overall, and when you have really close friends who are the same sex it’s really natural to want to understand more about the complicated shades of attraction and sexuality. And having a bunch of Insufferable Sexuality Snobs looking down their nose at you for being some sort of homo-poseur to try to score cred points doesn’t help when you’re trying to understand more about your identity. So I’m sorry if it bugs you, and more people can’t just declare that they are 100% straight or 100% gay the moment they turn 13 and the juices start going. But a little fucking empathy would be nice.
Identity needs to be defined by self-identity and internal experience, not behavior.
While it is certainly possible that any given man who is married to a woman while having regular or periodic sex with men may in fact be bisexual, it certainly isn’t a given.
Studies show that roughly half of men who identify as gay were married to a woman at some point in their life, and that most of them self-identified as gay (or knew that they were avoiding that label consciously) while they were married. Those numbers will drop dramatically in the future, for all the reasons piny lists.
And there seems to be some very solid evidence that (at least in terms of personal identity), there are far fewer genuinely bisexual men than bisexual women. Whether that is socialization or biology is a matter of conjecture (at least at present). So it isn’t out of line to assume that the guy was, in fact, gay.
Bisexuality is tough. I consider myself bisexual leaning towards women – I find both sexes physically attractive and have had sex with both (more men than women, mainly because it’s easier in my current social situation), but I have never been emotionally attracted to a guy on more than a friendly basis, and I’ve fallen in love with a few women. But how do you explain that to someone? It would be so much easier to say I’m lesbian, but then I feel as if I can’t admire attractive men with my straight women friends. It’s too extreme for me. However, bisexual suggests liking both sexes equally, not knowing which one you want, being able to “choose” a straight relationship, and of course the stupid threesome issue. That doesn’t really fit me eiher since I’m not emotionally attracted to both sexes.
These labels can be very stifling all-around, but they’re so difficult to get rid of. I’m comfortable with not labelling my sexuality, but it seems as though often others are not.
wow. I’d apologize for describing my own experience (didn’t really go into it in depth) and personal feelings- but to do so would be disingenuous, as I am not sorry for how I really feel. I’ll cop to being an IMS, but not a sexuality (I prefer the term to just be flat out “orientation”) snob. Give me a break.
This is totally OT, but why is right-clicking disabled? It doesn’t do anything to keep people from stealing/hotlinking your code and images (you can just go the top menus and do View->Page Source to get the info you need to do that) and it *does* keep people from opening links in new tabs or windows, which is *really* annoying – if you want to read several posts in a row (especially spaced out in between bouts of, you know, working), you have to keep going back and forth instead of just opening them all up and reading them when you have time.
I’d rather not cut breaks for a mentality that dumps on women for trying to better understand their sexuality. I know that it’s really risque and avant-garde and feminist to trash on a teenage girl for trying to figure out what gets her off, but I’m a little tired of it.
(Not to mention it’s hard to follow the links in a post if you have to navigate away from the page to do it – if you get pulled away from the computer, by the time you come back you may not even remember how you got to the link in the first place)
I think this is an interesting point. Bechdel’s father may well have viewed his marriage as a closet, and himself as gay, but he may also have been genuinely attracted to his wife and to his male lover(s). I don’t think it’s correct to assume either that he is gay (which can be a somewhat biphobic assumption) or that he is bisexual (which is a somewhat ahistorical assumption, not taking into account the pressures of the times in which he married).
I get really frustrated with historical lists of who is “gay” or who is “bisexual” (ever notice how Sappho and Virginia Woolf are on both?), because it’s really difficult and problematic to take those terms out of their social and historical contexts. I understand the desire to try to identify the history of a historically oppressed group, but I’m never quite satisfied with the results.
In response to the last question, I am a bisexual woman who dated a transman (who came out and transitioned while we were dating). I did not have any particular angst about my own sexuality at the time, but I think that’s in part because I had already come to terms with the fluidity of my own sexuality. It was, however, weird to go from being one of the lesbian couples in our university group to…. something else that no one could quite name. Not lesbians. Not straight. I know another friend who identified as a lesbian who did have a lot of trouble when her partner transitioned — what did it mean that she now loved a man? So I think the label of bisexual and the fluidity inherent in that protected me a lot here. At this point, I’m most comfortable with the label “queer,” just to allow as much fluidity as possible, and skip some of the dichotomies inherent in “bisexual”.
Actually, your experience and feelings would more like, “I’ve noticed a tendency amongst kids these days to claim a bisexual orientation for what seems like social approval. I resent their apparent use of bisexuality for its cachet, and wish they would be more honest about their preferences.” You were generalizing from your experience in ways that offended another bisexual former teenager. I dunno if I’d agree with your read on the situation, either. For all you know, these kids are considering same-sex attraction or are honestly attempting to sort it out. For teenagers even more than most people, self-aggrandizement isn’t distinct from self-exploration.
The Japanese believed (and some still do) that you fall in love with the soul. Which means that the covering (the body/sex) of the soul doesn’t matter. If a person who had always been attracted to the opposite sex suddenly fell in love with someone who is of the same sex it was understandable. This idea shows up in manga a lot. They actually explore relationships/sex/love a lot in manga if anyone is interested.
