Hello and good morning.
I'm listening to Elliot in the Morning right now and they were just interviewing some guy named Jim. I was tuning in and out until I heard "bisexual" and then I turned up the radio. They were talking about the hypotheticals of it. I wish I know how it came up but I digress.
A few things were said. I think it was Jim who said "It would be ok if I had a bi girlfriend and she dated other women at the same time as me". At one point a guy called up and said that if a guy likes penis at all then he's gay. period. Yet another guy said HELL YEA he'd support a bi girlfriend as long as she let him watch! THEN another guy called up, said he was bi and that his wife of 5 1/2 years was experimental (even though he had mentioned they were mutually exclusive), but that when they went out to bars they went ahead and made out with/fondled other people. Diane and Tyler both at this point said that they could NOT date a bisexual person whatsoever. While I didn't agree with him completely, I feel Elliot came close to how I feel about the subject. He wanted to treat bisexual women and men the same (as in if it's ok for a woman to date other women, then it should be ok for men to date other men at the same time, etc etc) And I feel he recognized that yes, bisexual people can be exclusive, too. Diane voiced a concern that "wouldn't they miss it after awhile...? that would always be in the back of my mind".
Here's where I'm naive once again. Here's where I have forgotten for a little while that yea, bisexuals are still shrouded in mystery in the eye of the general public and therefore widely misunderstood. Here's where I've forgotten that bisexual still has a HUGE stigma attached. Because frankly, the general public, gay AND straight, cannot see anything but black and white.
I am bisexual. I realized it when I was 15 and it has been a part of my conscious identity for almost a decade now. I am not a lesbian in denial. I am not "experimenting". I do not make out with girls to get boys off. That, quite frankly, disgusts me because it is anti-feminist and also gives us bis a bad name. Here's what I think. I think that no matter what sexuality you are, if you're going to decide to date someone and get into a relationship, you should be mutually exclusive. That's just how I feel a relationship can be at its healthiest. When I date someone, guy or girl, I want to date only them. I don't want to see anyone else and I don't want them to see anyone else. I am offended and a little confused as to why someone would say outright that they could not date a bisexual person. If a person likes you, they like you. What does their sexuality matter? Could you say that outright about a race? a culture? an age? a specific faith? I'm sure we all have our ideas about who we don't think we'd be able to date for one discrepancy or another. But I do think that if you met someone that you really hit it off with, had great chemisty with and who all-around turned your world upside-down, then you won't see the colour of their skin, their faith won't automatically turn you away and their sexuality wouldn't matter. Of course there are exceptions to the rule (i.e. if you're 30, you should not date a 17 yr old), but you get my point. Well, I hope.
Another thing I can't stand is the effin double standard. Oh it's hot for a girl to be bi 'cause that means she'll make out with girls for me, the boyfriend. Um, yea, she's not bi, she's just doing that to please you. Don't dirty up the name please. Oh a boy can't be bi, he's gay...oh yea, and that's disgusting. I mean really? really? Have we not evolved over the last how many centuries? Back in the Victorian era, men let their women kiss and touch eachother because they figured they were "practicing" to be better at it with men. The very thought that the women might be attracted to eachother or even haha, it's so laughable, have FEELINGS for one another, did not cross their minds at all. It amazes me how most guys today are still under that illusion. At a roof party some years ago I was talking with two men after they saw me make out with a girl. They couldn't grasp how two women could have sex (oh wait, and ENJOY it) without a penis of some sort involved. How ego-centric. And naive. And oh yea, single-mindedly boring (because it speaks as to how many different ways they make love with THEIR women). I tried to tell them that ya know, we somehow figure it out but they still didn't get it.
I'm just so glad that I bought the book "Bi Any Other Name" because for a while I fell into the same trap of confusion. I was always trying to identify myself, always trying to put myself in a category that people would better understand (by saying, for example, that I WOULD be a lesbian if it were not for my few attractions to men now and again). I didn't like the stigma that "bisexual" carried and so didn't want it attached to me. I even started to RESENT my attraction to men and wish I didn't have it, 'cause then I COULD call myself a lesbian and there wouldn't be any question, any grey area to sift through. I started just talking about the Kinsey scale ("0 is completely straight, 6 is completely gay, and Iiii happen to be about a 4.5, 5") because I thought, since it was a scale, it would give them a much better idea. "Bi Any Other Name" has helped me to realize that I don't have to be afraid of calling myself a bisexual. That I don't have to constantly justify it all the time, because that's what I am. People can come up with their own conclusions when they see how I act. Or they can continue asking me questions. Whatever. Sure, there are periods where I more want a girl than a guy, or a guy than a girl. But if I dated a girl, that doesn't make me a lesbian, just as dating a man doesn't make me straight. I will always be attracted to both. I don't know which gender I'll marry, because I haven't met who I'm spending the rest of my life with yet. I'm confident that when I do I won't be worried about "missing out on the other" because he/she will be all that I'll ever need.
There's so much more I could say but I'm at work and therefore should get back to doing some. I just had to have a little of my say this morning. I'm even thinking of e-mailing Elliot about it.
I can only hope that whatever constructs my identity (white, female, bisexual, artist, Democrat, etc) that I will live my life well and try to be as good a person as I can so that people will get a more positive idea of whichever part of my identity they had a previous negative inclination towards. I know that I fail all of the time. But I will continue to strive. On this issue particularly, since I am the most passionate about it, I hope to, if not change minds, then at least get a lot of people over the course of my life to at least think a little differently. Because all an idea needs is a seed of change in order to be able to evolve and grow.
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