Give me an ‘L’, give me a ‘G’, give me a ‘B’: Adrian Gillan dissects the bi scene and biphobia. What are gays so scared of?
Even organisations like Stonewall make no claim to represent transgender people, many of whom themselves resist falling under any “LGBT” banner anyway. However, all of us seem at least to pay some lip service - however ignorant, prejudiced, hostile or downright bilious - to the blessed “B”.
The following twenty stereotypic beliefs about bisexuals and bisexuality - widely held by gays and mainstream alike - are largely FALSE:
1. Everyone needs a label and sexuality only comes in two sizes!
2. Everybody is really bi: so so-called “straights” can all be “bi-baited” and seduced!
3. Nobody is really bi: all bis are secretly gay but too scared to come out!
4. A bisexual is half-way along some gay-straight sliding-scale spectrum and so can’t possibly simultaneously fancy a man 100% and a woman 100%! You cannot have your cake and eat it!
5. There are no bi celebs or historical figures: from Wilde and Woolf to Garbo and Dietrich - they’re all gay, gay, gay!
6. Gay media and public aren’t really desperate to create gay icons, claiming all bis as their own!
7. Gay media and public aren’t really desperate to destroy such “gay” icons the moment they actually turn out to be bi!
8. The mainstream media aren’t really desperate to reduce everything to black and white, with catchy “gay, gay, gay” headlines!
9. Bisexuality is practiced more commonly amongst women than men, since they’re less fettered and repressed by male machismo!
10. Bis are more promiscuous, can’t settle down and know nothing of love and commitment - your bi partner will have to go with both sexes at any given stage of their life and so - if you’re not up for a bisexual threesome - will dump you sooner or later for someone of the opposite sex!
11. Stable multiple relations are impossible!
12. Single gays, lesbians or same-sex couples adopting? Fine! But a bisexual threesome, or larger long-term multiple, adopting? Disgusting!
13. Bis are all closeted vis-ŕ-vis their homosexual side, leading double lives and getting their sex covertly - in parks or via the web!
14. Bis are more at risk from contracting HIV and other STDs because of their furtive sexual lifestyle and since they’re harder to target with safe-sex messages!
15. Forgetting gay guys with their straight girls in tow, bis “dilute and pollute” the gay ghetto dragging along their little straight friends!
16. Apart from the odd conference or web user group, the bi community is practically invisible, so therefore doesn’t exist!
17. Bis have only recently “appeared” and are either tagging onto, or hijacking, the Great Gay Agenda!
18. Bisexuality is just a fad, or fashionable lifestyle statement, to make you sound more interesting! It’s just for Xmas or to generate mystique and - for celebs - some safe “I’m not gay, I’m bi” column inches!
19. If you see a man and women holding hands in the street, they’re straight; a same-sex couple, they’re lesbian or gay; a group of men and women holding hands - oh, they’re just good friends!
20. This LGB group or organisation is for “lesbians, gays and bisexuals” because we understand, and are committed to, the latter as a celebration of diversity - and not just because we’re being tokenistic and PC even though we don’t know what the f**k we’re talking about and have never welcomed or helped a single openly bi person in our lives!
Adrian Gillan |
