Sorry if this is the wrong comm, but I had to get this off my chest. I am so sick and tired of dealing with bi-erasure. I am a bisexual man who is I'd say 90% attracted to women and 10% attracted to men. Best I can explain it, I am mostly attracted to women and occasionally attracted to a man. It really is that simple, but for a lot of people I might as well be explaining calculus. I understand if most straight people can't fathom it, after all they are straight. But what really irks me is when other LGBT people erase it, telling me I am "in the closet" or whatever. It makes me so damn angry because I am not in the closet, I am open about my bisexuality, yet no one believes it. I have only dated women, but everyone in my life off and online including my gf who herself is LGBTQ+ thinks I am gay. I'm so sick of it I think I'll either just tell people I am straight or become gay.
People think that bi men are actually gay and bi women are actually straight. Not even LGBT people are immune to that.
in my experience a lot of other lgbt people think the opposite, that bi men are straight, and bi women are lesbians
Yeah, it's also funny because when people aren't just like "You're probably just confused" there's usually at least a "Oh, you mean you want to fuck everybody?" In there too
Look, yes, I've got a strong sex drive and I find a wide variety of things attractive, but I'm not some sort of sex-craved maniac
“You’re probably just confused”
I HATE this one. Im not confused, I know I find sexy women hot and sexy men hot. No confusion there.
“Oh, you mean you want to fuck everybody?” In there too
Honestly, as dumb as this is I think this is less wrong than saying I am gay lmao
but I’m not some sort of sex-craved maniac
:side-eye-1: :side-eye-2:
the amount of people responding to you that they're sex crazed maniacs makes me thankful for the volcel police
I wish people could be chill while also keeping vampy evil bisexuals as a character archetype. Like, it's for sure problematic but it's also goals.
chaotic vampy bisexuals have such powerful energy. we just need to add other types of bisexual archetypes to media, not remove that one ya know
Sure, but for genre fiction stuff I wanna keep being the coolest character.
when other LGBT people erase it
Honestly it confounds me how people can behave like that. Not even from like a "wow how dare you" perspective but legitimately it's incoherent as a position. I can at least understand a straight cis person not getting it because they're never really pushed to reflect on it by society. If you're already queer in some way what's the cognitive issue with believing people can be attracted to more than one gender and in different ways?
I can at least understand a straight cis person not getting it because they’re never really pushed to reflect on it by society. If you’re already queer in some way what’s the cognitive issue with believing people can be attracted to more than one gender and in different ways?
You nailed it, its totally baffling to me. How can you yourself be queer and just not understand it? Is it really that difficult to imagine I am attracted to people regardless of gender? To me it seems like the most simple thing in the world, "I like what I like."
The only thing I can figure is "what no theory does to a motherfucker" is at work bc how disconnected do you have to be from queer theory and queer history to dismiss bi people?
:this:
it's such an easy test for whether or not someone is toxic.
similar vibe with who gets upset about the concept of bisexual lesbians.
It's not that surprising. Try asking a grounded conventionally attractive straight woman to give online dating advice to a grounded conventionally attractive straight man and watch how the difference in lived experience just grinds the conversation to a halt teetering on the edge of mutual recriminations. The amount of times I've heard women tell men to 'try dating themselves first' (which is what they are already doing, dinner and treats etc.) is honestly hilarious.
People, for the most part, don't really go out of their way to imagine what the lives of other people are like, and therefore are only really able to empathize with people who share common backgrounds and experiences with them. As soon as they are confronted with real, substantial differences they just start to assume that the other party is lying, or exaggerating their problem. There is just a complete lack of trust and zero communication skills. Nearly total alienation.
Try adding in stuff like gender and sexuality and it just becomes an even more complex gradiated nightmare. Not that it should be if ignored, but it is a huge Gordian knot for modern discourse.
Exactly! And, importantly, this social set-up is also mentally punishing for those that do their best to empathize because their genuine attempts to empathize are rebuffed with hostility or 'seen as weird', which is painful for those that are attempting genuine interactions.
