Bi America

Myths, Truths, and Struggles of an Invisible Community

William Burleson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781317712602
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Gender Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Gain an in-depth understanding of the unique struggles of the bisexual community!

To me the gay and straight worlds are exactly the same; equally limited, judgmental, and bourgeois . . . just mirror images of each other. I truly like and overlap with some of the gay world, but my roots refuse to take hold there and grow. Unfortunately, my well-established roots in the straight world are simultaneously shriveling and dying too, leaving me feeling extremely unstable.
Cool, a bisexual woman involved in a support group

There are at least five million bisexual people in America, generally invisible to straight society, the gay community, and even to each other. While the vast majority of these five million live within the straight or gay world, there are a few who have formed a community of their own. Bi America: Myths, Truths, and Struggles of an Invisible Community offers an inside look at the American bisexual community and gives an understanding of the special circumstances unique to being bisexual. The book takes the reader to bi community events from picnics, to conferences, to support groups, to performances in order to expose the everyday trials of the bisexual community.

Bi America includes very personal stories that let the voice of everyday bisexuals be heard through interviews, the Bisexual History Project, in which ten bisexual people tell their life stories, and the Online Support Group, a group of about 75 people who meet in cyberspace to talk about their lives and challenges. The book also includes the findings of a 2002 survey of about 300 bisexual people conducted via the Internet, an appendix that offers a concise list of resources for further study and personal enrichment, and an unabridged transcript of the Bisexual History Project.

Get the answers to these questions in Bi America:

• What is bisexuality?
  
• Is there a bisexual community?
  
• What is the culture of the bisexual community?
  
• What are commonalities and differences between the experiences of bi men and bi women?
  
• What is the special relationship between the bisexual and the transgender community?
  
• How have bisexuals and the bi community been affected by HIV/AIDS?
  
• What is the future of bisexual activism, if any?
  
• and many more!

Bi America is a fascinating resource that exposes the challenges, struggles, and triumphs of bisexuals in America. Bisexuals, especially those newly coming out, can use this book to help understand their identity, and family members and friends seeking some insight into the unique circumstances faced by their loved ones will also find it helpful. This book will interest those concerned with the sociology of deviance or with subcultures in general. It is also appropriate for undergraduate sociology and cultural anthropology, as well as feminist studies and LGBT studies classes. This book offers one of the few accessible, nonacademic looks at this unique and interesting community. Visit the book's Web site at http://www.bi101.org

Chapter 1

BECAUSE

WELCOME TO BECAUSE

The hotel was pretty much like any other suburban hotel, perched on former swampland just off the interstate. It was pretty much in the middle of nowhere, but it would be just as correct to say it was pretty much anywhere. Standing in the vast parking lot, looking out over the traffic on the freeway, it could have been in any city in any state in the United States. That impression is reinforced inside the hotel: it would be impossible to tell what part of the country you were in unless you noticed the framed tourist pictures of the Twin Cities hanging by the check-in desk.

On this beautiful Friday afternoon in April, the hotel was getting busy. Families were checking in for the weekend so the kids could use the pool and the parents could have a good meal in peace. A wedding party, complete with several generations of relatives, checked in. Businesspeople, apparently in some unfortunate industry requiring them to travel on weekends, glumly rode the elevator. It was a large hotel, and two meetings were taking place at the same time this weekend. There was a Christian group sporting a three-by-four foot foam-core poster of their charismatic leader and selling books and tapes to a well-dressed group of followers. And then there was BECAUSE.

BECAUSE, the Bisexual Empowerment Conference: A Uniting Supportive Experience, is an annual meeting for bisexuals from throughout the Midwest. This was the second time BECAUSE was held at a hotel. Although hotels are the traditional venue for conferences, previously BECAUSE had been held on college campuses and hosted by college GLBT student groups. Colleges seemed to be, or at least to have been, more in keeping with the culture of the event. Borrowed classrooms in Coffman Union at the University of Minnesota had felt more apropos than well-appointed, modern hotel facilities with cut-glass water tumblers and elaborate flower arrangements. But times change, as has the “bisexual movement.” Besides, if “poly cons” and “science fiction cons” can be held in hotels, why not the most successful bisexual conference in the country?