(OT: What Lisa said about the right-clicking. Makes reading multiple posts with (more)’s a real hassle.)
It’s the whole “who really aren’t” and “not really at the heart of” stuff that bothers me–I think we all ought to be more careful about policing each other along the lines of authenticity of identities. Identities are complex things, and dismissing the identities of people like Mighty Ponygirl with a wave of one’s orientation snob wand ought to be recognized as the hurtful, and I think completely unnecessary, action that it is.
Off topic: Ditto what Lisa said about right-clicking. I open the full text of articles and other links in new tabs all the time, and not being able to do that really messes up the readability of a site for me. Please bring right-clicking back.
On topic: I’ve been leaning more and more towards using “not straight” for myself, because “bisexual” implies, to me, a more even division of attraction towards both sexes/genders/whatever than what I feel. Plus, it implies that there are -two- choices, and I’m not sure that’s really what’s going on for me. The things I find attractive in men (my preferred sex) are approximately the same things I find attractive in women, but I react differently (more strongly) to men than I do women. It’s more like there are certain personality characteristics that I find attractive, and physical attraction often follows from that, regardless of the physical nature of a person’s body.
It seems strange to me that people would prefer to label a gay man as “bisexual” because he married a woman due to social pressures, rather than sexual attraction.
I want to take this opportunity to interrogate whether we’re all conflating sexual and affectional orientation. Sure, there is a close correlation between who most folks want as sex partners and who they for romantic bonds with, but there’s also some variance. I’ve certainly known people who have sex with both men and women but who only want relationships with one or the other.
So, if orientation really affectional orientation? (On balance, this makes a lot of sense to me, if only because romantic bonds tend to be the ones that form the core of long-term relationships and that people organize their lives around; admitting of course that exceptions exist.)
If that’s true, then I resist the notion that someone’s cross-orientation sex partners don’t “count”; aren’t “real.” Sure, it could be the case that a man who only wants men for both romance and sex could have female sex partners for reasons of closeted living; but absent evidence to that effect I don’t think we ought to presume that.
Well, I use the term “bi” because it’s a much easier to start with something that is often understood and then expand into new territory than to provide a dissertation about my sexual experiences. I posted over there that I use the term bi or queer even though I’m in a heterosexual relationship because my homosexual relationships (such as they were) were pretty important to my life and shaping who I am today. I also respond sexually to some male characters in cinema and literature.
But, I think there is an element of gay rights activism which can be summarized as “gay as ethnicity.” From this standpoint Melissa Etheridge’s really bad polarized, “choice or birth” question and Bechdel’s interpretation of her father as Gay makes sense. Which, I don’t mind the recognition of the “gay but married” identity, but I think that identity can be a lot more complex. And I’ll throw in another plug for “Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics” which I’m currently reading.
Oh yes, please enable right-clicks because it make it difficult to use the editing features of my browser (including spellcheck.)
Seems to me that a lot of these problems go away if you posit “bisexual” as a category that overlaps with both “gay” and “straight,” rather than defining the three as mutually exclusive.
Someone whose primary emotional/sexual relationships are consistently with people of the other sex is in some sense straight, it seems to me. But someone who experiences real and intense sexual attraction to members of both sexes is in some sense bisexual. If both these descriptions apply to a single individual, then perhaps that person is both straight and bi.
This approach seems to be usefull in looking at Bechdel’s father, too. From the evidence of the book, it seems clear that he was gay, for the reasons Piny states. It’s possible that he was bi as well, but there’s little evidence to support it, and it’s not a question that Bechdel is particularly interested in.
I should say, I guess, that this idea of overlapping categories doesn’t depend on a claim that everyone is in some sense bi, or conversely that bisexuality doesn’t exist as a separate category from homosexuality and heterosexuality. My sense is that there are a lot of people for whom one of the three categories, standing alone, is sufficient, but that some folks, who find themselves inhabiting one or another border zone, might better be described (and self-describe) as two simultaneously.
I was leery of doing so because this is another way in which the closet complicates things. Internalized homo–or bi–phobia can lead to a belief that one can only fall in love with one gender, and that everything else is just sex. That “Dan Savage at his most irritating” thing was a reference to his assertion that, rather than any significant number of closeted bisexual men in straight relationships, there’s only this multitude of “predominantly straight” men who fall in love with and fuck women but only fuck men. I’m sure there is plenty of variation in this prreference as with all others, but it’s not quite that simple.
And going back to Bechdel–it didn’t sound like her parents had a healthy affectional or sexual relationship.
I use it because it bothers people so much, and because “queer” doesn’t really tell people anything.
Right, as well as defining bisexual experience as something that can incorporate these shifts over time without being shunted into “really” gay or straight. If I can use the trans comparison again, it seems kind of like trying to explain stuff around passing and belonging and “post-transition,” that is, trying to explain a fluctuating state in terms of this gaping divide you supposedly leap over each time.
