I am bisexual
"Bisexuality is a sexual orientation characterized by aesthetic attraction, romantic love and sexual desire for both males and females" - wikipedia
I spent a five hour stretch last saturday afternoon drinking red wine at blue's apartment with five lesbians and one other bisexual. now this isn't how I usually categorize heads, I'm generally more shallow and physical with my shit - yella girl with big hips and pretty dredlocs, hershey special dark chocolate brown with melon tiddies...but in this case it's appropriate. we were filling out an anonymous questionaire semi-related to "the life" (sample questions included "why do you think most women/women relationships break up" to which I answered "infidenlity" and "who do you wish was a lesbian" to which I answered "nona gaye, toccara") so lesbian-themed conversation was already filling the air. at one point I overheard a side conversation wherein a me'shell-ish female named meka was pontificating about how she felt that white bisexual women were much more likely to stay in long-term same sex relationships then their black counterparts because the latter faced more pressure from the black community to prescribe to typical family structure. now while I do agree that straight black people on average, the men especially, tend to overwhelmingly shun homosexual relationships, I resent the implication that black bisexual women are "dangerous" (I believe that's the word that was used) because we were more likely to shun our attraction to women once the pressure to be socially acceptable to other black people was too great to ignore. the intolerance society continues to display toward non-traditional relationships is great on all GLBT individuals, I would venture to say...it just seems overly general to say that intolerance affects black bisexual women on such a large scale that it could be a given that we'd "run to" men so much moreso then white bisexual women.
so needless to say, my skin started tingling with irritation...and when she remarked that she "didn't actually know many black bisexuals" to test this theory on, I couldn't help but chime in with a "I'm bisexual". but immediately I was shot down with her reply of "and you're with a man now" as if I was the very case in point she needed. she didn't even look at me when she said it. it really angered me...to be dismissed, categorized, and generalized so effortlessly without even being asked my individual story seemed so hypocritical. even though blue had assured me weeks ago that this was going to be a bi-friendly crowd, I felt marginalized. I sat there seething a bit, uncomfortable...thought about leaving after I finished what I was sippin on even after the conversation branched off into other subject matter, but eventually talk made its way back to bisexuality. "can I ask the bisexual girls a question?" meka asked aloud, looking at myself and the other bisexual girl - pretty brooke is what I call her. her question was if we could honestly see ourselves in a long-term relationship with another female. I told her I already had been in a long-term relationship with a female and while I was in it, I thought it would last forever. I talked for a long time, passionately...and much of what I said I've elaborated upon below. so without further ado: this is my infamous, long-awaited "I am bisexual" entry.
I have identified myself as bisexual since before it was hot to do so, but only for lack of a better term. I'm not the sole authority on female bisexuality, however...we come in a lot of sub-flavors. you got your bisexual girls who need to have simultaneous sexual and/or romantic relationships with both men and women...you got your bisexuals who want to have sex with women but would never date or be in a relationship with a woman. then you've got what I think is the best example and the easiest to overstand - your bisexuals who don't put a gender on the set of characteristics they look for in a potential and can be in monogamous relationships with either men or women. this is my flavor. I've actually never been crazy about the label "bisexual", but it's a lot easier to say then what the fuck I just said...so shall it be. I am also not half-queer, I am all queer. as I've always understood it, GLBT people use the word queer to describe their sexual orientatioin as outside of the so-called societal norm. I fit that description. stop calling me a half-queer...I have a great deal of experiences in common with gay and lesbian individuals...add to that the condemnation I've had to combat from the hetero and homosexual community. I am also not confused. I am quite clear on the fact that if someone has all the qualities I'm attracted to in an individual, I will like them, gender aside. I haven't ceased to be bisexual because I no longer have sexual and romantic relationships with women just like a heterosexual wouldn't cease to be straight if they were celibate. that misconception puts too much weight on the physical, sexual side of homo and bisexuality.
the biggest assumption I've encountered is that as a bisexual I can't be faithful. I am very capable of having long-term monogamous relationships and, infact, I prefer them. therefore, kindly back away from me with your threesome fantasies...I've never had one and I never will. what's more, my boyfriend would never ask me to engage in one...part of the reason I love him is because he has never come at me with typical straight men narrowmindedness in relation to GLBT issues. I could never be with a man who was intolerant of those issues just like I could never be with a woman who harbored resentment of bisexuality. I think a lot of preconceived notions about bisexuality come via girls gone wild or the talk show circuit where women frequently tongue each other down for the enjoyment of men. I don't think this is the accurate face of bisexuality. true bisexuality is not trendy. pseudo-bisexuality is trendy. the term bi-curious sucks but I understand the need for it's existance. I actually feel that bisexual stereotypes stem from both straight and gay people. gay people who use the label of bisexual as some kind of safety when they're not yet ready to come out as homosexual as well as straight people, women in particular, who use the label of bisexual to entice dudes. both of these groupes do bisexuals a disservice by further contributing to the abundance of stereotypes we have to deal with.
