stef's rants: #3 in a series

[firecat]

This one was also suggested by snippy:

What does bisexual mean to you, and how do I figure out if I am bisexual? (Not necessarily me specifically, that is.)

Bisexual means to me being sexually and/or romantically attracted to people of more than one sex. I find it irritating that a lot of people who are sexually attracted to more than one sex won't use the label, but I can also see various reasons why this comes about, both reasons I approve of (they are concerned about coopting a label that they think doesn't belong to them and has a frisson of coolness) and reasons I don't (they don't want the negative associations that come with the label; they want to pass and don't care whether that decreases the visibility of bisexual people).

That said, how I began figuring out I was bisexual was by realizing that I fell in love with other women, rather than realizing that I was sexually attracted to other women. See, I knew I found women physically attractive, but I thought all women felt that way, especially given the ubiquitous seductive images of women in all the media directed at women. I had to start openly discussing my attraction to other women in sexual and romantic terms, before I heard some heterosexual women say, "Well, no, I don't feel physically attracted toward other women, and I react to the media images by wanting to be like her, not by wanting to touch her." (I expect they were saying that because they were worried I was coming on to them.)

The other part of figuring out I was bisexual was accepting that I was really attracted to people of more than one sex, even though there were differences in how that attraction manifested itself toward people of different genders, and that I wasn't going to grow up and make up my mind. (I lived on the East Coast in the early 80s and felt a lot of pressure to identify as either het or gay; I felt bi wasn't a politically correct option; I didn't completely come out as bi until I came to San Francisco.)

I dunno if this has a lot to do with how other people figure out they're bi. cyan_blue recently posted an article she had written about it (or was it notes for a lecture?) and it sounds like there are some points of commonality, especially the "not figuring it out as early as het and gay people do" (I was 23 or so when I first suspected it and 29 when I finished coming out).

Comments

[snippy]

I'm so grateful you found my questions interesting enough to answer!

Thank you for explaining what bisexuality means to you and how you learned that. It's a highly charged subject and when it comes up I have all these phrases floating around in my head, and it's hard for me to clearly examine just the issue of bisexuality.

[firecat]

Thank you for the questions! I enjoyed answering them.

And I'm interested in why bisexuality is charged for you (or did you mean in general?) and what phrases are floating in your head, if you feel like answering. (Email or LJ post/comment.)

[snippy]

Charged in general; I read (in the magazines Bust and Bitch, and online, including Usenet) that there are a lot of women who reject the lable while fitting either the behavioral definition or the attraction one, or both, and that this is a problem for women who proudly identify as bisexual.

Some of the phrases that float in my head include "in the service of men's sexuality" and "it's what I do, not what I am" and what an acquaintance told me once, "there are no bisexuals, they're all just sluts--they want sex and they don't care who with." Not that I endorse any of them, it's what gets stirred up with my curiosity when I think about bisexuality...and I notice that it's women's bisexuality I think about, not men's. Maybe because I have read about it more, talked to more women who were bisexual.

[firecat]

I seem to recall "in the service of men's sexuality." Maybe from Bitch. I recall being bugged by it because it implies wanting to accommodate your male partner's turn-ons isn't a legitimate desire. I think that can be a perfectly legitimate desire. And I also think that women who want to have sex with other women only when men are involved can call themselves bisexual. But a lot of people think there are hoops you have to jump through to be a real™ bisexual.

I wouldn't say it is really a problem for me that people reject the label. It just irritates me.

As I said in response to laureladams above, I do get "it's what I do, not what I am" in the poly context. I think that poly is what I do and not what I am. But I still call myself poly, not mono.

Hmm, it occurs to me that what irritates me the most is people who "do" bisexuality on a regular basis and then call themselves something else that's misleading (like "het"). And mostly what bothers me is the "misleading" part. People who aren't sure or who avoid labels altogether irritate me less. (Well, some people who Don't Do Labels irritate me in different ways, but that would be another rant. ;-)

As for "there are no bisexuals, they're all just sluts--they want sex and they don't care who with," it is to scoff. I'm bisexual and I have very little sex these days (libido issues).

[snippy]

I do want to answer, but I keep putting it off. Which I think is a message that I am going to think about it some more and try to process the tangled mess of sometimes-contradictory thoughts and feelings I have right now on the subject.

[firecat]

You did answer, here, but processing contradictory stuff sounds like a good idea, and if you feel like sharing the result, I'd like it. (But no pressure to do so.)