I tend to feel more comfortable identifying as bisexual than do most “not-hetero” people I have encountered. This may be in part because I do not feel I “lean towards” attraction to women over men or vice versa. Frequently I am asked if I truly don’t have a preference for one gender or sex over another and I always try (with some difficulty) to explain that while I don’t prefere one gender or sex over another, I have preferences specific to each gender. I like certain traits in men that I would dislike in women and certain traits in women that I would dislike in men. I think this tendency may acccount for my level of comfort with the term “bisexual”. The one thing that feels wrong about the term is that it doesn’t seem to leave room for attraction to someone who identifies with neither the term male or female. Identifting as queer rather than bisexual seems more inclusive, but I have found that most people will interpret “queer” as lesbian.
Being a queer teenager myself, I feel like I get enough people telling me “Oh, you just think you’re queer. You just are going through a phase/are doing this for male attention/are confusing your love for your friends with platonic love.” I don’t care if you’re coming from a straight perspective saying I’m actually straight, or a queer perspective saying I’m not queer enough, but either way it isn’t helpful. Nobody likes being patronized.
(OT: for most people, holding down Control (or Command if you’re on a Mac) and clicking opens the link in a new tab.)
What does “queerest of the queer” mean? At least one of the things I have always appreciated about “queer” is that it doesn’t propose a hierarchy. And another way in which this is complex, how do we deal with preferences beyond gender. For example, if I was dating in the gay community, I’d probably be known as a “bear/otter hunter.” I’m not just attracted to men as a class, I trend toward (with the exception that I crush on all of my friends at least once) cuddly men with prominent secondary sexual characteristics. Where does leather or other lifestyle characteristics fit in? What about people who only seek sexual partners with certain religious/political/ethical positions?
And the other way around, too — a woman could identify as a lesbian without a het attraction or relationship stripping her of that identity, for instance.
The example I gave above was one in which sexual and affectional preference appear to differ, but as you note those are blurry distinctions, and the overlap I’m talking about isn’t limited to just that.
I gotta say, as a woman who’s had sexual/romantic attractions & relationships with people of a multitude of genders, I really hate “bisexual.” I’m certainly attracted to more than the two genders the word suggests. I prefer “flexisexual” myself. And also “queer” and “dyke,” though they don’t as explicitly convey the multiple attractions.
And MightyPonyGirl: word. Attractions can be fluid and sometimes confusing, esp. but not exclusively as a teenager. Just because I used to have a sexual interest that I no longer have now doesn’t mean I was faking it then or doing it for social approval or that it wasn’t important/crucial to me when I was exploring it.
FWIW, I didn’t read Bechdel’s father as bi. I def. read his marriage as a closet. YMMV.
Piny, I got the Savage reference, which IIRC dates to his column about Bailey’s research. Yeah, there are certainly folks that will argue from a disaggregation of sexual and affectional orientation that everyone is “really” gay or straight. IMO, there are so many people who have had romantic relationships with men and women (and not only with cis-men and cis-women) that this interpretation, if only among those of us who pay attention and not in the popular imagination, can be readily discarded. So that’s what I think of Savage’s desire to simply read bisexuality out of existence.
Yeah, there are a lot of men who have sex with men and women but only have relationships with women. How much of that is internalized homophobia and how much is innate? Can’t tell, and we’ll have to be in a very different world to know.
I see the concern that talking aobut sex and romance separately opens the door to reading bisexuality out of existence, but that’s not where I was going and I don’t think it makes sense to keep talking as though everyone’s sexual and romantic maps match just to avoid that argument.
As to Bechtel, I have not read it, but I’m not expressing any skepticism that there are relationships that are just closets. I didn’t mean to imply otherwise: in Bechdel’s dad’s case, we have her portrait of the relationship from which for form an impression, so I don’t think that drawing a conclusion that he was a gay man in a loveless, phony marriage is an assumption. It sounds like that’s a reasonable read from the text.
So you don’t like “bisexual” because it doesn’t convey the beautiful gender rainbow, but you like “dyke”? I don’t understand that at all.
I also, as an admitted binary identified transsexual type, don’t like arguments against bisexual as a label on behalf of trans people. I use bisexual myself because I think it adequately conveys that I have attractions regardless of genital configuration or gender identity.
I read Fun Home last year and have been searching for it to reread (it’s somewhere in this house. Or maybe I let someone borrow it.) But if I’m remembering correctly, towards the end of the book and just a little while before his untimely death, Bechdel’s father did come out to her as a gay man.
Ah, but that’s not true of me. I’m attracted to multiple genders — more than two, to be sure — but not all of them. My attractions may be multiple, but they are in some real ways gender-specific. I like my language to be specific, too, which is why the “bi” bothers me. It just subtly re-inscribes the idea of the gender binary every time we use it. I don’t object on behalf of trans people. I object on my own behalf: I loathe the gender binary, and it is my enemy.
“Dyke” doesn’t encompass my whole identity. I’m much more likely to use “queer” these days in general conversation for just that reason. But “dyke” specifically identifies me as a politicized woman who’s attracted to other woman, and that’s not only true but important to me.
Jaclyn: I object on my own behalf: I loathe the gender binary, and it is my enemy.
I dislike it also, but on the other hand, none of the alternatives work well either.
Mighty Ponygirl: Well, I can understand being uncertain and can empathize. At the same time, I’ve had enough bad experiences with people who identified themselves as “bi-curious” that I’m unwilling to take a risk on anyone who is not willing to share the risk of coming out as bi or queer.
