Walt Whitman, Hans Christian Andersen, Bessie Smith, Marlon Brando, Frida Kahlo and ME

[khalinche]

Today is International Celebrate Bisexuality Day, did you know? I'm quite tickled by how it falls just after my birthday, as though it were just one in a week-long seminar series called Celebrate Aspects of khalinche's Identity Week. The Highlands and Islands Society of London is having a ceilidh on Saturday, after all - maybe tomorrow there could be a

Comments

[friend_of_tofu]

So, er, if I manage to get my union to help me organise a seminar day for LGBT History Month (with particular emphasis on/inclusion of B & T), would you like to contribute? I'm currently in negotiations trying to make this happen.

[khalinche]

Cripes! Could do. I suppose I could throw together a Standard Queer Anthropologist Spiel with heavy use of Don Kulick and translated-into-understandable Judith Butler in the name of a good cause. Yes, that sounds like a Good Thing.

[friend_of_tofu]

*rubs hands in glee*

We should discuss this further once I have some idea of what's happening.

Thanks x 1 million!

[j4]

Belated happy bisexual birthday! :-) xx

[khalinche]

Thank you! xx xD

[nyecamden]

Thanks a lot for mentioning the ICBD event here and elsewhere, you really helped to push the numbers up.

There are many bisexuals who don't see the 'bi' prefix as limiting to two genders (generally, they think in terms of more than two). Other people call themselves pansexual or omnisexual. The advantage of the 'bi' thing is that, invisible as it is, it's a lot more widely known than pan/omni. This means that it's easier for people newly out/exploring their sexuality to find like-minded people. See bisexual index FAQ for a similar take on this.

It'd be nice to catch up sometime :-)

[khalinche]

Thank you for organising it! If it weren't for you, nothing would have happened. I made it along right at the end and the pub was very busy, which was good, and I was glad to see the large table where the bi people had been. I really like the idea of the Pembury being known as a queer-friendly space - because it *is*, so it may as well be known as such. There were men in a large mixed group of people we didn't know drunkenly snogging each other too, which made me happy.

I hear you about using bi rather than queer, and that's why I am into supporting things like Celebrate Bisexuality Day even though the 'bi' makes me harrumph, I just didn't want people to get the impression that I hadn't thought about it at all. I'm an academic and I like to cover my ground and justify my terms...

Well done for putting together something which by all accounts was a very successful night!

[anthrokeight]

Have I mentioned that the Kinsey Institute at IU sells Kinsey Scale baseball jerseys? With the KI logo on the front and a Kinsey Scale number on the back (so everyone knows what team you play for, hah hah.)?

[gair]

That jersey is one of the most brilliant things I have ever heard of! If only I could ever figure out my Kinsey number. (Is there a number for 'totally sexually attracted to men AS LONG AS THEY ARE FICTIONAL'?)

sat through a (rather annoying) author repeatedly referring to it as a 'lesbian and gay' event.

This really reminds me of Mo in an early Dykes to Watch Out For cartoon, where Lois asks her what she has against bisexuals and she says 'They're always making us change the names of things to include them. It's annoying.'

[anthrokeight]

"That jersey is one of the most brilliant things I have ever heard of! If only I could ever figure out my Kinsey number. (Is there a number for 'totally sexually attracted to men AS LONG AS THEY ARE FICTIONAL'?"

Obviously, it would have to be an imaginary number. Says Wikipedia on imaginary numbers: "An imaginary number, in mathematics, is a number in the form bi where b is a real number and i is the square root of minus one, known as the imaginary unit."

My smart-alec mathematician queer poly older brother at one point had a complicated Kinsey Equation involving three dimensions and other stuff for determining his place on the scale. But I bought him a "6" jersey as a present, and he seems to like it okay.

[gair]

Obviously, it would have to be an imaginary number.

OF COURSE! ::has joy::

[livredor]

I'm really sorry I didn't make it; hanging out in the Pembury with a load of bi folk sounds heavenly to me. But I am in a state of, argh, starting a new job on the other side of the country in ONE WEEK! So making it to London wasn't going to happen, sadly.

[khalinche]

One week after a load of important festivals! I hope you're doing okay with the sanity thing, and wish you LOADS of luck in your new job and in the new year. You know you're welcome here any time you make it to London.