We've chronicled extensively former advice-columnist-turned-one-man-media-machine Dan Savage's assholery, particularly on the subject of bisexuality (see tags). Or rather male bisexuality, since Dan generally doesn't seem to have an issue with the bi ladies, aside from their general flakiness and habit for breaking the heart of lesbians.
Dan's former issue with bisexual men could be generally summed up as: they don't exist. They are either gay and in denial, as he was when he briefly identified as bi (and how shocking that a self-absorbed jerk like Dan would take the tiny realm of his personal experience and project it onto something as complex and varied as male sexual orientation) or they're basically straight, because bi men end up in relationships with women.
He's whistling a slightly different tune now, blissfully unaware that this new technology known as "the Internet" has recorded years of him denying the existence of bisexual men, but he's now insisting that the problems bisexual men face aren't entrenched societal homophobia and biphobia but their own cowardice because bi men just won't come out.
Now he's probably right in that it's likely that the majority of bisexual people are likely to marry or have long-lasting relationships with opposite-sex partners. Part of it just a numbers game. There are vastly more people interested in the opposite-sex than the same. There's also the trope that bi people are only into same-sex people for casual flings, but want to settle down in a more traditional manner. It's a bit of a stereotype, but it does seem that to many bisexual people are sexually attracted to the same sex but not particularly interested in more. That doesn't mean they're "not really bi" or that "bi people don't exist" - it just means that bisexuality/pansexuality is really an umbrella term that covers a huge range of sexual and romantic orientation styles. And the fact that we live in a virulently homophobic society with huge social pressures to conform, well, it's not surprising that if you are romantically and sexually attracted to the opposite sex that your life might end up taking the path of least resistance. This doesn't make a bisexual identity invalid.
And I think with that I might be hitting on one of the main issues I see in gay resistance to, or disdain of bisexuals. In this lovely little piece, Dan claims he never said bi men don't exist (he just implied it over and for years and years) he opines that bisexual men need to stop whining and come out of the closet already. I agree about the closet. All it takes is a little life experience (or a brief glance at the Craigslist M4M section) to realize that clearly a decent chunk of the straight-identified male populace has significant bisexual desire. But man, it's fucking irritating for Dan Savage, of all people, to be wagging his finger at the craven bisexual men for not coming out yet, when it was exactly attitudes like the ones he's espoused for years that make the option of coming out for bisexual men not a particularly attractive one.
I mean, what does a bisexual guy stand to gain from coming out? The vast majority of women - even bisexual women - don't want to date a bi guy, the fear being that he's actually gay and in denial. A viewpoint that Dan still proudly champions, by the way. According to the bi men I've talked to, gay men aren't too thrilled to date them either, because it's assumed the bi guy is just lookin' for some cock and will end up breaking their heart for a woman. Well, at least there's the well-established, supportive community for bisexual men...wait. Nope. If your friends or family are homophobic, well, you're not "less queer" in their eyes because you like pussy, but there's a decent chance you're seen that way by plenty of your gay brothers.
Now as Dan rightfully points out, if coming out was easy no one - gay, lesbian, or bi - would be in the closet. Yet he totally misses the fact that in addition to serious risks and repercussions, coming out as gay or lesbian does provide a couple of worthwhile benefits - a dating pool and a chance at the kind of relationship you want being a pretty big one! - that is a lot harder to access in the closet. Bisexual men actually lose the majority of their potential partners when coming out specifically as bi (as opposed to identifying as gay for the sake of dating men, or letting yourself be assumed hetero when dating women).
This is not to say at all that bisexual men are more oppressed than gay men, or that gay men are capable of oppressing bisexual men by not wanting to date them or not giving them a big ol' "Welcome to the queer club!" hug when they come out. Gay people, if they want to be partnered and live a "normal" life with a picture of the spouse on the cubicle desk have to come out to achieve that. Bisexual people don't, necessarily (although let's not forget the largely invisible population of bisexuals in same-sex partnerships that everyone assumes are gay). So to people like Dan, bisexual men don't have it as tough as gay men do. And it's true that many bisexual people do possess what people in the sociology world refer to as "passing privilege" or what the social justice set calls "invisibility". But it's both a perk and a curse. Sure, you're far less likely to be beat up by a homophobe when you've got a wedding ring and a picture of your wife in your wallet. That is a powerful privilege that some bisexual people possess.
But there's a downside: lack of community, isolation, no support network, the feeling that you're projecting a lie - even if you're out - because unless you're walking around with a bi pride button on, opposite-sex-partnered bisexuals will be assumed to be straight. Opposite-sex-partnered bisexuals do not get to out themselves by placing aforementioned picture of partner on cubicle desk, or walking hand-in-hand with their partner down the street. They generally will have to specifically raise the issue, because they are assumed straight. Or maybe Dan just thinks they should wear the buttons? Maybe a cloth badge of some sort. After all, they "owe it" to themselves, as Dan suggests, to awkwardly bring up their sexual orientation when no one has asked the question. Imagine those water cooler discussions:
"What did you do this weekend, Bob?"
"You know, the usual. Watched the game, went on a hike with the wife. And just so you know, Jen's great, but I happen to be bisexual."
"...."
Obviously there are times when a bisexual person can out themselves in a more relevant manner, such as when a co-worker makes a homophobic remark or what have you. But generally, outing yourself as a bi person in a opposite-sex relationship does not function in the same way it would if you were gay.
Dan also lives in some crazy bizzaro world - perhaps a function of his advanced age, since he was a teenager in the '70s and I'm told male bisexuality was "cool" then - where gay men identify as bi "because it makes them feel superior and/or more masculine". To be fair, I'm not a gay man, so maybe some gay men do think bisexual guys are more butch, i'm skeptical, but willing to entertain the notion. I can tell you in the straight world, bisexual guy = gay guy, but creepier, and certainly not more masculine. A lot of straights who have no problem with gay dudes have a visceral disgust and hatred of bi guys, because they're the insidious, treacherous disease spreaders, and their orientation makes no sense. It's so common for a sort of liberal-ish straight dude proclaim their sympathy for gay men, with the understanding, "Well bro, I mean, I love pussy, but I was born straight. If I was born gay then I'd like cock as much as I like pussy now, so gay, yeah, I totally get it." Bi men don't fit into this picture, because what kind of sick fuck would go for cock when he totally likes pussy, too? Even as our society becomes more accepting of homosexality - as long as you're just born that way - attitudes about sexual flexibility remain retrograde and threatening. Unless you're a chick, because that's hot.