I don’t understand what you mean. None of the alternatives to “bisexual”? Or none of the alternatives to the gender binary itself?
If you mean the word, I really disagree. Any identity words will sound awkward at first, but the more we use them, the more natural they will sound and the more people will know what we mean. Think “cisgender,” for example. Or even “Ms.” Or “queer.” Any number of words have been consciously introduced and now work fine. We must make our own alternatives.
I’m a trans person who does not like ‘bisexual’ because, to my mind, it does not include me as a possibility, if I’m considered as a potential object of desire. I don’t like ‘bisexual’ if I’m considered the originator of desire because, to my mind, it leaves way too many hot people out categorically.
Well, I disagree with that in that without a critical mass converging on one word, I don’t think we will get very far. In addition, as much as “bi” is problematic, there already is a body of literature, theory and activism connected with it. So I still consider Bi Any Other Name and Look Both Ways, Bisexual Politics to be key reads for talking about the complexity of sexual identity.
Well, I don’t like cisgender either because it implies yet another binary with cisgender basically ending up as a gendered “straight.” Cisgender doesn’t capture the ways in which I feel frustrated by gender role games to the point of depression.
What’s up with right-clicking being disabled? It’s really messing up my tabbing.
@CBrachyrhynchos in 33:
If you want to politicize around ‘bisexual’, go right ahead. Don’t be surprised if those who don’t necessarily embrace it as the only alternative to ‘gay’ or ‘straight’ aren’t so quick to be drafted in your campaign, though.
prosphoros: Yeah, that’s understood. There is also “queer” but that doesn’t quite capture it as well.
What about ambisexual?
*Sigh* When I first picked up “Look Both Ways,” my thought was that the bi/ambi/omni/flexisexual or bi-queer, “none of the above” movement has been running in place for just about the last 20 years, in that it seems no one really likes the labels that are available, but alternative ways of talking about sexuality don’t seem to be available.
Then you’ll just piss off all the etymology freaks.
Trivia: “ambidextrous” is slang for “bisexual.”
Weak criticism. Bechdel does address the bisexuality angle; read it again. She concludes, within the narrative, that she calls him gay because it either suits her own narrative or because he was compulsive about having sex with men in a way that bisexual men usually aren’t.
I think the assumption that a married man who cheats with men is more likely bisexual than gay and closeted is perpetuating the unfortunate stereotype that bisexuals can’t be satisfied in a monogamous relationship, which is, from what I understand, not true. They’re attracted to both sexes but no more long to cheat than gays or straights do.
holly r., I can sympathize. Obviously figuring out ones preferences can be confusing, particularly as a teenager, but the tendancy of some people to use the fact that teens experiment, and that some people (usually girls) will ‘fake bi’ in order to get attention from the opposite sex, in order to dismiss actual bisexuals/those who are attracted to more than one gender, is really irritating. (To be clear, I’ve got no problem in general with those who are experimenting or attention-seeking, just those who use them to put down bisexual people.)
I had a run in one time with a girl who had the nerve to tell me to my face that bisexuals didn’t exist because she, a straight girl, had made out with her female friends, so obviously anyone claiming to be bi was lying. I’ve gotten similar comments from others, hetero- and homosexuals alike. Frankly, I avoid using ‘bisexual’ as a label for myself now; I prefer to say that when it comes to gender, I have no preference.
I guess I’m just too hung up on the fact that there was no love in his relationship to his wife — I can’t hang my hat on it — there are plenty of perfectly hetero loveless marriages out there (I know all too well) but it just seems like we’re not given any indication that her father had any attraction or love or even respect for her mother. She was there to fill a role and keep him safe from persecution as a gay man. If he’d cheated on her with other women, I could see making the bisexual argument. But what’s really telling are the letters he wrote her while he was in the military — you’d think that if there was going to be a moment of het affection you’d see it in what he wrote about — but he wrote about the books he was reading. If he had any attraction to his wife at all, it was as a sort of intellectual accomplice. I think that’s actually a good element to have in a relationship, but it seemed that there was more reflection of himself off of her than genuine interaction and companionship. I’ve lent my copy out or I’d re-read, maybe I’m cherry-picking what I remember.
Being boring and straight as they come, I haven’t much to contribute to this conversation, except that it was a revelation to me when I discovered in Real Life (as opposed to sf) that the bi/ambi/fluid-sexuality stance was not universally looked upon with favor, despite its seemingly great benefits.
Having read a little here and elsewhere, I’m beginning to understand why this so, but it seems a shame that everything has to be so rigidly categorized. After all, folks come in all shapes and sizes, so why shouldn’t their sexuality?
And about the mouse button: I’m so used to right clicking that it didn’t even occur to me I could just left click: I cut and pasted the first part of th url into another tab, then spent 4x going back and forth between the two to get the new url typed in right.
That is, from my point of view, this site is now seriously broken. Please fix!
Conversations like this make me glad I have no desire whatsoever to interface sexually with anyone. I suppose I’m queer/bisexual/WTFEVER we’re calling it today, but I suppose I’m more “equally uninterested in sex with either.” Some are pretty to look at, but that’s about it.
