Biphobia
I'm noticing a lot more biphobia in the world than I'd previously allowed myself to really acknowledge. It shows up in a number of different ways, many of them very specific to bisexuality and not homosexuality. Every queer faces problems from heterocentric rules/mindsets/etc., but bisexuals have our own set of stereotypes, our own trials to overcome outside of the homosexual community. These aren't any greater than anyone else's (trying to decide which marginalized group has it tougher is a silly endeavor), but they are distinct.
I ran into one of these recently when throwing together a Match.com profile to check out some guys a friend of mine was thinking about contacting. The profile requires you to select your sex ("male" or "female"--transphobia right there, but I'm gonna keep this post to what's specifically impacting my life directly right now) and which sex you are interested in meeting. No check boxes--you are forced to select either "male" or "female." Because it's perfectly fine to marginalize those of us who don't think a person's genitalia should be the determining factor in whether or not they're worth our romantic attention.
This is a major fucking issue for me right now--the marginalization of my orientation. Why? Because I've been struggling with feeling as if my sexuality is being ignored, and I'm realizing that my problem isn't simply about going from one hetero-monogamous relationship into another (as I have, in divorcing a male and now dating another one). It's about how it wouldn't really matter what sex my partner was, because erroneous assumptions would be made about me either way. When most (non-bi, especially) people see a couple together, whether the pairing is male-female, female-female, or male-male, they assume that those partners choose only to date the sex with whom they're currently attached. Simply, people will look at someone like me, a woman out with a male partner, and assume I'm straight. And I don't particularly like the idea of having to tattoo the bi pride flag on my forehead to get people to understand that that is an unfair and very prejudiced assumption to make. Yeah, that shit's biphobic.
I think this stems from perhaps my favorite little piece of biphobia: The idea that bisexuality isn't a "real" orientation, and we're all just "confused" or simply haven't made up our minds yet if we're gay or straight. I was in a heterosexual relationship with my former spouse for 8 1/2 years. I'm now in a new heterosexual relationship, which was my first romantic engagement following separation from my spouse. This does not mean that I'm a straight person who just can't admit her heterosexuality to herself. Frankly, this relationship fell into my lap and was a complete surprise to me. (It developed rather suddenly out of an existing friendship.) I wasn't looking for a new romance, and my life probably would have been a lot easier if it hadn't sprung up. But I believe in pursuing happiness where you find it, and I want to see where this leads me. I'm not going to reject it because I've paid my dues to the het community and it's time to get my gay on. And it also doesn't mean that I've been converted to The Order of the Dick. It means that I'm staying true to what is most important about my sexual desires: That I follow them to be with people who stimulate me emotionally, regardless of their physical packaging.
Now, I also have a heterosexual partner for the first time. My former spouse was also bisexual, and in spite of the fact that we were het-partnered, there was a very real comfort that came with being with somebody who knew what it was like, who'd faced some of the same struggles and understood that in spite of my love and commitment to him, it didn't change who I was, it didn't change my sexuality. My current partner is very supportive of me, and is as understanding as he can be, but he's also not used to a bisexual partner. This is a learning experience for both of us. He's getting used to being able to commiserate with his partner over other attractive females, and I have to get used to not pointing out hot guys (something tells me he just won't appreciate it like my former did). He isn't sensitive to slights against the community like I am, just because he's the unwitting recipient of America's Straight White Male Privilege. (As an aside, I don't think he's particularly used to the outspoken activist type in general...he's also getting schooled in dating a hardcore feminist. Really, he deserves lots of credit for how well he's responding to all of this.)
Back to the subject at hand: My former also understood, being bisexual himself, that another bi-stereotype was untrue: That of the unfaithful, nymphomaniac bisexual. This is just so wildly prejudiced, I hardly know how to tackle it without simply raging. First, let me express that I do indeed love sex. It's an amazing, exciting, pleasurable, wonderful act. But my list of sexual partners is extremely short, and I'm very happy about that. I do not want to screw every person I meet, and I most certainly am not the cheating type. I enjoy monogamy, and I can absolutely find full sexual satisfaction with a single partner. I do not cheat, I do not swing, and I do not engage in threesomes. This is not a condemnation of those who choose to engage in polyamory (as a lifestyle, or simply as an occasional indulgence) or of those who chose to engage in (responsible) sex with a great number of partners, but rather to illustrate that it is absolutely not the default for all bisexuals. Most are seeking the same sort of relationship experience as any hetero- or homosexual person, they just don't want to place boundaries on the sex of a possible partner. We aren't whores, we don't spread disease anymore than any other sexuality, and we aren't any more likely to leave our partners for someone new.
There's one last bothersome stereotype that applies specifically to female bisexuals far more than males. Bi women have been fetishized by popular culture, turned into an exotic marvel, rather than fully-fledged human beings. Because of the aforementioned whore stereotype, people (largely het men) have been trained to see bi women as an exciting opportunity to invite extra partners into the bedroom. "So, since you like women, I assume you'll want to fuck one along with me." This assumption is insulting to say the least, repulsive to say the most. Making any assumptions about what an individual will do in the bedroom simply because of their orientation is ignorant and inappropriate. I've known gay men who won't engage in anal sex, straight women who won't give blow jobs, lesbians who won't go down on their partners. You can't assume what activities a person will enjoy simply because of their orientation. Straight people can manage successful triads, just as bisexuals might prefer strict monogamy. And the image of the "hot bi girl" is entirely based upon this idea that we're all willing to do anything, because we just don't know how to set up boundaries. No, we can set boundaries, and those boundaries might be as strict or a free as those of any other person, regardless of sexuality. And just like everyone else, bisexuals deserve to be treated primarily as individuals, and not demeaned, fetishized, or disregarded as a group.