So bi guys - geez, why won't you just come out already?*
On a related personal note, my brother visited me this summer. After too many beers, he came out to me as bisexual. And this is one of the many reasons my hatred for Savage on this issue is not just snark. My bro is an introverted, slightly awkward 25 year-old who hasn't exactly had a lot of relationship experience with any gender. He trends towards the gayer side of the Kinsey scale. He knows I'm queerish. He knows my husband is a bisexual man. And yet it still took him this long to come out to me, someone he knew would be supportive. He said he has no intention of coming out to anyone but his closest friends because all he hears from the straight and gay world alike is hostility towards people like him. Good job, Dan. Making life easier for queer youth, all the time. I'd love to have him look my brother in the eye and tell him how he's making things better for him.
*I do think that bisexual men should come out when it is safe for them to do so. I just think Dan saying it is a real dick move.
Showing posts with label bi-fail. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bi-fail. Show all posts
6/11/10
Weekly Savaging: Goodbye, Dan
Dear Dan Savage,
It would not be hyperbole to say that you are one of the most influential figures I've had in my life. I discovered you as a teenager, when I'd snag copies of SF Weekly paper on excursions to the glamorous, gay city from the Central Valley cow town where I grew up. I'd immediately flip to the back of the paper to find your advice column, nestled between escort ads. Hilarious and scandalous, yet practical and strangely heartfelt, your writing deeply affected my understanding of my own sexuality and how I approached relationships.
I became more of a fangirl as I entered my 20's. Testament to this is that I own a copy of every book you've written, including one signed by you at reading you gave in the Haight (I was that stammering girl with her gay friend who embarrassed you by going on a bit too long about how awesome you are - I'm sure you remember me clearly). I still recommend "The Kid" to anyone who will listen. You were my Gay Best Friend when I was stuck in conservative small towns and flyover states. Plus, I had an not-entirely platonic crush on you.
During the years, as I've become more politically aware, being a fan of yours has cause some problems. Quite a few people in the circles I run in, both online and off, have a problem with you. The first complaint I heard was that you're a misogynist. This was easily brushed aside for me - sure, you might have compared female genitalia to a canned ham being dropped from a tall building, but so what? You're a gay man, and your vulvaphobia wasn't a problem for me, particularly since you were also so quick to call out straight boys on theirs, as well as to tell them that they don't deserve to be in sexual relationships if they weren't willing to give women the orgasms they deserve. To me, the benefit you did as an advocate of female sexual pleasure far outweighed some crass humor.
But the problems didn't stop there. Your take on fat people has consistently been simplistic, hurtful, and unnecessary. Comparing people with race-based sexual preferences to preferring one hair color over another ignores ingrained societal racism. After Prop. 8 passed here in California, you had a horrible blog post blaming Black Californians for the end of gay marriage in California, while whining that Obama couldn't have been elected if not for gay people, which conveniently erased the existence of Black queer people. And as anyone who has paid attention to you, like, ever knows, you have consistently said fucked-up shit about bisexual men and women, as well as about trans people.
For starters, you're one of the biggest advocates of the obnoxious "female sexuality is fluid (so male sexuality must not be)" meme, which helps negate womens' queer identities in one sense (we're not really ever straight or queer, just "fluid") and completely makes bisexual men invisible, which isn't surprising because you basically don't really believe they exist. You've also stated that there are no male-to-female transgendered people who ever perceived themselves as gay men, and make jokes about how every butch lesbian will eventually transition to male, both of which display a ginormous lack of understanding about trans experiences. Oh, and is this an appropriate time to bring up your pro-war stance in Iraq? No? Too bad.
But to top all this shit off, you go and pull shit like this, in which you make a "joke" claiming a bigoted cis male politician is actually a female-to-male transsexual. Then you get an employee of yours to publish a ridiculous defense of a blatantly transphobic act (and not mention, bafflingly unfunny "joke") which is almost as stupid as the original offending post.
I'm sorry, but this whole, "It's funny to say that bigoted figures are really what they hate," is an old, boring, and pointless meme. Yes, some homophobic politicians have in fact been outed as queer (unlike you, I hesitate to assume that men who have sex with men but have been married to women are automatically gay). Most homophobic politicians are still just plain ol' bigoted straight folks, and frankly, I care less about their orientation than I do about the actual harm they are doing to GTLBQ people. Then you take that one step further and make a running joke about Rob McKenna being a trans man - presumably, because you think he "looks" like one. Setting aside the problematic idea that trans men look a certain way, he doesn't even fit the stereotype of what trans guys are supposed to look like! What he does have is delicate facial features, so I guess that makes him "feminized" in your eyes - so he must be a trans man, i.e. not a REAL man, right, Dan? I see no other way of interpreting this.
But now, you're claiming can't be transphobic because you've raised money for trans causes. Is that kind of like how fundamentalist Christian Zionists must not be anti-Semitic because they support Israel (as far as it relates to their own ends)? And unable to resist pouring salt on a gaping wound, Queerty (don't read the comments - never read the comments) reports you saying this in your "defense":
"I am not biphobic or transphobic. One my best friends is trans. People accuse me of being biphobic when all I am doing is articulating that a lot of bisexuality has certain issues and problems. Many people did identify as bisexual when they were coming out and it was a lie. That is just true. It is not crazy when you meet a bi person to wonder if they are really bi. It isn't disrespectful. It is rational. Many bi people end up in an opposite-sex relationship so they are not in the same boat with us as gays and lesbians. … I joke about trans stuff. We are not allowed to say tranny anymore. There's the T word and the F word, there is every letter of the alphabet word. … I still use the word "faggot" all the time in my column. Every time that I am on chat shows on cable I make a point of using fag in reference to myself because I don't think it is a dirty word. I don't think we should be stupid about it."