And honestly, if you’re unfamiliar with what you like, and you try a male, you’re more likely to be regarded as a potential porno-jackpot than anything else. Try a woman, and you’re One Of Those Evil Bicurious Heartbreaker Bitches.
I’m booksexual. Hand me a naked and attractive member of any gender, and I’m more likely to read a book. Who was it who said that an intellectual is someone who has discovered that there are many things out there more exciting than sex?
Anyhow.
Rice V.- I agree with you on the label thing. That’s really what I was (failing) to try to get at, before I hit some nerves.
funny other things: 1. several friends/’work & school acquaintances- immediately, and for a long time, read me as lesbian (these being of the homosexual (as in not bisexual- just to keep ease in clarification of terms) community). This comes out when I say “my boyfriend”. It’s been said, “well, uh, sorry. It’s just that you’re so, uh, femmey” (MSW classmate/friend, now)
2. I am an ambidextrous one. Conditioned to only write with my right hand. Yes, this amuses some close friends who like to make fun of this fact, seeing the obvious.
brooklynite, piny:
Re: ambisexual
In the early 90s, I finally lost my virginity to a lovely bisexual woman. She was both sexually and affectionaly bi, and mentioned this continually circulating argument about the “true definition of bisexual”.
In the course of random conversation, I offered “ambisexual” as a term (if one *must* label) for people with a split between romantic and affectional attraction. The idea was that most “ambidextrous” people are not really equally good with both hands, they just tend to not have the same dominant hand for all things. (i.e. – they write left-handed but play tennis right handed)
I posted it to soc.feminism within the week. Six months later I had someone at a party explain their orientation to me as “ambisexual”.
I know very well I didn’t invent the term, I’m sure more than one person has come up with it independently over the years, but I do have a soft spot in my heart for it. :-)
What assumption? I read Daisy as complaining about the assumption that he was not bisexual.
Oh how I have had to live with that lable!
haven’t read all of the comments yet, so i don’t know if it’s been addressed. can anyone explain to me the difference (if there is one) between bisexual and pansexual? i’ve read about a few people who describe themselves as pansexual and always wondered what the difference is. unless it’s just that some people dislike the word ‘bisexual’ as the 2nd commenter wrote.
Nellie, I’m happily disinterested in sex enough to not be inconvenienced by it (I really would rather read a book than rub body parts together and grunt), but it does chap my proverbial ass from time to time. I mean, it really just seems to boil down to “I will never have sex with a homosexual virgin.” Not everyone is of the “I knew when I was three” variety, and of those people who aren’t, what the hell ARE they before they have had their first experience but “inexperienced/curious?”
And then someone could just say, “Well yes, if they’re GENUINELY CURIOUS as opposedot just FAKING BEING CURIOUS” or whatever, and the whole thing falls apart like wet kleenex because it seems to all come down to, “If they broke up with me after we fucked, then the were poseurs.” Especially if they broke up with you for a MOTOS. Then, it wasn’t simply that your relationship broke up because relationships do that from time to time, but because They Were Evil Bicurious Poseurs.
I doubt that older folks who were once married to opposite sex partners were bisexual. Reading British papers earlier this summer reminded me: Being gay used to be illegal — homosexuality was legalized in England only 40 years ago. Taking an opposite-sex partner at that time helped you pass for ‘normal’. I think the pressure of living as some one you were not, combined with an increasing acknowledgment of gay people, encouraged people to live out their sexual orientation. Several of the older gays I know had been in opposite-sex marriages, producing children and now grandchildren, although they have led happily (and exclusively) gay lives for years now.
Janis: It’s not about leaving for a MOTOS, it’s about leaving for the closet and the safe domain of heterosexual privelege from which they can safely write off MOTSS relationships as just a juvenile phase.
I’m a bit too old and too crotchety to put up with relationships in the closet. If I date someone, it will be with the expectation that at some point, the relationship will become public knowledge. Being my SO means being out to everyone who shares my life, friends, neighbors, extended family. It means modest public displays of affection. If, disco ball forbid, my partner is poly, I want to know my partner’s partners.
The bottom line is that I refuse to live my life and my relationships in the closet. If someone is “just curious” I can’t expect them to put their lives on the line and be out as queer. There are plenty of people who are willing to date people with one step out of the closet. I feel no need to date one of them.
Having read Fun Home, I would have to say that, for the purposes of the narrative, her father was gay. However, since Bechdel herself says in the course of the book that everything is filtered through her voice and not everything is 100% factual, we have no way of knowing what her father’s “real” sexuality was, because the father in the book is Bechdel’s interpretation of her father. It’s an autobiographical novel, not an autobiography.
Not to get all meta, but it’s kind of like arguing about what’s “real”/factual in Marcel Proust’s novels and what isn’t. It misses the point.
I’m bi, and married quite happily to a bi man.
He is pretty much equally attracted to both sexes. He said that given that the series of blind dates/introductions to “this girl I know” by his friends were going nowhere in a spectacular fashion, he had considered deciding that he was going to just exclusively date men. He gave it one last shot, and met me. However, we aren’t monogamous, which I think is an entirely orthogonal orientational spectrum from sexuality. If he’d married a monogamous woman, he would have cheated on her with both men and women, but more with men because he finds it easier to find “just sex” with men.