That was the thought among the new group of planners for BECAUSE. There have been several different generations of conference planners since BECAUSE began in 1992. Some years have seen very little change in the leadership; others, including 2003, meant almost completely new faces. The new organizers bring a slightly new politic to the conference; a subtle difference perhaps, but still real. This partly reflects the different interests of the individuals in this group compared to those who comprised the committees of the past, but it also reflects the changing politics of the movement as a whole. This reality is neither right nor wrong; times simply are changing. What was once a conference devoted to examining “systems of oppression” from a feminist point of view is now increasingly social. What once seemed to hold more political urgency and an opportunity to vent one’s anger is now more focused on music and dancing. I don’t want to overstate the difference, for both elements have always been present. It is more a subtle shift in emphasis. The workshops haven’t really changed much: Defining Bisexuality, Bisexual Advocacy, Living in One’s Personal Culture, Safer Sex Is Hot Sex, Bound for Pleasure, and Personal Photography; there is something for everyone. Perhaps the change reflects what one national bi community leader suggested to me: The time for anger is passing, and now it’s time to celebrate. We’ll see.

Friday evening at past conferences was reserved for a keynote speech and reception, but in keeping with this year’s conference theme, “The Art of Being Bi,” an art show and reception was held instead. It was a low-key affair, as many of the weekend’s attendees apparently chose to wait until Saturday to arrive. Therefore, not many people were around the BECAUSE check-in desk when I arrived. Located near a large conference room where much of the weekend’s activities were to be held, the check-in desk buzzed with volunteer activity and featured a banner, T-shirts for sale, and program folders. Working the desk was Becky, a twenty-something woman who was both volunteering at and attending BECAUSE for the first time. A professional woman who lost her job due to the terrible economy, Becky was somewhat emotional about being here. She told me being involved with the bisexual community “used to make me upset. It’s so much to deal with. But I’m getting better. I think I dove in too fast at first.” Coming to terms with being bisexual can be a trauma for many people, and Becky was young in her struggle.

Also new this year was Allen. Allen differed from Becky in that he seemed quite comfortable there. Allen is in his early thirties, works in computers, and is more than a little interested in science fiction. He is becoming something of a rising star on the planning committee and is “so excited to be here. It’s been great.”

Brent was everywhere. It is his second time at BECAUSE, the first being last year when it was in Milwaukee, also at a hotel. Brent is a new leader in the community—a fast rise considering he first drifted into the community like a lost puppy just a couple of years ago. Since then he has settled into the community and made friends. He had done quite a bit of the heavy lifting that weekend and promised to “crash, man. As soon as this is over I’m out. I’m gone. You won’t hear from me for weeks.” No one, of course, held him to that, and everyone expected he would be hard at work wrapping up BECAUSE the day after the conference.

The conference’s coordinator, Kathy, was a bundle of nerves. Understandably so, she has worked hard for the past year to ensure these next three days go well. Of all the planners, she has the most BECAUSE experience to bring to the table, as this was the third conference she worked, and the second at which she was at least co-coordinator. Kathy is in her thirties with one child at home whom her partner, Mark, is taking care of this weekend. She, similar to Becky, is unemployed, having been a contract employee working in HIV/AIDS prevention, a job with very little security.

These four people, plus five or six more, were responsible for putting on the oldest regularly held conference on bisexuality in the United States, the second oldest in the world. They are all volunteers and achieve this event on a shoestring budget made up of one small grant and conference fees. If they are lucky, they might break even.

The big question is, Why have a conference on bisexuality? About ninety people attended, from various economic classes, mostly college educated, nearly all white, and nearly all liberal to left-wing. Most came looking for the same things. Not sex, although there may be opportunities for that if one is looking. Not for politics in a traditional sense; not even one workshop addressed the topic. The only political booth set up in the informational area was the Green Party, and they didn’t look busy. No, these attendees came to find community, something woefully lacking for bisexuals. They came to vent, to blow off steam from the seemingly endless stream of slights, insults, and erasures they must put up with during the rest of the year. They came to understand, to learn what it means to be bisexual, if not in the workshops, then by spending time in a room full of people who are, at least in this important way, just like them.