While your wit is well-known, you've never been accused of a being a particularly deep thinker, Dan, as this quote makes clear. Are you really so self-focused that you cannot conceive of how it's a little bit different for you, as a gay man, to reclaim "faggot" than it is for as a cis person to insist that "tranny" is OK? Would you really be comfortable being called a "faggot" by someone you know to be an anti-gay bigot? If words didn't have power, you wouldn't have tried to reclaim and de-legitimize "faggot" as a slur, and you do not get to decide what is or is not a slur for groups you are not a part of. I mean seriously, sit the fuck down and think on this a while. Do white people get to use racial slurs if they "have *insert ethnicity here* friends?" And are you seriously not aware of how incredibly fucking stupid it is to use "I have *insert whatever here* friends as an excuse for any sort of bullshit?
As far as your biphobia goes, for fuck's sake dude, this isn't 1992. Male bisexual chic has fallen far since the time you were coming out, whereas hey, guess what? Being a gay dude has become far more accepted. While yes, every single gay man on earth has a story about a guy who used to call himself bi and is now gay, this idea that men are actively taking on the stigma of male bisexuality in droves as a temporary measure to avoid the stigma of male homosexuality is kind of ludicrous.
And while it's true, based on the simple numbers game, that most bisexual people will "find themselves in an opposite-sex relationship" - what you mean here, obviously, is "will settle down with an opposite sex person." What you did here is basically declaring a bisexual identity not relevant to queer politics because of a bisexual person's relationships. An out bisexual person, Dan, can still be on the receiving end of homophobia simply by virtue of being honest about who they are, regardless of who they're dating. They can still lose their jobs, custody of their kids, or get kicked out of the military. I know it seems scary, but I promise you that acknowledging that bisexual people face oppression similar to what gays and lesbians face does not actually reduce your claim to the oppression you suffer as a gay man. This isn't a zero sum game.
Here's the thing. Unlike, it seems sometimes, a lot of rhetoric that gets thrown around in anti-oppression circles, I get that in the real world, most of us are not generally interacting amongst people who say, know what "cisgender" means or is terribly invested in radical queer critique or anti-racist analysis. And especially for someone who came of age in a much different gay culture that a lot of this talk you deride as "alphabet soup" and such can seem like politically-correct women's-study-majors buzzkill bullshit. And if you were just some random gay guy who had some less-than-cool opinions about what words you are supposed to say or what you think about bisexuals, I wouldn't give a shit.
But you're not some anonymous, increasingly irrelevant negative queen with no power.You're a public figure. Not just any public figure, but one of the U.S.'s most famous advice columnists. The "Savage Lovecast" is one of the top 10 most popular podcasts on the entire Internet. Like it or not - and I suspect you rather like it- you are in a position of authority, particularly to queer youth, but also for straights and how they perceive queerness. For fuck's sake, Dan, you are Stephen Colbert's "Spokesgay"! You are a representative for sex, liberty, and gayness to the rest of this fucked-up country. So you have a real responsibility as someone who claims to care about young freaks everywhere to not be a huge fucking dick about people you don't like or understand. Because it affects people.
It would be great if you bothered to educate yourself and learn why your views on appropriate language and transgendered people and bisexual people are ignorant and wrong. Or if you can't be bothered to do that, to at least learn to shut the fuck up about your bigotry in the public sphere. But we both know that isn't going to happen. So you can continue to increasingly sound like a throwback to some regretful primeval era of gay politics, the "glory days" before you had to worry about the "T" or the "B", because we're breaking up. It's been a long time coming, but I'm fresh out of excuses for you, and you're embarrassing us all.
It would not be hyperbole to say that you are one of the most influential figures I've had in my life. I discovered you as a teenager, when I'd snag copies of SF Weekly paper on excursions to the glamorous, gay city from the Central Valley cow town where I grew up. I'd immediately flip to the back of the paper to find your advice column, nestled between escort ads. Hilarious and scandalous, yet practical and strangely heartfelt, your writing deeply affected my understanding of my own sexuality and how I approached relationships.
I became more of a fangirl as I entered my 20's. Testament to this is that I own a copy of every book you've written, including one signed by you at reading you gave in the Haight (I was that stammering girl with her gay friend who embarrassed you by going on a bit too long about how awesome you are - I'm sure you remember me clearly). I still recommend "The Kid" to anyone who will listen. You were my Gay Best Friend when I was stuck in conservative small towns and flyover states. Plus, I had an not-entirely platonic crush on you.
During the years, as I've become more politically aware, being a fan of yours has cause some problems. Quite a few people in the circles I run in, both online and off, have a problem with you. The first complaint I heard was that you're a misogynist. This was easily brushed aside for me - sure, you might have compared female genitalia to a canned ham being dropped from a tall building, but so what? You're a gay man, and your vulvaphobia wasn't a problem for me, particularly since you were also so quick to call out straight boys on theirs, as well as to tell them that they don't deserve to be in sexual relationships if they weren't willing to give women the orgasms they deserve. To me, the benefit you did as an advocate of female sexual pleasure far outweighed some crass humor.
But the problems didn't stop there. Your take on fat people has consistently been simplistic, hurtful, and unnecessary. Comparing people with race-based sexual preferences to preferring one hair color over another ignores ingrained societal racism. After Prop. 8 passed here in California, you had a horrible blog post blaming Black Californians for the end of gay marriage in California, while whining that Obama couldn't have been elected if not for gay people, which conveniently erased the existence of Black queer people. And as anyone who has paid attention to you, like, ever knows, you have consistently said fucked-up shit about bisexual men and women, as well as about trans people.
For starters, you're one of the biggest advocates of the obnoxious "female sexuality is fluid (so male sexuality must not be)" meme, which helps negate womens' queer identities in one sense (we're not really ever straight or queer, just "fluid") and completely makes bisexual men invisible, which isn't surprising because you basically don't really believe they exist. You've also stated that there are no male-to-female transgendered people who ever perceived themselves as gay men, and make jokes about how every butch lesbian will eventually transition to male, both of which display a ginormous lack of understanding about trans experiences. Oh, and is this an appropriate time to bring up your pro-war stance in Iraq? No? Too bad.