Me, I’ve known I was bi since I first started Looking at people when I was twelve or thirteen. I’ve always known I liked both sexes, but as was said upthread, there are certain “things” that I like about men I want to have sex with, and certain “things” I like about women. And part of these things are very much a matter of physicality (I like tall thin guys, and women who are curvy and close to my own height) and some things are cultural ( I like geeks, especially if they have long hair) and some things are psychological (intelligence, wit, a certain twisted sense of humor and passion for intellectual discovery). I have sex more with men than with women because around here it’s easier to find compatible guys than compatible women.
But my marriage isn’t my closet, or his. But I’ve always figured marriage is what you make it.
Frankly, I find the whole issue of sexuality a distracting and often dehumanising one. My mother is homophobic, but growing up expressed greater disdain for bisexuals as they “couldn’t pick a side” (causing some distress for me early on as I grappled with liking men and women).
But I just don’t see it that way now. I’m mostly attracted to men, and sometimes find myself longing for female companionship. I consider this a healthy sexual response in any human being. If I were to prefer the companionship of my own sex most of the time, instead, I would consider it equally healthy. I understand why our society has trouble with this, but other societies, at other times and places, have considered sex with members of both sexes perfectly normal and even ideal.
Though I think it’s awesome that she discusses Fun Home. I just read it and thought it was beautiful. I agree, though, that the reasons she didn’t label her father bisexual have more to do with the fact that her father’s homosexuality would have been something he sought to hide, and it fit with her theme of hiding behind artifice, represented perfectly by their ostentatious home. Beautiful book.
Well, it seems to me that what you dislike it closeted relationships, and that has zilch to do with the perceived “curiosity level” of a given person. You’re using the word “curious” to mean other than curious, which is where the confusion lies.
If you mean “I dislike closeted relationships,” then say that. The word “closet” has been used to mean this very thing for a long, long time — ther eis no need to draft a word that means “isn’t sure and is still finding out about their preferences” in a derogatory way.
Janis: Let me put it this way, a person who “is not sure” about their sexual orientation, is likely to also be undecided about perminantly coming out of the closet, engaging in long-term MOTSS relationships, or just being with a MOTSS person to begin with. Now, there is nothing wrong with being “curious.” But I think the needs and interests of bicurious people to experiment socially and sexually on the route to finding their identity, are not the needs and interests of out and committed queerfolk seeking to establish long-term relationships.
The term “queer,” in my experience, has all too often been taken by others as meaning exclusively same-sex oriented. I use the word “bisexual” as there is at least some amount of ambiguity suggested by it, which is a good point at which to start a discussion. But the term does carry its own baggage.
I concur with much of what Nellie had to say. For me, I definitely have a mixed preference, or no preference, or an indefinite preference. Sexuality is, for me in simplest terms, defined by what kind of genitals I like to see on the person I am getting naked with. I don’t really have a preference. If I am with a man, Yay! I like penises. If I am with a woman, Yay! I like vaginas. If I am with an intersexed, trans- or genderqueer person, Yay! I like ambiguous and constructed genitals.
The problem I feel with the term “bisexual” is that folks seem to hear the “-sex-” part and then it’s all about that, when it’s really about sooo much more. I experience the sum-total of a person — the physical-mental-emotional-spiritual connection — not just the physical turn-on and orgasm. The interaction of those variables combines differently from person to person and I am not going to deprive myself from experiencing half or more of those potential combinations just because they might seem to involve persons who identify with one or the other side of (or even outside of) the gender continuum.
Thomas Says:
August 15th, 2007 at 1:15 pm
Exactly. And since we don’t live in a perfect world, does it matter on a practical level how much is internalized homophobia or how much is innate? I enjoy sex with men, women, and persons beyond the binary. Yet, affectationally, I prefer partnering primarily with women. This preference is no less real regardless of what stimulii brought me to this place. It frustrates me when my bisexual identification and pursuit of relationships with women is judged as incongruent or discounted as some dishonest response to internalized homophobia or fear of dealing with same sex-attraction.
I grew up in a homophobic culture, I have internalized it, and the result is who I am. While I have been learning as much as possible about the culture and its effect on me — with the intention that this might help me “pick” some orientation — the process has not changed who I am, what I like, or what type of interactions and relationships I seek. It has expanded rather than limited what I find possible or appropriate, which is good in that it gave me relief to know that there are persons with whom I could be compatible.
In the end, this all matters because I don’t want to disappear. If I end up in an outwardly appearing heterosexual relationship, I want to live openly and experience life as a bisexual person in a heterosexual relationship, not as a gay person living in the closet, because that is not who I am. The former honors both myself and my partner, the latter denigrates both.
Uh. Forgot to close the tag.
Wow! That is me to a t – I get frustrated sometimes labelling myself because bisexual is such a sexualised way to label yourself (if female) when talking to a man.
I am more attracted to men than women, I’m in a long-term monogamous relationship with a man. I am sexually attracted to women and as I get older my taste in women expands more and more. But I still am unsure whether I could be in love with a woman.
