EDIT: The more I think about this the more I worry it's derailing :( I shall leave it unlocked, of only so I can link to it the next time I am annoyed by a boundary policing straight person. But still, apologies.
So, I think homophobia and heterosexism are bad. I'm against any sort of oppression on principle, but I've also seen the terrible hurt these prejudices can cause, both in the wider world and to my LGBTQ friends in particular.
But without meaning to minimise or distract from that (because it is definitely more important), I was recently struck by the way in which a particular form of heterosexism hurts me as a straight woman as well.
Namely, the way that the impossible bind bisexual women are put into (any interest in the same sex-> lesbian! Any interest in the opposite sex-> straight!) also, in a less extreme way, erases the sexuality of those of us who have some same sex attraction but still identify as straight.
Thus, my rambling somewhat self-centered thoughts. This is definitely not a complete analysis of bi erasure! And the primary target of my ire here is boundary policing from straight people (including the little boundary policing straight person in my head), since I feel skeevy lecturing LGBT people about how they should be more inclusive of me. Only talking about women since that's where I've seen it play out, but a lot of this applies to men too1.
PLEASE let me know if I'm being a straightsplaining jerk, and I apologise in advance if I am. I really hope not, but it's a complicated topic.
EDIT: And I am! Am in the process of editing based on people's criticisms, see the comments.
This is the conversation which inspired this post (and expresses pretty much everything I want to say much more succinctly :)), but is definitely not the first time I've encountered these ideas.
So, sexual identity is hugely complicated. But I know enough about LGBT/queer/etc identities to know that (a)I don't identify that way and thus can't really understand them and (b) You can't and shouldn't ever judge anyone else's identity for them. This post totally glosses over all the aspects of sexual identity that have nothing to do with who you want to have sex with. My point I guess is that even if we DO only only concentrate on that aspect, and act like there's any objective measure people's sexualities can be measured by, people's attitudes are still impossibly hypocritical.
The "who you're attracted to" aspect of sexual identity can be measured by Kinsey Scale. Depending on how you measure things I'm somewhere between a 1 and a 2, though apparently I come across as total 0 (or I did before I started squeeing so much about femslash :)) The test is flawed (asexual people aren't on it for example) but helps get across my point.
Accusations I have heard leveled at people who aren't a total 0 (unambiguously straight) or 6 (unambiguously gay/lesbian):
And this affects me, though not as much as a lot of other people. Not that anyone has actually sincerely accused me of being a closeted lesbian/bisexual3, but every time I poke at my own sexuality (which I've been doing every now and then since I hit puberty) I have two spectres in front of me: The repressed bisexual who thinks she's straight, and the wannabe bisexual who's actually straight (I like men too much to suspect myself of being a lesbian :D).
And it's only with the recent discussions about sexuality in slash fandom and all the comments about "fandom bisexuals" that something really obvious struck me: they can't both be true at the same time. And what seems to happen in conversations that rely on these ideas is that they will both be in play: Anyone who claims to be bisexual and hasn't acted "lesbian enough" is straight. But anyone who's straight (an identity which has just been defined as containing a large potential for same sex attraction) is assumed to fit into neat little heteronormative boxes, as if the Kinsey scale jumps straight from 0 to 6 or maybe (if people are being very open minded) 3 with nobody in between4.
There is a difference between being in denial about your sexuality, being unsure, and it being in the fuzzy area between definitions. I am pretty sure how I feel about women (attractive sometimes but not generally as much as men, would probably only be able to judge if I'd want to date one if I was single again5) and there's not much I can do about the remaining unsureness. The fact that some people assume from me identifying as straight that I have no attraction to women, or that someone identifying as bisexual has had relationships/sex with both men and women, or that someone identifying as a lesbian has no attraction to men does not make us liars, it just goes to show they shouldn't go round making false assumptions (and also that language is ambiguous). And of course people's identities change and that doesn't make them liars either.
