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Do Bisexuals Exist?

8/10/2019

 
Issue 10, Semester 2, 2019

JACOB KAIROUZ

I was dumbstruck a few months ago when I watched an episode of Slutever entitled ‘Do Bisexual Men Exist?’. I thought the question had been solidly answered in the affirmative. I thought the real question was, ‘do hets exist? Aren’t we all bi?’ I thought we had established a consensus!
​

This certainly was a reality check. After managing to pull my head out of that bisexual fantasy world, I remembered that queers are used to having their identity policed. A TV show was seriously debating whether or not I exist. The truth hurts.
Picture
Image: Wikimedia Commons
If you don’t fit into a clearly recognisable gender/sexual-box, people feel entitled to ask so many personal questions. When someone asks me ‘so are you really attracted to girls?’ they are really asserting their own sexual identity.
​

I will never forget the first time someone told me I was ‘gay’. I was twelve years old and I didn’t even know what sex was. I told my classmates I had a crush on a girl and they told me that I was lying. I can hardly blame them for this wanton bullying. We are all constantly devising sexed narratives about the people around us. My classmates, faithful soldiers of heteronormativity, were just reciting the story they’d learnt - bisexuals don’t exist.

The same system of compulsory heterosexuality appears in actual policing. In the utterly cooked case of R v Brown gay men were imprisoned for private, consensual S/M activities. Lord Justice Jauncey stressed there was a ‘real danger’ in the ‘corruption of young men’ and held that it was for parliament to declare gay s/m legal as they had declared ‘buggery’ to be legal.

In a similar vein, McClintock writes, ‘in sentencing S/Mers to bondage and discipline, floggings and ritual humiliation in Houses of Correction, the law, far from exhibiting refined disgust at the exhibition of pain, is merely asserting its jealous right over the penal regime.’[1] 

The law, like all social discourse, expresses public condemnation of deviance to reinforce sexual norms and suppress internal dissent from the heteronormative regime. Underlying this system of punishment is a jealousy of queer sexual freedom which manifests in an active denial by heterosexuals of their own homosexual desires. The heterosexual ruling-class criticises queers in order to shield their own precarious identity from scrutiny by questioning the identity of others. The threat of being attracted to all genders reveals this precariousness because it proves that sexuality is not a binary.

The instinct to punish is therefore borne out of a fear of losing political power. If the heteronormative regime is to be maintained, then there can be no middle ground. If the taboo of same sex attraction falters, allowing subconscious homosexual desires to be expressed, then the hets’ position of superiority quickly fades. The easiest means of protection is to say that bisexuals just don’t exist. It’s the same narrative I’ve been told again and again. You must be confused. You’re actually gay.

It won’t be easy for you to accept you’ve been playing a part in a totalitarian heterosexual regime. But you need not succumb to your repressed desires. You can still choose to be straight or gay and that’s fine. But whether or not we (bisexuals) are right or wrong in the sexuality that we think we’ve chosen, please just return us the same courtesy. If we say we exist, then we do.

​[1] McClintock, ‘Maid to Order: Commercial Fetishism and Gender Power’ (1993) 37 Social Text 87

Jacob is a Third Year JD Student.

Anonymous
8/10/2019 06:02:45 pm

I am bisexual, and am confused by the following elements of this article:

'Underlying this system of punishment is a jealousy of queer sexual freedom which manifests in an active denial by heterosexuals of their own homosexual desires.'

'But you need not succumb to your repressed desires.'

It seems a bizarre approach to call out bi erasure but in the same article deny heterosexuality?

Anon
8/10/2019 06:18:17 pm

I agree with a lot of your points. For a long time, I presumed many 'straight' people were attracted to multiple genders but we were just all abiding by some social pact not to talk about it. But I'd just missed the memo about what bisexuality is and didn't know that the term might be a more accurate label for my identity.

However, I think a couple of parts of this article come close to suggesting absolutely everyone is bi (apologies if I'm taking it way too literally and you were being ironic). While I presume there are a lot of people who struggle to talk about their multi-gender attractions out of fear of invasive questions, invalidation, judgment, coercion, or violence, I still take people's word for it when they say they are exclusively attracted to one gender. Also, I think it's really important to respect gay and lesbian people's identities, especially when there seems to be a pervasive and toxic idea that lesbians are secretly attracted to men. 

And I think people have some degree of choice (if they're in a position where they can safely come out) over what label they choose to publicly identify with, or whether they label themselves at all. And maybe there's some element of choice in whether you try to repress your attractions or push through the often terrifying process of admitting to yourself that you're attracted to one or more genders that society and/or your family has told you not to be attracted to. BUT I don't think people choose their underlying sexuality!

Anon
8/10/2019 06:32:39 pm

Also, if anyone needs someone to talk to about any of this stuff, Bi+ Australia offer counselling over Skype and I can confirm they are lovely - https://www.biplusaustralia.org/support

Other places to get support include Switchboard
( http://www.switchboard.org.au/get-help/ ) and the University of Melbourne Counselling Service, which has a counsellor who offers specialised counselling to LGBTIQA+ students.

Tegan
8/10/2019 08:33:45 pm

Totally! The consequences of the idea that lesbians are secretly actually attracted to men deep down are many, varied, and fucked - ranging from difficulty getting rid of persistent men in bars to corrective rape. I agree that many 'straight' people refuse to come out for the reasons you mention but actual monosexual people do exist, including (tragically) heterosexuals.

The tragedy of Oedipus Heterosex
8/10/2019 08:40:16 pm

"but actual monosexual people do exist, including (tragically) heterosexuals."

I know 'punching up' is trendy these days, but a punch is still a punch, ie, punching people is bad so like, maybe don't do it?

Jacob
18/10/2019 10:30:20 am

Well said, Tegan. I completely agree!

Yawn
8/10/2019 06:28:12 pm

You exhibit the same narrow minded bigotry you lambast heterosexuals for. You proclaim people who are exclusively heterosexual do not really exist or should not exist. Because you happen to be bisexual, you assume everyone else must secretly be too, and assume they must just be in denial because it is unfathomable that they might think and feel differently to yourself.

Are you also going to start demanding that gay people become attracted to the opposite sex?

Dylan
8/10/2019 06:54:07 pm

Reckon you should probably listen to your own words and let people decide their own sexuality and interests. If someone is interested in men,women or no one that is totally their call and society is hopefully heading to a space where that is universally supported

I love sex
8/10/2019 09:08:36 pm

Sexuality has been turned into the least sexy topic

Jacob
18/10/2019 08:19:09 am


Thank you everyone for your thought provoking and insightful comments. I offer the following by way of reply.

The purpose of this article was not to argue that heterosexuals (or indeed monosexuals) don’t exist. Rather I sought to point out (cheekily, I know) that heterosexuality, just like bisexuality, can easily be erased with the right arguments. In doing so I hoped to make you question your own sexuality, the same way that people often (even if unwittingly) challenge bisexuality. I am thrilled to see that I appear to have succeeded in that respect.

I believe we should all be empowered to freely identify with any sexuality we choose.

I would love to meet the ‘anons’ who have posted comments and talk more about your experiences. Seeing as I don’t know who you most of you are, you are welcome to approach me.


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