Yesterday I had the misfortune of reading Daniel Warner’s dreadful piece for the Huffington Post, entitled Bisexuality: Is It Fun, Non Committal or Just Plain Greedy? It contains so many bisexual myths and clichés that I started to wonder if the Huffington Post does any quality control whatsoever. Apparently, not only can bi people not commit, they also flip-flop, sit on the fence, cop out, are indecisive, lazy, greedy, and they’re only bi because it’s fashionable.
If that wasn’t enough, Warner proves himself to be the King of Assumptions by adding: “When people described themselves as being bisexual I automatically assumed they were gay (if male), trying to make themselves more interesting (if female) or desperate to broaden their appeal and fan base (if famous).” I, perhaps rather innocently, expected the piece to then go on to have a bit of balance by starting to discuss how wrong it was to make such assumptions about people. Sadly, this was not to be and so I’d like to remind you of the truth.
Bisexuals aren’t indecisive
Strange as it may seem to Warner, not being attracted to a specific gender is actually a choice. Bisexuals don’t ‘flip-flop’ between gay and straight – we are bi. We’re not sitting on the fence while we make up our minds as to who we prefer, gender just isn’t a factor in who we’re attracted to. It would certainly be easier to not admit to being bi (because then we wouldn’t have to put up with this kind of crap), but we have actually chosen this. In addition, bisexuality is not a cop out. Does it make more sense for us to say we’re gay when in one relationship and straight when in another? No, because we don’t feel that our orientation changes with our partner.
Bisexuals aren’t greedy
We don’t want to kiss/fuck/marry everyone. Just the people we find attractive, and those folk aren’t always of the same gender. We’re probably not getting any more sex than you, so there’s really no need to be so jealous. Some weeks our lust lists might be filled with mostly women, on others it’s mostly men. We can spend years obsessing over butch, femme, genderqueer, trans and cis eyecandy all at the same time, and do you know why? Because we do not rule people out based on gender. We do tend to not be attracted to ignorant douchebags though.
Bisexual men aren’t gay
Being attracted to a man doesn’t make you gay. Being attracted only to men is what makes you gay. Is that really so difficult to understand? OK, so some men might think they’re bi for a bit and then realise that they’re actually gay, but that doesn’t mean that all bisexual men are gay. It does, however, mean that anyone who thinks this is either confused or poorly informed. Does having long hair mean you are female? Does living in the US indicate that you definitely voted for Obama? No. Correlation does not imply causation.
Bisexual women are not ‘doing it for attention’
Some women do kiss other women in order to titillate men, but these women are usually straight or heteroflexible. Give them the chance to take that woman out on a date, or to bed, and they’d probably say no. Most people do not choose a sexual orientation and announce it to the world merely to win friends and influence people. To be perfectly honest, even if they did, I doubt that bisexual would be the best choice. After all, many people do still seem to be largely ignorant about what being bisexual actually is. Would you choose an identity where you were likely to be shunned by both gay and straight communities, just for kicks? No, neither would we.
People aren’t coming out as bi because it’s fashionable
It may seem that more people are coming out as bi these days, but that doesn’t mean it’s a fashionable trend. They’re probably coming out as bi because they think they now live in a world where it’s safe to tell people that you’re not heterosexual. They’re probably coming out because they’re comfortable with who they are and feel the time is right to share this. They’re probably coming out because they think that bisexual invisibility has gone on long enough, and people might understand bi folk more if they realised we’re everywhere. And we’re actually quite ‘normal’ too. Whatever normal is.
Bisexuals are not afraid of commitment
Just because you like both pasta and pizza, doesn’t mean you can’t decide what to have for dinner. Just because you’d love to live in a village by the sea and in a large city, doesn’t mean you can’t chose a home and stay there until your dying day. It’s pretty much the same with every choice we make in life, including relationships. Some people find it easy to commit and others don’t, but this has nothing to do with their sexuality. Some bisexuals are married, some are in committed long term relationships, some are monogamous and some are not. The only thing we have in common is our sexuality.
For more information on bisexuality, please check out The Bisexual Index’s FAQ, Julia Serano’s blog, Sue George’s blog, or just Google for bisexuality myths. Do these people sound indecisive to you? No, I thought not.
Hear hear – although isn’t it disappointing that posts like yours are still necessary? I really wish the world would catch up with itself.
Yeah, that is a bit frustrating. It still baffles me how *so* many people just don’t understand bisexuality.
I think it’s silly that even some gay people discriminate against bisexuals and polys. That’s like an African-American person being like, “Yeah, but what about those damn Chinese!”
Sounds like thou doth protest too much. For me, bi doesn’t mean not gay, it means not exclusively (or even mainly) gay. So for me, either term works but bi is more precise. It all means, for me, that we are all part of one big community made up of several subgroups.
@lipsticklori Excellent post, as ever. Just one question, is saying you’re bi by choice not just validating the original huff post article?
@lipsticklori Would it not have been more appropriate to say that being bi is your ‘natural’ state and not just something picked up?
@lipsticklori forgive the inverted commas but 140 chars doesn’t leave much room for nuanced comments. I always enjoy reading your work
Hi Colm. I replied on Twitter but will add that response here too, just in case it’s helpful to others:
Personally, I find sexuality can often be a fluid thing & so people often choose the label most appropriate to them at the time. So labels are the thing that are ‘chosen’, rather than the orientation. Does that make sense?