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Just a little something I happened by and it seemed relevant. I was curious (ha) as to other opinions on the matter.
Bye Bye Bisexual
Violet Blue: Does bisexual fakery ruin it for the rest of us?
Violet Blue, special to SF Gate
Thursday, April 23, 2009
After all the recent (and upcoming) hype about "bromance," the "Sex and the City" negativity about people who "should just pick a side," and recurrent media trendiness portraying bisexuality for its shock value, I want to post flyers all over San Francisco.
They'd read:
"MISSING: INVISIBLE BISEXUAL.
If not seen, please call (415) 814 9229"
A couple years back at the gay porn awards at the Castro Theater, I wrote here about being hit on by a straight-identified, so-called "gay for pay" porn performer. And I say "so-called" because that is how he calls himself, not because I'm trying to say anything else about a dude who groped me in front of 300 gay men -- not out of attraction, but seemingly to prove a point to his male coworkers -- that he was indeed straight and gay only for pay, and not bisexual. It wasn't hot, it felt like bi-phobia and by extension, homophobia. The question is, when is bisexuality an agenda, and when is it a valid sexual orientation?
Personally, I blame the gays. No. I take that back. I blame the straight community, wherever they are -- oh, right, they're all around us like "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." Except now I think I hear Kinsey yelling at me from the cryogenics lab in my basement unintentionally defrosting in the current heat wave. The thing is, most people don't think that bisexuals actually exist. But Kinsey made this neat scale, because he was a nerd, and yeah you might be a straight-as-a-stick "1" (whether or not you like sports or receiving anal sex) or a flaming, Perez-Hilton Kinsey "6" (also whether or not you like sports or receiving anal sex) but most of us bitches (and I mean you) reside somewhere in the middle.
So in all seriousness, I blame Kinsey for making us all a bunch of almost-homos. Because when you look at the stereotypes that came up in this sex ed branding session, you see that when it comes down to it (and Jesus Christ I hope someone's coming from it) bi men and women are treated with equal disdain by pretty much everyone. But what Kinsey proved through scientific method and data is that bisexuality isn't just valid, it's normal.
But what was most interesting to me was that after the gay-for-pay column went live, conversations in comments and on other blogs exploded about whether the gay-for-pay porn stars were indeed straight (as they identify) or bisexual, if not by proxy of practice. People got really, really upset about the issue. I got a mean and nasty letter from a somewhat homophobic gay-for-pay porn performer, who may have in fact had a "semi" when he hit "send." Please email me again, douchebag. I do not have enough comedy in my inbox.
Two things happened this week to bring up a whole host of issues around bisexuality -- male bisexuality, to be specific. Not gay men, not straight men. Unicorns. You see, we have to recognize bisexuals, and by gender, because the whole wide world seems to think bisexuals in general are just "confused." Which is just as idiotic assumption as thinking all women are bi on some level and are just waiting for the chance to make out. Like Girls Gone Mild, "gay until graduation" college girls, and chicks who read too much Maxim and want to make their boyfriends keep them around a minute longer. All these assumptions undermine the yumminess of bisexuality -- and its validity as an orientation that people live and celebrate.
Are you one of those people who subscribes to that set of assumptions in the last paragraph? That girls are bi and it's a given, that women do it with other girls, but guys must be doing girls for some other reason than it might be their sexual orientation, and thinking that bi men are actually gay, or "fence sitters?" If so, by the way, sexual orientation isn't a choice. You: hey, straight dude reading this and about to leave a snarky comment -- did you wake up one day when you were 17 and choose to be straight?
Speaking of stereotypes, here's what happened: This week I posted images from a sex ed sexual orientation exercise I participated in where a large, diverse group called out cultural assumptions and stereotypes about straight, bisexual, and gay men and women, and it was all written on white paper, like a sex-branding brainstorming session. These images caused a lot of sighing and teeth-gnashing and even personal offense both in real life and when posted on my Flickr account and my blog. People who identify as these sexual orientations had strong reactions to the things they were supposedly being called.
The stereotypes were sometimes funny -- under "gay" it said 92.7 -- but it was not always pretty. At the "male bisexual" point in the exercise, things came up such as "disease vector," "faker," "guyliner," "transvestite," "manties," "guyliner," "really gay," "can't decide," and of course, "doesn't exist." The point of the exercise was not to get off on hurling epithets, but to expose and defuse our pervasive perceptions about gender and orientation.
