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Culture September 6, 2017
No, they don't all want to have sex with you.
“Bisexual women aren’t real.”
This is something plenty of people say way too often.
Unfortunately, society finds it hard to believe that a person can find both men and women attractive. Bisexual women are either going through a “phase” or lying about their identities.
But this isn’t true and it comes from a lack of education about the sexuality spectrum. So, ENTITY is here to help clear up any misconceptions about bisexual women.
Before we start talking about misconceptions, however, we have to discuss what bisexuality is.
According to the Bisexual Resource Center, when it comes to sexuality, it’s important to distinguish between identity and behavior. An individual can identify or not identify as bisexual, despite any sexual experiences they may or may not have had.
The beauty of sexuality should be that no one can define your sexuality but you. The Bisexual Index states, “Bisexuality isn’t more complicated than that – ‘attraction to more than one gender.’ It’s not incompatible with identifying as gay, either. Bisexuality is proof that sexuality isn’t ‘either/or,’ it’s ‘and.'”
So, these following “arguments” against bisexual women just aren’t true.
For a lot of bisexual women (and men, of course), it’s difficult to feel comfortable in LGBTQ and straight spaces.
Rachel Charlene Lewis, a writer for Ravishly, an online blog, wrote about her experience dealing with bisexual erasure.
She said she feels her bisexuality is erased or dismissed when people don’t discuss sexual fluidity and how sexual identities can float between the strict, traditional straight and gay binaries.
“I explain these points to say this: On both ends of the sexuality binary, we’ve got some issues. We aren’t nearly as accepting and loving and judgment-free as we’d like to be, and this leaves people who identify with less- or non-binary sexualities feeling silenced, stepped-on and ignored,” Lewis wrote.
She continued by sharing how her friends often assume her identity. She has one side thinking she only dates women and another side making fun of lesbians who date men. And to make matters worse, her queer friends have told her that one day she’ll “pick a side.”
Ultimately, these comments leave her feeling alone. No matter what she identifies as, Lewis explains that she shouldn’t have to explain herself to gain legitimacy.
“LGBTQIA+ people are oppressed, and I would never argue that we aren’t. But we also need to be more open to discussing the ways that privilege embeds itself within that ever-lengthening acronym. Even when we mock the length of the acronym — as if it’s somehow a bad thing that more people are being included within a (supposed) community — we’re doing ourselves a disservice, and we’re hurting each other,” Lewis wrote.
While Lewis’ experience with bi erasure is one of many, she portrays what a lot of bisexual women deal with on a daily basis.
“We are queer, but we are people, too. Our uniqueness is real, and it is valuable,” Lewis added.
Another hurdle bisexual women face is proving their queerness when they marry or date a man. The decision to settle down with one partner doesn’t mean a woman has “made up her mind.” Marriage means a woman has chosen to settle down with a person she loves.
J.R. Thorpe, Bustle writer, wrote about her experience dealing with misconceptions as a married, bisexual woman.
Thorpe realized the LGBT community stopped viewing her as queer when they alienated her after settling down.
“Having a legally married dude partner means that, for some very lovely LGBT friends, I have sadly lost all my gay points, copped out, thrown in the rainbow-colored towel, and can no longer take part of Pride activities because I’m too busy being committed to male genitalia,” she wrote.
Regrettably, people like placing other people into groups and categories. The in-between is frightening. So when a bisexual woman settles down, people assume she chose a side. But the reality of it is, these women are still very much bisexual even if they’ve chosen to settle down with a man.
There is this misconception that bisexual women are choosing to be bi because they’re promiscuous. But here’s a newsflash: not every bi woman wants to sleep with you.
Being bisexual comes with its own discrimination and challenges, and pretending to be queer for attention is not a reason for anyone to erase their visibility.
Cosmopolitan writers Lane Moore and Sophie Saint Thomas wrote about their views on people who claim that bisexual women just want to sleep with everyone. They said, “Because I don’t just date one gender, people act like I’m attracted to every single person in every room, but in reality, I am usually attracted to zero people in most rooms. I’m a picky broad, man.”
Also, Thought Catalog writer Brianna West wrote about why bisexual women aren’t using it as an excuse to be slutty.
“(We won’t get into the politics of that word right now) because the point here is that truthfully, it’s easier to pass as “straight.” Believe me when I say: we would not choose an objectively more difficult path in life unless the opposite – not being true to ourselves – wasn’t even more so,” she wrote.
So at the end of the day, bisexual women are not dying for attention. They’re really just trying to live their lives as honestly as they can.
There are a lot of reasons someone chooses to engage in sexual activities with someone of the same sex. This doesn’t always mean they’re bisexual though.
According to Elite Daily, you know you’re bisexual if you find yourself attracted to both genders. Thus, experimenting with the same sex doesn’t necessarily define your sexuality because, again, it all comes down to attraction. NOT action.
But at the end of the day, no one can label your sexuality but you. If it feels right, then you have every right to label yourself as bisexual. Also, sexuality is fluid, so it can always change over time.
“You know yourself best. If you’ve read up on bisexuality, and you think it fits best with who you are, whom you’re attracted to and what you’re feeling — and you’re comfortable and happy in that identity — then congratulations, you are literally a bisexual,” Elite Daily writer Theresa Massony wrote.
Other than the fact that bisexual women have their identities erased when people refuse to acknowledge the legitimacy of their sexual preferences, bisexual women also deal with discrimination.
According to the Movement Advancement Project, 20 percent of bisexual people face discrimination in the workplace. And 60 percent reported hearing anti-bisexual jokes and comments in the workplace.
Sure, bisexual women can “pass” as straight, but just put yourself in their shoes. Would you want to constantly have to defend your identity? Probably not.
The beauty of the ever-growing LGBTQIA+ acronym is that it grows to be more inclusive. But society can’t just talk the talk. We need to also walk the walk. The more we learn about bisexual women and men, the more we can learn to be more accepting and understanding. This is a step in the right direction.