But to top all this shit off, you go and pull shit like this, in which you make a "joke" claiming a bigoted cis male politician is actually a female-to-male transsexual. Then you get an employee of yours to publish a ridiculous defense of a blatantly transphobic act (and not mention, bafflingly unfunny "joke") which is almost as stupid as the original offending post.
I'm sorry, but this whole, "It's funny to say that bigoted figures are really what they hate," is an old, boring, and pointless meme. Yes, some homophobic politicians have in fact been outed as queer (unlike you, I hesitate to assume that men who have sex with men but have been married to women are automatically gay). Most homophobic politicians are still just plain ol' bigoted straight folks, and frankly, I care less about their orientation than I do about the actual harm they are doing to GTLBQ people. Then you take that one step further and make a running joke about Rob McKenna being a trans man - presumably, because you think he "looks" like one. Setting aside the problematic idea that trans men look a certain way, he doesn't even fit the stereotype of what trans guys are supposed to look like! What he does have is delicate facial features, so I guess that makes him "feminized" in your eyes - so he must be a trans man, i.e. not a REAL man, right, Dan? I see no other way of interpreting this.
But now, you're claiming can't be transphobic because you've raised money for trans causes. Is that kind of like how fundamentalist Christian Zionists must not be anti-Semitic because they support Israel (as far as it relates to their own ends)? And unable to resist pouring salt on a gaping wound, Queerty (don't read the comments - never read the comments) reports you saying this in your "defense":
"I am not biphobic or transphobic. One my best friends is trans. People accuse me of being biphobic when all I am doing is articulating that a lot of bisexuality has certain issues and problems. Many people did identify as bisexual when they were coming out and it was a lie. That is just true. It is not crazy when you meet a bi person to wonder if they are really bi. It isn't disrespectful. It is rational. Many bi people end up in an opposite-sex relationship so they are not in the same boat with us as gays and lesbians. … I joke about trans stuff. We are not allowed to say tranny anymore. There's the T word and the F word, there is every letter of the alphabet word. … I still use the word "faggot" all the time in my column. Every time that I am on chat shows on cable I make a point of using fag in reference to myself because I don't think it is a dirty word. I don't think we should be stupid about it."
While your wit is well-known, you've never been accused of a being a particularly deep thinker, Dan, as this quote makes clear. Are you really so self-focused that you cannot conceive of how it's a little bit different for you, as a gay man, to reclaim "faggot" than it is for as a cis person to insist that "tranny" is OK? Would you really be comfortable being called a "faggot" by someone you know to be an anti-gay bigot? If words didn't have power, you wouldn't have tried to reclaim and de-legitimize "faggot" as a slur, and you do not get to decide what is or is not a slur for groups you are not a part of. I mean seriously, sit the fuck down and think on this a while. Do white people get to use racial slurs if they "have *insert ethnicity here* friends?" And are you seriously not aware of how incredibly fucking stupid it is to use "I have *insert whatever here* friends as an excuse for any sort of bullshit?
As far as your biphobia goes, for fuck's sake dude, this isn't 1992. Male bisexual chic has fallen far since the time you were coming out, whereas hey, guess what? Being a gay dude has become far more accepted. While yes, every single gay man on earth has a story about a guy who used to call himself bi and is now gay, this idea that men are actively taking on the stigma of male bisexuality in droves as a temporary measure to avoid the stigma of male homosexuality is kind of ludicrous.
And while it's true, based on the simple numbers game, that most bisexual people will "find themselves in an opposite-sex relationship" - what you mean here, obviously, is "will settle down with an opposite sex person." What you did here is basically declaring a bisexual identity not relevant to queer politics because of a bisexual person's relationships. An out bisexual person, Dan, can still be on the receiving end of homophobia simply by virtue of being honest about who they are, regardless of who they're dating. They can still lose their jobs, custody of their kids, or get kicked out of the military. I know it seems scary, but I promise you that acknowledging that bisexual people face oppression similar to what gays and lesbians face does not actually reduce your claim to the oppression you suffer as a gay man. This isn't a zero sum game.
Here's the thing. Unlike, it seems sometimes, a lot of rhetoric that gets thrown around in anti-oppression circles, I get that in the real world, most of us are not generally interacting amongst people who say, know what "cisgender" means or is terribly invested in radical queer critique or anti-racist analysis. And especially for someone who came of age in a much different gay culture that a lot of this talk you deride as "alphabet soup" and such can seem like politically-correct women's-study-majors buzzkill bullshit. And if you were just some random gay guy who had some less-than-cool opinions about what words you are supposed to say or what you think about bisexuals, I wouldn't give a shit.
But you're not some anonymous, increasingly irrelevant negative queen with no power.You're a public figure. Not just any public figure, but one of the U.S.'s most famous advice columnists. The "Savage Lovecast" is one of the top 10 most popular podcasts on the entire Internet. Like it or not - and I suspect you rather like it- you are in a position of authority, particularly to queer youth, but also for straights and how they perceive queerness. For fuck's sake, Dan, you are Stephen Colbert's "Spokesgay"! You are a representative for sex, liberty, and gayness to the rest of this fucked-up country. So you have a real responsibility as someone who claims to care about young freaks everywhere to not be a huge fucking dick about people you don't like or understand. Because it affects people.
It would be great if you bothered to educate yourself and learn why your views on appropriate language and transgendered people and bisexual people are ignorant and wrong. Or if you can't be bothered to do that, to at least learn to shut the fuck up about your bigotry in the public sphere. But we both know that isn't going to happen. So you can continue to increasingly sound like a throwback to some regretful primeval era of gay politics, the "glory days" before you had to worry about the "T" or the "B", because we're breaking up. It's been a long time coming, but I'm fresh out of excuses for you, and you're embarrassing us all.