(This section has been heavily edited because it was crap)
Choosing to be closeted is an entirely valid response to the homophobic society we live in, and definitely not a decision any straight person is in a position to criticise.
If the "closeted bisexual" is happy in their relationships with men, is it that big a deal that they're not dating women too, even if they might (in your opinion) get something out of it? What business is it of yours how they identify? (this also applies to any lesbian "in denial" about her bisexuality etc)
The issue of straight women pretending to be bi is a HUGE minefield, which I shall leave to the actual bisexuals to poke at. But as![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sanguinity pointed out someone "pretending" to be bi only when it's safe might in fact just be "pretending" to be straight when it's not. The homophobic society we live in does that to people. And if a straight girl enjoys making out with other girls that doesn't make her a "fake bisexual", that makes her a straight girl who enjoys making out with other girls.
For context, here is the article I linked to.
1)I'm not sure how it works for men in this boat since I haven't talked to many men who identify as straight but are openly attracted to other men. I think the fact that such men are so rarely heard from says a lot in and of itself. Normally I wouldn't just talk about men and women, but "straightness" becomes a less useful term when talking about non-binary gendered people. Also for simplicity I've acted like it's a simple straight/bi/lesbian continuum which ignore pansexual people, omnisexual people and probably others that aren't coming to mind.
2) I know lesbians who've dated men etc have it even worse, but they don't illustrate the hypocrisy quite so well. Also "dated" here may just mean "had sex with" :)
3)Other than maybe my ex, and I'd say he was at least half just saying it as an insult
4)I personally haven't seen the inverse of this conversation, erasing 4 and 5 on the scale, but I'm sure it happens.
5)The last time I was single was eleven years ago, and I was sufficiently mired in heteronormativity that I couldn't fully get my head around the idea of women as possible sexual/romantic objects and put it in the too hard basket. And now I have trouble seriously imagining myself with anyone other than Cam, which while unambiguously heterosexual definitely isn't my full potential :)
So, I think homophobia and heterosexism are bad. I'm against any sort of oppression on principle, but I've also seen the terrible hurt these prejudices can cause, both in the wider world and to my LGBTQ friends in particular.
But without meaning to minimise or distract from that (because it is definitely more important), I was recently struck by the way in which a particular form of heterosexism hurts me as a straight woman as well.
Namely, the way that the impossible bind bisexual women are put into (any interest in the same sex-> lesbian! Any interest in the opposite sex-> straight!) also, in a less extreme way, erases the sexuality of those of us who have some same sex attraction but still identify as straight.
Thus, my rambling somewhat self-centered thoughts. This is definitely not a complete analysis of bi erasure! And the primary target of my ire here is boundary policing from straight people (including the little boundary policing straight person in my head), since I feel skeevy lecturing LGBT people about how they should be more inclusive of me. Only talking about women since that's where I've seen it play out, but a lot of this applies to men too1.
PLEASE let me know if I'm being a straightsplaining jerk, and I apologise in advance if I am. I really hope not, but it's a complicated topic.
EDIT: And I am! Am in the process of editing based on people's criticisms, see the comments.
This is the conversation which inspired this post (and expresses pretty much everything I want to say much more succinctly :)), but is definitely not the first time I've encountered these ideas.
So, sexual identity is hugely complicated. But I know enough about LGBT/queer/etc identities to know that (a)I don't identify that way and thus can't really understand them and (b) You can't and shouldn't ever judge anyone else's identity for them. This post totally glosses over all the aspects of sexual identity that have nothing to do with who you want to have sex with. My point I guess is that even if we DO only only concentrate on that aspect, and act like there's any objective measure people's sexualities can be measured by, people's attitudes are still impossibly hypocritical.
The "who you're attracted to" aspect of sexual identity can be measured by Kinsey Scale. Depending on how you measure things I'm somewhere between a 1 and a 2, though apparently I come across as total 0 (or I did before I started squeeing so much about femslash :)) The test is flawed (asexual people aren't on it for example) but helps get across my point.
