Bi-phobia

First off, let me acknowledge that homophobia will very likely come up in this thread, and that it's definitely an issue, and I am very strongly against homophobia. However, that's not what I want to talk about. I'm curious about "bi-phobia" (or, basically, No Bisexuals with prejudice). As a bisexual troper myself, I've experienced it, and it bothers the hell out of me.

Why does it happen? Moreover, why, in the gay and lesbian communities, is it perpetrated? Seriously, why? Aside from that, what are your thoughts on it, and how does it relate to other prejudices you've either seen in action or experienced yourself?

Ignorance and/or lack of understanding, usually. People solely attracted to guys often find it difficult to grasp that someone else attracted to guys would also be attracted to girls. People solely attracted to girls often find it difficult to grasp that someone else attracted to girls would also be attracted to guys.

Why is it perpetuated among gays and lesbians? Because it's seen as a cop-out; like you want to hedge your bets instead of just going gay all the way.

Aside from that I know nothing about this at all.

I'm convinced that our modern day analogues to ancient scholars are comedians. -0dd1

This sounds like the best answer I’d hear for a majority of bi-phobics out there, at least the stereotypical ones.

I may lightly be bi-phobic, only on the grounds that I don’t understand it ‘’at all’’. I understand being homosexual, so that doesn’t bother me much, and while I know that sexuality is an incredibly loose idea when it comes to humans, I still can’t wrap my head around the idea that Alice like Bob, but would totally get with Courtney too.

Nothing wrong with it, but it boggles the mind.

Agreeing with the "It's a cop-out" thing. I'm more or less bisexual, and I don't understand the problem either.

It might also be a side effect of the black and white thinking that permeates society.

"I don't know how I do it. I'm like the Mr. Bean of sex." -Drunkscriblerian

Bisexuality is a mind boggling subject to straight and gay people? Really?

That puts some new insight unto me anyways. I'm openly bisexual and my best friend being a lesbian wasn't always comfortable when I tried to talk to her about a girl I was thinking about dating. AND when I was dating that particular girl, SHE accused me of using her to make it seem like I was straight. I was totally lost.

I mean, when you're bi, you just see people as people. You don't limit yourself by gender or ethnicity. There's a lot of freedom involved, and I'm totally okay living that way. I can understand why people don't share it of course, but I don't really get the prejudice that I get sometimes.

Of course, I fall under Robot Pirate Ninja Abraham Lincoln as far as my preferences go. I like men and women equally, I'm a yuri fanboy with some mixture of yaoi but I also enjoy a good straight romance if I can into the characters. I'm...seriously not like most guys out there.

edited 10th Mar '11 12:12:40 AM by SubtlyinyourMind

Kanaya, it's hard. Being a kid growing up. It's hard and no one understands.

Meh, my roomate is bi, or rather that's what he told us a ways back when he came out to our circle of friends.

I think in his specific case, it was a copout though. After he came out about being bi he's never really made any sort of judgements about women being attractive, but plenty about guys. He dates pretty actively and has dated tons of guys, but not a single female in the 3 years or so that I've known him. We're pretty sure he told us he was bi just because he felt we would judge him less for it.

Many tend to view all bisexuals as attention whores, partly thanks to attention whores who aren't bisexual and need to GTFO. >:(

Huh, color me genuinely surprised.

This is probably a result of my autism causing me not to pick up on this social norm. As many other things I've missed in the past. >_<

There's only two times I'll mention it in public and it's either if I'm trying to date someone or when I'm in a gay community speaking out for my own rights. I guess I'm not like most bisexual people or...something? I'll have to research this more.

Kanaya, it's hard. Being a kid growing up. It's hard and no one understands.

My own sense is that for some ex-homophobes who are now pro - gay rights there is a sense of "homosexuality is like a Distaff Counterpart / Spear Counterpart of being straight, so the only thing that's different between gay and straight is one's sex relative to the sex of one's significant other," but they can't comprehend bisexuality in the same sense.

It certainly doesn't help that two common steriotypes in fiction of Bi folk are Depraved Bisexual and Anything That Moves.

The other steriotype I've heard is that the bisexual is sexually confused. Either they're actually gay and don't want to admit it, they're straight but "curious", or there's something wrong with them mentally and they honestly can't figure out what their orientation is, so bisexual is used as a default.

@Mind: I don't make a habit of bringing it up either. Among friends who don't mind, sometimes public groping occurs, but that's more of a joking around sort of thing.

"I don't know how I do it. I'm like the Mr. Bean of sex." -Drunkscriblerian

Oh goodness Subtlyinyour Mind, don’t assume that just because I don’t understand it that nearly all straight people can’t get it. I’m not offended, but that’s a crazy assumption to make that can alter your world view. It’s most likely just me, and only because I was never given a clear explanation as to how someone felt that way. They, “just did.” Sure it’s sexuality, which is already a giant gradient, but shouldn’t you at least know why you like a specific gender or both? Just my thought process though; don’t lob that at all straight/gay people.

To be fair, in my youth, it did seem like a copout for a friend of mine. She’d go off on how she was bisexual, constantly wanting either sex, yet only went after men. Sure, it wasn’t strange for her to be completely open to making out with an attractive girl, but most of the women I’ve met in my life, throughout all the various stages therein, were more open with their sexuality than men were (this was only perpetuated by American pop culture), which is primarily why this seemed like a copout. And again, she only dated men exclusively, which was why everyone thought her “bisexual tendencies” were a little off key.

Yeah, I've definitely experienced it before. For instance, someone saying I was just being trendy. That I was a heterosexual who just wanted to seem hip and cool and needed to shut up because in actuality I wouldn't want to go anywhere near the same sex. Certainly many people have been annoyed at me as soon as mentioning Bisexuality.