5/13/10
Biphobia: Real and Relevant
"...For homo and hetero define themselves as opposites, however social science instruments like the Kinsey scale and the Klein grid keep demonstrating that purity is a cultural artifact. And identity politics as well as science has an interest in keeping them opposite. To add "bisexuality" as a third category here is not in fact to refine the terms of analysis but instead to expose the radical limitations of rights-based arguments when linked to a concept of fixed identity." - Marjorie Garber, "Bisexuality: The Eroticism of Everyday Life"
There was a recent discussion in a friend's blog in which a lot of people understandably lambasted bisexual activist Kyle Schickner's "report" (I use this term loosely) about the lack of bi visibility at the 2010 GLAAAD awards in Los Angeles. The article, in addition to being poorly written, had some problems, notably his description of trans folk as having "leapfrogged from the bottom rung of the queer community past bisexuals by developing a community and iconic celebrities." The mainstream LGTBQ movement is at best dismissive of, and at worst, actively hostile and transphobic to trans people, and to set up this false dichotomy of trans versus bi (ignoring the many bi people who are trans). This can best be described as playing the "oppression olympics," and unfortunately colored what otherwise was a very fair point: that bi visibility has been significantly reduced since the 1990s, and that this is due to many factors, the most significant of which is a lack of a cohesive, political bisexual community within the LGTBQ movement.
But as the comments over Schickner's piece raged on, it became clear that many people who are queer or queer allies were incredibly dismissive over whether biphobia even exists, or whether bi activism is necessary or valid. The reasoning being that if one is visibly bisexual then the only oppression one experiences is homophobia And if one is not visibly bisexual (the assumption being that someone in a "heterosexual" pairing cannot be visibly bisexual, which is problematic in and of itself) then that person receives straight privilege, thus invalidating the concept of biphobia.
The argument goes that gay and lesbians, being part of an oppressed group, cannot have any institutional power over a privileged group - bisexuals being assumed to generally fall into the latter. And yet when you have examples like a self-described LGTBQ sports organization actively discriminating against bi people for "not being gay enough," it makes me wonder if the traditional model of privilege becomes too simplistic when talking about issues within queer communities. It seems that this is an area where a model based on intersectionality would be a more functional way of analyzing these issues as opposed to a black and white view of "real queer people" (i.e. queer people who are not partnered to other-sex people) versus bi people, seen as people who automatically benefit from an uncomplicated straight privilege due to the assumption that they are or will end up in opposite-sex partnerships and have no other visible markers of queerness.
Part of the problem is that I think most of us, within queer and queer ally spaces, do buy into a particular stereotype of the "typical bisexual" - a cisgendered young white woman who is partnered to a man, and either had some sexual interactions with women when she was single, or occasionally has threesomes with her man and another woman. I admit, one of the reasons I am still wary of describing myself as bisexual despite knowing, intrinsically, that my sexual desires are very queer, is because I fit into that stereotype. I know I have experienced very little homophobia in my life (although it would be incorrect to say I haven't experienced any) and don't anticipate facing much in the future, so taking on an oppressed identity felt like appropriating. But how bizarre is it to define an orientation by the amount of oppression one faces as opposed to who you are? The underlying sentiment that I see behind the stereotype of the typical bi person and the reaction to Schickner's piece is that bi people are sexual tourists, privileged people who get to flirt with a queer identity in an appropriative fashion who always have the ability to retreat into straight privilege.
This way of viewing bi identity is typical of the main issue bi people face that is actually separate from homophobia: invisibility. Bi people who are non-gender conforming, who date primarily same-sex partners or are in a same-sex relationship often do not get read as bi at all. So their existence as bisexuals is invalidated and shoved into the tent of "real queerness" and we're left with the most privileged bi people as the unofficial representatives for everything bi.
I recognize the problems with drawing comparisons between different kinds of oppressions and I will attempt to resist doing that here. But "passing" is a word that is used in various communities to define how much a person is able, intentionally or unintentionally, to "hide" a socially undesirable identity from mainstream culture. In most discussions about "passing" (and I acknowledge the word is inherently problematic for multiple reasons) the idea is that any privilege one receives from passing is a double-edged sword. Someone can pass as something they are not and receive privileges for it, but that doesn't negate their core identity and forces them into a constant cycle of having to chose whether to continually out themselves or not. The very stress that has to go along with having to constantly make that choice, day in and day out, is largely ignored in the context of most discussions I see about bisexuality.
This factors in with the current accepted narrative that claims that homosexuality is inherently an inborn trait, as is straightness. What would follow from conclusion, which is simplistic but may be based in some degree of fact, is that bisexuality is similarly an inborn trait, but it isn't treated as such. It often seems to me that the notion behind a biological root of homosexuality is the idea that no one would choose gayness if they were able to. Bisexuals fuck up that narrative by having the ability to "choose" to live either a gay or straight lifestyle yet by the very act of acknowledging themselves as bisexual they refute and refuse the binary. This is obviously threatening, primarily to straight people who don't want to confront the issue of sexual behavior as a choice, but also to the modern mainstream gay rights movement which depends on the idea that gay people really just can't help it - they're born that way.
