If you are in a relationship with someone of the opposite sex, you are heterosexual.
If you are in a relationship with someone of the same sex, you are homosexual.
Therefore, if you are a bisexual, you have to be in a relationship with a person of the same sex and the opposite sex. At the same time. Because that’s totally how bisexuality works according to prunes like Larry King.
Anna Paquin had a good start, but let’s go further into that.
In all fairness to Larry King, if you don’t know, you just don’t know. I don’t think he’s “queerphobic” as some people have attempted to label him – he’s just having a conversation on a topic he’s never really thought about before. So let’s teach him! (and y’all too, especially the bi-phobic gay men and straight women who never have anything nice to say to bisexual men)
First, this is not what bisexuality is:
For some of you straight men, bisexuality is not a front that women put on to entice you at parties. A girl who makes out with another girl at a party for attention is not necessarily bisexual. She might be! And that’s fine! But being bisexual is more than making yourself sexually enticing with another woman for the benefit of male attention.
For some of you straight women, bisexuality is not being on the DL. There are men who sleep with women and cheat on those women with gay men in secret. They could be repressed homosexuals, they could be bisexual, but they are definitely cheaters and liars and that has nothing to do with being bisexual.
For some of you gay men, bisexuality is not the first stop to gay town. It might be! And that’s fine! But if a guy tells you he’s bisexual, it’s not your job to put his story in the context of your own prejudices and decide his sexuality for him.
For some of you lesbians, bisexuality is not a blatant show of disrespect to your homosexuality. Bisexual women are not traitors to the lesbian community if they have a long-lasting relationship with a woman and then follow that up having a relationship with a man.
For everyone, bisexuality is not a license to cheat or an inclination to be a cheater. If your partner is going to cheat on you, they are going to cheat on you whether they’re bisexual or not.
(I’m about to speak in binary terms, not as an act of erasure, but because I don’t feel qualified to delve into the more nuanced arguments around gender and sexuality. There are a variety of sexualites and genders that are better discussed by people with experience in those arenas, and when y’all are ready to go past this very elementary breakdown of bisexuality I’ve thrown together, please do your good Googling and learn more.)
Bisexuality is an attraction to men and women. That’s it. Being attracted to both doesn’t mean you have to have both now, in the past, or in the future. Your sexuality doesn’t become null and void dependent upon on your relationship status. If you are bisexual, being in a homosexual relationship does not invalidate your attraction to the opposite sex and vice versa. By that logic, you are only heterosexual if you are in a relationship and once it ends, you are now asexual because you’re no longer having sex.
Bisexuality also has no bearing on your current relationship and it shouldn’t matter whether you disclose it to someone or not. If my next girlfriend doesn’t tell me about every other man she’s slept with, I don’t care. It has no bearing on our relationship. If we break up and she starts dating another man, that sucks. I lost my girlfriend. If we break up and she starts dating a woman, that sucks. I lost my girlfriend. Period. Why would it suck more if the new person is a woman? Our relationship ended either way. People upset at the gender of the new partner are looking for a reason to explain why their relationship ended. Bisexual people don’t leave you because they got tired of your genitals. They left you for the same reason everybody else did — they got tired of you, and whoever the next person is has no relation to that fact. The relationship ended. The next genitals don’t matter.
But most importantly – in my experience at least – bisexuality does not equate to cheating. If you are a gay man in a monogamous relationship with another gay man, your attraction to other men hasn’t gone away. You’ve just made the conscious decision not to act on those feelings out of respect for your relationship. The same goes for a woman in a relationship with a man – other men are still attractive, but you have a partner already, so you just look without engaging. Bisexual people have the same process. If I’m in a relationship with a woman, I don’t cease to be attracted to men and other women. I’ve just made the conscious decision not to act on those feelings, and I don’t HAVE to have both just because I LIKE both.
I love pie. I’m a pie eater, but I don’t have to have every pie I see. I like a variety of pies, but I’m fine with just this slice in front of me and I can be happy with that even though the other pies look good. I also like cake. I’m bi-dessertual. I’m pickier with my cake, but I still like a few different kinds. If I’ve picked this pie though, I’ve already got my dessert. Just because I like cake too doesn’t mean I have to go find a slice, the same way I don’t have to have a slice of every pie in the bakery too.
If a bisexual man is currently with his woman-pie, he doesn’t have to have a slice of man-cake too even if he’s enjoyed it before. He committed to his woman-pie and the man-cake just looks nice in the glass case next to all the other woman-pies he’s not partaking in.
So that’s today’s lesson in bisexuality. Stop making gross assumptions based on nothing but Hollywood stereotypes and your own prejudices. That’s how you end up shriveled and alone with broccoli on your plate.
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