A few weeks ago I was speaking with one of my friends. He started making Youtube videos and came out publicly in social media. However, I had to ask him in private why he was just including the gay flag if he told me he was bisexual. At first, he just said that it was easier that way, and then, when he talked about it again because I was still confused, he told me "I'm not gonna make a video about how women make me hard, I mean, please".
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| "The common idea of bisexuality doesn't match what bisexuality actually is." Source. |
I couldn't help but wonder what was the actual meaning of this phrase. Was he in denial? Not really. He speaks about it naturally with me, maybe not with others. So maybe it's privacy, but then he has shared some revealing pictures here and there and opened up about homophobic events he experienced.
The only explanation that was left is that he may not think it is necessary to have someone speaking bisexuality, that speaking about gay rights is more important. If that's the case, then is it really so? Because I think it's quite the opposite.
While it's true that we need to say gay, we also need to say bi. There has been a lot of works towards sexodiversity and queer rights, but a big portion of that has gone towards gay, lesbian, and trans people, which is ironic, because some studies ("Understanding Bisexuality", 2017) suggest that:
"Bisexual people may comprise the largest single group in the LGB community for both women and men. Nevertheless, many believe that bisexuality does not really exist, and bisexual people suffer bi-invisibility or erasure and bi-negativity from both the lesbian and gay community and the heterosexual community, which may explain evidence suggesting higher rates of health disparities bisexuals experience compared to either."
When I remember that conversation with my friend, I go back to my childhood, to that kid who knew he some guys were pretty but that he couldn't say that, the 8 years old boy who knew he liked boys and girls just the same, the 11 years old who learned about the B word, the 13 years old who wouldn't miss A Shot of Love with Tile Tequila because he saw someone he could relate to (I won't comment on that woman for now).
I remember when I was alone and wanted something or someone I could look at and say "I'm not the only one, there are others like me". I haven't seen particularly many examples of bisexuality in the media, which is a shame and something we need to work on. Dr. Nora Madison, a media professor at Chestnut Hill College (Jones, 2020), agrees with me:
"The more people are exposed to a variety of sexualities, especially in positive or affirming contexts, the more opportunities individuals have to figure their own identities out as well as broaden their viewpoints about others".
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| Another reason to say Bi: I couldn't find another image about bisexuality than this one on Pixabay. |
I've been thinking about that single phrase for a time, considering what it could mean and why it bothered me so much. It was finally clear when I started working on this post: here was a man who knew what he was doing, with talent and passion for his work, a bisexual like me, slowly building-up a public, and he was just speaking gay topics.
Some may say "but you're half gay, right?". Er, no. I'm not half anything. I'm a whole bisexual person. The struggles and needs of gay people may be similar to those of bi's, but they are not the same. I knew it when I felt frustrated and wished I could just be straight or gay, so it would me simpler, when I first spoke with my parents about it and they asked me how I could be sure, when my mom asked me if I even liked women to begin with, when my now-boyfriend felt disrespected because I said I liked men and women in front of him.
People don't understand bisexuality, they think it's something, and it might be closer to what they thought before, because I'm not denying whatever progress there has been, but the common idea of bisexuality doesn't match what bisexuality actually is.
While it's true that I love gay porn (and would love to interview some actors), gay books, comics, movies, and so on, I also like lesbian, straight, trans content, and I crave for bisexual more than any other. It may be another reason why I stopped reviewing porn, too.
It may make me a poser to some degree, but I want to create and do things that can help fix this. I want to write stories about bi characters, do articles about bisexuality, share the content of bisexual people, and daydream about making someone's life easier the way mine was when I was first exposed to bisexuality in that hideous woman's show, and do it better, since we're at it.
References:
- Jones, Z. (2020). Where does the media's portrayal of bisexuality go from here?. Retrieved 4 October 2022, from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bi-visibility-day-media-bisexuality-portrayal/
- Understanding Bisexuality. (2017). Retrieved 4 October 2022, from https://www.apa.org/pi/lgbt/resources/bisexual
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