Who's afraid of the b word?

Bisexuality by many other names.

A while back — I cannot remember how long ago it was — I saw a tweet that was along the lines of “there’s nothing more queer than a dyke railing a gay dude” (I’m unable to get you the exact wording for reasons that will momentarily become clear). Being the feisty young woman that I am, I took umbrage at this tweet and quote tweeted it, appending a comment along the lines of “When you’re so biphobic you can’t call bisexuality by its name.”

Anyway, the original poster blocked me.

I started thinking about that post again this week because of a New York Post story from last fall that started making the rounds. The story — which has the exhausting headline “We were gay until we met each other: Our unusual heterosexual love story” — profiles a butch lady and a fem dude who fell in love after thinking they were each gay, a love story that I would argue is actually less unusual than the Post presumes.

There’s a lot to unpack in the story, I guess (though I want to say, first and foremost, that these people are in their early twenties and thus almost definitely still figuring themselves out, it’s not exactly unusual for someone to discover something new about their sexuality at age 21). We’re supposed to be shocked that a dude who wears make up and false eyelashes might, gasp, fall for a woman because everyone knows that feminine men can’t possibly be anything other than 100% gay; and we’re supposed to be surprised that a woman would fall for this type of man, especially a masculine woman. Personally I think that anyone who is shocked by the idea of a feminine man pairing with a masculine woman just hasn’t gotten out much, but hey, that’s just me.

We’re also, I guess, supposed to be surprised by the fact that two people who thought they were gay — including a man who cops to the fact that he wasn’t romantically attracted to other men — suddenly realized that, woops, they actually do have hetero attractions, albeit ones that don’t comport with heteronormative gender presentations. I dunno, guys, I feel like if I were this easily shocked I would be so tired all the time, you know? What is it like to constantly be in awe of the fact that bisexuality exists and people’s sexual pasts don’t predict their sexual futures? Personally, I gotta say that it sounds exhausting.

I think, sometimes, that what I am advocating for when I advocate for bi rights and bi visibility is not social respectability for a discrete group of people — it’s not really about, you know, the kind of “bisexuals are people too!” argument that so many folks try to make. What I’m advocating for is freedom in this very broad and expansive sense; what I’m advocating for is an end to being shocked by people’s romantic and sexual tastes.

Like, I dunno guys: something tells me if we actually lived in a sexually free society it wouldn’t be shocking or newsworthy than a masc lady who mostly likes ladies fell for a fem dude with a history of banging dudes. It would just be one more variation among endless possibilities of what it looks like to be in love. It would just be one more cool story of people finding the most precious thing there is in the world and holding on to it for dear life.