THE WORKSHOP

I was at BECAUSE that weekend to give a workshop. As time goes on, one stops attending workshops and instead begins leading them; as this was my ninth BECAUSE, I’d long since reached that point. My workshop du jour was the “Top Ten Myths About Bisexuals.” I’m more interested in workshops that are about fundamentals and about the whole community rather than a segment of it, such as a leather workshop. Not that either is wrong; I’m just more of a big-picture man.

When it comes to presenting workshops, I could spend all day prattling on about bisexuality from a sociological point of view. Instead, I was there to listen. I think it is much more interesting to hear what is on other people’s minds. Besides, in most instances the combined wisdom from any room full of people is far greater than anything I could say. My goal for the workshop was to generate a list of the most tiresome, irritating, angering, irksome stereotypes, myths, and other falsehoods heaped on bisexuals. I was going for visceral, not intellectual. I was looking for people leaping to their feet saying, “Yeah! That drives me crazy!”

I wasn’t disappointed. Although I don’t recall anyone leaping to their feet, the topic was certainly a hit, with about twenty-five people participating enthusiastically. We had a rambunctious time, made all the more entertaining by the Christian revival meeting* taking place next door. We had no problem generating a list we all could agree on. Indeed, the problem came in paring it down to only ten, so I’ll go with thirteen:

  1.  Bisexuals are easy; they are indiscriminate about whom they have sex with.

  2.  All bisexuals are swingers.

  3.  Bisexuals have the best of both worlds and are twice as likely to get a date.

  4.  Bisexuals are unable to commit to either gender.

  5.  Bisexual women are all wives just trying to please their husbands, and bisexual men are all married guys cheating on their wives.

  6.  Bisexuality is just a phase on the way to being lesbian or gay.

  7.  Bisexuals are unable to be happy, have low self-esteem, or are mentally ill.

  8.  Bisexuals are disease carriers.

  9.  Bisexuals are a very small part of the population.

10.  Bisexuals are just trying to maintain heterosexual privilege.

11.  Bisexuals can’t be feminist.

12.  People call themselves bisexual to be trendy.

13.  Bisexuality is a choice.

Myths must come from somewhere, so where did these ideas come from? How much truth is there to them? Perhaps most interesting, what brought twenty-five people out to a hotel in the middle of nowhere on a beautiful April afternoon to make a list of the myths about them that anger them the most? Perhaps now would be a good time to look at the relationships between bisexuals and bisexuality in both the straight and the lesbian and gay communities. What does it mean to be bi in America?

*This strange bed-fellow arrangement seems to be the norm. In 2002 BECAUSE shared meeting space with a women’s bowling group, and in 2001, while the conference was at the University of Wisconsin, the hotel for out-of-towners hosted a Mary Kay Cosmetic Conference. Isn’t America great?

Chapter 2

Relating Bisexuality to the World

Being bisexual in this culture is a gift and a curse. It gives you—it gives me—a certain flexibility of thinking, and I don’t know that it does that same thing for everyone, but I think it’s forced me to live outside the box in many ways. And that, of course, that makes things a little more difficult sometimes. I’ve been married and divorced and had many different relationships both with men and women. I’m in one right now, and I think it’s been harder to get kind of overall community support for relationships that include and recognize bisexuality. (Scott B.)

“BRING OUT THE BISEXUALS”: THE JERRY SPRINGER SHOW

I had heard of the Jerry Springer Show. One would have to live in a cultural vacuum to not have, but I can honestly say I had never sat down and actually watched it. Not to be a snob, but I can’t imagine myself ever saying, “Turn on the TV. Jerry’s almost on.” That said, a few months ago, while happily channel surfing, I was stopped by that evening’s show, titled “Bring Out the Bisexuals.”

