(Untitled)

[slammerkinbabe]

Salon has an interesting article on the ex-gay movement. (Yeah, you need to watch a few seconds of an ad to see the article, but it's worth it if you're at all interested in the subject, really.) It treats it both in depth and more fairly than most coverage that I've seen has done. I think it's flawed, but for all that, it's pretty well done

Comments

[lietya]

Most of it did make perfect sense, actually. I think the thing to bear in mind is that the "everybody is bi" phrasing is likely to bring to mind a particular subset of person who emphatically believes that, and said subset-person is a jerk. :) So you have to be very very careful to explain thoroughly if you're going to say it, and even then, some knee-jerk readers will misunderstand.

I'm personally comfortable with saying that someone who is ".00000001% bi" is, effectively, not. The tiniest of tendencies may be there, but as it's unlikely that they'll ever behave or even consciously think in a way inconsistent with someone who is Not Bisexual, they may as well be considered not to be. bwahahahaha, call it the descriptivist viewpoint as applied to sexuality!

And I absolutely agree with you about the arbitrary dichotomy between what is and is not sexual/romantic. (I clearly identify myself as having had three "lovers," by which I mean "persons with whom I was in love." I've only slept with one of 'em. Doesn't invalidate the others, to me, so I have long thought that *sexual* behavior is a pretty slim criterion on which to hang a gigantic Dividing Line.)

[slammerkinbabe]

Really? Wow, I guess I've never encountered that particular subset. I was first exposed to the theory when I was in college and I had a professor teaching a class called "On Love", who stated from the lectern that she believed everyone was bisexual, and she wished more people agreed with her because then she would get more dates. :) I really liked said prof and she had a good theoretical grounding for what she was saying, so I guess I never realized that most people who agree with her are in an obnoxious subset!

[lietya]

Ah-ha! Now I see how you stepped into that land-mine. :)

Yes, there's a subset (which almost certainly does not include your professor, and *definitely* does not include you) of bisexuals whose response to being [or perceiving themselves as, I'm not living their life so I only know what they say] marginalized by both sides is to run about shrieking that being bisexual is More Highly Evolved and Superior and Everyone Really Is Bisexual but won't admit it unlike Supremely Self-Aware Me Over Here.... and so on. And anyone who's met one of *those* is going to twitch when you say "everybody is bi."

(Plus, in practice, unless you hedge about with a zillion disclaimers - which, knowing you, you DO - "everybody is bi" translates into "and those of you who think you aren't are WRONG, ha-ha!")