Then, a few days later, my friend Rachel Kramer Bussel wrote a thought-provoking article in The Daily Beast, How Male Bisexuality Got Cool. In it, she examined the new Hollywood obsession with "bromance" -- okay, they've always been obsessed with it but now they're out of the closet about it. A "bromance," as displayed in such films as "Superbad" and "I Love You, Man," is where male relationships are emotionally charged and intimate, looking as much like romantic relationships as the interaction between two straight men can look -- without sex, "of course." And still not be bisexual.
Except, of course, the term itself was appropriated from gay culture and gay blogs who were for years commenting on buddy movies for glaring, heterosexually-framed homoerotic content long before it became a joke/not joke. Or as Nathan Barley might have framed it, bromance became a thing that stupid people think is funny and that smart people think is suddenly cool --while totally missing the point that everyone's being completely clueless f--king idiots about the value of sexual orientation.
Straight people think girls are "experimenting" and it's acceptable. When they grow up to be women and declare their real, true bisexuality everyone gets all uncomfortable and wishes they'd just hurry up and choose a side already. Lesbians call them traitors or want to convert or bag them (trust me on this one), while straight dudes think it's hot as long as he's not threatened he's going to be replaced by a woman with masculine traits.
Meanwhile, men who state their sexual orientation as bisexual are pretty much either totally invisible (they might as well be unicorns). One commenter on my blog wrote, "I too am fed up with these common stereotypes! I'm a bisexual man and I'm tired of people telling me that I'm non-existent." Or, they're treated like suspicious criminals to gays and straights who wish they just would get off the fence and be fags or stop being all icky with guys and make some babies (already.) As seen in the stereotypes and assumptions exercise, bi men are also perceived as liars, cheaters, and disease carriers. They're the sexual minority within the sexual minority. No one wants them. Except when it becomes trendy for a minute. This minute, actually.
No one believes in bisexuality but everyone loves to fake it. Knock it off, all right? None of you are going to get invited to the next SFGate staff party with that attitude. It's okay, they never invite me either. So I guess we're all cool then.
Then again, some people like perceptions and stereotypes to be so very dead wrong. Some bisexuals expressed in comments on the stereotypes exercise that it's satisfying to be underestimated, in a way.
It was interesting to see "Burning Man" turn up in both male and female bisexual assumption/stereotype charts. Coulda hit that dust-crusted target with my eyes closed. It was truly fascinating to see "father" come up in "straight male" but not in "gay male" and "soccer mom" in "straight female" but nothing mom-like in "lesbian."
Just don't ask me to explain "manties." But "guyliner," no problem.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2009/04/23/violetblue0423.DTL
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It's interesting to think about our perceptions but this is not the best article I've ever read.
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When reading this article, one thing kept popping into my mind.
"methinks you doth protest to much".
If the arguement is that "it's my sexual orientation and who the fook cares if I'm Bi", then how can you rightly raise a concern about how real other bisexuals are? It is strange to not care what people think of you, but to be concerned how society views the group you associate yourself with.
Anywho, side bar, back to the main question. How does society view bisexuals?
Alternate sexual orientations (for the purposes of discussion Bisexuals) are becoming more and more prevelent in our society, some of the coverage is good, some of it is bad. There are those people who whenever they hear about something "new" have to give it a go, including even sexual orientation. (if you don’t believe me, think back to that stupid football movie where the characters laid down on the lines in the middle of a busy road….then even stupider people went out and did it in real life. Hilarity and carnage ensued.)
Bisexuality also offers a nice "gray area" fo rthose who aren’t sure. An area that people who are confused and haven’t made a decision, or who have made a decision but are still hesitant about it can hang out, or don’t have the balls to just jump in full force. Sexuality is a spectrum, and I’ve known a few people who THOUGHT they hetero, then wandered over to Bi, on their way to acknowledging to themselves they were homosexual.
This gray area can allow you to be neither beast or fowl, to exist in both worlds.Think of the Katie Perry (sp?) song "I kissed a girl (and I liked it)". The following verse clearly states she has a boyfriend, so she's not a homosexual, thereby straight people can listen to it without fear of being pigeonholed. That behavior is not about sexuality, that's just human. The young don't listen to the music of the old, and guys don't go to chick flicks. It is human nature to use our entertainment choices to define ourselves. But I digress......The problem is, is that humans like absolutes for our lives and to apply to other people, but we like having the gray options for ourselves.
So, bisexuality.....I personally think that it is one of the most ideally beautiful things to be. To be able to rise above such petty issues as gender and to be able to love someone for who they are, whatever their sex is, is ideally perfect. That takes a better person then me, and I'll admit that.
Ideally. But the world is not ideal.
I'm not saying that there are not people that don't do that, who are not deep down in their hearts able to do so. I am saying that I've met a lot of so-called "bisexuals", who weren't in it for the love (or even simple enjoyment of another person's company), but for the shock, for the novelty, for the moment, and so aren't truely bisexual in my opinion.
