We’ve officially reached that time of the year known as The Holidays™️, aka a time when, for better or for worse, we’re constantly talking about family. I don’t really feel like talking about the ways bi people are or aren’t accepted by their families (though we can definitely address that another day); the thing that’s top of mind for me right now is this question of how bisexuality intersects with the concept of family in the first place.
It is generally understood that queerness disrupts the framework of the hetero nuclear family arranged commonly assumed to be “natural” in modern day America (it’s not, it’s a relatively new creation that’s actually pretty poisonous to most people but we’ll set that aside for now). There’s a reason why anti-queer bigots have historically referred to their position as “family values”: to be queer is to fundamentally upend the mom, dad, and two point five kids arrangement. If it’s two dads, then who’s the mom; if it’s two moms, then where is the dad? To suggest that one could have a stable, functional family without some “natural” male/female balance is to upset the order that the patriarchy is built on. I think we can all pretty much understand that.
But what of bisexuality? It’s less obvious here, I think, in part because there are some bisexuals who do conform to hetero norms of family*, in the sense of literally participating in a hetero marriage with the appropriate number of children. But I do think there is a threat that bisexuality poses to the order, to the stability, of the “traditional family,” and it’s one worth thinking more about.
Years ago, I was listening to a podcast where a panel of sex experts were answering parents’ questions about sex. One of the parents asked about how to come out as bi to her children, and the expert who answered suggested that this was, perhaps, more of an adult topic — something venturing too deeply into the details of her sex life to actually be appropriate for children. Listening to that, I felt an immediate shock of discomfort. I couldn’t imagine someone telling a gay or lesbian parent that acknowledging their identity to their children would be somehow “adult” — not least because the parent’s identity would be self evident to the child by virtue of, you know, having two moms or two dads. But bisexuality, somehow, required discussion of sex? It couldn’t just be “some people like just boys, some people like just girls, and Mommy likes both,” with no discussion of the dynamics of who inserted what tab into what slot?
That frustration ultimately led me to write a piece about bi parents coming out to their kids. As I note in the piece, the challenge of coming out as bi to your kids is thornier than simply coming out as queer: sure, a bi parent may be in a hetero partnership, but they could also just as easily be in a queer partnership; regardless of the gender of their current partner, a disclosure that they are bisexual is often necessary (unless, of course, they’re in a polycule with people of multiple genders). Bisexuality demands recognition that we are more than who we are in the current moment, that we contain possibilities beyond just what is immediately visible, that even our “forever family” — if we even land on one — may not represent the true whole of our entire self.
And that, I think, is a threat to the very notion most people have of “family,” the very sense that it is a complete unit. You’re not supposed to have needs outside of your family (especially if you’re a woman), but bisexuality presents the possibility that yes, you might, and that even if the married with kids you truly does represent your final form, that there are past versions of you that are no less significant, no less relevant, to the sum total than who you are today. Bisexuality inherently resists the notion of some fixed, complete self that we are all grappling towards, that can only be realized with a single partner and procreation and a home in the suburbs. And frankly? I think that that is pretty great.
* One could argue that there are monosexual queers who also do that but we’re gonna ignore that for now.
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