I'm pretty certain that I have always been attracted to both sexes; infact, I was drawn to women first. from the hypersexualized women depicted in my father's playboy magazines to the girls I whispered with about so-called cute boys in the 7th grade, I have always been drawn to females. for a long time I didn't know what this made me. when I got to high school I became great friends with a girl named carly who was openly, admittedly bisexual - which at that time was not as common as it is now...alot has changed in a decade with teenagers and sexual orientation. there were no girls going to prom together when I was in school, no girls walked down the hall holding hands the way they do now...at least not without a great deal of drama and vicious whispering. the outcasts would do it, the goth chicks, but only cause that was their schtik - making others feel uncomfortable. most of those chicks are married to men today with white picket fences and gingham aprons. not that there's anything wrong with that. regardless...carly was exciting to me. I wasn't sexually attracted to her, but I longed for her candid demeanor, her comfort in her own skin, and the ease in which she seemed to be buddying into her identity, sexual and otherwise. I was fascinated with her clique as well...gay boys and other bisexual girls who would grind on and kiss each other without abandon anytime, anyplace. in retrospect it was grotesquely pretentious but at it's base element it was unashamedly loving others because they were cool, funny, and cute, outside of the confines of gender.
despite the occassional kissing and touching and naive exploring I shared with girls in high school, I was clueless about "the life" - the GLBT community. this changed in college. free from the confines of my parents and the friends I'd known since the sandbox, I was now able to proclaim my sexuality loud and proud. I pinned rainbows and pink triangle patches on my backpack, put my pride rings around my neck, and longed for comrarderie. it wasn't hard to find...I was an acting major. the college of fine arts was chalk full of homosexuals ripe for me to befriend, the boys especially. to this day I am still good friends with two of my beloved gay boys; although I'm no longer their faghag (all young gay dudes have a faghag, its like an attache'), I love them still. they endured my incessant whining about my inability to find a female who really did it for me for two years before I met tori. she came in as a freshman my junior year, and although she was younger then me she was way more experienced then I. she knew she was a lesbian and had been acting upon that knowledge since she before she knew how to spell lesbian. halloween night, infact, I went to the gay club with my boys in head to toe black...it was a cold night so I was wearing a black turtleneck. by the middle of the evening I was hot, so I took off my turtleneck and danced with abandon in my bright green corset bra. this was the first glance tori got of me...so it didn't really faze me when she stared at me laciviously the rest of the evening. she told paul she was interested, but I didn't feel the same about her immediately..."too dykey!" I complained - I had always rejected the femme/butch pairings so many other girls in the life seemed to think of as a rule. at that time I wanted another girly girl and tori was anything but that, at least on the outside...very large breasts aside, she looked like a boy, albeit a pretty one. I remember the night my feelings toward her started to develop beyond friendship. she'd dropped by my dorm room before going out on a friday night and she looked mad dapper - khaki courderoy kangol (she had more kangols then samuel l. jackson), matching tailored khaki slacks, white blouse, gold jewelry...I thought she looked so sexy. it was masculine with the touch of feminimity I'd been looking for in her. it couldn't have been longer then a month after that before we officially became a couple. and from the outside looking in, I'm sure heads assumed tori was the dude in the relationship, but she was so much softer and sensitive then I was behind closed doors...I was the aggressor in many ways, in the bedroom and beyond, to the point where I became very protective of her and what we had. homophobia had always bothered me, but it really hurt like gunshots after I fell in love with tori because my love for her was so pure and felt so right. it was painful to realize there would always be people on earth that would try to make it ugly and wrong.
before tori I'd had moments of fear about what being with a woman might mean for my soul - I wondered if "acting on" my attraction for women would doom me to hell - and these glimmers of doubt persisted even after I'd realized man-made religion was definitely not for me. I didn't grow up in a homophobic household at all...I wasn't really disowned by anyone after I came out, although my father was extremely "disappointed" for quite some time...I never felt wrong about it or wished I was straight. but a nervousness still existed for quite some time about crossing the line from attraction to physical and mental confirmation. but after I fell in love with tori my fear subsided completely. I strongly realized that the most high I believe exists would never cast me to some fictionalized hell for such true and ethereal love. although tori and I have long since parted ways (romantically that is - we have a good friendship today as I do with all three of my exes) I still feel the same about the love we shared. there's nobody in existance that could convince me the time we spent together was wrong or immoral - which is why it fuckin pisses me off so much when those who aren't gay or bisexual try to be an authority on how it really feels to be so. which is also why it pissed me off so much when meka tried to fit the square peg of my experiences into her round hole of stereotypes - the one hour meka had spent in my presence could never hip her to how fearlessly I'd fallen in love with that woman...her implication that I'd turned my back on that just to satisfy mainstream society was just as distasteful to me as the closeminded intolerants who continue to say same sex relationships can't be just as beautiful and true as the straight ones particularly when the american divorce rate can't be attributed to any other couples but the straight ones.
