There comes a point in every relationship where one must disclose some of their uglier tendencies for the health of the future bond, where one must acknowledge their darker thoughts and feelings in the interests of transparency. After so many weeks of writing this newsletter, I believe we have reached that point, and so — reader, I guess what I’m asking is, can I be honest with you?
Painful as it is to admit this, I have to tell the truth: I have a bias against bisexual men.
It’s not the kind of bias that people usually have. I don’t think that bi men are just gay dudes who are scared to come out*, nor do I think that they’re vectors of disease or destined to cheat. I don’t have a problem with the men I’m involved with expressing a curiosity in sex with other men — and I certainly don’t question the validity of men’s bisexuality and bi desires when they openly declare them.
No, my own bias is something more specific and more unusual, and primarily triggered by the glorification of bi men — the kind of thing you see on Twitter, when someone gets it into their head that if privilege == bad then marginalization == good and starts telling women if they want to be treated well, they should expressly seek out bi partners, that bi men will understand their struggle and be more feminist, more courteous, more egalitarian. My bias — if we can even call it that — is simply that I do not trust men’s bisexuality to counteract their maleness, I do not trust bi men to automatically be better. I do not feel like our bisexuality automatically unites us in the same fight, or like I can trust that bi men will absolutely have my back.
I don’t love that I feel this way, but at least I come by it honestly. The root of this bias — this distrust — of bi men is a fairly simple one. The man I dated in my late teens and early twenties, my first serious boyfriend, the first partner I ever lived with, was bisexual. He was also the man who spent years emotionally and sexually abusing me, whose abuse still sticks with me more than eighteen years after our breakup.
I should note here that of course some bi men are abusive, in the same way that some bi women are abusive and some gay men and some straight women and some members of every gender and sexuality demographic. And I don’t think that my ex’s bisexuality was what made him an abuser: the worst of what he did to me was not bi specific, and most of it could have been carried out by a straight man as well (another demographic that, if we’re being honest here, I’m also biased against).
But my abuser used his bisexuality in a very specific way. He used it to gain my trust, leading me to believe that as two queers out in the world, we were in this together, we were on the same page. He wielded his bisexuality as an identity that set him apart, that made him better than straight men — and then he abused me no differently than any straight man might, exploiting my own bisexuality to coerce me into group sex without giving me the space to reflect on whether I wanted it or not.
He also, I should note, used his bisexuality to abuse me as well. One of his go to tactics was belittling my sexual performance and skills, and here he had the upper hand on any straight abuser. Because my abuser knew what it was to please a man, and he used his own abilities to mock and humiliate me. If he could deep throat a giant cock, then why couldn’t I? If he knew what it was to take a dick, then what was I complaining about? It was never simply a question of whether or not I was disappointing him; I was also failing to live up to these arbitrary standards that he, himself, could meet — and I learned to ignore my own boundaries, my own comfort, my own needs, in order to meet them.
I don’t like that I feel this way — certainly, it would be vastly better for my mental health if I had never been abused, had never learned to distrust any men, let alone bi men in particular. But I cannot unlive my life, I cannot undo what I have seen. And what I know, what continues to haunt me, is the way that a particular kind of bi man is uniquely positioned to wield both his privilege and marginalization in abusive ways, the way that dating a bi man can be, not some refuge from the violence of dating straight men, but something just as bad and occasionally even worse.
And of course #NotAllBiMen, absolutely, but also, that’s not really the point. Because my one consolation here, even as I wrestle with what happened to me and how it affects my relationship with the male members of my community, is that I do not fight for bi rights and bi people because I think we are uniquely good, because I think we are some special class of person who has never done anything wrong. I fight to end biphobia knowing that bi people are both abusers and victims, that we are monsters and angels, that we contain multitudes, simply because I think that an end to biphobia is a path to greater freedom. I fight to end biphobia simply because I want better for the world.
* TBH I’m probably the least biased against the super gay bi dudes
I think there are several layers to be unpacked when people assume that dating someone from a marginalized sexuality is inherently better than dating a straight man. As you have elaborated (and thank you for sharing your story with us, and I’m sorry for the trauma that you are living with), bi men are not exempt from wielding the power that patriarchy confers on them as men and they even use their marginalisation as a cloak to excuse or disguise their abuses. I think there needs to also be a similar conversation around abuse in sapphic relationships – I remember coming across a tiktok by a lesbian woman a while ago who talked about the excessive glorification of sapphic relationships on the internet which has led many women/nby ppl to believe that sapphic relationships are perfect and are unlikely to be abusive. the repercussions of that are often women in abusive sapphic relationships end up subconsciously denying that abuse or not recognising it as abuse because they have come to believe that is not a possibility. there were quite a few women in the comments section talking about their experiences and how they had to learn that abuse can happen in any relationship the hard way, and that recognising it in relationships that are different from straight man/straight woman can be difficult.
This really hit me in a place. One of the most egregious fuckboys I ever dated claimed to be bi, which gave me an internalized suspicion of bi men for years. Of course, I say “claimed” because I have no evidence that he actually had sexual encounters with (or even desire for) men and wasn’t just loudly performing queerness just because, in the scene we were in, it made him cooler, edgier, more popular with women and allowed him to claim a marginalization that gave him a pass on asshole behavior. Re-examining that relationship now, I’m hesitant to even consider him bi and not just “fake gay,”which then leads back to the whole “is this person really queer or just faking it for attention?” can of worms that is the crux of biphobia to begin with. PROBLEMATIC!