For me, it's all about respect. And I feel like society at large needs to start dishing out a whole hell of a lot more for the bisexual community.
I ran into one of these recently when throwing together a Match.com profile to check out some guys a friend of mine was thinking about contacting. The profile requires you to select your sex ("male" or "female"--transphobia right there, but I'm gonna keep this post to what's specifically impacting my life directly right now) and which sex you are interested in meeting. No check boxes--you are forced to select either "male" or "female." Because it's perfectly fine to marginalize those of us who don't think a person's genitalia should be the determining factor in whether or not they're worth our romantic attention.
This is a major fucking issue for me right now--the marginalization of my orientation. Why? Because I've been struggling with feeling as if my sexuality is being ignored, and I'm realizing that my problem isn't simply about going from one hetero-monogamous relationship into another (as I have, in divorcing a male and now dating another one). It's about how it wouldn't really matter what sex my partner was, because erroneous assumptions would be made about me either way. When most (non-bi, especially) people see a couple together, whether the pairing is male-female, female-female, or male-male, they assume that those partners choose only to date the sex with whom they're currently attached. Simply, people will look at someone like me, a woman out with a male partner, and assume I'm straight. And I don't particularly like the idea of having to tattoo the bi pride flag on my forehead to get people to understand that that is an unfair and very prejudiced assumption to make. Yeah, that shit's biphobic.
I think this stems from perhaps my favorite little piece of biphobia: The idea that bisexuality isn't a "real" orientation, and we're all just "confused" or simply haven't made up our minds yet if we're gay or straight. I was in a heterosexual relationship with my former spouse for 8 1/2 years. I'm now in a new heterosexual relationship, which was my first romantic engagement following separation from my spouse. This does not mean that I'm a straight person who just can't admit her heterosexuality to herself. Frankly, this relationship fell into my lap and was a complete surprise to me. (It developed rather suddenly out of an existing friendship.) I wasn't looking for a new romance, and my life probably would have been a lot easier if it hadn't sprung up. But I believe in pursuing happiness where you find it, and I want to see where this leads me. I'm not going to reject it because I've paid my dues to the het community and it's time to get my gay on. And it also doesn't mean that I've been converted to The Order of the Dick. It means that I'm staying true to what is most important about my sexual desires: That I follow them to be with people who stimulate me emotionally, regardless of their physical packaging.
Now, I also have a heterosexual partner for the first time. My former spouse was also bisexual, and in spite of the fact that we were het-partnered, there was a very real comfort that came with being with somebody who knew what it was like, who'd faced some of the same struggles and understood that in spite of my love and commitment to him, it didn't change who I was, it didn't change my sexuality. My current partner is very supportive of me, and is as understanding as he can be, but he's also not used to a bisexual partner. This is a learning experience for both of us. He's getting used to being able to commiserate with his partner over other attractive females, and I have to get used to not pointing out hot guys (something tells me he just won't appreciate it like my former did). He isn't sensitive to slights against the community like I am, just because he's the unwitting recipient of America's Straight White Male Privilege. (As an aside, I don't think he's particularly used to the outspoken activist type in general...he's also getting schooled in dating a hardcore feminist. Really, he deserves lots of credit for how well he's responding to all of this.)
Back to the subject at hand: My former also understood, being bisexual himself, that another bi-stereotype was untrue: That of the unfaithful, nymphomaniac bisexual. This is just so wildly prejudiced, I hardly know how to tackle it without simply raging. First, let me express that I do indeed love sex. It's an amazing, exciting, pleasurable, wonderful act. But my list of sexual partners is extremely short, and I'm very happy about that. I do not want to screw every person I meet, and I most certainly am not the cheating type. I enjoy monogamy, and I can absolutely find full sexual satisfaction with a single partner. I do not cheat, I do not swing, and I do not engage in threesomes. This is not a condemnation of those who choose to engage in polyamory (as a lifestyle, or simply as an occasional indulgence) or of those who chose to engage in (responsible) sex with a great number of partners, but rather to illustrate that it is absolutely not the default for all bisexuals. Most are seeking the same sort of relationship experience as any hetero- or homosexual person, they just don't want to place boundaries on the sex of a possible partner. We aren't whores, we don't spread disease anymore than any other sexuality, and we aren't any more likely to leave our partners for someone new.
There's one last bothersome stereotype that applies specifically to female bisexuals far more than males. Bi women have been fetishized by popular culture, turned into an exotic marvel, rather than fully-fledged human beings. Because of the aforementioned whore stereotype, people (largely het men) have been trained to see bi women as an exciting opportunity to invite extra partners into the bedroom. "So, since you like women, I assume you'll want to fuck one along with me." This assumption is insulting to say the least, repulsive to say the most. Making any assumptions about what an individual will do in the bedroom simply because of their orientation is ignorant and inappropriate. I've known gay men who won't engage in anal sex, straight women who won't give blow jobs, lesbians who won't go down on their partners. You can't assume what activities a person will enjoy simply because of their orientation. Straight people can manage successful triads, just as bisexuals might prefer strict monogamy. And the image of the "hot bi girl" is entirely based upon this idea that we're all willing to do anything, because we just don't know how to set up boundaries. No, we can set boundaries, and those boundaries might be as strict or a free as those of any other person, regardless of sexuality. And just like everyone else, bisexuals deserve to be treated primarily as individuals, and not demeaned, fetishized, or disregarded as a group.
For me, it's all about respect. And I feel like society at large needs to start dishing out a whole hell of a lot more for the bisexual community.