Bi the way, we exist

For Pride Month, a post to celebrate the B in LGBT

In honor of Pride month, I am writing about my peoples, the bisexuals. No, there will be no Taiwan content but it’s my blog-type thing I write what I want to. Feel free to skip if it’s not your jam and Taipology will be back with your regularly scheduled programming shortly.

Let’s rewind to a couple of years ago. I was working at a line cook in a pretty good French bistro on a shitty stretch of Wiltshire that can be charitably described as Santa Monica if you are a real-estate agent. Somehow, over some overpriced cocktails in Brentwood I managed to scam a gorgeous lady software engineer into thinking I’m brilliant. For our second date, I pulled out all the stops, cooking her a farmers’ market feast at her yuppie fishbowl apartment.

“You’re so talented,” she said between bites, “you should start your own business. How can I invest?”

I thought I had hit the home-run folks: a honey with money, a cute dog and apparently super into me. But towards the end of dinner, the other shoe dropped.

“I googled you,” she said, her face turning stern, “your LA Times article came up. I have some questions.”

That article which the LA Times paid me a whole three hundred US dollars for, was about what a TERRIBLE date I had with a man, actually. But she couldn’t get past it. Why didn’t I tell her I was bi? Thought I did. Wasn’t it on my profile? Who reads profiles? Apparently not you, honey.

Things were tense until we settled down on the couch and she put on some music.

“Martha Argerich…who can play Chopin like Martha Argerich…” I said with a little sigh in my voice. The coldness melted from her face, a night of proper passion followed and surely any possible doubt was dispelled I thought. But no.

I woke up the next morning to a Spanish Inquisition. How many men have I been with versus women? How many were relationships versus hookups? What was the genital configuration of the last person I slept with? You mean before you? OMG WOMAN THIS IS DATE NUMBER TWO WTF! I grabbed my phone and Uber-ed out of there.

A torrent of apologetic texts followed, I decided she gets one more shot. We met at Starbucks, socially-distanced before it was fashionable. Despite her distrust of bisexuals, she declared, she likes me so much she’ll risk it. Just this once. Just for me.

I told her that’s not how it works, babe. It wasn’t easy, but I got up and walked away. I’ve seen biphobia before, and I’ll see it again. And I was old enough to know that it’s a dealbreaker.

Fear and Loathing in Rainbowland

Is the B not right there in LGBT?

Yet you, casual reader, might be surprised how much questioning, distrust, mockery, dismissal, disrespect and even disbelief the bisexual contingent inspires, even from our fellow queers. In the year of our Lord 2021, this bullshit has gone on for long enough. In this post, which I warn you may be long, I just want to lay it all out in the open and do my little bit to get us past this oddly vestigial hang-up bisexuals still face. BTW, I’m not letting we bisexuals off the hook. Everybody contributed to the problem, and everybody has to be part of the solution.

Isn’t bisexuality just a phase?

For many people, it is! And that’s alright. Many gay men do use “bisexuality” as a buffer zone before coming all the way out. And many men and women, stereotypically in gender-segregated Catholic schools, dally with same-sex romances before settling back comfortably into heteroland. Hope y’all had a nice visit! But just because a lot of passengers transfer every day in and out of JFK doesn’t mean people don’t also live in New York City! Yet somehow the idea took hold that there’s something inherently unstable about bisexuality, that somehow someday everybody has to “pick a side” or they are not to be trusted, certainly not for long-term monogamous relationships.

The slutty/invisible double-binds

Look at me. If you saw me on the streets my style is probably best described as “lazy low-femme office lady.” If I’m alone or with a dude, you’d assume I’m straight. If I’m with a woman, you’d assume I’m probably a lesbian. Unless I’m out there making out with everything that moves (not that there’s anything wrong with that), it’ll probably never occur to you that I’m bi.

And so somehow, even though statistically we are about half of the LGBTQ population, we really don’t get noticed except as sex-crazed libertines, which, awesome for those who resonate with that, but is not all of us and can end up making the bisexuality label a liability for professional progress and other avenues where people are punished for being salient sexually, even if they don’t mean to be.