I haven't chosen to be with a man to have an "easier" life...truthfully, I don't face any more or less personal and societal ills, pressure, or hardships with christopher then I did with tori. sure, my heterosexual relationship is more broadly accepted by a still too-homophobic society in general, but again, it doesn't make maintaining the relationship easier when all relationships do and should come down to the two people within it. at the end of the day it's christopher and I that make the relationship work, not nods of approval from outside forces...particularly when I've faced my own set of "prejudice" because of our relationship, due to his being younger then me, us being unmarried with a baby, etc. all this indignation aside, I will say this - I do not know how it feels to realize that you may never be able to legally marry the person you want to spend the rest of your life with. it would be ignorant and insensitive of me to even pretend I know how that feels. but it's not my bisexuality that prevents me from feeling that way - it's that I happen to be in love with a man. I have the "luxury" of being able to marry him one day but that luxury isn't what drew me to him and it isn't what keeps me with him. I am still an advocate of gay marriage...I fight for my gay friends and my gay family members on that front and I always will...maybe even moreso after I get married myself because I'll want it so bad for everyone else.
as a bisexual, I will always be attracted to women (and anonymously photograph their rotund asses in costume stores), even from within the "confines" of my heterosexual relationship, just as gay women don't stop being attracted to other women when they're in a homosexual one. I'm like...so sorry to be crude but...I am really good at um...let's just say I know what girls like. let your imagination run wild. I got two tongue rings an shit. this, however, gives me no excuse to be unfaithful. in my opinion, bisexuals who use their bisexuality as an excuse to cheat, are selfish. that being said, it is hard sometimes to think that I will never be with a woman again. it's more difficult for me to accept that then to accept that I'll never be with another man. truthfully, I don't want anybody else but christopher...but a facet of my life has changed dramatically because I'm in it to win it with him...I can still call myself a bisexual but straight and gay people alike look at me with confusion, like my attraction to women should've just dissappeared once I fell in love with christopher. I was bisexual when I was in a longterm monogamous relationship with a woman too. I can still rock my pride rings, but I feel a lot of lesbians in particular look at it like "she can wear them for now, but if she wants to take them off and go sit with her man and child, in the picture-perfectness of american pie heterosexuality, can she really be down for the cause?" many times I've told the story of how gay-bashers in my dorms used to write dyke (actually d-i-k-e is how the idiots spelled it) across my door as I sat in the room with my girlfriend, door ajar. thats how bold they would be with their hatred. I used to carry that story around as some kind of badge of honor, as if to say "I'm down cause I've been discriminated against"...almost like it was my pass. I think it's time I put that story to rest. if anyone finds it hard to believe I can still be a gay advocate in a heterosexual relationship, it's something I'ma just have to deal with on a case-by-case basis.
the night before my conversation with meka I had a halloween party at a strip club that I didn't actually enjoy as much as I thought I would. on the way home, after I expressed my disappointment and general boredom with the evening as a whole, a straight friend of mine said that I'd finally "outgrown bisexuality". her statement really saddened me because that mindset likens my sexual orientation to some fad I've let go of when that couldn't be farther from the truth. I explained to her, just as I explained to everyone in the room at blue's house on saturday that I was with christopher because I love who he is and how he makes me feel, not because he was a man giving me an easy out. I wanna spend forever with him, but if that's not in the cards for us, I'm not opposed to ever dating women again. I will never outgrow being bisexual, its a part of me. but not even in the top fifty of most interesting things about me.
I really don't know if any of meka's fear of bisexuals was subsided by my bi-defensive diatribe, especially since blue made it a point to say that me and brooke weren't the norm. one of her main worries seems to be that when presented with a choice the bisexual woman will always choose a man because he can give her a baby whereas another woman couldn't. while I don't doubt that some bisexual women may choose to persue a relationship with a man once her biological clock starts ticking, I don't think it's fair to assume this happens more times then not. my overall point is that people leave their lovers, same-sex or otherwise, for a myriad of reasons. if you avoid creating bonds that could potentially lead to love because of a fear or what may happen, you're gonna miss out on an abundance of good shit. yea. good shit. because this is getting long and I'm running out of SAT words.
whatever the case, I am still "learning" to find a balance within myself as a new mom. I kept covering my ears when my friends with children told me everything was going to change. not that I'm afraid of it, per se, I've just never been wild about being predictable. I've found peace being a bisexual woman in a heterosexual relationship because I love my dude and I feel like I've been waiting lifetimes to be with him; however, theres a part of me that does miss at least the comraderie of women in the life...and I find that I get excluded from a lot of activities with the lesbianas because I'm committed to someone with a (real) dick. that being said, I won't be seeking fulfillment in a strip club anytime soon...the aforementioned halloween party took place at a strip club I practically lived in for over a year before I became pregnant and lemme tell you - the fire and desire for strippers is dead like rick...I was so over it from jump and not just because christopher almost had to mollywhop some drunk bitchnigga who kept acting out of place. I'm all about the grown and fuckin sexy now. I'ma give jazz and salsa clubs a try. I'll reiterate on the party later, because I made a great big epiphany because of it...starting with long overdue acknowledgement of the fear I've had of being a grown-up and acting like one while simultaneously realizing it doesn't mean I have to feel old. I'm still in my twenties for shit sake, I'ma ride the rest of this twentysomething-ness til the wheels fall off but I'm not gonna do so living in the glory of a past life that didn't include my daughter or my boyfriend and the person I've become because of them both.