Indeed. Let’s bring them out. First we met a female stripper who left “her man” for the arms of another female stripper. Second was a transsexual who left a wife for the arms of his gay male lover. Third was a woman who left her man and now was in the arms of her sister. Add in yelling and screaming, men in black restraining the guests, loud beeps, censored squares, and a chanting audience, and you have the idea—cheap, trashy fun for the whole family.

It strikes me that this, and places similar to this, is where most people get their information about bisexuality. Of course, most Americans have little or no information at all, but when they do see the word bisexual, it is when surfing past shows such as Jenny Jones, Montel Williams, and Jerry Springer, or when reading (or at least looking at) Penthouse Forum, Hustler, and Playboy.

This is a great contrast to what I see. At the BECAUSE conference, I found an interesting, intelligent, articulate, compassionate community bearing no likeness to the one on TV that night. I see a community of gentle people, hardly willing or able to tussle on a stage with several bouncers in black. What I see are people demonized and discriminated against by many in straight society through the structures of homophobia. What I see is a gay community, faced with discrimination and hatred from many in the straight community, struggling with the concept of bisexuality and a bi community. I see people linked by their shared experience of having attractions to people of more than one gender who rarely enjoy the cover or the support of a functioning community. Isolated by the larger American culture that denies their very existence, bisexuality is dismissed and bisexuals are ignored. Bisexuals are nearly forgotten in society, largely invisible in the media, and inconsistent with many people’s beliefs about sexuality.

THE INVISIBLE BISEXUAL

To the degree that people continue to operate with an implicit theory of sexual orientation as dichotomous, bisexuality is invisible.

Joseph P. Stokes and Robin L. Miller in the Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality¹

A lack of public exposure is perhaps the biggest challenge for the bisexual community. Invisibility simply removes bisexuality from the discussion—any discussion. It has often been said that if everyone who is lesbian or gay would come out, because of their sheer numbers there could be no more discrimination. The idea also applies to bisexuals; however, even if they did all come out, they would still be invisible.

The reason for this invisibility is obvious. Consider my neighbors two doors down. They are two gay men who own their house together—nice guys. They walk their dog together, keep a nice yard, and go to all the block parties. We have a friendly, neighborly relationship: say “hi” when we cross paths, make small talk, and complain together when it snows too much. Please note that I called them my gay neighbors. I have never asked about their orientation; all I know is that they are in a relationship. One or both could be bi. Short of knowing them better, there is no way for me to know, unless of course they flew a big flag saying, “We’re Bi.” On the other hand, my partner (a woman) and I live two doors down from them. I can attend all the bi events I want, write books, and so forth, but I bet when they walk by with their border collie (if they think about it) they say, “There’s that straight couple.” Maybe there are twenty bi people living on my block; how would I know?

Most people make assumptions about sexual orientation according to the gender of one’s partner. It is both easy and practical, since it is often or even usually right. Sometimes, however, it is inaccurate; that assumption makes bisexuals invisible.

Dan is a forty-one-year-old blond-haired man who lives in a mobile home in the suburbs of Minneapolis. In several older suburbs of the Twin Cities, mobile-home parks have been grandfathered in and now co-exist with newer, more expensive developments. These few parks are the only place left for working-class people to live in these much wealthier communities. Dan is a good example; he works hard to get by, replacing auto glass for a living during the day. With no significant relationships at this time and no real interests unless one includes television, ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1. BECAUSE
• Chapter 2. Relating Bisexuality to the World
• Chapter 3. Bisexuality Defined
• Chapter 4. In Search of a Bisexual Community
• Chapter 5. Women’s and Men’s Experiences: Penthouse Bisexuals and Support Group Men
• Chapter 6. The Transgender Community
• Chapter 7. What Is the Relationship Between Nonmonogamy and Bisexuality?
• Chapter 8. Bisexuality in the Time of AIDS
• Chapter 9. The History of the Bisexual Community
• Chapter 10. The Future of the Bi Community: GLBT Identity versus Cyberspace
• Chapter 11. BECAUSE Reprise
• Appendix A. The Survey
• Appendix B. The Bisexual History Project
• Appendix C. Resources and Further Reading
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index