And this is part of the reason why I do not feel comfortable with “bisexual”. I know people who are genuinely attracted to both sexes equally – not the same, but not greater or lesser. One of my partner’s ex’s was bisexual and had been in committed relationships with both sexes. Since I can’t really imagine being in a full-time relationship with a woman I think it’s inaccurate to label myself the same as men and women like her.
I don’t know, I personally view transpeople as being whatever sex and orientation they have chosen for themselves, so no more excluded from bisexuality than a born man or woman. Sure, it’s more complicated than that, but on the most basic level of attraction it’s not (for me)
CBrachyrhynchos, I don’t think what you are talking about in #57 has anything to do with bi people persay. Obviously the concerns of a person who is playing the field and/or sleeping around are vastly different then the concerns of people in LTRs. I don’t think that bisexuality has anything to do with it. Most old marrieds of any sexual orientation don’t connect well to young people who are not looking for the one to settle down with.
Incidentally, I don’t understand why bi-curious people get so much crap thown at them. Very few people know exactly their sexual orientation from birth and most gay or lesbian people have identified as bi-curious at some point in their life. You would think that would make them sympathetic to the coming out process but emerging bisexuals are constantly being picked on by out gay and lesbian folk. It boggles my brain.
I have seen it happen so many times where a gay or lesbian friend/acquaintance falls for a bi-curious person and then when the bi-curious person doesn’t want a commitment or is not that in to them, its all *shakes fist* “damn bi-curious people!! Wasting my time!! Horrible bisexuals can’t commit!!!”. But if a gay or lesbian person falls for another gay or lesbian person who doesn’t want to commit or just is not that into them, no one blames their gayness or lesbianess. If the person is gay or lesbian and is still hung up on their ex or not ready for an LTR or moving cross country, it is sad but the attitude is *shrug* “so it goes”. If a bi curious person has those same issues it proves that they are inherently evil and untrustworthy. Its a whole load of piping hot bullshit, thats what it is.
SarahS: I didn’t say that bisexuality had much to do with it. In fact, I identify myself as a bi-queer* person and agree with some of what you say. On the other hand, I can certainly see why “bi-curious” is seen as keeping one foot firmly in the ground of straight privelege.
* (used, of course, with all of the aknowledgements that “bi” is a problematic label.)
So someone who identifies as Bi-curious — and is basically admitting that they’re not sure if they could really hack the lifestyle they’re exploring (not necessarily in a social way–maybe they really like the idea of kissing a MOTSS but have difficulty visualizing themselves going down on them), but want to give it the old college try — is somehow bad? I mean, if I were homosexual, I would be glad that someone labeled as bi-curious rather than say “I’m bisexual” or “I’m queer” (implying that it’s a done deal) because it does signal to me that this may not be important relationship material. Believe it or not, a lot of bi-curious people do grapple with the “I really don’t want to get in over my head and give someone the wrong idea” issues.
I don’t know how many times I have to say that curiosity isn’t bad, for some people it’s the right place to be. At the same time, it’s unreasonble to expect everyone to be receptive to being the object of that “old college try.”
I don’t know how many times I have to say that curiosity isn’t bad, for some people it’s the right place to be. At the same time, it’s unreasonble to expect everyone to be receptive to being the object of that “old college try.”
Um, why is CBrach’s original comment posted under my name?
My mistake, bad copy/paste.
I realize you’re Mi-Curious, but it isn’t all fun and games to be me, buster!
So someone who identifies as Bi-curious — and is basically admitting that they’re not sure if they could really hack the lifestyle they’re exploring
I don’t have a lifestyle, I have a life.
Collecting spoons, fishing or BDSM is a lifestyle, being queer is not a lifestyle, it is my LIFE.
And btw, I so don’t get why bisexuals agonize over this endlessly, if it is who you truly are, wtf difference does it make if you are accepted or not? I am haven’t been dissuaded from being a lesbian because a whole lot of people don’t think I should be- I am in a word, not accepted.
There are plenty of communities that welcome bisexuality (or similar identities) without question, including the LGBT. It isn’t as if bisexuals are being forced to choose sides, it just feels that way. If bisexuals who would quit whining for ten seconds and just be queer and get on board the queer bus and live a life that minimizes their str8 privilege, then this conversation wouldn’t even be necessary.
Of course the above also applies to str8 people, I wish they would figure out that they are queer too, and get on the bus and abdicate privilege.
But you know what they say about wishes.
Further, the notion that bisexual as a label unnecessarily sexualizes bisexuals also makes me confused, because I am a lesbian. I am living out in a way that says that my sexual desire is an essential piece of my identity and that it is healthy to express and have sexual desire- it is, in fact, essential to being human.
I don’t know how many times I have to say that curiosity isn’t bad, for some people it’s the right place to be. At the same time, it’s unreasonable to expect everyone to be receptive to being the object of that “old college try.”
Damn skippy. I don’t know why I am not permitted to make individual decisions based on what is best for my emotional health without being bi-phobic.
But lots of people could say this. It’s not only a bi thing.
(Since I was what/who started this thread, I might as well post on it!)
Sure. But it seems to me that bisexuals are disproportionately assumed _not_ to have romantic feelings for their partners.