How does this relate to biphobia? One of the main reactions to someone coming out as bisexual is a "yawn" or "why does this matter?" Those reactions are telling. Because bis have the ability to choose, their queerness is invalided, both by straights, and yes, sometimes by gay people as well. It's a "yawn," as in, "Why would you tell me this? Your sexual behavior doesn't concern me. You're really straight and looking for attention." Or it's "Why does this matter? What you do with your sex life is of no concern to me." While gay people get these reactions as well, from what I've seen it's more pronounced with regards to bi folk, because their sexual orientation is conflated with their sex lives. There was a time when gayness was reduced to same-sex acts, but mainstream gay rights organizations have gone a very good job of presenting gay people as a"just like straights" - married, picked fences, and so on. And this works, because if we "heteroize" gay behavior to be "Just like straight people, - biological, inborn, but with the same sex instead of the opposite sex," then it's less threatening to straight people as they don't have to really question their own potential queerness. This has been defined as "homonormativity" by Lisa Duggan. From Wikipedia:
"According to Penny Griffin, Politics and International Relations lecturer at the University of New South Wales, homonormativity upholds neoliberalism rather than critiquing monogamy, procreation, and binary gender roles as heterosexist and racist.[30] Duggan asserts that homonormativity fragments LGBTQ communities into hierarchies of worthiness. LGBTQ people that come the closest to mimicking heteronormative standards of gender identity are deemed most worthy of receiving rights. LGBTQ individuals at the bottom of the hierarchy (transsexuals, transvestites, intersex, bisexuals, non-gender identified) are seen as an impediment to this elite class of homonormative individuals receiving their rights.[31] "
You'd think it would be a big "duh" to say that defining a queer person primarily through how they have sex is horrible, but this is the common way that bi people are spoken of on mainstream gay blogs and communities, even though this is exactly the same line of thinking that has dehumanized and sexualized gay people within straight society. Bisexual behavior is far to often treated as a kink, or a sideline sexual interest, as opposed to being part of someone's identity. Mainstream gay rights organizations may have been somewhat successful in desexualizing gays, but this has never happened for bis, and won't be able to happen until we move past the simplistic narrative of being "born gay" or "born straight." The inherent radicalness of bisexuality forces everyone to confront the full spectrum of human sexuality, and for that reason it's threatening. Bisexuality, as something that is not just a biological imperative but an active choice, resexualizes the narrative of queerness.
As I've said before, I am not anti-identity politics. It has been an incredibly valuable way to inspire individual and community pride, as well as an essential organizing tool for achieving tangible political gain. But when speaking in a holistic sense about "sexual orientation" or "sexual identity" identity politics does not provide the tools to speak about someone's full experience. A cisgendered bisexual person in a heterosexual relationship may often pass as straight, and in that sense they absolutely have privilege over many other queer people. Yet that passing is fraught. Bisexual people are constantly judged on the basis of their sexual and relational choices, not just by a homophobic straight society, but by the queer community that demands they prove their queerness as the price of admission. Bisexuals are the "other" in both worlds. Straights wonder why bisexual people would choose to be out as bisexual, when they could easily pass - as in, "Why are you wasting the straight privilege you could have?" It seems like no one cares how bis actually experience privilege. Tomorrowshorizion wrote about this experience on Feministing: "My experience is that being initially granted straight privilege often just makes the backlash more vehement than if we'd just be read as queer in the first place. We're not just seen as weirdos, but also as traitors once they figure it out."
Meanwhile, there is real emotional pain and frustration associated with the difficulty of not being accepted in the queer community while being rejected by the straight world that is ignored in the larger discussion about privilege and power.
I'm not saying we shouldn't call out bis in queer spaces when they engage in homophobia or act in privileged ways. Of course we should, and bis, particularly those of us who benefit from striaght privilege, have a responsibility to own that and know when our voices are oppressive to other queer people. That said, the way I see things framed in current discussions about privilege ignores the complexities of bi identity and lives. Identity politics have been very helpful, but what happens when it bumps up against individualism and shitty Internet behavior? We get a narcissistic version of the oppression olympics in which the less privilege you have, the more you "win" - win at what, I haven't quite figured out yet. It seems obvious that oppression isn't a zero sum game, but in many queer and feminist spaces online and in the real world, it's certainly treated as such. Thus someone is who is bi and out becomes a target, because being bisexual, they are admitting to having access to straight privilege, and thus their experience of queerness is made irrelevant. If that's not biphobia, what is?
There was a recent discussion in a friend's blog in which a lot of people understandably lambasted bisexual activist Kyle Schickner's "report" (I use this term loosely) about the lack of bi visibility at the 2010 GLAAAD awards in Los Angeles. The article, in addition to being poorly written, had some problems, notably his description of trans folk as having "leapfrogged from the bottom rung of the queer community past bisexuals by developing a community and iconic celebrities." The mainstream LGTBQ movement is at best dismissive of, and at worst, actively hostile and transphobic to trans people, and to set up this false dichotomy of trans versus bi (ignoring the many bi people who are trans). This can best be described as playing the "oppression olympics," and unfortunately colored what otherwise was a very fair point: that bi visibility has been significantly reduced since the 1990s, and that this is due to many factors, the most significant of which is a lack of a cohesive, political bisexual community within the LGTBQ movement.
But as the comments over Schickner's piece raged on, it became clear that many people who are queer or queer allies were incredibly dismissive over whether biphobia even exists, or whether bi activism is necessary or valid. The reasoning being that if one is visibly bisexual then the only oppression one experiences is homophobia And if one is not visibly bisexual (the assumption being that someone in a "heterosexual" pairing cannot be visibly bisexual, which is problematic in and of itself) then that person receives straight privilege, thus invalidating the concept of biphobia.
The argument goes that gay and lesbians, being part of an oppressed group, cannot have any institutional power over a privileged group - bisexuals being assumed to generally fall into the latter. And yet when you have examples like a self-described LGTBQ sports organization actively discriminating against bi people for "not being gay enough," it makes me wonder if the traditional model of privilege becomes too simplistic when talking about issues within queer communities. It seems that this is an area where a model based on intersectionality would be a more functional way of analyzing these issues as opposed to a black and white view of "real queer people" (i.e. queer people who are not partnered to other-sex people) versus bi people, seen as people who automatically benefit from an uncomplicated straight privilege due to the assumption that they are or will end up in opposite-sex partnerships and have no other visible markers of queerness.
Part of the problem is that I think most of us, within queer and queer ally spaces, do buy into a particular stereotype of the "typical bisexual" - a cisgendered young white woman who is partnered to a man, and either had some sexual interactions with women when she was single, or occasionally has threesomes with her man and another woman. I admit, one of the reasons I am still wary of describing myself as bisexual despite knowing, intrinsically, that my sexual desires are very queer, is because I fit into that stereotype. I know I have experienced very little homophobia in my life (although it would be incorrect to say I haven't experienced any) and don't anticipate facing much in the future, so taking on an oppressed identity felt like appropriating. But how bizarre is it to define an orientation by the amount of oppression one faces as opposed to who you are? The underlying sentiment that I see behind the stereotype of the typical bi person and the reaction to Schickner's piece is that bi people are sexual tourists, privileged people who get to flirt with a queer identity in an appropriative fashion who always have the ability to retreat into straight privilege.