Accusations I have heard leveled at people who aren't a total 0 (unambiguously straight) or 6 (unambiguously gay/lesbian):
- She claims to be a lesbian and has only dated women but is attracted to guys and thus must be bi2
- She claims to be bi but has only dated women so must be a lesbian (admittedly, I've only seen the male version of this in person)
- She claims to be bi but has only dated men so must be straight
- She claims to be straight and has only dated guys but is attracted to women so must be a lesbian.
And this affects me, though not as much as a lot of other people. Not that anyone has actually sincerely accused me of being a closeted lesbian/bisexual3, but every time I poke at my own sexuality (which I've been doing every now and then since I hit puberty) I have two spectres in front of me: The repressed bisexual who thinks she's straight, and the wannabe bisexual who's actually straight (I like men too much to suspect myself of being a lesbian :D).
And it's only with the recent discussions about sexuality in slash fandom and all the comments about "fandom bisexuals" that something really obvious struck me: they can't both be true at the same time. And what seems to happen in conversations that rely on these ideas is that they will both be in play: Anyone who claims to be bisexual and hasn't acted "lesbian enough" is straight. But anyone who's straight (an identity which has just been defined as containing a large potential for same sex attraction) is assumed to fit into neat little heteronormative boxes, as if the Kinsey scale jumps straight from 0 to 6 or maybe (if people are being very open minded) 3 with nobody in between4.
There is a difference between being in denial about your sexuality, being unsure, and it being in the fuzzy area between definitions. I am pretty sure how I feel about women (attractive sometimes but not generally as much as men, would probably only be able to judge if I'd want to date one if I was single again5) and there's not much I can do about the remaining unsureness. The fact that some people assume from me identifying as straight that I have no attraction to women, or that someone identifying as bisexual has had relationships/sex with both men and women, or that someone identifying as a lesbian has no attraction to men does not make us liars, it just goes to show they shouldn't go round making false assumptions (and also that language is ambiguous). And of course people's identities change and that doesn't make them liars either.
(This section has been heavily edited because it was crap)
Choosing to be closeted is an entirely valid response to the homophobic society we live in, and definitely not a decision any straight person is in a position to criticise.
If the "closeted bisexual" is happy in their relationships with men, is it that big a deal that they're not dating women too, even if they might (in your opinion) get something out of it? What business is it of yours how they identify? (this also applies to any lesbian "in denial" about her bisexuality etc)
The issue of straight women pretending to be bi is a HUGE minefield, which I shall leave to the actual bisexuals to poke at. But as
sanguinity pointed out someone "pretending" to be bi only when it's safe might in fact just be "pretending" to be straight when it's not. The homophobic society we live in does that to people. And if a straight girl enjoys making out with other girls that doesn't make her a "fake bisexual", that makes her a straight girl who enjoys making out with other girls. For context, here is the article I linked to.
1)I'm not sure how it works for men in this boat since I haven't talked to many men who identify as straight but are openly attracted to other men. I think the fact that such men are so rarely heard from says a lot in and of itself. Normally I wouldn't just talk about men and women, but "straightness" becomes a less useful term when talking about non-binary gendered people. Also for simplicity I've acted like it's a simple straight/bi/lesbian continuum which ignore pansexual people, omnisexual people and probably others that aren't coming to mind.
2) I know lesbians who've dated men etc have it even worse, but they don't illustrate the hypocrisy quite so well. Also "dated" here may just mean "had sex with" :)
3)Other than maybe my ex, and I'd say he was at least half just saying it as an insult
4)I personally haven't seen the inverse of this conversation, erasing 4 and 5 on the scale, but I'm sure it happens.
5)The last time I was single was eleven years ago, and I was sufficiently mired in heteronormativity that I couldn't fully get my head around the idea of women as possible sexual/romantic objects and put it in the too hard basket. And now I have trouble seriously imagining myself with anyone other than Cam, which while unambiguously heterosexual definitely isn't my full potential :)