Lol, thanks. I was born with and have mastered one skill and that is multi-media observation with interpersonal and societal analysis.
To quote the great Glenn Braca, I'd sell out anytime but nobody is buying.
Word. The complete disinterest in empathy and understanding the Other that is so common in the real world is mentally scarring. Finding out so many people are totally indifferent to the suffering of people who aren't just like them hurts, and it keeps hurting every time I encounter it.
It's like we as a society :joker-troll: can only focus on one letter of LGBT+ at a time.
I get this a lot, a lot of people assume I'm either gay or asexual because I never talk about sex. When I tell them I'm pan they just assume I'm gay and not at terms with it. I'm hella attracted to women, I just don't talk about it so people assume I'm not. But then I'm also hella attracted to men and I don't talk about that, and people assume I'm gay because of it
The way cishet dudes talk about sex/women makes me want to do an adventurism at my workplace. But I don't really talk to anyone so they don't talk to me, either.
I feel for the bi homies and homettes in a seemingly cishet long term stable relationship to someone else bi, no one believes you damn.
fwiw, one of the first big organized pride marches was led by a bi woman. Yall have always been a part of the struggle for liberation.
always fun when a lot of the rep we get is just more erasure lmao
I am a demi-man. I’m sexually attracted to femme-ish people I’m emotionally close with. I’m romantically attracted to pretty much anyone I’ve ever had a good conversation with. I think that counts?
Yeah, same. I mean, I guess technically I'm pan, but I usually say bi (you think bi is calculus to people, then pan is like quantum physics). I'm just attracted to people. A lot of them! But I'm in a hetero relationship, so I get dismissed as a closeted gay man.
I don't understand what is so hard for people to understand.
Even as a kid when I wasn't on the left, hadn't been exposed to much LGBT information, and was only slightly less homophobic than the average kid at the time, I never had any problem at all understanding or believing anything about being bi, and no one around me did either.
Like, okay, the majority of people are attracted to the opposite sex, and then some are attracted to the same sex, so it's not at all weird or surprising or counterintuitive that others get one of the attractions without losing the other one.
Cishet bigots seem to get really twisted up in knots about things like gender identity but I've never heard one be like BI??? HOW DO BOTH FIT?? OXYMORON? THOUGHT EXPERIMENT? DOUBLETHINK 1984?? Of course they do sometimes cast doubt and try to erase bi people but it's not a strong or prominent sentiment compared to their other mental hangups.
It kind of reminds me of trans lesbians who say that other trans women will sometimes be like, no you cant be gay sorry. I think bisexuals and transbians are both threatening to some gay and trans people because of the particular battles they are fighting against the wider society. For trans women, one of the main sources of paranoia and hatred is that they are somehow cloaking in order to get sexual contact with other women. For cis gay people, one of the big ideas they have to push back on is the concept that it's "a choice" which on an extremely, extremely surface level is true if you're bi. At least they think cishet people will see it that way.
An LGBT person who can't accept someone being bi or transbian or any other mix of sexuality or gender identity is just abandoning solidaristic struggle for a crab barrel approach.
the majority of people are attracted to the opposite sex, and then some are attracted to the same sex, so it’s not at all weird or surprising or counterintuitive that others get one of the attractions without losing the other one.
You would think right? I don't know why that concept is so mindblowing
An LGBT person who can’t accept someone being bi or transbian or any other mix of sexuality or gender identity is just abandoning solidaristic struggle for a crab barrel approach.
Real
It is an effect of Heterosexual culture that causes the current LGBTQ to reflexively use the logic of the Heteros, but just spin it on its head.
Most queer folx I know are hella supportive of bi people, but it's definitely an issue with some older queers.
I think it's leftover stigma from the false perception that bi people are able to "more easily" retreat into the closet. That's total bullshit since a lot of people accross the queer community did that during Reagan's AIDS genocide trying to survive.
either way, it pisses me the fuck off. queer folks who gatekeep other people will be compassionately re-educated after the revolution.
quickest way I've found to figure out another queer person's brain worms is to mention I'm a bisexual lesbian.
