"We're Queer! But are we here?" V 0.2

[eumelia]

There is suddenly a trend of bi-phobia going on in many of the communities I'm a member of.

Indeed there is a problem of visibility when one is Bi, since western culture is so effing obsessed with duality and binary thought.
If you are a woman and are desiring a woman (in abstract) you are homosexual.
If you are a woman and are desiring a man (in abstract) you are heterosexual.
And of course, if you're a woman who desires women and you are currently involved with a man, you are what?

According to our enlightened culture, I am, as a Bisexual (for instance): 1) confused, 2) "just curious", 3) a slut and 4) giving a bad name to the queer community.
Those are the 4 most common epithets given to Bisexuals from both ends; the Hetero-normative and the binary gay and Lesbian society*
(*I'm making sweeping general statements for arguments sake.)
And these thoughts are internalized by everyone including bisexuals who are just being who they are.

I first came out at 15 to my mother (which looking back was a mistake, since why should parents, especially parents who have gone through the whole Teen thing, take their 15 years old daughter seriously) I remember she said; "why don't you try being hetero first", and while I'm sure she didn't mean to hurt me by saying this. After all, all she wanted was for me to be happy and by adhering to hetero-normative behaviour I would be happy.
That was not the case.
I kept silent for five years.
Five years of feeling invisible to my family, of being afraid to even contemplate dating a girl, and settling for boys who I dated because that's what a girl does in her teens does.
But I never went back to being straight.

I was always Bi.
It's only during the army that I became queer.
Make sense?
No?
Well, in the army you find a niche, a clique I lacked in high school (since there was self consciousness, self loathing and other lovely things teenagers go through) and became friends with a bunch of queers (Yo "Gang"! I love you!), so I decided to be visible (not in the army, didn't need the heat), but I decided to come out again, since 19 is more stable than 15!
My father was very blase about the whole thing is a kind of "I'm your father I don't want to know things about your sex life!" which was a nice normal reaction I suppose.
And my mother asked me "Why do you insist on advertising your sexuality!?"
Because if I don't how will people know? And besides it's not like I walk up to people I just met and introduce myself as "Melody the Bisexual" and then go and ask them their sexual orientation
"Why must people know?"
Because people assume upon meeting anyone that they are like them. Meaning, if I went to a private gathering of people both old and new, the new (having never met me before) will assume that by my appearance (shaved head and all), that I am a straight woman.
Why?
Because that's what "normal, heterosexual" people do.
They assume that everyone is the way they are.
This is not always the case and it is hetero-normative brain washing that is causing the pain and confusion in many people with non binary sexualities - I don't even want to get into gender issues, because despite the fact that I was born a grrl in a female body, that doesn't mean every one was. It also doesn't mean that because I'm a girl (Grrl) I want to do what is traditionally expected of me.
I do not want to have children.
I do not wan to get married by the time I am thirty.
I do not believe in watching what I eat in order to lose weight (though I am currently struggling with my body image)
I believe make up is not necessary to accentuate your features.
I do not believe high heals are necessary in order to look sexy.
I think men in women's clothing is hot
I think women in men's clothing is hot.
I think women and men are hot in general.
I want to change the world.
I am a die hard sarcastic, cynical bitch.
You wanna contradict me!?
I want to be controversial.
I want to be a role-model to my nephews and niece (all of them have kick-ass Mothers, my very Feminist Big Sisters).

My stream of consciouses seems to be sliding away from the subject matter which is bi-phobia.
In essence bi-phobia is a symptom of a society unwilling to break away from it's own subjective norms and agendas.
There is no Black and White. Good and Evil - certainly good and evil actions, but the abstract concepts of Good and Evil do not work in our ambivalent, far from perfect world.

Yes we're Bi.
Yes we're Queer.
But are necessarily here?

What I'm trying to say is that we, those in between, those who are not the "Default" on either side of the spectrum, but rather are a part of the spectrum, must shrug off these self imposed criteria which only cause suffering and confusion.


I hope this wasn't too random and illogical.

Comments

[angeleyes1701.livejournal.com]

My summery of bisexuality is this:
I fall in love with people, not their reproductive organs. I am attracted to personality, and couldn't give an ass' rat about what they have between their legs.

And I don't care how socially acceptable or unacceptable that is. I am equally attacted to men and women. The fact I currently choose to share my life with a man is not because of his gender (which is still somewhat in question) but because he's an amazing fascinating person.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

*calpcalpclap*