No butches,

No bis,

No blacks.

No fat chicks,

No trannies,

No chaps.

Must be athletic;

a real girl, no prosthetics.

Long hair,

Very queer,

Good in the sack.

But I’m easy going,

If you’re young, hot and boring.

Why not give me a tinkle?

Cos for some reason I’m still single.

London preferred;

Brighton inferred.

Must drive,

Must drink,

Must not support Spurs!

Must own at least two cats.

Must put up with all my crap.

Must be delightfully ironic.

Must not be an alcoholic.

Must be seriously in love with the Stereophonics!

No kinky girls need apply.

No girls who wanna bit on the side.

No Asians, no straights,

No girls full of hate.

No one on the planning committee of London Pride.

I’m not into drama,

But I love Lady Gaga.

If you look like her, you’re in

(As long as you don’t wear that meat-dress thing)

You see, I think we’d make a good fit,

If you’re young, hot and rich,

So why not give me a tinkle?

Cos for some reason I’m still single.

*

*

Back when I was a closeted bisexual, I’d secretly look at newspapers and magazines like Loot, Pink Paper and Time Out.  Most of these publications had lots of Personals in their classified section.  I found it all quite disheartening to read row upon row of text, where each one would say, “No bisexuals” or “No butches.” It was rare to see, “No blacks” but the wording of most ads spelled it out in other ways.  I think the butch excluding confused me the most, but hey, femmes can be bigots too, I guess.  Now that things have moved online for the most part, I still see wording like this.  The only exception to this situation is on OK Cupid, where if you put that you’re a bisexual woman on your profile, zillions of men will flood your mailbox (with what, I don’t even want to know…)

Photo: J. Applebee, The Bisexual Stall at London Pride 2010