First things first: Substack! It kinda sucks! I’m trying to figure out what to do about all that, and whether to move and where to go, but in the meantime, my plan is to post all my newsletters on my Patreon, which you can join for free (although TBH money is always appreciated, if all of you gave me $1 that would be… many dollars). If it’s possible to migrate all of you to be free Patreon followers that might be the ultimate decision and if not… Buttondown? IDK, figuring it out, feel free to send advice.
Now that that’s out of the way:
[This is the soundtrack to this essay]
I am often befuddled by how much time and energy is spent attempting to decipher queerness, and bisexuality in particular, for a mass audience. And even more than that, I’m befuddled by the anger some people express when other people simply fail to grasp the nuances of their sexual desires and attractions. Is it oppression to not be understood? Or is it … something else?
I mean, sure: it is nice to be understood, or at least to feel understood, since the two things aren’t always one and the same. But the assumption that being understood is a precondition for liberation feels off. Maybe more than that, it feels like making “understanding” a precondition to having one’s humanity recognized leads to a flattening of the diversity, the complexity, of human experience.
What I’m getting at here, I think, is that every time I see someone try to “explain” bisexuality I get very, very tired because the explanations always reduce us in an attempt to make us legible to a mass audience. You have probably heard the line about being bisexual being no different from being attracted to both blondes and brunettes, or some other comparison that attempts to strip the “multiple genders” bit out of being attracted to multiple genders, and while I must applaud these “we’re just like you” efforts for at least trying, I also find that — well, no, being attracted to multiple genders isn’t like being attracted to blondes and brunettes. There is a significant difference to my attraction to this gender versus my attraction to that gender in a way that doesn’t exist when one object of affection has yellow hair and the other brown. You can’t understand bisexuality without the “attracted to multiple genders” part. It’s the whole fucking thing.
And I do think that means that monosexuals — that anyone who struggles to comprehend what it is to have the capacity to be attracted to more than one gender — are not going to understand bisexuals, at least not in any real way. I do not think there is an analogy that can make it click, because analogies necessarily exist at a remove from the real thing.
But — and this is the important part — I think that’s okay. There are many things in this world that I do not understand, and I still manage to respect them and allow them to go about their day. As a bisexual, that feels far more important (and far more attainable) to me than understanding. Just let me be, you know? It’s a waste of everyone’s time for me to try to figure out how to render the inexplicable explicable. What if we just accepted that, and stopped worrying about other people’s business?
Or maybe, celebrate each other for those differences. Otherwise it would be SO boring if we all just made sense to each other and everyone was predictable and the same.
What you wrote hit home so hard for me. Absolutely 0 people around me, even my partner, understand me being bisexual, they reduce it, and me, because they cannot comprehend it. They say stuff like "why can't you be like bi but act straight". Like what the fuck does that even mean. The absolute erasure of you as a person as you trying to exist. Like that stuff hurts. Your writing, that you see me and that I can see you and go yeah, I get that, we're allowed to exist and explain and identify as we are, that helps a lot. Thank you *bows in respect* <3
That was interesting to read; thanks for sharing your thoughts. I agree with the main point that other people's understanding is not necessary for me to be okay. But there are two subpoints: 1) differences in sexuality are not like hair differences and 2) "monosexuals... are not going to understand bisexuals, at least not in any real way." I think these subpoints are connected, and I take the opposite point of view from you regarding those subpoints because of the way I think they are connected.
They way I see it, the idea that "monosexuals... are not going to understand bisexuals, at least not in any real way"... only has to be true if we're talking about monosexuals without imagination. Imagination is the ability to think about how things might be if something about the universe were different; it's also the ability to take generalities of past experience and to use those to construct an image of a hypothetical world. I think there are lots of people with the capacity for imagination, including monosexuals, and I admire people using the hair analogy because it helps spark people's imagination. It builds a bridge to understanding, which is nice and has positive benefits even if it's not necessary.
These are the thoughts that I'm thinking after reading your thoughts. Thanks for the provocation!