(Allegedly)
The other week, in an act of masochism professional due diligence, I signed myself up for Google alerts for “bisexual” and “bisexuality.” The results have been… pretty depressing, I’ll be real. First my inbox was flooded with headlines about “Daemon Targaryen, Bisexual King” on account of a deleted House of the Dragon scene that briefly — briefly! — featured Targaryen embracing a male servant. Then there was a flood of press for an SNL sketch in which Grimace and a bunch of other McDonaldland characters come out as bi (it’s so bad I’m not even going to link to it, the premise is literally, “It’s funny to hear McDonaldland characters say, ‘I’m bi, I like both’ ad nauseam.”). Now, apparently, the major bisexual news is a trend of famous women “coming out” via TikTok gags.
And you don’t have to take my word for it: Nylon even went so far as to do a roundup of the three big names who took to TikTok to reveal themselves as bi (sort of), breathlessly linking to clips from Shay Mitchell, Emily Ratajkowski, and Madonna. (Shay and Emily both showcased their green velvet couches in response to prompt asking bi women if they owned this particular piece of furniture; Madonna, on the other hand, participated in the “if I miss, I’m gay” challenge, and yes, she missed.) Perhaps by the time you are reading this, even more famous women will have revealed their bisexuality a la TikTok duet! What a trend!
There are a couple of ways to read this phenomenon, so I’m going to start with the most positive ones first. I suppose it is kind of cool that coming out as bi is so NBD, such a non-event* that it can be casually tossed out as part of a meme, as opposed to being a Big Event full of speeches and tears and mentions of religion or whatever. And while I wouldn’t exactly say I’m surprised that the woman who kissed Britney Spears during the 2003 VMAs, a woman who built her early career on queer culture, is, herself, part homo, if we accept as a given that Representation Matters™️, then it’s worth something to see Madonna move the subtext into text, to more directly address the thing that’s been lingering behind the scenes for decades.
But beyond that, my take gets significantly bleaker. Because honestly, who gives a shit? Are we really at the point where famous, feminine cis women (ones who are, more often than not, romantically attached to men) coming out as bi is some big story? After Cardi and Gaga and Meghan and Anna and Katie and Kyrsten and Abbi and Carrie and Alia and Amber and Angelina and Aubrey and Anne and Azealia and Bella and Carrie and Bjork and Elvira and Cynthia and Evan and Gina and — I mean honestly, the list goes on and on, people. (Quite literally — half these names I’m just pulling from Bi.org’s literal list of Famous Bi People.) At some point it just feels like shoveling dirt into a hole that never manages to become full: there’s no amount of bi celebrity TikTok memes that are actually going to solve biphobia.
Which is not to criticize these women, or say they’re doing anything wrong. If Emily Ratajkowski wants to josh around about her big bi green couch on her TikTok page, then I salute her; it’s her life, she’s allowed to express and talk about her sexuality however the fuck she wants. But the way it gets treated like it’s major news? The way it gets treated like this is a thing that actually matters, in a concrete, actionable terms? That’s what I find depressing.
I feel, sometimes, like representation is a distraction, like it keeps us from keying in to the work that we actually need to do. It feels a bit like a bizarre little game of Pokemon: collect all the out bi celebs and then… what? Collect some more**? We are simply skating along the surface, and never going deep, acting as though some critical mass of us is going to be enough to generate political engagement when… it’s not, it never is, come the fuck on.
And, I mean, look, that is why I’m writing this newsletter, right? Because there has to be something more than just the simple admission of bisexuality, you know? It’s nice to know that bisexuals are legion, but until we understand ourselves as part of a structurally oppressed class — not simply because we are queer, but because we are bi— and work together to dismantle monosexism (I have some suggestions here!), then it’s all just gonna be TikToks of green velvet couches and no meaningful change. No reduction in poverty levels, no reduction in our mental health crisis, no escape from the shockingly high levels of abuse and sexual assault that we face. Just pretty little TikToks papering over the pain.
* ::cough:: for a certain breed of white woman, one who is usually romantically linked with a man ::cough::
** I’m old enough to remember when there were only 150 Pokemon; I just googled “how many Pokemon are there” and was stunned to learn that it’s now apparently over 900, which proves my point here
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