This way of viewing bi identity is typical of the main issue bi people face that is actually separate from homophobia: invisibility. Bi people who are non-gender conforming, who date primarily same-sex partners or are in a same-sex relationship often do not get read as bi at all. So their existence as bisexuals is invalidated and shoved into the tent of "real queerness" and we're left with the most privileged bi people as the unofficial representatives for everything bi.
I recognize the problems with drawing comparisons between different kinds of oppressions and I will attempt to resist doing that here. But "passing" is a word that is used in various communities to define how much a person is able, intentionally or unintentionally, to "hide" a socially undesirable identity from mainstream culture. In most discussions about "passing" (and I acknowledge the word is inherently problematic for multiple reasons) the idea is that any privilege one receives from passing is a double-edged sword. Someone can pass as something they are not and receive privileges for it, but that doesn't negate their core identity and forces them into a constant cycle of having to chose whether to continually out themselves or not. The very stress that has to go along with having to constantly make that choice, day in and day out, is largely ignored in the context of most discussions I see about bisexuality.
This factors in with the current accepted narrative that claims that homosexuality is inherently an inborn trait, as is straightness. What would follow from conclusion, which is simplistic but may be based in some degree of fact, is that bisexuality is similarly an inborn trait, but it isn't treated as such. It often seems to me that the notion behind a biological root of homosexuality is the idea that no one would choose gayness if they were able to. Bisexuals fuck up that narrative by having the ability to "choose" to live either a gay or straight lifestyle yet by the very act of acknowledging themselves as bisexual they refute and refuse the binary. This is obviously threatening, primarily to straight people who don't want to confront the issue of sexual behavior as a choice, but also to the modern mainstream gay rights movement which depends on the idea that gay people really just can't help it - they're born that way.
How does this relate to biphobia? One of the main reactions to someone coming out as bisexual is a "yawn" or "why does this matter?" Those reactions are telling. Because bis have the ability to choose, their queerness is invalided, both by straights, and yes, sometimes by gay people as well. It's a "yawn," as in, "Why would you tell me this? Your sexual behavior doesn't concern me. You're really straight and looking for attention." Or it's "Why does this matter? What you do with your sex life is of no concern to me." While gay people get these reactions as well, from what I've seen it's more pronounced with regards to bi folk, because their sexual orientation is conflated with their sex lives. There was a time when gayness was reduced to same-sex acts, but mainstream gay rights organizations have gone a very good job of presenting gay people as a"just like straights" - married, picked fences, and so on. And this works, because if we "heteroize" gay behavior to be "Just like straight people, - biological, inborn, but with the same sex instead of the opposite sex," then it's less threatening to straight people as they don't have to really question their own potential queerness. This has been defined as "homonormativity" by Lisa Duggan. From Wikipedia:
"According to Penny Griffin, Politics and International Relations lecturer at the University of New South Wales, homonormativity upholds neoliberalism rather than critiquing monogamy, procreation, and binary gender roles as heterosexist and racist.[30] Duggan asserts that homonormativity fragments LGBTQ communities into hierarchies of worthiness. LGBTQ people that come the closest to mimicking heteronormative standards of gender identity are deemed most worthy of receiving rights. LGBTQ individuals at the bottom of the hierarchy (transsexuals, transvestites, intersex, bisexuals, non-gender identified) are seen as an impediment to this elite class of homonormative individuals receiving their rights.[31] "
You'd think it would be a big "duh" to say that defining a queer person primarily through how they have sex is horrible, but this is the common way that bi people are spoken of on mainstream gay blogs and communities, even though this is exactly the same line of thinking that has dehumanized and sexualized gay people within straight society. Bisexual behavior is far to often treated as a kink, or a sideline sexual interest, as opposed to being part of someone's identity. Mainstream gay rights organizations may have been somewhat successful in desexualizing gays, but this has never happened for bis, and won't be able to happen until we move past the simplistic narrative of being "born gay" or "born straight." The inherent radicalness of bisexuality forces everyone to confront the full spectrum of human sexuality, and for that reason it's threatening. Bisexuality, as something that is not just a biological imperative but an active choice, resexualizes the narrative of queerness.
As I've said before, I am not anti-identity politics. It has been an incredibly valuable way to inspire individual and community pride, as well as an essential organizing tool for achieving tangible political gain. But when speaking in a holistic sense about "sexual orientation" or "sexual identity" identity politics does not provide the tools to speak about someone's full experience. A cisgendered bisexual person in a heterosexual relationship may often pass as straight, and in that sense they absolutely have privilege over many other queer people. Yet that passing is fraught. Bisexual people are constantly judged on the basis of their sexual and relational choices, not just by a homophobic straight society, but by the queer community that demands they prove their queerness as the price of admission. Bisexuals are the "other" in both worlds. Straights wonder why bisexual people would choose to be out as bisexual, when they could easily pass - as in, "Why are you wasting the straight privilege you could have?" It seems like no one cares how bis actually experience privilege. Tomorrowshorizion wrote about this experience on Feministing: "My experience is that being initially granted straight privilege often just makes the backlash more vehement than if we'd just be read as queer in the first place. We're not just seen as weirdos, but also as traitors once they figure it out."
Meanwhile, there is real emotional pain and frustration associated with the difficulty of not being accepted in the queer community while being rejected by the straight world that is ignored in the larger discussion about privilege and power.
I'm not saying we shouldn't call out bis in queer spaces when they engage in homophobia or act in privileged ways. Of course we should, and bis, particularly those of us who benefit from striaght privilege, have a responsibility to own that and know when our voices are oppressive to other queer people. That said, the way I see things framed in current discussions about privilege ignores the complexities of bi identity and lives. Identity politics have been very helpful, but what happens when it bumps up against individualism and shitty Internet behavior? We get a narcissistic version of the oppression olympics in which the less privilege you have, the more you "win" - win at what, I haven't quite figured out yet. It seems obvious that oppression isn't a zero sum game, but in many queer and feminist spaces online and in the real world, it's certainly treated as such. Thus someone is who is bi and out becomes a target, because being bisexual, they are admitting to having access to straight privilege, and thus their experience of queerness is made irrelevant. If that's not biphobia, what is?