…I dunno. First of all, your assertion that there are “plenty of communities” strikes me as overly generous to said communities. I can’t count the number of times I’ve read anti-bisexual screeds–and I don’t mean statements like, “Gee, I have many personal reservations about laying someone who isn’t sure they want to have sex with people like me”–on local message boards and personals sites and blogs. “LGBT” isn’t necessarily inclusive of bisexuals, any more than it’s inclusive of transpeople. Difference makes for suspicion, and some queer people are very prone to the starvation-economy mentality when it comes to legitmization.
Most bisexuals, furthermore, have been told in as many words that there is no such thing as bisexuality–that bisexuals really are either gay or straight. I’ve posted uttterly apolitical personals ads on supposedly bi-friendly sites and gotten emails from complete strangers who felt compelled to write just to tell me that I’m really a lesbian, a trannyfag, a straight dude, a straight girl. I’ve never encountered a bisexual who hasn’t been made unwelcome by at least a few queers, and dismissed by at least a few straight people. So bisexuals are, too, being forced to choose sides.
Second, I’m not sure that bisexuals should feel pressure to identify as queer–it’s like insisting that transpeople should all identify as transgendered. It’s not just that such a designation might not fit their understanding of themselves; it can also obscure their actual status. I think someone who is bisexual but, say, in a monogamous heterosexual partnership for a couple decades has very good political reasons to abjure “queer.” You could make a case for the opposite choice, but this is ambiguity: it’s important to acknowledge all facets of an identity, a life. I’m not sure that “queer,” particularly if it doesn’t explicitly incorporate “bisexual,” but is as amorphous as “transgender,” really offers bi people as much visibility as they might like. I don’t like bandwagons.
Sorry to come to the party late, but I wanted to chime in on why I don’t like to be called bisexual. In addition to all these other problems that everyone has mentioned, I also feel that “bisexual” has been appropriated to mean something to other people that it does not mean to me. There are an awful lot of men especially floating around in the world who think that lesbianism isn’t real or that lesbian sex is in the category of fetish sex (not belittling fetish sex, just sayin’ that being queer is not a kink…), and that the only way to have real sex/relationship is with a man, and so essentially bisexual women are straight, kinky/slutty.
There’s a cliche’d phrase, ‘man-hating lesbian’, and I think it’s kind of funny because I dated men more when I was younger and less edumacated. The more I’ve ruminated and cogitated and read and talked about things with all kinds of people, the more pissed off I get when men are sexist, the more upset I get when women aren’t feminists… and I find that there aren’t very many men who are feministy enough to date. I don’t hate men, I just can’t tolerate most of them. In my case, it’s easier to identify as ‘queer’, which is generally interpreted to mean ‘lesbian’, unless I choose to go out of my way to specify otherwise.
But I think the needs and interests of bicurious people to experiment socially and sexually on the route to finding their identity, are not the needs and interests of out and committed queerfolk seeking to establish long-term relationships.
“Mentor yourselves, you poseurs.”
Oh, and BTW:
“I cannot stand Those People because they refuse to commit to the community. Despite the fact that I, as self-designated spokesperson for the entire community, have just said they have no place in it (Those People’s needs and interests are not those of My Tribe).”
Janis: Somehow, I wasn’t aware that “mentoring” had been redefined to mean, “date.”
Quite. I’m also not sure there’s any epidemic of involuntary bi-curious celibacy to worry about. So far as I can tell, people seem to be getting laid just fine.
Janis: Somehow, I wasn’t aware that “mentoring” had been redefined to mean, “date.”
Nor was I aware that it had been redefined to mean “finding your identity.”
Janis: Somehow, I wasn’t aware that “mentoring” had been redefined to mean, “date.”
Nor was I aware that “dating” had been redefined to mean “finding your identity.”
Dating is one way that people experiment in order to figure out what their identity is–if by “identity” you mean their tastes in sexual and romantic partners. Bi-curious people explore their curiosity. So, yeah, that is one definition for purposes of this conversation.
He has said that he wishes them well, but that he himself has no interest in dating someone who might not actually want him as a partner. Why? Well, he doesn’t want to play the field any more. Dating people with confirmed preferences doesn’t eliminate all the uncertainty from the process, no, but it does make things a little more secure.
Janis: I’m baffled as to what the heck you are arguing. My statement is that it’s entirely understandable that some people will not want to date people who are still uncertain as to their sexual identity. This has nothing to do with them finding their identity nor does it have to do with mentoring. I think I lost my last copy of Bi Any Other Name to a very nice person who was curious as to what it was about, and I’ll be happy to spend a few hours and a few cups of coffee talking about my experience, politics, or just listening to just about anyone. I’ve had the experience of holding friends whose idea of “coming out” meant downing an entire quart of vodka. If you think I’m one to slam the closet door in the face of anyone peeking their nose out, that’s your personal damage.
I’ll give a friendly ear and provide too much information about my own experiences at the drop of a hat to just about anyone. I’ll go out of my way to connect people with resources, community or safe spaces to everyone who need it.
But I have a few requirements of lovers, and one of those requirements is that they have to be unequivocally certain that they want to be in an out and potentially long-term relationship with a man. If they are at all undecided, then they need to figure it out before I let them into certain parts of my life.