I’ve met lots of people who are bi and I know that lots of people struggle with whether they are bi or not. There are precious few resources out there so hopefully this post will help you.
Do you like the label/word bisexual?
If you are ok with it, you might not be bisexual.* People who are not bisexual use the word bisexual freely and uncritically. It is a completely enmeshed letter within LGBT. It is spoken by straights in the same breath as “gay” and “lesbian” to describe, you know, one of those people. One of those people. Gay and lesbian people are similarly happy to use the word bisexual. It’s the word to denote, you know, one of those people. One of those half-gay or not-out people.
But people whom the word “bisexual” is supposed to connote are not so happy with it. There are lots of problems with it. Nobody, absolutely nobody, wants to be it. Nobody sees the word and thinks, hell yeah, that is totally me. This is why there is still a persistent rumour (and not just amongst lay folks) that bisexual people don’t actually exist.
So…why? Why do people not want to use the label “bisexual”? For the most part it is because (not 100 percent straight and not 100 percent gay – look, I’m going to say “bi” for short) people know how they feel inside, they know what kind of sexual and/or romantic responses they have. And that feeling inside is absolutely nothing like the feeling inside they have when they see the word “bisexual”. The two things just don’t tally. Not even close.
People having these thoughts about the word bisexual feel normal inside. They do not feel like one of those people.
Bi people have one thing in common: they have, at some time or other, questioned the assumption that attraction to another person is always automatically closed down by gender. This assumption is at the heart of the definitions of sexuality.
Once they have interrogated this assumption, they have found that at some times or in some circumstances they are able to be attracted in some fashion to persons who are not of their preferred gender**. This process seems (rightly, in my opinion) a very normal thing to do.
Once the bi person has come to the (somewhat scary or even shocking) conclusion that they might be attracted to their non-preferred gender under certain circumstances they are often at a loss as to what to do with this new information. (If they have done this process very early, for example at puberty, it seems even more strange that so many others use this arbitrary marker of gender for selecting their objects of desire.) Typically, at this point, the bi person keeps it under their hat. If they are in a relationship, then this is a good reason to close down the line of thought. If they are single, they have until now been moving in non-bi circles and have not the faintest idea how to go about observing, approaching or attracting their non-preferred gender and even if they do, they have little chance of meeting people under the ‘special circumstances’ required for them to consider such people attractive. New information. Hat. Under.
In addition, it is clear that many people either do not attempt the first part of the process (the assumption that gender is a close-down to attraction is so strong that it is not even visible as an assumption) or if they have questioned the assumption, everyone has concluded that they never, under any circumstances can be attracted to their non-preferred gender. So suddenly the bi person feels different to everyone else. But they are still the same person! They still feel normal! It’s everyone else who is being lazy or just…. deciding differently.
Anyway, along comes the word “bisexual”. This word has been inscribed with many thousands of meanings, assumptions and stereotypes that have been devised by people who are not bisexual and have no idea what it feels like to examine the gender-is-the-first-marker-about-my-desires-FOREVER assumption and come up with one of the scariest thoughts in all humanity which is: “well… that depends”.
We’ve all been raised in a monosexual world where bisexual means:
A person who is equally attracted to any and all genders
A swinger
An unfaithful cheater
A slut
A vector for disease between gay and straight people
A person who is gay really and is not out
A person who can’t decide
A person who can never be with just one partner because they are always tempted by the other gender
A person who is half gay and half straight
A person who constantly engages in threesomes
A person whose gender identity is related to their sexuality
The person with a hatful of new information is not these things! Not even one of these things! That doesn’t feel normal. That feels horrible.
And on the other hand it doesn’t help when people spout the obvious fallacy, “well, we’re all bisexual really.” We are not all bisexual really. Otherwise, we would all be bisexual. Really.
But, there appears to be no other word for a person who has challenged the gender assumption and come up with “well… that depends”. A technical definition of “bisexual” means “attracted to more than one gender”, which, while it kind of fits, there are all the stereotypes and also “that depends” is nowhere near strong enough evidence to completely change one’s sexual orientation. Real bisexual people*** would be offended and angry that one might even consider calling oneself by the term. Besides, everyone knows that sexuality is a fixed thing that you find out at puberty and the idea of changing from one to another is offensive. Right?
So. The person with new information under their hat decides that they don’t like labels, because they are wildly inaccurate and none exist for their perfectly normal feelings. Besides, one word cannot describe “cisgendered female who has until recently been extremely attracted to men but one day wondered in a feminist context whether she had historically only ever allowed men sexual access to her and started looking at girls and noticing they were kind of nice”. And even if there was a word, very few other people would be it. People should be able to just be themselves, without having to justify anything. The under-the-hat person has thought, and stated “I’m just myself” and if anyone asks specifically about whether they are sometimes attracted to more than one gender in certain contexts to different degrees, then they’ll be sure to tell the truth. As long as their partner isn’t present. And luckily no-one ever asks.
How am I doing so far? Well…..?
Well I have something to tell you. You are bisexual! Congratulations!
Every bi person I know has had this or a similar thought process. Some bi people have been bi since puberty and always suspected that gender markers are arbitrary, and so have had a slightly different journey, but in general, for one reason or another we have stopped ourselves and said, “hey, wait a minute…”. It is correct to think that “bisexual” is a rubbish word that other people misinterpret, but even in sexuality contexts can tell you almost nothing about a person. Totally correct, but this is the same for other words too (Christian, Left/Right politics, feminist, kinky…)
It turns out there are few other words to describe that feeling of challenging-the-gender-assumption****. Using a recognised word has some very important bonuses. Having a word, which one can then reject, makes it a thing. A thing that is normal. A thing that means you are not weird and most certainly not alone. It helps us find other people to talk to. Community support is very important for wellbeing, especially mental health. It’s also a word that can be rallied round to get some other useful things, like proper sexual healthcare and advice. Currently, few people declare they are bisexual and so few sexual health clinics think to offer you condoms and dental dams. The ban on bisexual blood is also an issue that discriminates against us.
Plus, we need those bisexual club nights! Places to go where first attempts with non-preferred genders will be looked on kindly rather than with scorn. Where “bisexual” means ‘probably more flexible over gender than average’, but not ‘swinging sex club’, though those are good too.
Importantly, as bisexual people, we are the ones who can decide what “bisexual” really means. It is not until you meet other bi people and see how differently they perform their bisexuality, yet can clearly still call themselves bi, that you realise that there is no fixed definition of what “bisexuality” actually is. It turns out, this word can be yours.
And that is just the start of an amazing journey into a world of attraction, romance, love and (for some people) sex, that can support and make grow the whole, bisexual you.
*not newbie bisexuals: I know you’re ok with it!
**and a few bi people do not have a preferred gender
***I am smiling as I type this.
****there are a few, and they’re awesome (pansexual, fluid, omnisexual) but none are canon to outsiders in the way “bisexual” is.
Tagged: bi, bisexual, community, just me, mental health, normal 
