So I reblog a lot of things that group all bi people under “bisexual” even though biromantics and other forms of attraction exist.
It’s weird that I do this because I’m not even bisexual really, I’m bi for other reasons… But like.. fighting people’s tendency to erase ace bi people (and ace gay people etc) would be soooo exhausting because soooo many people talk like that and I can’t do it.
So w/e I’ll reblog stuff about bisexuality and act like I fit under that even though I don’t.
I hate how our orientations are constructed. Its so difficult.
The thing is, the way their constructed aren’t constants. Even growing up I watched them change. And in some cases, this is a very good thing. In others, I’m watching people get thrown out of their own identity against their will.
I’m going to talk about some of what I saw growing up, because it’s different than what I see now. This isn’t nostalgia. This isn’t “those were the days.” This is, things were different, and while in some cases I think that the changes were positive, some people are getting thrown under the bus in the tendency to treat sexual (which includes romantic) organization/taxonomy as some sort of universal constant rather than what we used to understand ourselves and each other.
And this isn’t ancient history. I’m not that fucking old. I’m 34. Some of you were alive when these things were the case.
When I grew up, heterosexual/homosexual/bisexual were explicitly not specifically sexual. “It’s not about sex!” was a battlecry. This was emphasized frequently as people would sit there trying to come up with some gotcha that meant that you couldn’t be gay and a virgin at the same time. Or — and this is important: that you couldn’t be queer if you weren’t interested in sex. While it’s not necessarily the same as explicitly affirming asexuality, this was a way in which the asexual experience was made intelligible under the mainstream organization of sexuality.
There was a lot of rhetoric that emphasized this point. In particular, that the fixation on the sexual part of homo/bi-sexuality was actually a form of heterocentrism in which hets would try to strip queers of the capability for romantic attraction.
Yes, there are problems there. Yes, there’s the privileging of romantic attraction as better and more pure than sexual. And it’s worth talking about. But that’s not what I’m getting at right now.
What I am getting at, is that in the models I grew up with, among the queers I grew up around, both aro and ace people could qualify as not just bi, but bisexual. Or any other sexual orientation, really.
And I mean explicitly qualify under the relevant heading:
There was a 2 (or more?) point kinsey-like scale used among me and my queer friends in HS. It had a numerical range which translated to homo->bi->het.* One scale was sexual, or “Who do you want to sleep with?”. Another other was romantic, or “Who do you want to marry/date?”. (The third, if it existed — and I feel like a third did — might have been aesthetic. Possibly “Who do you think looks hot?”)
If you were in the middle for either/any of them, you qualified as bisexual. It was even theorized that if you were on opposite ends, for example, if you had exclusively homosexual romantic attraction** with exclusively hetosexual sexual attraction then you were probably bi, although you could also probably identify along the lines of the attraction that was most significant to you. Null values on a scale just meant that that particular scale wasn’t relevant. Move on to the next one.
Which does present a problem with aroace people. Where would they fit? If I’m right about the third scale being aesthetic, probably according to aesthetic attraction, as it’d be the last one left, and take priority. But I can’t remember that part clearly, and anyway, the point isn’t about the model being perfect. There are good things about the shifts, both in what it allows us to articulate insofar as experiences, and how it allows us to mobilize.
And, really, that’s the important part. The ability to articulate lived experiences, and in the case of sexual/romantic minorities, organize and mobilize under.
So, here’s the million dollar question:
During a time in which being aro or ace (or aroace) was even less intelligible to the mainstream — or even the mainstream queer community — than it is now, where were the ace and aro bi people? Where did they organize under when trying to deal with monosexism? Where did they vent their frustrations over LG exclusion? Where did they openly talk about their attractions? Who were they fighting alongside?
Bisexuals.
They were with the bisexuals.
They were bisexuals.
It was vital, and necessary, and I’m not about to throw them out now. Seriously? We’re supposed to ditch them after all that?
And to be clear, this is not about abandoning aro-ace terminology — it’s also vital and necessary. For organizing. For articulating experiences. For support.
So that’s the thing about how we taxonomize “sexuality.” It changes — and pretty quickly — just through common usage. It always has. It’s changing now, and we have a choice about the direction we want to push it. Not by putting up charts and graphs about who gets to be what, but just in how we use the terms. Who we, individually, include and exclude.
So here’s the deal for me:*** If you identify as bi, and you feel comfortable under the heading of bisexual, I’m not going to kick you out just because you’re not sexually-bi. I’m also not going to shame you out to keep our “good name” if you’re aro-bi. And if you’re aro-ace, but identify as bi? I’m not about to throw you under the bus either.
You don’t have to identify as bisexual, but imo, that door shouldn’t be closed. Doing that can be devastating to anyone who before now found solace and support there.
*It was a STEM magnet school. We were a bit nerdy like that.
**Does that sound weird now? Kinda my point re: different taxonomy and meanings.
***and I’ve talked with you in specific about this, but I feel like saying this is in general…
That’s really interesting. Thanks!
THIS IS THE POST. FUUUUUUUCK, I have been unsuccessfully googling for this for months because I misremembered it as being from another site. And it was RIGHT HERE ALL ALONG.
This story makes me really fucking angry tbh.
Not because there’s anything wrong with it per se. It’s because it’s such a clear illustration of how invisible bi culture and bi history are to everyone. Even often to bi people who came along just a little later.
And because the people who want to police the use of the word “queer”, and, especially, to keep the asexual umbrella from using it “because nobody has ever called you queer/bashed you with the word queer” are WRONG.
And not just wrong. Wrong in a way that makes it clear that they are not aware of bi culture and history. Wrong in a way that continues to erase bi culture and history, and ace culture and history. Wrong in a way that makes it clear that who uses what words in what way is more important to them than supporting any of these communities. Wrong in a way that is really just bullying weaker communities in order to feel powerful in a society that oppresses all of us.
Which, undoubtedly, is why people try so hard to police words like queer and cis and monosexual, with cries of “you’re implying we oppress you and we can’t oppress you bc we have no societal power over you!” Because the secret is that there is a ton of bullying and attempts to oppress each other going on here, and it comes from very much the same place in the queer community as it does in the larger society.
