Not all bisexuals are non-monogamous.

HOWEVER.

There is a class of bisexual education that I personally think of as Bisexual Myth Busting™️, largely due to the fact that, well, it involves bi educators literally getting up and making lists of myths that they want to bust. You are, I assume, already mentally tabulating a list of said myths: It’s a myth that bisexuals will definitely cheat on you! It’s a myth that bisexuals are all sluts! It’s a myth that bisexuals are equally attracted to men and women! It’s a myth that bisexuals aren’t attracted to non-binary people! And so on and so forth, it’s all very boring and tiresome, honestly.

There’s one of these myths in particular that I’ve been thinking about this week, not because I have a particular investment in it, but because I think it’s interesting to consider what the fixation on it says, not just about bisexuals in particular, but the way we talk about and construct sexual identity as a whole. I’ve already given up the game in the subject of this newsletter, so it’s not going to come as a surprise now to learn that the specific myth I’m talking about is this one about monogamy, or lack thereof, and bisexuals.

It is absolutely true that bisexuality is not the same thing as polyamory (or non-monogamy, if you prefer), and that plenty of straights and gays are also polyamorous or monogamous or whatever — that basically, these things are kind of unrelated. Except maybe not? Research has shown that “polyamorists” are more likely to be bisexual or pansexual; and that a similar increase in non-monogamy isn’t seen among gays and lesbians — and although that’s just one study of a limited population, it is food for thought. What if bisexuals are more likely to be nonmonogamous than monosexuals? I mean what if, you know?

There are a couple things worth teasing out here, I think. The first thing — and this is what people are always trying to get at with their dreadfully dull Bisexual Myth Bustings™️, I think — is that individuals are always going to be separate from the aggregate, that you cannot tell jack shit about a person or their desires just because you know they are bi. And that’s something that just holds generally: you should treat individuals as individuals, not as a collection of data points about their demographic*.

But there’s also, perhaps, a kind of respectability politic built in to this particular myth busting? This desire to say, “Hey, us bisexuals, we’re just like you, and sure some of us are poly — you know, the freaky ones — but lots of us are good old fashioned monogamists, just like the founding fathers intended” — it just sets my teeth on edge. Why do we need to prove that we are “just like” those monogamous monosexuals? And what if we aren’t? What if bisexuality does make one less likely to be monogamous? Is that actually bad?

Personally, I don’t identify as monogamous. That said, I also don’t identify as polyamorous, or even really non-monogamous. For a while I was calling myself “self-partnered” (which I still have a fondness for) and then during a depressingly long pandemic-induced dry spell I was undeniably single, and now — it is embarrassing to admit this, because it sounds so cringe, but I have been toying with calling myself a “relationship anarchist.” Ugh, absolutely the worst, just makes me sound like a teen burnout carving an anarchy A into a desk at school.

But if you can set that cringe aside (and as a bisexual relationship anarchist I am constantly having to set massive amounts of cringe to the side lest it drown me), then the general principles of “relationship anarchy” — a refusal to create a hierarchy among your relationships, a refusal to declare sexual and romantic relationships inherently more important than platonic ones, a refusal to enter your relationships with a predetermined mindset — well, they appeal. I am trying to approach relationships with something of a beginner’s mind these days: to accept that I don't know what is going to happen, to refuse to force my intimate relationships into some preconceived structure, to instead take everything day by day, to ask each morning what a relationship should look like, what feels mutually acceptable and good. To create relationships based on the needs of the people within them, and not by society’s dictates of what a relationship should be.

I feel, on some level, like I spent most of my life gardening with a trellis, so to speak: routing my relationships along a rigid structure and never pausing to think about whether or how that structure was serving me or anyone else, just assuming that because it was there, I should adhere to it. Nowadays, I am trying to let the plants grow free. (In before someone comments about how trellises are good actually, no one said this metaphor was perfect.)

But what does any of this have to do with bisexuality, right? Well, for me, the very journey that has allowed me to embrace my bisexuality in all its confusing complexity — to understand that my desires do not readily map to anyone’s preconceptions of what I “should” want, that it takes constant explaining and clarification to truly convey to people who I am and what exactly it is that I want — that has allowed me to arrive at this place where I don’t feel loyalty to any one relationship structure, where I feel loyalty to me, and the people in my life, and creating experiences and intimacies that make everyone feel good.

And I think it’s maybe that — should we call it open mindedness? Is that what it is? — that might connect both bisexuality and a rejection of the rigid structures of monogamy, far more than some need to collect all the genital types to fuel your bisexual hunger. I think simply being bisexual, gaining comfort with your bisexuality, forces you to reconsider a lot of the expectations that society puts on you, forces you to consider what it is that you want, rather than what it is that has been laid out for you to do. And I think that’s good!

I think, in the same way that it is useful to chip away at the adherence to monosexuality and the fixity of the self and simply allow people to assess, in the moment, what people they are attracted to, what gender characteristics they find appealing, it can be similarly useful to encourage people to approach relationships, not with a goal of being monogamous or polyamorous straight from the outset, but with a goal of doing what is best for the people in the relationship, a goal of creating an experience that feels fulfilling to all involved. And I think this fixation on whether bisexuals are or aren't monogamous — it hampers our ability to live in that flux. It hampers our ability to decide, in the moment, what is the best possible experience we could create for everyone involved in our relationship. And I think that’s unfortunate.

And also, you know, it’s just a dumb thing to care about.

* Side note, this is why I always hate those posts that are like “Well in porn you always see this sex act, but in real life only a small percentage of people like it.” Like… so? Are you trying to shame that small percentage of people? Who gives a shit! You could be the only person in the world who has your turn ons and that would still be fine. You’re an individual, you don’t need to adhere to the majority (and oftentimes you shouldn’t, I mean, not if you want to be happy).