Again, back to that Katie Perry (sp?) song. Just kissing a person, or groping them even, doesn't say anything about your desire for them (now, if the song was "I fooked a girl, and I liked it", then it'd be different). Another example is Madonna kissing Brittany, made this big flash in the pan and then poofed, why, because there was no substance to it.
So what's the answer? well, surprisingly enough, I know what it is. It's an answer that oddly enough has great generalizability too. "fook 'em." Do what you want to do, without giving a monkey turd about what other's think about it, or to try to make other's think a certain way about you.
Hell, go have sex with a turtle (as long as it's consensual) for all I care. Do what you have to do to be happy with your life and ignore the people that disapprove.
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Bergerac - Even some of your thoughts about bi being the "gray area" seem to imply that bisexuals are simply confused or indecisive. Definitely not the best light to be portrayed in.
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midnight (4/26/2009)
Bergerac - Even some of your thoughts about bi being the "gray area" seem to imply that bisexuals are simply confused or indecisive. Definitely not the best light to be portrayed in.
Did they? If so, I apologize for not being clear.
I am saying that the non-absolute nature of being sexually interested in both genders ("gray area") means that it can be difficult to discern who is truely bisexual versus those who are just playing at it, versus those who ARE confused and will one day consider themselves truely homo, hetero, or bi - sexual.
But, that difficulty should not be a factor in how a person feels about themselves or their sexuality (ergo ""fook 'em").
It has been my experience that there are more posers and pretenders then true bisexuals, and so I'm admittedly cynical when someone says that they are bisexual until I get to know their character better. But then again, I'm cynical of anyone who introduces themselves immediately followed by their sexual orientation. But that cynicism will pervail until such events as people stop giving a hoot/making an event out of a supposedly verboten sexual act which really is no big deal.
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Bergerac1 (4/26/2009)midnight (4/26/2009)
Bergerac - Even some of your thoughts about bi being the "gray area" seem to imply that bisexuals are simply confused or indecisive. Definitely not the best light to be portrayed in. Did they? If so, I apologize for not being clear. I am saying that the non-absolute nature of being sexually interested in both genders ("gray area") means that it can be difficult to discern who is truely bisexual versus those who are just playing at it, versus those who ARE confused and will one day consider themselves truely homo, hetero, or bi - sexual. But, that difficulty should not be a factor in how a person feels about themselves or their sexuality (ergo ""fook 'em"). It has been my experience that there are more posers and pretenders then true bisexuals, and so I'm admittedly cynical when someone says that they are bisexual until I get to know their character better. But then again, I'm cynical of anyone who introduces themselves immediately followed by their sexual orientation. But that cynicism will pervail until such events as people stop giving a hoot/making an event out of a supposedly verboten sexual act which really is no big deal.
-chuckles- I think it just shows how we can inadvertently make/support some stereotypes.. I'm not sure that the gray area is really the same as being bisexual. I think there are important differences to recognize between not knowing/experimenting/in transition and being actually bisexual. I don't think the term should necessarily be a catch-all for everything else because then it implies that it's only a middle stop on a journey which should end elsewhere. I know that for me, this is it. This is where I am and will be from here on out. But even homosexuals can have a tendency to try to pull bi folks to their "side."
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-chuckles- I think it just shows how we can inadvertently make/support some stereotypes.. I'm not sure that the gray area is really the same as being bisexual. I think there are important differences to recognize between not knowing/experimenting/in transition and being actually bisexual. I don't think the term should necessarily be a catch-all for everything else because then it implies that it's only a middle stop on a journey which should end elsewhere. I know that for me, this is it. This is where I am and will be from here on out. But even homosexuals can have a tendency to try to pull bi folks to their "side."[/quote]
well, I would say that it has less to do with stereotypes and more to do with the difficulty of dealing with issues that are not absolutes. I think you are missing my point. Would you consider someone bisexual who enjoys the thrill of doing something that is forbidden (a guy kissing a guy) but who has no interest in men beyond using them for a cheap thrill of doing what is verboten? Some may, I would not. However, there is no way to know unless you know what he is thinking, and that no one can do.
I would agree that there are differences between not knowing/experimenting/transitioning/being bisexual. However, we don't make different categories for all the different variations on being heterosexual or homosexual. To be able to do so, you would have to know the true intention and desires of everyone, and even if we could, there are probably hundreds if not more sexual variations, the sheer weight of the nomenclature would make discussion impossible.
Nor do I think that it is middle stop for ALL, mearly a passing point for SOME. Chicago is between LA and NY, but that doesn't invalidate as a place to reside.
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