5/4/10
Memoirs of a Unicorn
I am too GGG for my own damn good.
While I understand and appreciate Dan Savage’s fundamental principal of being a good, game and giving lover, I think there are many times it has led me astray. Like putting up with a crazy boyfriend who insisted on wearing a wrestling suit during sex, every time. Really, sometimes it’s okay to be NOT GGG. Namely, being the unicorn for people that you are not in a relationship with.
Last night my boyfriend asked me if I’d ever be into having a threesome with him. I replied that only if it was with him and another dude. I’ve been the unicorn too many times. The “hot bi babe” the boy-girl couple recruits for the threesome, then sends home in a cab a few hours later after they’ve enjoyed “spicing up” their relationship for a night.
I will admit that I did a lot dumb stuff in my twenties out of curiosity, for the stories, or simply because I like making people happy. FFM threesomes, while occasionally fun, and often problematic, have never really been my fantasy. MMF threesomes, on the other hand- bring it on. They just makes more sense logistically in terms of stick to hole ratio, but every time I get one lined up, someone backs out. And goddamit, karma owes me one for being the unicorn so many times over.
Having reached the ripe old age of thirty, I am frankly bored with being the person who makes someone else’s fantasy come true when there’s nothing in it for me. Oddly enough, although I’d participated in any number of orgies, play parties, and poly triads by my late twenties, I was 28 before I had my first threesome. I had a lot of FFM threesomes when I was 28, enough to pretty much lose interest in FFM threesomes forever.
I’ve read somewhere that it’s good etiquette to make the outsider party the focus of attention in a threesome, but I’ve never experienced that to be the case. Generally speaking, the FFM threesome is mainly for the benefit of one player in particular- and usually (though not always) it’s the man. At its worse, this manifested as one occasion where I helped a Domme fuck her husband’s ass- until he came and rolled over, and she walked away, and I hadn’t even taken my panties off! (And we’d supposedly negotiated that I was supposed to be the focus of the scene? After he got fucked, of course, and once he got fucked, he forgot all about that…)
On another occasion, I went down on the female primary partner of a guy I was dating while he watched in bondage. Once untied, she fucked him while I sat awkwardly on the edge of the bed, and I got sent home in a cab without getting off. Later she told me she “viewed me like a sister.” Ouch.
There was one couple I played with where I really felt like everyone had a good time- they were both hot, adventurous, and giving. Until they started texting and calling me non-stop with bizarro, controlling drama and power plays for the entire week following the hookup.
Honestly, I just find it easier to have sex with one person at a time. Margaret Cho once said something to the effect that a threesome is like trying to jam way too much stuff in your mouth at one time. She has a point, metaphorically and literally.
I’m hanging up my horn and relinquishing my hot bi babe duties to the younger, more curious, less jaded ladies. It’s time to be GGG for myself.
5/3/10
Why I'm not bi (anymore)
Hello, I’m GAOT and BAOT’s friend Girl About Chi Town, GACT for short, and will hopefully become a regular contributor to this blog. I'm a 30-year-old Bay Area native, Midwest transplant by way of LA and Japan.
I’m also a genderfluid heteroflexible androfemme queercentric sometimes nonmonogamous but never poly cisgirlfag. Do I sound like an asshole yet? I wasn’t always an asshole, identity politics made me this way.
Ten years ago, I was simply poly and bi, and life was a simpler (naive-er?) place. I've outgrown both of these labels after feeling repeatedly burned by them, and coming to better understand myself and the way these labels don't fit properly. In this entry, I am going to tackle the bi label only.
Ten years ago I didn’t understand why people were so reluctant to claim the bi label or why many former bis ditched the label to fall to one side or the other of the party line. I DO believe that bisexuality is real and I have mad respect for the people willing to put up with the bullshit that comes along with claiming the label. Because IT FUCKING SUCKS.There's already been a lot of talk on this blog about the queer community's negative attitudes towards bi people. The "B" in LGBTQIA feels a whole lot like lip service sometimes.
I will openly admit, I prefer cismen at this point of my life. My relationships with women have been consistently exhausting and drama riddled, no doubt because many of them fell in the context of poly situations where it was never really about just me and that one woman. (The way that the bi community has tied itself up part and parcel with polyamory is another piece of the problem that I'll avoid going into here). I keep saying I'm swearing off women for good, and yet, I never completely do. I still think women are hot, even if I don't currently want to be in a relationship with one. But I have retired the "bi" label, probably for good.
You know what it all boils down to at the end of the day?
You get a lot more shit from the queer community for being a bi woman who prefers men than being a “straight” woman who occasionally dabbles with girls. I could even argue that this sort of dabbling is expected and encouraged in our culture.
I don't consider myself straight and I've always lived, worked and breathed in the queer community. I'm queer oriented, but nothing is going to change the fact that I like dick, and I don't feel compelled to lie about this fact. So I ID as queercentric instead of queer, and heteroflexible instead of bi, and I'm bulletproof. Sorta. (Not really, but it's marginally easier than being bi.)
Nevermind the impressive numbers of lesbians I know of who fuck men on the DL and lie about it. Whatever helps you sleep at night?
I feel like labels are one of those things that generally work better in theory than in practice. Sure, we all agree that in theory, a queer identity can mean any number of non-normative sexual orientations. But in reality, if I claim a queer identity as a ciswoman, people generally assume I’m a dyke, and take issue when it turns out I actually like dicks. This results in a lengthy conversation where I am required to justify my queerness. Really, wouldn’t it just be easier for me to ID as hetero, if that’s what I am (in their eyes)? Why am I making this harder on myself? My queerness is not necessarily about liking to fuck women (which is why I go by queer and not dyke), but the time and energy involved in explaining the nuances of the unique and special snowflake of my queerness gets real tiresome, real fast.
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