Earlier this week, after reading one of my newsletters, my friend Erika Moen (the stunning talent behind sex ed comic Oh Joy Sex Toy and many wonderful autobiographical comics and books, also check out her new Patreon) reached out to me with an anecdote about something that happened to her a few years back at a comics convention:
There’s something so evocative in the callous simplicity of that exchange, this idea that our real lives, our real love stories, are here to be judged by audiences, to be given a pass or fail grade. It’s hard to imagine someone making a similar comment about a monosexual’s autobiographical love story — least of all to the creator’s face! — but as bisexuals, it sometimes (often) feels like our life choices are considered fair game for public dissection, that we’re judged, not simply by the “authenticity” of our bisexuality, but by the acceptability of our romantic choices and whether they are “befitting” of a “real” bisexual.
I have felt this personally over the years, largely because, well, I have historically had terrible taste in men. I’ve always felt a little guilt about the way that so many of my hook ups, my casual bangs, were plucked from the trash pile of humanity — partly as a feminist (I should have more self respect!) but also specifically as a bi woman. You know that line straight women will utter about how they know sexuality isn’t a choice because if it was they wouldn’t date men? Yeah, well, here I was, a bisexual with the actually ability to make a good, a healthy, choice, and what was I doing? Just choosing to fuck the same garbage pile men, again and again and again.
And look, I know why I did it. I could give you a long, lengthy explanation about my personal growth arc, a nuanced look at how my queerness made me more, not less, susceptible to absolute garbage sex partners. And perhaps I will at some point, because it’s an interesting story on some level, an interesting aspect of my personality to think through. But this idea that I — that any of us — somehow owe people an explanation for these very personal choices — that we should refuse the boy and stay a lesbian, or only pick the boys who are somehow so good that even a queer girl can’t say no to their charms, that we should make the choice that appeals to an external metric of “correct” “bisexuality” — it’s too much! It’s not fair*.
We’re just people, you know? And we’re driven by our hearts and we’re driven by our libidos, the same as everyone else is, and this idea that we are supposed to arrive at a crowd pleasing ending — that pleasing the crowd, instead of simply living our lives as feels right in the moment, is even the point — it’s a cruel burden to place on our shoulders. And yet, it’s placed there all the same, by a culture that demands that we “prove” our most intimate and tender feelings, that we “live up to” some vision of correct, of appropriate bisexuality that’s utterly disconnected from who we are as individual people.
I just think you should be allowed to live your life, you know? You should be able to pursue what feels good, or even just what you’re curious about, you should be able to partner with whomever you feel drawn to, optics be damned. You shouldn’t feel like you’re performing for some invisible audience that’s rating your every romantic choice, your every sexual experience, for how well it comports to their own idea of “true” bisexuality.
And for real, if you’re pitching an autobiographical comic, no one should be talking about your actual life like its some plot point a focus group is assessing!
* Somewhat fittingly, while I was writing this essay last night, someone left a comment on my piece about navigating the male gaze arguing that upholding a bi respectability politic is for the good of bi women who genuinely love women. Apparently me being a fucking mess trying to sort myself out is a betrayal to other women?
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