“Anyone you’re dating who gets upset upon learning you’re bi is doing you a favor by disqualifying themselves from the list of People Who Get to Date You.”
it isn’t said on tv. orange is the new black, for example, features a bisexual protagonist who points out the biphobia at one point in assuming she can’t be attracted to multiple genders, but no one Ever says the word and she is ignored and referred to as a straight girl or a lesbian depending on the situation
other bisexual characters later turn out to have been Really Monosexual All Along. or are attractive, promiscuous women with commitment issues
this isn’t a coincidence.
people who are attracted to multiple genders, when asked about it, often describe themselves as “Fluid”. “I’d rather not label it.” “I don’t need to define it.” “It’s just whatever.” as if people are afraid of even implying the b word
this isn’t a coincidence.
the word ‘bisexual’ gets you different reactions in different places. straight people think you’re either faking for attention or a deviant. straight men are afraid of bi men and think bi women are just particularly promiscuous straight girls who want to have threesomes with them
gay men accuse bi men of being in the closet. lesbians accuse bi women of being straight girls going through a phase. and the ones who don’t do either of these things still often assume bisexuals are promiscuous, indecisive, and can’t settle down.
the theme throughout is that bisexually is illegitimate, deceptive, and always a front for something else.
this isn’t a coincidence
people are constantly encouraged to ‘settle down’, to ‘just pick one’, to ‘not be greedy’. abandon bisexuality. you’re really gay. you’re really straight. you’re too young. how can you know you’re bisexual at 16? 18? 20? 25?
this isn’t a coincidence
the word ‘bisexuality’ is constantly, persistently manipulated, by people who aren’t bisexual at all. the meaning twisted on shallow rationale. accused of being transphobic, or of being exclusionary. this has been happening for over 20 years now despite the existence of outspoken trans and/or non-binary bisexuals. whatever they can do to make you not say the word. pick a different one.
this isn’t a coincidence
bisexual people – whether implied or literally, deliberately saying they are bisexual using the word – are constantly rewritten as gay or as straight. gay icon. he was never interested in men. bi actor comes out? headlines say ‘came out as gay’, or articles outright ignore it
it’s never, ever a coincidence. bi erasure is a constant, ongoing thing.
I never thought this was a thing, but it totally is.
When I told my best friend (who is gay) that I’m bi it was like I had to prove myself to him as not simply gay and too afraid to admit it.
I mean, can’t you just take my word for it???
this is why i feel the scene in brooklin nine-nine where rosa says “im bisexual” and his dad says “there is not such a thing as bisexual” is important because she answers with this:
believe it or not, like the show or not, it was a sincere moment and one that all bisexuals go trought at some point
we all talk about representation, but we need more of it, in all fronts, bisexuals exist, we are alive and we dont have to explain ourselves to everyone
achilles is so often called gay by the community and straight by society even though he fell in love with men and women. freddie mercury is known as the most famous gay man even though he self identified as bisexual. channing tatum is constantly called straight even though he’s dated men and women. evan rachel wood and angelina jolie and drew barrymore–all self identified bi women constantly called straight.
sappho wrote love poems for both men and women and yalls response to the idea that she might have been bi is “there was no concept of bi/gay back then!! let’s focus on the fact that she was sapphic!!” to the point where her name has become synonymous with gay and she’s called a lesbian icon and y’all only seem to have issues with “concepts” and labels when the concept/label is BI. why am i not surprised?
bisexuality is valid pass it on
The first paragraph is great, but you need to check your sources on sapphos love poems for men.
Im more than happy to be proven wrong, but one poem compliments a bridegroom (probably not someone she was marrying as she wrote many similar marriage hymns for brides) and another uses a Greek word that can be translated as ‘man’, ‘slave’, or more commonly ‘youth’. Obviously 19th and 20th century translations give it as ‘man’ bc they couldn’t bear the thought of the so called ‘tenth muse’ being a lesbian.
I don’t know of any others that are about men.
Hi! Classics scholar here.
Sappho’s sexual orientation is a frequent topic of debate, and there is no clear consensus. However, there is a very strong argument that she was bisexual.
Fragment 72 addresses a young man and alludes to other affairs Sappho may have had with men. Fragment 98 talks about “he who is fair,” and Fragment 27 is also addressed to a man that Sappho calls “dear one.” Fragment 115, which is mentioned above, likens a bridegroom to a slender sapling, which is definitely lustful when you understand that she is alluding to a line in the Odyssey.
We know that some of Sappho’s poetry was addressed to men, but that doesn’t always come across in translation, likely because English does not have gendered nouns. But in the Greek, we can tell that the lover she refers to in Fragment 27, for example, is a man, because she uses the masculine form of “dear.” I don’t know about the potential mistranslation of “slave, youth” – it’s not something I’ve ever seen before – but the character to which Sappho refers is definitely male because in Greek the word for male slave would be different from the word for female slave.
What’s more is that the lore surrounding Sappho, even in antiquity, depicts her as loving both men and women. She is often shown with Alcaeus, another lyric poet who was her contemporary and rumoured to be one of her lovers. In some stories, she falls in love with the ferryman Phaon. And these associations appear on 5th and 6th century vases, in Ovidian poetry – well before modern notions of homophobia.
I could go on and on. I could write an essay on Sappho’s sexuality. But I won’t. Here is what I will say:
We know so little about Sappho’s life that she very well could have been bisexual, and there is nothing in her poetry to refute that. In fact, fragments of Sappho’s poetry and representations of her character in ancient works support the theory that Sappho was bisexual.
So claiming her as a bisexual woman who’s sexuality has been obscured is not inaccurate. At all. It’s spot on.
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