Yesterday, Queerty ran a piece declaring 2023 to be “the year of the bisexual man,” mostly basing that argument on the fact that Heartstopper and Red, White, and Royal Blue exist and that a handful of male celebrities have come out as bi or pan.
I… am unconvinced.
I mean, yes, I know we’re all doing clickbait and just saying things because it’ll get people like me to write about it. And I do think it’s true that bisexual men are having something of a mini moment, at least in the sense that there are several shows that depict bi men as desirable love objects rather than simply A Problem™️ (as has been the case in many shows released shockingly recently!). But —
Well, I feel like the piece tips its hand with this one line:
Though we’ve largely gotten past stigmatization around female bisexuality in media (thank you Katy Perry, Kissing Jessica Stein, and Broad City), we haven’t always afforded carte blanche to boys.
I mean… what is with that list? A song from 2008 that kinda fetishizes female bisexuality, a movie from 2001 that’s allegedly pretty good (I haven’t seen it so I can’t weigh in), and then… Broad City? I don’t know that I would pick this list as the canon of works that destigmatized female bisexuality in media; I also don’t even know that I would completely say that female bisexuality is destigmatized in media, even as the landscape is vastly improved from where it once was. So if this is the writer’s perspective on stigma and bisexuality and media, I mean… no wonder he thinks we’re in “the year of the bisexual man.”
I think what’s frustrating to me, particularly, is this conviction that all bisexuals need is to be shown on TV in a positive light and then, boom, problems solved. There’s so much fixation on media representation driving social change that people often forget that media representation is not the only problem faced by marginalized groups — and that, at times, media representation can even fuel a backlash. The alleged “trans tipping point” of a few years ago gave way to harsh anti-trans laws and discrimination. A previous era of “bisexual chic” gave way to its own anti-bi panic — by which I mean the 1970s and the conviction that bi men were fueling the HIV epidemic, respectively.
I don’t doubt that there are people for whom Heartstopper, et al, will be eye opening and help them think differently about bisexuals; and it’s certainly better to have bi men shown as… people… rather than A Problem™️ to mull over. But there is so much more to bi liberation beyond just “some characters on TV are bi now and it’s chill,” and it would be nice to have writers, and especially writers at queer pubs, recognize that.
But perhaps I am asking too much.
PS Fittingly, the first two comments on that Queerty piece are someone claiming that the stats that show a rise in bi identified youth can’t be trusted because kids just claim to be bi so as to seem edgy and someone saying gay men shouldn’t date bi men because they’ll just leave them for women. Year of the Bi Man indeed!
Hi Lux...I'm sorry, this is one posting of yours that I didn't read. Because, perhaps good-looking 20-something bi guys are having a moment, but speaking for myself, it's never been worse. I have been openly bi all my life. Almost all of my female relationship partners knew I had at least some sexual interest in men. However, the older I got, the more adverse the reactions became to my sexuality. So maybe now there is less and less tolerance of bisexual men by heterosexual women—even as as I know myself, my sexual tastes and my integrity better than ever and would love to share that with the right woman and/or less likely, the right man. I'll say it again just as an exercise: my bisexuality makes me a better partner for either sex. Sadly, especially in my early 60's, finding people that agree with me is extremely unlikely. You see, acceptance of bisexuality in general isn't all that rare; finding a romantic/sexual partner who considers that to be a value-added part of who I am is.
I love the movie Kissing Jessica Stein!