“Both heterosexuals and homosexuals view bisexuality with misunderstanding, mistrust, hostility, and alienation. These scenarios do not leave bisexuals in the situation often referred to as ‘‘having the best of both worlds,’’ because ‘both worlds are closets'.”
—from Attitudes and Self-Images of Male and Female Bisexuals by Carol D. Bronn
“both worlds are closets”
Ouch. That one hit home.
Why I'm openly bisexual
- random person: Bisexuality is so ridiculous. It's not real. You're just scared or pretending.
- bisexual person: It's very real. I'm right here.
- random person: But you can just blend into straight society if you want to. You don't know what it's like to be completely discriminated against for being gay.
- bisexual person: Of course I know what it's like to be discriminated against. I have to prove myself every day.
- random person: Oh really? Name one person who's given you a hard time for being bi.
- bisexual person: You.
Okay, so from what I understand now, this is basically what happened
- A girl walked up to the stage and very respectfully told Jensen that she thanks him for being there, and she means no offense, but she herself is a bisexual person, and wanted to know if he thought Dean could possibly be bisexual.
- As soon as she started saying she was bisexual, and the crowd understood where this question was going, she was immediately drowned out by boos.
- Jensen and Jared were clearly confused about what was happening, and Jensen really didn’t understand the question through the booing.
- Jensen said, “come on, first question? Don’t ruin this for everyone,” but this was directed at the booing crowd, not the girl.
- Since the actors were clearly unaware of what was going on, the girl said that Cliff (bodyguard) would explain it later.They moved on from the question.
All in all, the j2 crowd acted like a bunch of fucking pricks who persecuted this girl simply for bringing the word “bisexual” into her question.
To everyone who booed her:
FUCK.
YOU.
Why Dean Winchester would make a great bisexual character: an essay by me.
- Because if Dean was revealed as a bisexual and came to accept himself, his journey of self-suppression, maturing and self-acceptance would be much more real than what we see on TV most of the time.
There’s a thing about a lot of queer characters out there…they are presented as token queer characters and we don’t get to see any of the work they go through to accept themselves. There’s another thing about queer characters out there…they go through cookie-cutter coming out experiences, which either go the good way or the bad way, but there’s a bunch of variables that rarely changes about them. Real INTERNAL STRUGGLE barely ever gets showcased. People actually NOT COMING OUT TO ANYONE for the biggest part of their lives barely ever get showcased. This creates an understanding that all queer people go through roughly the same process of figuring themselves out and revealing everything to the world around. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing in nd of itself, that’s definitely how it goes for some people out there, but for others it doesn’t, and we need a variety of portrayal.
You know what I’ve seen people who oppose queer interpretation of Dean say, multiple times now?
“If Dean was a queer character, they should have revealed it from the beginning, having Dean fall for a guy right now won’t make sense, so he can’t be a queer character.”
This is about a hundred shades of bullshit, pardon my French. It’s WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, I can’t stress this enough. This is a really crappy argument for a whole bunch of reasons.
monosexism is real (and so is bisexuality)
The other day I had coffee with a man who tried to explain to me his theory on “why bisexuality is not real”. He explained to me that “People who claim to be bisexual are just straight people who are confused. They mistake jealousy for attraction (for example: a girl envies another girl’s beauty or personality but she is not actually attracted to her.)”
“What about gay people?” I said. “Oh no, that is totally different. That’s real”, he replied.
I get this a lot. And I struggle to understand it: Why is it only acceptable to be attracted to one gender? Sexuality is not so ridged; it is subjective, personal and highly case sensitive.
Bisexuality has some truly harmful stereotypes: gay people who are “just in denial”, straight people who are “confused” (or straight girls who are “seeking attention”); when I have come out to people as being queer, I am often asked questions such as “What percent gay/straight are you?” or “So, you like threesomes?” The astounding ignorance I have encountered on this topic is proof positive that monosexism exists. Apparently the idea of being attracted to more than one gender is too difficult a concept for people to grasp.
So I would like to set the record straight on a few things:
1. Do not expect me to be able to weigh my orientation in percentages. Though some choose to do this, I find it futile. (I cannot predict the ratio of men/women/transex people I will meet who I find attractive.)
2. It is not a phase.
3. Being in a relationship with a woman doesn’t mean I don’t like men anymore (and visa versa).
4. Bisexuality does not equal Polyamory.
5. I do not find women attractive because I am jealous of them. Period.
6. I do not like women because I want attention from men. PERIOD!
7. Having no specific gender preference does not make me “greedy”. It does not mean I get more dates (I don’t).
8. Having no specific gender preference does not make mean I want to fuck everyone (and If you think it does, you can be assured that I DO NOT want to fuck you).
…
The end.
…
“Back in grad school I did a talk on bisexuality with the GLBT student organization. One of the gay undergraduates said to me, “I think that when homosexuality is fully accepted, there will be no bisexuals.” And I said “I think when homosexuality is fully accepted, there will be more bisexuals than anything else.” I don’t know if that’s precisely true, but I do know that when someone tells me what their internal experience is, I believe them. When someone tells me they’re gay or lesbian, I believe them. When someone says they’re attracted to people without reference to gender, I believe them. When someone says they’re not interested in sex with anyone, I believe them. And I don’t think it takes a PhD in sex to recognize that each individual is THE ONE AND ONLY EXPERT on that individual’s sexuality. Asexuality is just another variation on human sexuality. We’re all made of the same parts, just organized in different ways. And if somebody says that’s their internal experience, well they’re the only ones who knows that. But why would gay people deny the existence of bisexuality, or fear and shun asexuals? Another experience from grad school: I had my first formal training about trans* stuff. We were talking about discrimination and hate crimes, and I asked, “Why does anyone feel threatened by transpeople? Why would anyone waste energy hating someone who isn’t doing anything to hurt anyone else?” (This was before the moral foundations research.) And my supervisor said, “How do you feel about your gender?” I thought about it for a minute and said, “Pretty good!” And she said, “People who hate trans people often don’t feel pretty good about their gender. Seeing someone else living their gender according to their own rules feels threatening because it means the rules about gender may not be worth following.” I do wonder how much of that dynamic goes into the fear and shunning that some gay folks express about bisexuals and asexuals. I wonder if they feel like there isn’t room in the tent for such diversity, when they’ve had to fight so hard for something as relatively simple (in its easy analogy with heterosexuality) as homosexual relationships. I can understand it, if that’s what’s going on. But I’m really, really ready for the world to move past that.”
—the dirty normal
“I think everyone will agree, all the queer people will agree, that it means a lot when you meet your first open queer person. They become this huge figure to you. It doesn’t even really matter who they are, but they’re just this example to you, and you kinda latch onto it. They mean so much to you and kind of grounds you and shows you that it’s real, and you can be proud. And Charlie is basically that for Dean.”
—Silven (silvenhorror) on profound radio
“biphobia” is misogyny + homophobia, because: the common misconception that bisexual men are “really gay” and bisexual women are “really straight” stems from the idea that if one could potentially choose between having a relationship with either men or women, everyone would choose to be in a relationship with a man, because men are better than women in every aspect (misogyny). and, when you’re harassed for being in a same sex relationship, they’re not harassing you because you’re bi, they’re harassing you because you are in a same sex relationship (homophobia).
