Where's Bisexuality on Campus? In Media?

Hey everyone! We are Lee Michael Garcia Jimenez and Rubby Valentin Paulino and we are two gay men on campus looking to facilitate sustainable conversations about gender and sexuality.

While we’re hoping to discuss matters that range from lesbianism to the patriarchy, we acknowledge the fact that we are not professionals. This column is just as much as a learning experience for us, as we hope it’ll be for you. Blatantly put, we’re two queers who like talking about queer things, and we hope that our words lead to discussion and hopefully some understanding.

To start off the year, we thought it’d be nice to bring up one of the first big queer events to happen this school year (and we don’t mean the Q&A Party). Sept. 23 was Bisexuality Day, also known as Bi Pride Day.

Unsurprisingly, the event brought about some cheap media coverage online and was successful at putting together slideshows of the (in)famous bisexual celebrities of our time. The way Bisexuality Day was being managed by large media companies helped us raise many questions about the way we see bisexuality. Most importantly we wanted to know how we could share “bisexual day” with you in a way that would underline “the struggle” or social stigma that pins the freedom of bisexuals around the world.

When asking around about the number of bisexuals people knew on campus, the largest answer we got was three. Where are the bisexual people on campus? And does their lack of presence in the community reflect some deeper issues? Of course!

For many people, it’s hard to think of bisexuality as legitimate. For instance, you’ll notice that from the mass of celebrity “coming out stories”, the vast majority are about celebrities being gay. Now let’s ignore the fact that the media is involved with the coming out or outing of celebrities or even the fact that there’s a need to come out. Let’s just focus on the vast underrepresentation of bisexuality in our community (not to mention asexuals, genderqueers, and all the other sexual and gender minorities. Even among the few openly bisexual people we’ve began to see as time goes on, it’s almost always women. Why is that?

GLAAD, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, defines bisexuality as a sexual orientation in which a person is not limited to one gender in their attraction.

While labels vary in meaning for every individual, this provides a broad understanding of the term bisexuality but it’s always fine to ask someone what their label means to them, especially if you don’t understand. Too often, people simply assume a lot about someone’s sexual experience. And while we’re not saying everyone should go around talking about sex (unless you want to), when those assumptions harm a community, it’s best to address them.

That’s why we see more bisexual women in the media than bisexual men: because people make assumptions and have a double standard for men and women when it comes to bisexuality. Often bisexuality is thought of as being “half-straight”, a 50/50 divide on your attraction split between men and women. However, this has a different definition for each gender.

Women who are half-straight are seen as sexy since they satisfy the porn culture-induced fantasy of men watching girls get it on with the ability to join the action. This definition of bisexuality for a woman doesn’t even consider a woman’s personal sexual desire or pleasure but rather her ability to satisfy the man. And how does a bisexual woman satisfy a man? Threesomes.

On the other hand, it’s not entirely socially acceptable for men to be bisexual. Because being half-straight means you’re half-gay, and that one half of gayness taints the straight. Furthermore, we are dealing with sexism that says that a gay man isn’t a real man or is no better than a woman.

Our experience in the “oh so marvelous” queer community — especially among gay men — reflects that being “half-straight” means you’ll never be satisfied and thus  you’ll never be faithful. This leaves bisexuals stigmatized as being dirty and promiscuous. You’re probably just a straight person experimenting anyway, unless of course you act gay. Then you’re just a gay person who can’t admit it.

In retrospect, being bisexual isn’t being half-straight (Eureka!). Sexuality is fluid and can be thought of as existing on a spectrum. While some homosexuals go through a period of identifying identify as a bisexual, it’s simply people exploring different labels as they learn more about who they are. Bisexuality is legitimate, and it isn’t a sexuality that leaves people incapable of monogamy. A person’s gender is just one out of many characteristics of a person, and just because you find multiple aspects attractive, it doesn’t mean you’ll never be satisfied unless you have them all.

Maybe you like redheads and brunettes, or you like both cat-people and dog-people. If you settle down and marry a redheaded cat-person, does that mean you’re going to need to go and have sex with a brunette and play with her dog in secret? Of course not, that’s absurd. Similarly, bisexuals are capable of being in committed relationships with either a man or woman (What?!).

And because of the myths and stigmas around bisexuality and prejudice from both the queer and straight communities, many bisexuals remain in the closet, despite the fact that they are the vast majority of the queer community. And that’s why we need a day to celebrate bisexuality and be aware of the challenges bisexual people face.

We hope you have a very gay week!  Whether that means happy or homosexual is up to your interpretation (but we suggest both).