We know there’s not one way, one light, one stupid truth…

Tina: I still identify politically as a lesbian…
Jenny: It’s not about who you vote for Tina, it’s about who you fuck.
The L Word, Season 4, Episode 4: ‘Layup’

“…life with you is spiritually murdering Mary. Can’t you realize that she needs all the things that it’s not in your power to give her? Children, protection, friends whom she can respect and who’ll respect her–don’t you realize this?”
Radclyffe Hall, The Well of loneliness

“My daddy warned me about men and booze but he didn’t say a word about women and cocaine!”
Tallulah Bankhead

“…our hearts beat fiercely
with clandestine dreams,
knowing we’ll be the
lovers of libertines.”
Paul-Marie Verlaine,
Poèmes Saturniens: Caprices III

The above quote from (my favourite guilty pleasure and ludicrous thorn in my side) The L Word got me to thinking about ‘queer’ identity and the derision that is often leveled at people who identify as bisexual. In this scene Tina (who has recently begun a relationship with a man after 7 years with a woman) attempts to associate herself with a queer politic, yet is denied the right in light of whom she has chosen to sleep with. It’s fair to say in this regard that many bisexual people have difficulty validating their sexual preference as a legitimate identity in the face of both heterosexual and homosexual cultures.

Particularly within, supposedly, accepting and heterogeneous queer communities, bisexuals are often seen as traitors to the fight, who could at any moment go over to the dark side and immediately access the benefits of a heterosexist culture. If I eventually choose to marry a man I will instantly be written off as ’straight’, I will have lost all entitlement to any queer affinity, I will have “finally made up my mind” – reached the resting place of my sexuality. Or even worse I will be just another LUG, my ex-girlfriends will say I always did like dildos a bit too much, and my gay friends will feel offended that I toyed so disingenuously with their lifestyle.

It is difficult to truly analyse the causal factors in this phenomenon. We could, for example, argue that science propagates biphobia. The majority of scientific studies that attempt to find a biological reason for sexual orientation rarely include bisexuality as a valid sexual identity, seemingly because that would upset the logical binary system of their desired findings. Perhaps it is this inability to weigh up bisexuality, or rather there being no diametrical opposite by which to define it, that has resulted in people who identify as bisexual being discredited and viewed ultimately with suspicion or ridicule.

No better than science in this regard though is pop culture. I struggle to think of a trouble-free representation of bisexuality in any book or film I’ve encountered (thus far), and have grown tired of the standard set by literature like The Well of Loneliness and Forster’s Maurice, in which the natural truth of homosexuality is argued by representation of the bisexual as a sort of half creature, lacking the courage to take that final step towards their true sexuality, someone who occupies an invisible and cowardly middle ground. Thanks also to postmodern cultural phenomenon like Girls Gone Wild, and Tila Tequila (go on Google it, I dare you) the [female] bisexual is now reduced to every teenage boy’s dream and every “man in search of a wife”’s worst nightmare.

One of the main obstacles to establishing a healthy bisexual identity is anchored firmly in that choppy sea of monogamy. It is a common misconception that a bisexual person must be intrinsically incapable of being sexually faithfully to one person, as that person will be unable to “give them everything they want.” I am sometimes attracted to people with fair complexions, yet my boyfriend has dark hair, does this mean therefore that I’m going to cheat on him with a Swede? No – because my desire for him, and contentedness with him, is based on more than his physicality, more than his hair colour, more than his sex. To suggest that bisexual people are any less capable of monogamy than anyone else is to assign them an almost animalistic lack of self-control, is degrading and absurd, yet is the most frequent accusation I hear.

An area worthy of comment too is the attitude as exhibited by Tallulah Bankhead above. This decadently hedonistic depiction of sexuality has done a lot for the school of thought that posits bisexual people as ‘greedy’, having their big hetero-cake and eating it too; or even simply as people who just like fucking, regardless of the genitalia at hand (as it were). And as everyone knows from the days of bedtime stories there are no lines of cocaine at the happy ever after, thus inferring that people who are ‘hedonistically bisexual’ will grow out of it along with their desire to party; the ones who do I would be more inclined to call ‘try-sexual’ or perhaps just ’sexual’ (I’m open to criticism that I may be utilising a form of the reductive discourse I want to challenge here). As I see it though, bisexuality is as unified and consistent an identity as any other and it’s important to bear in mind that bisexual identity is different to bisexual behaviour.

I sometimes wonder if we haven’t flooded ourselves into a terminological corner somewhat, Foucault’s “discursive explosion” has, I believe, glossed over bisexuality assuming it would slot neatly in with the other “peripheral sexualities”. However the fact that this identity is forced to develop in a strange kind of purgatory, being denied the validation of others, suggests that homosexual and heterosexual cultures are equally guilty in imposing the restrictive binary; thus excluding a huge volume of people who are just as affected by gay-rights as those who feel they have sole right to it.

Personally, I find the availability of identifying as ‘queer’ at once vitally liberating and potentially problematic. It’s the option I most often take but I’m starting to wonder about its possible counter-productivity. Of course many people who identify as ‘queer’ are not bi- (or homo-) sexual, but for those of us who are, perhaps a greater number ‘coming out’ will increase bisexuality’s recognition as something more than just a halfway house for sexual activity.