It doesn’t matter/who cares/stop being an attention seeker

It matters because identity matters. We understand the importance of Pride for Gays and Lesbians but frequently bisexuals coming out are greeted with more of an eye roll or a yawn, especially if they are with opposite-sex partners. This leads a lot of bisexuals to come to the conclusion that it’s just easier to not come out. So much easier just to blend in. The pressure is even greater if you’re younger, or have a more lop-sided attraction to one gender. Why not just round yourself up to straight? And as gayness increasingly become a viable and supportive community, heck why not round yourself up to gay? Why volunteer to be tribeless and sus?

But it does matter. If you go on the /r/bisexual subreddit now you’ll see a lot of pride and based memes because it’s June. But dig deeper and you’ll see a lot of pain, a lot of doubt. Being attracted to more than one gender is a part of who we are and having that minimized or erased is damaging, just as it would be for a gay or straight person.

Yo I don’t know who needs to hear this, but you can be married all your life to an opposite sex partner and intend to stay faithful to that man or woman forever, but still be bisexual. You are valid. Yes you.

How being a bisexual woman can suck

I’ve already covered how lesbians often won’t date bi women so let’s skip that. But men are often horrid in a whole other way to women who identify as bi. I’ve noticed repeatedly they take it as an invitation to be sexually forward, or an opportunity to share how they find being with two women at the same time to be a turn-on.

Straight women can also be shitty because for they often see flirting with women, especially at parties, as a way to be sassy and titillating. No, it is insulting and disrespectful as fuck. I suppose if it’s two straight girls doing it then fine. But if you’re involving bi/lesbian women just to turn on some dude you are an asshole.

But being a bisexual men sucks even more

Here is a study that blew my mind, backed up by many, many more anecdotal heartbreaking stories by bisexual men: Women won’t date them. Even women who are themselves bisexual. OK obviously not all women, but many, many women counts even one homosexual encounter by a man as a black mark against his masculinity, let alone full-on bisexuality. Is it any wonder that many men decide to hide their sexuality from their female partners? And is it any wonder that secret-keeping from the one who is suppose to love you most unconditionally gnaws away at their peace of mind?

And so of course you get the secrets and lies, feeding back to the conventional wisdom that bisexuals are not to be trusted.

How bisexuality became uncool

One rather new problem bisexuals now face in our woke rainbow pinkwashed post-gender world is that there lingers about it a certain antiquated uncoolness. That’s fine. People often now prefer to call themselves pansexuals or simply just queer. That’s OK by me.

But what I really resent are people differentiating the new term pansexual from plain ol’ bisexual by saying bisexuals are only attracted to cis men and cis women but not trans people or non-binary people or that bisexuals are committed to upholding the gender binary. No. Just no.

I identified as a bisexual before the term pansexual ever came on the scene. And I’ve dated plenty of trans people. I see no reason to change my identification just because somebody wanted to come up with a snazzier identifier. Please do not malign my identity to define your own.

But the Bi Kids are alright

Slowly but surely, one online community at a time, bisexual kids are coming up with our own culture and identity and ways of relating. We are finding spaces of our own where we can make jokes about riding the bicycle (that’s when we fluctuate attraction from one gender to another) or be vulnerable about all the uncertainties and confusions that comes with growing up bi. I wish those communities had been around when I was a teen. Now I feel like too much of an old fogey to participate but I keep an eye on them and apparently these are the iconic bisexual memes of 2021: Lemon bars, pink to blue graduated color schemes, bad posture, flannels, frogs and a self-awareness about how crippling confusion and self-doubt about sexuality can be but still dealing with it.

So let’s pop the Bisexual bubble

Unlike gays, lesbians, bisexuals are often not in or out of a closet but encased in a kind of bubble. In a way, it’s a privilege. We so easily pass as straight, often without meaning to, that we get to skate over a lot of the abuse and prejudice. But get too comfortable in that bubble and you run the danger of the biggest risk of all in life…not living your authentic self. Have you missed your soulmate because they fancied you but assumed you were straight? Have you acted like a coward by letting a homophobic remark pass because the person blithely saying it didn’t realize it applied to you? And do we, as bisexuals, deserve the acceptance and solidarity of the rest of the LGBTQ alliance until more of us affirmatively take a step forward, pop the bubble, and take the knocks with them?

The more we’re out and proud, the less it will suck to be bi. Let the cool bisexual kids with their lemon bars and bad postures lead the way!

Somebody please explain to me why the frog tho.