Who counts as bi?

What even is a bisexual, anyway?

A few years ago, back when I was first attempting an internalized biphobia detox, I picked up a copy of Bi Any Other Name, an anthology of essays from 1991 all about, you guessed it, being bi. While the essays themselves were hit or miss (it was an anthology of essays, it comes with the territory), I found myself blown away by the radical politics of the book, by the fact that bi activists in 1991 were saying things that felt cutting edge, totally new, a full three decades later.

You should definitely read that book, but that’s not why I’m bringing it up. No, the thing that feels worth mentioning today is that in the book, the editors — two bi activists with numerous connections in the LGBT organizing space — write about their mutual experience of being pulled aside by prominent lesbians and gays who wish to secretly confess their own (gasp!) bisexual attractions. The implication is clear: there are far more bisexuals among us than many of us realize, and many professed monosexuals are, in fact, secretly bi.

Or are they?

I find this question a somewhat fraught one. It’s not because I doubt the assertion that lots of people with attractions to multiple genders are identifying as something other than bi, but rather because, well — what does it mean to identify as bi, anyway?

There’s a general understanding of what it means for a person to be straight, one that extends beyond “does not experience same sex attractions.” To be straight is to align oneself with a dominant narrative of how sex and relationships work, to comport oneself and one’s relationships in a way that largely colors within the lines. It’s a controversial opinion, but I actually personally believe that a lot of straight men who will casually have sex with — but not date — other men really are straight; if only because they are choosing to align with heterosexuality in their dominant life*.

Similarly, a person who is gay or lesbian is choosing to identify with a specific community independent of their attractions. They are choosing to position themselves and their desires in opposition to the hetero framework, even if, say, they’re a lesbian who would totally take it from Taiki Waititi if he ever tried to hit it**. If lesbian community, lesbian culture, lesbian spaces, feel correct to you, are you “secretly bi” if you occasionally j/o to dudes? Alternately, if you’re a woman who enjoys the sensation of hooking up with other women, but only when a man is also involved, are you a closeted bisexual or just a straight woman with a broad sexual palette?

I think one of the sticking points here is that there is no real vision of a Bisexual Person™️, no collective culture we can all rally around that frames us as “truly bi.” And on the one hand, that’s probably good, because many of us seem to be too ornery and contrarian to actually take something like that seriously. But on the other hand… it leaves bisexuality feeling less like something to affirm, to commit to, and more like this nebulous grey space. Maybe a lesbian who realizes she’s attracted to (some) dudes is a coward for holding on to the lesbian label. Or maybe she’s correctly assessing that abandoning lesbianism for bisexuality would leave her feeling stranded, in a kind of no man’s land of sexual identity***.

This isn’t a call for creating some affirmative bi identity people can latch on to, some culture people can be a part of, because again… so many of us bi folks, so many of us with complex attractions, just want to live our lives in peace rather than come up with some song that really makes us feel seen (or whatever). But it is a recognition that our sexual identities are more than just our attractions. And the pull of “straight” or “gay” or “lesbian” or sometimes “queer” is understandable — these labels come prepackaged with something beyond a descriptor of one’s sexual attractions. They’re seductive because they don’t just tell people who you want to fuck. They provide you with a set of instructions for how to live your life. I don’t want bisexuality to “compete” with that, because I don’t want bisexuality to be that. But I wonder if instead of saying that that people are “actually” bi, or accusing them of being in the closet, we can recognize that bisexual attractions are far more common than people want to admit — and that those attractions, on their own, are not enough to warrant a bisexual identity.

* Also, having chatted with some of these dudes, it really does feel less like “I’m closeted” and more like “Any port in a storm” or at least “My romantic feelings towards women preclude the casual sex I can more readily enjoy with other men”

** Someone mentioned seeing a person frame themselves this way on an Our Flag Means Death fan Discord and it stuck with me

*** Yes I realize it’s hilarious to refer to bisexuality as a “no man’s land” when… yes, I get it