Bisexuality

[lykomancer]

A long time ago, Ed said to me, "Stop saying that you're bi. You're not: you're straight. You just say that you're bi because it's trendy. Stop trying to be something you're not just to feel good about being open-minded. You need to accept that you're straight. And it's okay to be straight, Jess."

The other night, Randy said that I couldn't call myself bisexual if I hadn't had sex with a woman.* Flabbergasted, I asked if this meant that he hadn't been straight when he was a virgin. This went into a (mercifully) brief conversation in which he staunchly held that definitional sexuality hinges on sexual experience...which just floored me. I've never heard anyone say that.



...do other bisexual women have this problem of being told that they cannot define their own sexuality? What's the experience you all have had with this?



*I have had sex with a woman, thank you.

Comments

[maxxim-huzzah.livejournal.com]

I count myself as bisexual, since I', attracted to both men and women, but have had sex with neither. (woes) That doesn't mean I don't have a raging libido that wants satisfaction. Randy sounds a little threatened that he's not the only one that can turn your crank.

While people say it's trendy, I struggled long and hard with accepting my attraction to women as well as men. What is trendy about fear, hiding anxiety and a near suicide attempt, can someone explain? :P It was hell until I made peace with it. Even if I ended up marrying a man in the future, to not say I wasn't bisexual would be a lie to myself.

[lykomancer.livejournal.com]

...never? Really?
Huh. I didn't know you were a virgin! Okay, then.
(I can fix that for you. *wink-wink-nudge-nudge*)

Randy is being fucking annoying right now. He won't say that he wants to be in a relationship with me-- and is still talking about hooking up with other women while in bed with me-- but he's ragingly jealous of Ed. (He won't say he's jealous of Ed, but his behavior indicates that he is.)

He's driving me. Fucking. Psycho. AKRGJLKFDgjfhf.hfgh!!!!!


I never went through any agonizing. I never had anyone tell me-- directly or otherwise-- that I shouldn't like girls, and for most of my life I assumed that most people were bi. It was a stunning revelation for me to learn that this wasn't the case.

But from high school onward...
Saying I was bi meant that some people responded by saying that obviously I was a cowardly lesbian who couldn't just admit that I was into chicks.

Other people-- like Ed-- responded by saying that I was trying to hard to seem "PC" and trendy (especially at our liberal, sexually-diverse college).

A college professor-- women's studies and English prof, lesbian and crazy feminist-- told me that bisexuality was a non-choice, because either you ended up partnered with a woman and rebelled against the Man or else you married the Man and accepted the Rule of the Patriarchy. (Note how apparently polyamory does not exist in her world; you can't end up with a partner of both genders.)

Nutty.

All this over a sexual preference which I believed was the norm until I was 14!