on bisexuals who're "political lesbians"
There’s a post on my dashboard at Tumblr about how lesbian identity/lesbianism is being politicised to be about rejecting men instead to be about loving women, and it made me realise what makes me so uncomfortable about bisexuals who’re “political lesbians”.
The thing about being bisexual is that loving women is a part of being bisexual and because of the pressure to be functionally heterosexual I would even say that loving women is the central point of being bisexual - and that being bisexual as such is political. To be a bisexual woman you have to make the active choice to say “yes, I’m a woman who loves women”. Being bisexual and centralizing women is not in opposition to each other. Quite the opposite: it is necessary.
So when I see bisexual women who are out about being bisexual but are also ‘political lesbians’ what I see isn’t women who’re “saying yes to women” or centralizing women, what I see is women who’re “saying no to men” - and, as such, centralizing lesbianism to be about (being in opposition to/rejecting) men.
The thing about being bisexual is that loving women is a part of being bisexual and because of the pressure to be functionally heterosexual I would even say that loving women is the central point of being bisexual - and that being bisexual as such is political. To be a bisexual woman you have to make the active choice to say “yes, I’m a woman who loves women”. Being bisexual and centralizing women is not in opposition to each other. Quite the opposite: it is necessary.
So when I see bisexual women who are out about being bisexual but are also ‘political lesbians’ what I see isn’t women who’re “saying yes to women” or centralizing women, what I see is women who’re “saying no to men” - and, as such, centralizing lesbianism to be about (being in opposition to/rejecting) men.