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Bi the Way... I'm Your Sister
I've always been sort of a professional iconoclast. It wasn't something I courted, it just kind of worked out that way. It's appropriate that I should turn out to be of the most universally maligned sexual orientation available. And not just bisexual, mind you, but a practicing, guilt-free, out bisexual. Of course it took some work to arrive at this place of enlightened perversion. I experienced remarkably little turmoil over my attraction to women, only whether or not I should do something about it. Coming out as a lesbian was relatively easy; it was that lingering attraction to men that was the problem. I didn't want to be bi. Ambiguous, wishy-washy. A cop-out. I was either straight or a dyke, for Goddess' sake! When the first man I slept with after coming out left my room in the wee hours, I was in a quandry. I'd betrayed the lesbian-feminist community; l'd backslid. And worse -- it was worth it.
Fortunately, my support system of friends (straight, queer, and undecided) pointed out to me that to deny an attraction to one gender was just as oppressive as to deny an attraction to the other. I'm a feminist. I love and value women, spiritually, intellectually, emotionally, and physically. I also recognize my desire for emotional and sexual interactions with men. The conclusion I finally reached, after many late-night discussions with both genders, is this: I'm not 50% het and 50% dyke, straight when I'm with a man and a lesbian when I'm with a woman. I'm 100% queer, all the time. As far as I'm concerned, my queer identity is something HI defend with a passion. I'll also defend my right to choose friends, lovers, and whatever, whether they're male or female.
"We are not fence-sitters. Let us strive to be bridge-builders." Amanda Udis-Kessler, "Present Tense: Biphobia as a crisis of meaning," p 357
Bisexuality isn't "liminal" or "fence-sitting," as two friends/ lovers/whatever (one a bi woman and one a man who says he doesn't believe in labels) refer to it. The world isn't divided into polar opposites, two by two. There are grays, there are exceptions, there are alternatives. Just because we have a two-party political system doesn't mean...