When I was 17, and newly arrived in New York City, I went to Meow Mix — also known as the dyke bar that briefly appears in Chasing Amy, and regrettably, a bar that no longer exists — with a friend, I think for some 18+ femme night (yes, I had a fake ID). In the lead up to the event I was excited. I’m not sure what, exactly, I was expecting; probably the kind of magical “Dorothy enters Oz” type moment that people are always pitching their inaugural queer bar excursions as.
(Okay technically this wasn’t my first trip to a queer bar: when I was 14, back in Buffalo, my sister and I ran a scam a couple times where I’d pretend to be an 18-year-old who’d left her ID at home at talk the bouncers at Club Marcella into Xing my hands and letting me in so I could see the drag show. But this was my first dyke bar experience.)
It will probably not surprise you to learn that my trip to Meow Mix was, well, underwhelming. There were no magical makeouts in an alley a la But I’m A Cheerleader; I don’t even think I saw anyone I thought was cute. I was just 17, in a tiny bar on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, surrounded by people I didn’t really want to talk to. Maybe it would have been different if I hadn’t grown up with queer people, maybe it would have been different if I hadn’t had access to a queer youth group while I was in high school, maybe it would have been different if being queer had felt more impossible to me than it did. Or maybe I was destined to always feel the way I did: slightly disappointed, slightly out of step, unable to access the feeling of relief, of belonging, that so many others had told me about.
This is not an unusual experience for me. So often I find myself feeling the most out of step when surrounded by folks who are the most demographically like me: it is when I am with, say, other queer New York Jews, that I find myself feeling the most like an out-of-focus photograph; the most aware of all the ways that I am not quite as expected. So I don’t mean to say that this is some Universal Bisexual Experience™️ — certainly, there are plenty of bisexuals who would have walked into Meow Mix that night and felt something utterly different than I did. There are plenty of bisexuals who thrive in spaces where I feel unmoored; not everyone is a fucking weirdo the way I am.
But this feeling of dislocation nevertheless informs my bisexual politics. Because if my queerness is not connected to the feeling of being situated within a specific community, then what do my politics look like? If it is not about building a barricade to protect one discrete group — and I mean, maybe it is, but bisexuals are so far flung that it’s hard to see how that would be possible — then what is it about? And the answer I keep coming back to, again and again in this newsletter, is that it’s fundamentally about restructuring society so that it doesn’t matter if I do or don’t belong in a queer space, so that I’m not required to “fit in” somewhere in order to access the resources I need for my safety.
Some of that does, I think, go hand in hand with general leftist politics: there’s no need to worry about elevated poverty rates in bisexuals if no one lives in poverty, for instance. But some of it is its own bi-specific quest: what good is free therapy if your therapist hasn’t been trained in the nuances of bisexual mental health? I am trying, these days, to map out a specific plan. And finding people who are aligned with that mission? That, I think, is what gives me that walking into Oz feeling I never really got in my youth.
You may have been only 17. I’m 53, and I have never been in a bar with anyone I wanted to talk to, unless I entered with them to begin with. I’ve been self-identifying as bi for 20+ years and that has never changed. I think some people, regardless of a craving for community, just do not “do” the bar scene, period.
Lux, I am prompted to share my experience here because I often feel that you speak about being bi—and by extension, human—in a very relatable manner. The word that comes up for me is: interstitial. The place "between". For me, it's more accurate than the feeling that I don't belong or that I'm lost. It's that I'm neither here nor there. I'm neither totally into women (but mostly), nor totally into men (very specific men in very specific circumstances). If I had to quantify such attractions, 75% into women and 25% into men, with lots of qualifiers.
I too had a time when I was exploring my attraction to men. I was 18 and went to a Westwood, CA club known for its mixture of bi, gay and hetero patrons. As I stood on a balcony and watched as two very cute guys slowly dance together sensuously making out, I felt I wanted this experience very much. The road from wanting to experiencing was not a straight line, pun intended. I have had enough experiences with men since then to know I really like it, but am sort of locked out by the energy, time and stress it takes to be in that lovely make-out place.
It was easier when I was younger and certainly easier (and worth the effort) when one could advertise openly and responsibly on Craigslist. Yes, you can hear me sigh. My experiences were not frequent nor completely "casual", but I wasn't really "dating" men. It was sexual with respect and some trust.
Anyway, the political, interpersonal and societal aspects of being a little out-of-step and in-between is better left to Lux and her wonderful explorations of being slightly weird and horny human (my words) just wanting to connect and feel physical and emotional pleasure IN WHATEVER CONSENTUAL WAY FEELS GOOD makes me feel a little less alone.