There are, of course, many stereotypes out there about bisexuals.
Some are unflattering: we’re born cheaters, we’re greedy, we’re tourists who are destined to leave whomever we’re with for someone of another gender when we inevitably get bored, we’re “confused” and attention seeking and secretly straight/gay (depending on our gender, of course).
Some are sinister: the notion that bisexuals are permanently sexually available, that we’re easy, that we automatically consent to a range of sexual activities (threesomes in particular!) purely because of our bisexuality.
Some are ridiculous: that whole thing about sitting in chairs, which barely counts as a stereotype because I don’t think it’s ever actually been floated as anything other than a joke.
But few of these stereotypes accurately depict bisexual life. Or at least: they don’t depict my life, not in the current moment, anyway.
In my twenties I felt like a “bad bisexual” because of all the ways I did comport to stereotype: because I was slutty, because I mostly dated men, because my dalliances with women were fleeting and casual, because I didn’t feel as grounded in queer community as I had once been. Now I feel like a bad bisexual for wholly different reasons: I have been single for well over five years, and while I’m not exactly celibate these days, I’m not really actively dating. If bisexuality is so rooted in what we are doing — what gender we partner with, how many members of each gender we’ve dated, how often we are touching which variety of genitals, and so on and so forth — what does it mean to be bisexual and just… alone?
And yet: I am very aware of specifically bisexual my experience of singleness, of isolation, is. Because, let’s be blunt: I could probably be dating if it was my sole goal in life. Probably.
Certainly, there are men who would be happy to go on a date with me, to sleep with me, perhaps even to partner with me. But I’ve lost my taste for heterosexual partnerships, I’ve lost my taste for dating men — not because “queer dating is better,” per se, but because my experience of dating men was suffused with so much abuse, abuse that I cannot separate from how men (mostly but not exclusively straight men) understood my role in our relationships as a bisexual woman. When I think about putting myself out there, when I think about partnering with a man — there’s too much baggage. The appeal is largely gone. I never say never, but I’m just not really motivated to try.
Queer dating, on the other hand — much ink has been spilled about how difficult queer dating can be for bisexuals, and for cis bisexual women (the ultimate bisexual tourists!) in particular. I can’t say for certain that anyone I’ve been attracted to has rejected me because I am bi, but I can say with a degree of confidence that being bisexual has shrunk my queer dating pool, that it’s made me less comfortable in general queer spaces, that — combined with the fact that I’m a femme woman primarily interested in other femme women, a sadly rare breed, especially if you want dating and relationships and not just sex — it’s just created one more barrier to finding a loving and fulfilling partnership (a challenging task for anyone, regardless of gender or sexuality, let’s be real).
Should this loneliness, this isolation, be a new bisexual stereotype? I don’t know. I do know that it is my reality, and possibly yours. I do know that it is important to talk about it — to not just share the happy stories about how bisexuals can find love too, but to really explore all the loneliness, all the isolation, all the challenges that come with being bi. There is more pain here than just “everyone thinks I’m going to cheat on them!” I should know, because it is, sadly, my current life.
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