Elaine Miller
This is another piece that was written to be read aloud. And it has. It's been heard all over this town. It's kind of trampy that way.
Sexuality, Gender, and Labels, Oh My! - Elaine's Token Bisexual Piece or: Bisexual Bygones.
I used to be bisexual. Now I’m cured.
Bear with me and follow my logic…
The word "bisexual" brings up the memory of a statement of fact that I read back when I was an information-deprived budding teen. The book in question was a highly recommended volume on human sexuality.
(This is the same one that told me there was no such thing as a sadistic woman.)
The bisexual person, by definition, is one who has a relationship with a man, then another with a woman, then the next with a man, then a woman, and so forth. Riding a serial monogamy gender pendulum, if you will.
Way back when I read this, I had a brief image of myself, sitting down with my checklist, and saying "Ken, Barbie, Ken, Barbie, Ken... Ah! Time for a woman!" Then I would go out and find a pretty, feminine woman with long tresses and a mysterious thing under her skirts that smelled of talcum powder, form a lasting, empowering relationship, and until the next swing of the pendulum, make sweet love in a tender, feminine, butterfly-like fashion.
This was obviously not for me, ‘cause I like to fuck
Despite this, bisexual was the only word I had, so I kept it near and dear. And I went through some confusing times. Since the day thirteen years ago when I happily announced that I was Bi, I have been bombarded with the strangest comments from people, sparked perhaps by the myths that abound in the great monosexual world.
One woman told me that I was not a real bisexual, because in her opinion, since I was in a long-term, committed relationship with a man, I favored men by about a 70/30 split. This, I suppose, made me not bisexual, but 70% heterosexual - or, if she took an optimistic view; 30% lesbian. I wondered if 50/50 was the only way I could be Bi, or if she’d maybe settle for 55/45.
A few years later, another friend informed me that I was not bisexual, I was a dyke; because I was in a long-term, committed relationship with a woman. She was even worried that I might shave my head or begin to wear army boots. For her sake, I considered the mechanics of actually being straight, then gay, then straight, then gay... here we go with the pendulum theory again. Imagine a series of one-night stands - the identity swaps alone would make me quite dizzy.
Swinger, indeed.
A question often put to me by perfectly heterosexual men "What the heck do you see in women, anyhow?"
This makes some long-standing points of confusion suddenly clear in my mind, but is still, on the face of it, an odd thing to say.
I have been asked by a lesbian feminist not to openly admit my bisexuality because it would be bad publicity for the lesbian collective of which we were both a part. We were lovers at the time.
And then there’s a few "positive" myths, like this one:
"Bisexuals are so noble and open-minded! They love people for themselves, not their bodies."
Oh yes, you are absolutely right, there. It’s not your smooth, warm skin and your beard stubble scraping my thighs, not your tight little round butt or the curve of your hips. Not your sweet, hard prick, your amazingly perky nipples, or my fist in your warm, wet cunt. Not your head thrown back in pleasure as I fuck your ass, run my hands through your chest hair, over your soft breasts, along the line of your jaw, and pull your hair. Pretty boy. Handsome girl. No, it’s not your body. It’s your mind I want. Really.
Apart from these types of myth-information, there’s another hurdle to being bisexual. Many professional sex-therapists, such as Dr. Ruth Westheimer, don’t really believe in bisexuals. Nor do many people on the street, who may have been listening overmuch to Dr. Ruth.
I just have not yet made up my mind, you know. Or is it that I am denying my real self? Maybe I haven’t met the right man - or woman yet. Enjoying heterosexual privilege, and afraid to give it up? Goddam fence-sitters.
Back then, being told I didn’t exist made me want to form a Doubted-Existence support group for the likes of me, Santa Claus, Bigfoot, and Elvis. I imagined us all sitting about sharing our painful coming out experiences, and the disbelief from family and friends. "Oh, sure, you are. Yes, dear. Whatever you say."
Part of Doubted-Existence angst is this: You can’t tell who and what I am by looking. People tend to include me automatically in whatever grouping we both *appear* to be a part of – whether that be dykes, straight girls, bar flies, dominant women, or drag kings.
Don’t assume for a second that I don’t enjoy being accepted or acceptable. The welcome is wonderful. It’s just that the assumption limits me... by definition.
So, back to the term "bisexual". It, more and more, seemed not to describe me the way I saw me. It wasn’t big enough, didn’t cover enough ground and at the same time wasn’t precise enough.
I tried using the term "Sexual", but that sounded too much like cheesy porn. "Hi, I’m Bambi, and I’m Sexual"
I toyed for a while with being "gender-indifferent." But that didn’t fit. ‘Cause whatever I might be indifferent to, it’s not your gender. Although if I were to feel attracted to a person of indeterminate gender, I need not label that person man or woman, male or female, to validate my desire. I can simply save it for a surprise, for when we get home. Or I might never know or need to know, at all. But that flavour of indeterminate gender, I’ve come to realize, can be seen as a special gender all its own. And it’s not indifference that I feel towards it.
If I wanted to be obnoxious--and let’s face it, I usually do--I might say that I have no gender-dependency issues. That, at least, is a little closer to the truth. What I look for may be your subtle wit, your way of moving, your willingness to play at inopportune times, your kisses stopping time.... It may be the feel of your skin, your cynicism, or even your uninhibited insatiability. You know what you want, and that turns me on.
None of these are qualities inherent to only one of the many genders. Still, "I have No Gender -Dependency Issues" takes a long time to say, and requires a certain amount of explanation, and even if it fell into popular use it would become an acronym in no time at all... NGDI.
I shudder at the thought.
Bigendered is a concept I’ve recently stumbled across, the idea that is not precisely of one gender only, but that a person can be either masculine and feminine on different occasions. The flavour’s right for me in many ways but again I dislike the implied polarity, the either/or. For I can tell you that a woman can experience her sexuality from a thousand different places along the gender spectrum.
You know, I think I’ve finally decided about these words: bisexual, bigendered, sexual. I’ll take them all. In fact, every word that will possibly describe even a small piece of me; I want.
So I’ll take slut, too. And polyamorous, and sex worker. I’ll take sadist and top and pornographer and professional dominatrix and gender-bender and rebel, as long as I can have tea-drinking philosopher, loyal and loving and ethical-as-I-can-be, romantic and sappy, and nerd, which describe me just as well.
I’ll take these words, and more. These words, all of them, they’re meant to be descriptive, so I’ll write them on something nice and sticky, and slap ‘em on. That’s what labels are for, right?
And I want everybody else to do the same. The rule is, you can’t stick (pardon the pun) at one, though, can’t let your world be bounded and described by one little word (whichever one that is) that no-one can agree on. You have to take all of them, wear every label that will stick, every one that describes even a secret piece of your soul.
I suspect what will happen is this:
Once we all have all our labels: the ones we choose for ourselves and the ones we are given by those around us, starting with the major ones and working our way along to the awfully minor things, the things we might not even think to talk about… we might all by that time have so many labels attached that we can’t see over them, can’t be seen around them, can’t touch another without them getting in the way. Then what I suspect will happen is this: We’ll all have take off the labels. We’ll all have to start again, naked.
I used to be bisexual, and now I’m cured. If you want to know what I really am, peel off my labels and look at the person inside.
