Enter the bi-osphere

CW: biphobia, bierasure
TW: biphobic comments, drug mention, cheating

Bi related puns are gonna be my new thing.

Hi.

Sharing is caring, supposedly, so I thought I’d share a situation that occurred last week at a queer fundraiser for London’s first LGBT community centre (which you can check out and donate a few quid to if you follow that link, please and thank yous).

Basically, I was out with another bi friend and we had our seating area commandeered by an airy bunch of MDMA fairies (read as: actual fairy-like humans, not a slur, although…) one of which seemed quite infatuated with my partner in crime, so I decided to hop to the bar and get a quick top up and leave them to become better acquainted.

During my departure, my friend had had a few brief conversations with the little group (one of which ended up being someone I had dated previously this year, London is a small awkward place). It went like so:

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Stranger (to my friend): Hey, your mate’s hot. Are you both straight?

My friend: No, he’s bi, as am I – are you queer?

Stranger: No, I’m straight I just fuck women sometimes (let’s not get started on this rn).

My friend: Oh right, okay. Cool…

Stranger: Yeah, I can’t deal with bi guys.

My friend: What, why?

Stranger: Because they have too many options, can’t trust that.

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That’s more or less the majority of the conversation, or what you need to know for my own purposes in this post. I think anyone who knows me can testify I’m quite confident, outgoing and mostly chatty. Hearing these comments does not diminish me or make me question myself, it isn’t an anxiety I have or something that I ponder on. Why? Because I haven’t dated a single straight person since coming out.

There are countless reasons why I refuse to date cishet women, mostly down to not having a shared experience and largely due to how disengaged the dominant cultures become within society – straight people barely even truly register what bisexuality means, let alone support the LGBTQIA+ community.

But, I can hear people cry, “this is one person who was fucked up one night, talking shit”. Sure, but it isn’t just one person – and her views were certainly not restricted to that very moment, I’m sure of that.

I went on a date with a gay guy a while back who claimed to have “very little understanding of bisexuality” and when I outlined it – in excruciating simplicity – he claimed, “well I’m sure it’s a lot more complex than that”. Although he was sweet, that is frustrating.

I was speaking to one cishet woman on a dating app a couple months ago and I slyly slipped in my sexuality to get a grasp of her understanding/acceptance and she slowly backed out of the conversation, saying that “I’m not really sure how this would work, how would you be happy?”. Happy how? With only one gender of person to fuck?

A straight counsellor I had at university, upon hearing I was bisexual, said “I’m sure your sexuality must cause you many issues with your mental health, you should do what most bisexuals do and take two partners – one that is a man and one that is a woman – satisfy your needs”. Orly, I didn’t know this, must have missed that in the handbook.

I’m often genuinely left dumbfounded by the sheer ignorance but also the utter inability to understand the idea of what bisexuality is. Bisexuality, opposed to monosexual attractions (gay, lesbian, straight) means I am attracted to more than one gender. For me that means predominantly femme presenting persons or genderqueer/genderfluid/NB/trans etcetera.

Now, having the ability to be attracted to more than one gender means exactly that – it means it’s a possibility, not a necessity. I don’t look at a group of 100 people, of varying gender and think decidedly I’ll fuck ‘em all. That’s exhausting and not how attraction works, is it? Although, I’ve definitely been thirsty enough to be going down that route before…

No, it means exactly the same as what it means for monosexuals – you are attracted to who you are attracted to. The only thing that affects your want or supposed need to have many options for sex is your libido and that is a personal thing to factor in for EVERY person you date. Not bisexual people.

Let’s just go over a few things about bisexual people, but also biphobic tropes that have been dragging all those that love/fuck outside of the binary – pansexual and polysexual people namely.

• We do not inherently cheat more, you’re getting us mixed up with shitty cishetmale fuckboiz and toxic, fragile people.
• Our attraction to more than one gender does not mean we will thirst over a man whilst with a womxn – it means our spectrum of attraction is broader, not our options/wants.
• Being a bisexual man (cis, trans, NB or otherwise) does not make you any less of a man. Having sex with men is just that, having sex. Rubbing genitals together, bits of skin touching. If you feel or think otherwise, you’re both homophobic and biphobic. Do better.
• We are not untrustworthy, stop projecting your insecurities.
• Our sexuality is not an in-between to either homo or heterosexuality. It is bisexuality, pansexuality or polysexuality. Solid, real, stand alone things. Learn them. Remember them. Stop thinking that “normality” is Monosexuality.
• People are still bisexual, pansexual or polysexual if they have never had sex or a relationship or dated anyone that isn’t of their opposite gender.
• Kissing people of the same gender or otherwise, whilst drunk for fun, does not mean you have a “bisexual” side. Don’t tokenise a community’s identity.
• Women who are bisexual are not naturally more attractive, that’s sexism and reduces women/womxn to sexual objects/props through the male gaze. Their sexuality is exactly theirs, stay the fuck away from it with your gross obsessions.
• Also, however much I’d love to say “well, everyone is a little bisexual” because ultimately I agree we are all on a spectrum and if people weren’t socialised in a certain way our sexuality would be so much freer – it currently does nothing but erase our identities. Not everyone is a little bit bisexual, bisexual people are bisexual. Simples. You’re not being liberal or cool when you say that. Stop.

These are not hard concepts to remember, they are also concepts that all people that identify as gay, straight or lesbian buy into in some way shape or form. It must be really easy and simple, internally, to not worry about whether you’re “enough” of one thing or another to feel like you represent your orientation.

These are all myths made to erase and enforce a heteronormative, patriarchal conservative agenda of single gender attraction. These same tropes have been infused and assimilated into gay/lesbian culture, just YouTube the number of videos from the LG of the community bashing and trashing us with titles like “the problems with dating bisexual people” or “why bisexuality isn’t a thing” grinds my gears.

Thanks for listening and I hope you come back to the bi-osphere *plays weird sci-fi music*

Kiss and loves.