Before you begin reading this, ask yourself: What are my perceptions of gay, lesbian and bisexual people? Even if you could answer right away that you see them as natural sexual identities and support what makes them unique, I insist you ask yourself again: How do I understand bisexuality as a preference.
One of the most common reactions that I have faced regarding bisexuality is this, “Aren’t they having the best of both worlds?”
Well, I wouldn’t know because I am not bisexual, and you wouldn’t know either because of you, the person making this statement, isn’t bisexual either. Why is a sexual attraction in terms of bisexuality so easily conceptualized, and then dismissed, as fun?
Having an alternative sexual identity is not fun, let me tell you that
Too many of the bisexual people out there are living not-so-fun lives where they have to be on the wrong side of receiving flak, more than often from the LGBTQ community who are the support system. Yes, it’s a fact. Because a bisexual woman marrying a man or a bisexual man in love with a woman is mistaken for straight people who simply like to experiment.
Try applying that logic to being gay or straight. Yep, bizarre.
So here’s the deal. 7/10 people, I spoke to had some or other misconception about bisexuality. I indeed was one of those 7 or 8 odd people in the average set.
The caricature of bisexuality is so frothy that it takes very little effort to undermine the wholeness of its identity. It comes therefore as no surprise that the people just think bisexual people are liberal idiots who are up for any kind of sexual fun.
Apparently, a few of the most prominent misconceptions about bisexual people are these:
They are incapable of monogamy and are sexually promiscuous
Temptation x2. You do not like just chocolates or candies, you like them both. Being faithful is difficult as it were with a mono-orientation, how would anyone beat the odds when you double the pool of attraction to fish from?
Huh. A statement like that would simply prompt any well-meaning bisexual to give you the death stare. Loyalty in a relationship has no correlation to sexual orientation, straight, gay or bisexual it all depends on the personality. Just because they like both men and women with generally carefree personalities you cannot doubt them all.
They definitely don’t have a higher than human sex drive, therefore are sexually promiscuous, automatically.
They are confused straight people
Anyone who has ever said that, like seriously I only have two words for you: Grow Up! After all the awareness campaigns that people have been undertaking all around the world, so many protest marches, blogs, NGOs, advertising, anyone saying that would manage to offend even straight people.
What’s probably the worst is that reportedly the gay community is the quickest to pass this judgment. If a bisexual person dates a straight guy or girl, it doesn’t mean that they have given in to their straight urges.
Do They Date Straight People?
Obviously, if their sexually or romantically straight counterpart does not have an issue with them. They do. They do date homosexuals too but it isn’t obviously implied that they have to stick to the LGBTQ group. They do not have higher odds either, they do not score more. That is just a wrong way of seeing it.
Is It just Sexual?
Ask the bisexual person that. You see, technically, romantic attraction and sexual attraction are two absolutely different things but they usually align. But if a bisexual person has a romantic attraction for only gay or straight people, that does not make them any less bisexual.
How do you know that it is not simply someone experimenting?
First of all, it’s not majorly your business. But yes, if you are tangled up in some sort of a relationship with a bisexual and want to understand them better, know that it definitely matters is how they own their own labels.
How they tackle their implications, how do they express their sexuality? Just like being gay, lesbian, queer or straight, it matters a lot how the subject identifies himself/herself.
Needless to say, it matters a lot on what kind of fun this person is looking for. And even if a person would simply like to experiment, it’s slightly cruel to superficially judge people all the time.
These are just the tip of an iceberg worth of questions cross-examining bisexuality. People are so excessively obsessed with prodding on about its ambiguities that instead of making the coming out process a whole lot easier, they are insistently attacked about personal details.
It doesn’t bear very well when people want to be sexually promiscuous and just want to tag themselves as bisexual for the heck of it. Like this Katy Perry song, I Kissed A Girl And I Liked It, attracted quite some amount critique owing to her apparent trivialization of an intimate act.
Nobody could simply put aside the doubts whether Katy Perry was actually a homosexual or that her video showed nobody actually kissing. Is this just a song or was Katy Perry coming out as a bisexual?
Bisexuality is seen as such an exotic state that the world is yet to fully comprehend that you do not need to be either straight or gay. There is somewhere in between where a section of sexual identities exists.
How do we stop misunderstanding and start owning these people into our folds? Well, for that what society needs to do is essentially broaden its mind. And it starts with you.
Image Credits: Google Images
Sources: Love Matters, Wikipedia, Bisexual.org
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Super extecid to see more of this kind of stuff online.