In the 1940's, a groundbreaking way of discussing human sexual orientation was developed. You might remember, they made a movie about it. The scale goes from 0-6, with 0 representing exclusive heterosexuality and 6 representing exclusive homosexuality. This spectrum of sex is pretty well known, I think. And yet, I am astounded by how many otherwise intelligent and thoughtful people forget that there are several numbers between zero and six.
Whenever I tell people that I am bisexual, I prepare myself to answer a few standard questions. The title quote is pretty much at the heart of all of them. The first time I was asked this, it was from someone I expected would have known better. I had outed myself in a class in my fourth year of university. Afterward, a peer approached me.
Him: Didn't you say you have a boyfriend?
Me: *inward sigh* Yes.
Him: Oh. But how can you be dating a man if you're bisexual?
Like I said, I get that question a lot. I'm still not sure how to answer it succinctly, because I'm not sure where the confusion lies. What about my relationship confuses you so? Do you suppose that being bisexual prohibits me from having feelings for any one person? Is my brain too clouded with hormones for a romantic connection to develop? How can that possibly NOT be complicated?
I asked Boyfriend what he thought.
"Well,maybe because you're attracted to both men and women, people assume you won't be satisfied with just one or the other."
"Greedy" is a term I often hear jokingly applied to bisexuals. The idea is that instead of processing sexual attraction like a straight person or a gay/lesbian person, there's some kind of system overload. Like a kid in a candy store. It all looks tasty and we want whatever we can get our hands on.
That's not really how I feel at all, ever, though. I don't feel like I'm floundering in a sea of tail, because like any other rational and not skeevy person, I'm not constantly on the hunt for...well, tail. When I am attracted to someone, it's not necessarily just because of their sexual organs. I mean, hey, I'm as fond of sexual organs as the next girl or guy (except for asexual folks, I probably like sexual organs way more than them), but there are other interesting things about a person (if you're not a skeeve).
There are certain things I am attracted to in a man, and they are not necessarily the same things I'm attracted to in a girl, physically speaking. Of course everyone has some great feature that stands out on them. Boyfriend has a great smile that really caught my eye, and awesome cheekbones and muscley arms. My last girlfriend has beautiful and expressive eyes as well as a penchant for making silly faces that is very endearing (I won't get into the lascivious bits because she is now in another relationship and I am friends with the dude and that would be weird, OK).
I'm not gonna pretend that how a person's sexy parts are configured (would you like model A or model B?) isn't a consideration, but when it comes down to it, it's not a deal breaker for me. I hear a weird statement a lot, that bisexual people "don't see gender", like faux-gressives "don't see race". It's not that I don't see gender at ALL, it's that I don't see gender as a barrier to a satisfying romantic or sexual relationship.
So, in the name of visibility, I will answer the question in the title of this post YET AGAIN. Like all my relationships, I met this person, and we were interested in each other. We talked a lot, we hung out a lot, we fooled around (well, that part wasn't in ALL my previous relationships). Unlike my previous relationships, Boyfriend and I were so compatible that we fell in love. So now we are still together, and I am still bisexual, and I am still not having sex all the time with everyone.
If you had questions, I hope that answered them. If you still have questions that aren't skeevy, post them in a comment and I will address them, because I have put myself out there for that.
I suppose if a young person comes out as bisexual there's the knee jerk reaction to doubt them as simply being bicurious and to expect that they'll "settle" for a person of the opposite sex. The label of being bicurious shouldn't carry the stigma of being uncommitted though. As you say, there's a spectrum of sexuality and maybe if people stopped seeing it as just "gay" or "straight" then there wouldn't be all this fuss over silly labels. After all, chemistry is chemistry, no matter whose loins you find it in.
ReplyDeleteYeah, that's where the numbers between zero and six come in, you know what I mean? I happen to fall firmly in the number three category, but as you say, the one, two, four and five categories are there, too.
ReplyDeleteI'm certainly not saying everyone needs to be labeled somewhere. Some people feel that being labeled is just another way of being "othered",but for some labels help to increase a feeling of belonging to a community. That's pretty much the reason I even bother to self-identify as anything to begin with.