{"id":268,"date":"2010-11-03T13:02:48","date_gmt":"2010-11-03T12:02:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adjectivemarcus.livejournal.com\/488072.html"},"modified":"2010-11-03T13:02:48","modified_gmt":"2010-11-03T12:02:48","slug":"everythings-better-in-stereo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/2010\/11\/everythings-better-in-stereo\/","title":{"rendered":"Everything’s Better In Stereo?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Time and time again when reading the blogs and reports coming out of the US bi scene, I find myself wincing. It’s because of one word – monosexual.<\/strong> <\/p>\n

I don’t like it. I’m sure someone somewhere will suggest there’s really good reasons to use it (maybe even on bi bloggers<\/a>!) but I thought I’d set out why I don’t like it here. (all of this is personal opinion)<\/p>\n

First off, already some of the people reading this will be wondering what the word means. To people on the bi scene it might be self-evident, but I’ve heard bisexuals ask what exactly<\/i> is meant by it. Does it mean ‘heterosexuals and homosexuals’ or is there more to it? If you really feel the need to band together everyone who isn’t bisexual there’s a simpler way to do it, say “non-bisexual”.<\/p>\n

For data analysis, is it really useful to compare “all bisexuals” with “all non-bisexuals” anyway? Even if you break it down by gender, you’re still combining groups I’d rather that you didn’t. I’d much prefer to be able to compare “bi men” with “gay men” and “straight men” (with certain provisos re gender) than “bisexuals” and “monosexuals” or even “monosexual men”. Simply knowing that bis do something more or less or earlier or later than non-bisexuals isn’t as interesting as knowing how we compare with lesbian and gay people and straight people. <\/p>\n

Conceptually monosexuality encourages us to think of two groups – and that’s bad for drawing lines or conclusions. When bisexual results don’t fall neatly between gay and straight, that’s the gold mine. We miss that if we use ‘monosexual’.<\/p>\n

Lines don’t just get drawn on graphs: “Oh, well you’re only a monosexual!” Perhaps you haven’t heard anyone actually say that – in the UK bi community the word fell out of use as realisation of the implied superiority spread. That was about ten years ago, if my memory serves me correct.<\/p>\n

And it does smack of superiority, of claiming to be “more evolved” or in touch with “both” sides of your psyche in a way that “mere monosexuals” aren’t. One true way-ism, enlightenment, all that rot. How very useful, in getting along with people! How tactful to say to the majority – “please be nicer to us, we’re better at sexuality than you”.<\/p>\n

Monosexuality is a big jar of people who aren’t bi, mixing in the LG people with the straight people. It’s great for generalisations, though. But is that a good thing? After all, one of the things we’ve come to realise is that all categories have fuzzy edges. This is why many LGBT organisations or groups include “and allies” in their remit – so that people who don’t want to claim the label (yet or ever) can be involved and feel welcomed without having to out themselves.<\/p>\n

Bi groups that advertise they’re for “bisexuals, bi-curious people, allies partners and friends” go a long way towards easing people out of the closet. But “monosexual” feels stark, lines are being drawn, sides are being taken. If I’m not Us, I’m Them. Am I sure I’m Us? Will They be welcomed?<\/i> Dividing the world into us and them isn’t great for people in the middle. What’s going on when the bi community decides to build a dichotomy?<\/p>\n

It causes problems when we get to definition, too. It doesn’t seem to be a word anyone is warmly embracing to use as their own label, so the definitions come from outside. People should be free to label themselves, but whenever we start labelling others with words we wouldn’t want applied to us, then we get friction.<\/p>\n

And speaking of warmly embracing, and I guess friction – at least one website<\/a> has it for a synonym for masturbation.<\/p>\n

Perhaps that’s the same thing – “monosexual” feels a lot like linguistic wanking. It’s a word the bi community mutters to itself while telling itself that we’re gorgeous, we deserve better than monosexuals, we’re the best.<\/p>\n

Please stop doing it in public, okay?<\/p>\n

Every time from now on I hear someone use it in conversation, perhaps I should ask “Do you mean ‘wanking’?”<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Time and time again when reading the blogs and reports coming out of the US bi scene, I find myself wincing. It’s because of one word – monosexual. I don’t like it. I’m sure someone somewhere will suggest there’s really good reasons to use it (maybe ev…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":1211,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[246,9,248],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bibloggers","category-bisexual","category-thinking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}