I also had a gay person I knew or rather had just become acquainted with, whom refused to ever talk to me again upon discovering my professed orientation. Ah, that's a painful memory too. Oww, my brain.

Also apparently some people believe that bisexuals are just closeted homosexuals. That one for the most part just makes me laugh. Though I have had run-ins with it that it's extremely irritating as well.

The feeling one gets about the Orientation is that it's some weak middle road "option" that shouldn't be taken, even though you're born with it. Like professing to have it is like saying "I'm emo" or "I'm a Hipster" or "I'm a slut" or "I'm a pretending jerk". I'd decided to remain in the closet about it my whole life because it was easy enough to lie to myself that I was still a heterosexual and that bisexuals didn't exist, and that it was some watered down experimental feelings that need not ever be came out about.

As I got older, and I still have intrusive doubtful feelings. I felt silly for being "oh no, hehe, not a bisexual. You're right, Bisexuals don't exist. What was I thinking?!" and go on pretending to be a heterosexual. Now that I'm older, I realize it's basically me caving in to a useless stigma that I never should have given into and was just as bad as homophobia in some ways. They wanted me to choose, and why should I? It was also a bit ridiculous to go as a "heterosexual whom also likes the same sex".

And yet to a tiny degree I can also understand the behaviour even though I hate that I did it now. Since labels are these petty things, why not just describe myself in the action of being attracted to both men and women? At what level does Orientation identification even matter? Just so that I can stand against Heteronormativity? You know, if there's anything society has made me feel, with it's tug of war either queer or not binary, it's that I have some strange absence of an orientation. Except that would be asexuality, wouldn't it?

edited 9th Mar '11 5:50:45 PM by Ukonkivi

Genkidama for Japan, even if you don't have money, you can help![1]

How exactly is bisexuality a "cop-out"? Sexuality is so complicated that there is no black and white.

Some people may just be genuinely confused about their sexual orientation and, as a placeholder until they know for sure, declare themselves bi-sexual which may, to others that guard their sexuality fiercely, appear as a cop-out.

edited 9th Mar '11 5:43:41 PM by Newfable

That's true. But what really annoys/angers me is when people go around calling themselves bisexual without putting any thought into it.

@CS I get annoyed when people call themselves anything without putting any serious thought into it.

There's no justice in the world and there never was~

I suppose it's seen as a copout in two ways:

1. Sort of like agnosticism is seen as a "can't I just sit on the fence here and decide later?" cop-out in terms of religious identity, bisexuality is seen as something similar for sexual identity.

2. The "It's okay, mom and dad, I can still get married and give you grandkids" sort of copout, where you supposedly don't have to accept the "full" stigma of being gay. The fact that you gain an entirely different stigma by identifying as bi (such as the regular insistence by others to "prove" your sexuality in both directions) doesn't seem to have been taken into account.

I think thoughtless sexuality is what's fueling the OP's idea of bi-phobia in the first place, and I agree. Bi-sexuality is seen as the popular default to sexuality (or at least that's how American pop culture tends to portray it), or a sexuality that just "doesn't care", which tends to get on the nerves of others who care about which team they play for (especially considering some of the flack that some of these individuals have to put up with).

Biphobia exists because we like seperating things into dichotomies, even when they're false.

We put straight and gay on a dichotomy.

Bisexuality does not fit the dichotomy.

Ergo, it is wrong. In their eyes at least.

"Who wants to hear about good stuff when the bottom of the abyss of human failure that you know doesn't exist is so much greater?"-Wraith

I can understand the appeal of the Everyone Is Bi mentality. I've been guilty of at least agreeing with people who said it because it sounded cool.

I mean, that's one less group for people to negate people falling in love with. I notice how a lot of people praise the fact they don't have any racial preferences in dating because they only care about personality or because they think people are beautiful of every race, and everyone should think that way. Because, the logic is that this just removes one superficial selectiveness in dating. Then wouldn't it be great as well, if people didn't care about biological sex at all when dating? The world would be a paradise if everyone just dated a person and not a gender or ethnicity or whatever, that's certainly an appeal to Everyone Is Bi. Almost gives images of the world holding hands in peace and harmony sort of thing.

Or course people will always have different aesthetic preferences and the like. It's unavoidable. But I can see where people like these sort of things. In the meantime there's still loads of Homosexuals and Heterosexuals and Asian Fetishists and the like whom care about a lot more than just personality. I think the world is fine enough without everyone being equally attracted to everyone.

Genkidama for Japan, even if you don't have money, you can help![1]

@Ukon: I somewhat think Everyone Is Bi, but that's really only because I very highly doubt that anyone can be 100% straight/gay. I don't think I've ever met someone that's never said "I'm gay, but she's pretty hot." or other such statements.

"I don't know how I do it. I'm like the Mr. Bean of sex." -Drunkscriblerian

That's another reason, a logical one, it seems more like sexuality out to be like a continuum. With most people leaning to one end of attraction or the other.

Genkidama for Japan, even if you don't have money, you can help![1]

There are plenty of people who are 100% straight or gay. There are, of course, plenty more who are <99%...

No, there's not. I remember hearing that true 100/0 and 0/100 people were extremely rare. To be completely 100% straight or gay, you have to be disgusted at the thought that your non-preferred gender could be attractive. A completely heterosexual guy—for example—would have to be disgusted at the mere concept that a man could be considered attractive, and be utterly repulsed at the sheer idea someone would think that. If he could admit that other men are good looking, he's not 100% straight.

"Who wants to hear about good stuff when the bottom of the abyss of human failure that you know doesn't exist is so much greater?"-Wraith