In the opening of the classic queer film But I’m A Cheerleader (it’s great, absolutely holds up, watch it whenever you get the chance), viewers are introduced to Natasha Lyonne’s Megan through a series of queer tells. I don’t remember all of them; the two that stick in my mind are that we see her get distracted by the bouncing breasts of her cheerleader colleague (I mean who wouldn’t) and that she doesn’t like kissing her boyfriend.
It’s a little embarrassing to admit this, but when I first saw the film 20+ years ago, it did not immediately click for me that this montage was supposed to be an obvious tell that, despite her protestations, Megan is indeed a lesbian. I mean, yeah, she’s not into kissing her boyfriend, but like… her boyfriend doesn’t seem like a good kisser. Obviously the movie builds towards Megan being into girls and girls alone — but in that intro, a part of me just thought… couldn’t she be into girls and just not this guy?
I remembered that scene this morning while thinking about some other media representations of queer women — ones I personally think of as bi, but who… maybe other people don’t? There’s Poison Ivy — the HBO Max version, specifically — who dates and is engaged to Kite Man before leaving him at the altar for her true love Harley Quinn. To me, Ivy’s relationship with Kite Man — lackluster though it was! — was still a relationship with a man, and one she was clearly attracted to; but it occurred to me this morning that maybe other people read her as a lesbian who breaks free from comp het. There’s also [Redacted to prevent spoilers since it’s a recent ep] on season 2 of The Afterparty, who cheats on her male partner with a woman — are we meant to assume her affair is her “true” self? Or are we meant to just see her a bi lady? (I assumed the latter, especially since the show itself is super chill about the reveal of the affair and never ventures into “WAIT YOU KISSED A WOMAN?????” territory.)
The unspoken secret about monosexuality is that you can never actually prove it. Whether you’re straight or gay, it’s impossible to say that you have absolutely zero attraction to whatever gender you claim to not be attracted to — you can only sex you haven’t met a member of that gender who has sparked your fire yet. Monosexuality is a statement of strong preference, a reasonable guess, and that’s honestly fine (I’m certainly not in the business of telling people they can’t be monosexual if that’s what feels best!). And yet “I had one bad sexual experience with one person of this gender” is frequently seen as “proof” of one’s monosexuality… even as many of us have bad sexual experiences with members of genders we know we’re attracted to.
(Fun fact: Back when I was in the grip of sexual orientation OCD I used to fear that any lackluster sexual experience with a woman meant I was actually straight — despite the fact that I’d had plenty of lackluster sexual experiences with men too. It put a lot of pressure on me to “prove” I was into women, even as there was… uh… a lot of proof already.)
Anyway. I just watched the most recent episode of And Just Like That, which has Miranda back on the dating market and wondering about what her identity is post-Che. And like… if Miranda wants to date women, cool! But it also seems so odd for this show to just jettison Miranda’s decades of enthusiastic heterosexuality and recast her as a lesbian because she had one relationship with an AFAB non-binary person. Certainly, people’s attractions can change, and there are many reasons why Miranda might opt to go fully queer in her fifties. But it also just seems odd to immediately swap her to lesbianism, and apparently femme for femme lesbian, after a brief relationship with a fairly masc queer. (As a side note: If you want some clarity on Cynthia Nixon’s own journey into lesbianism after decades of apparently unquestioned heterosexuality, look up a picture of her and her wife. Maybe it’s just me, but it seems pretty clear how her wife would wind up being the first woman an ostensibly straight girl falls for after decades of thinking she’s straight.)
My point here — and I do have a point! — is just that part of the joy of bisexuality is the acceptance that we are, at the end of the day, unknowable. My own attractions have been unpredictable and fluid, and I appreciate having the freedom to just own that rather than prematurely declaring that I will never be attracted to this gender or that gender. I’m not saying everyone has to be bi — or even that everyone has the potential to do so! — but it would be nice if we could extend some grace, some space, to ourselves and other people rather than insisting that the borders of our sexual identities be so firmly clamped down.
“It put a lot of pressure on me to “prove” I was into women, even as there was… uh… a lot of proof already.)”. This resonates so much with me. Took me so long to recognise I was doing this, let alone starting to shed it.
One point that I feel was missing about SATC was that the original series featured an extremely biphobic scene in one of its episodes (https://youtu.be/AEIWg6pV9g0). I’ve always wondered how Cynthia Nixon felt about that scene in retrospect.
I also agree with your final paragraph. One of the most difficult aspects of my bisexuality to others (even those who are not biphobic) is that they are unable to label me as one sexual orientation or another. Difficult for, but to me it’s one of the most amazing and liberating aspects of my sexual orientation. Took me a long time to develop that gratitude, though.