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Being Bisexual

By: Elizabeth Wells

Bi bi baby?

These days, we're told, identity politics is much more fluid: labels are what you use to determine your Glycaemic Load, not who you take to bed.

"You wouldn't think it's been 60-odd years since American sexologist Alfred Kinsey 'outed' bisexuality as the natural condition of the human mammal!"

At my first ever LGB club meeting at university, I overheard one lesbian gossiping to another about a new member, 'she's bisexual, but she's in a relationship with a man.' Cue predictable sighs of frustration and eyes raised to heaven. Even then I remember being baffled; surely, I thought, it's a 50-50 situation with a bisexual; it's not as if you can accuse them of defecting. Little seems to have changed as far as the gay community is concerned. I say the gay community, since the straights mostly just seem to take it in their stride when you tell them you have one foot in both camps. Perhaps that's because they all know at least one person who snogs their same-sex mates when they've had a few too many, or because for those in staid relationships or the wasteland of the sex-starved, it's somewhat titillating (a good male friend of mine, somewhat shy when it comes to frank sexual language, prefers to use the euphemism 'Man City'/'Man United' to refer to my AC/DC predilections). They don't seem to bat an eyelid when my boyfriend and I find our heads turned by the same stunner in heels, but my former gay best friend? She used to practically foam at the mouth if I ever complained how testing it was to be a bisexual in a long-term straight relationship. Everybody gets urges, I explained, doesn't matter what gender you date. But for Ms X, it was just a case of my repressed lesbian Id screaming for recognition- a sign that I was denying my own instincts and was withering on the vine like an unpicked grape. (Speaking of which, she upped sticks and left soon after to run a vineyard in the South of France with her Sugar Mummy.) Of course many people who occasionally see their same-sex mate through the rose-coloured tint of beer goggles don't really identify as bisexual and have no wish to be accepted as such, but the point is that straights aren't that faffed. After all, what have they got to get so hot under the collar about? It's not like they've had to spend the last 30 years fighting to validate their sexual preferences.

But maybe my friend was right about one thing- everybody needs a tribe they can call their own- and I'm still looking for mine, because right now, it's pretty invisible. And I'm not talking about those silly celebs who are pictured snogging each other for the cameras (Britney, Madonna, it was about as appetising as a limp lettuce), they're not the representation the self-respecting bisexual needs. Fact is, if we're still debating over whether being bi is a matter of 'lifestyle choice' (like whether or not you should order an organic veg box), sexual confusion or even plain old promiscuity, something's not right. You wouldn't think it's been 60-odd years since American sexologist Alfred Kinsey 'outed' bisexuality as the natural condition of the human mammal!

So where are these elusive bi women? Surely there must be some hangout I could investigate; were they travelling incognito in the gay fraternity? Certainly not if the discerning clientele of the most famous lesbian bar in London were to be believed. Determined to find answers, I must have asked every damn woman in there, and pretty much every one gave me the same baffled look at my suggestion that I might find some Betty Bothways amongst them, never mind (hushed whisper) girls in straight relationships. 'You're looking in the wrong place, honey,' one said kindly.

Where should I look, I thought. Don't bisexuals go out on the scene? Are they really this silent minority? So I turned to the Internet, knowing one could always rely on the power of broadband to unite the marginalised, the oppressed and er, people in their bedrooms. I asked Libby Baxter-Williams, a columnist for Bi Community News, to shed some light on the matter.

“Although (in the mainstream) it's recently been seen to be more cool to play with sexuality, the gay community still regards bisexuality to a certain extent as playing safe, sitting on the heterosexual side of the fence." The trouble is, she argues, "many people still have a problem with seeing things beyond a binary of 'us and them', and bisexuality is a grey area."

Thankfully however, she scents the wind of change: the gay press opening their doors to bi readers (and writers, of course!) and "pockets of visibility" in the form of social networks and gatherings such as Bi-Con and Bi-Fest. I've just been invited to the next one. Wanna be in our gang?