The Cutprice Guignol

So, you’re bisexual.

Me too! Happy Pride, and all that.

First and most foremostly: you’re not making this up. I believe you, I really do. I believe you if you’ve just come out or if you’ve been out for decades. I believe you if you used a different label for your sexuality up until very recently, and I believe you if you’re still working out exactly what being bisexual means to you. I believe you because I didn’t believe myself for a long time and it was painful. And because I have no reason not to. You’re bisexual because you say you are, because you know you are, and I trust you to know yourself.

You are not a fetish. Your love and attraction to people of various genders is not predatory or wrong or gross. You are not a sex object, you’re not a threesome-delivery machine, your desires and wants and needs are not dictated by the fact of the people you happen to find attractive. You are not lying because you have not had sexual or romantic contact with every gender you’re attracted to. You’re not making it up because you don’t want to engage in this specific sex act, or this one, or that one. You’re not confused, or confusing.

You’re not faking it if you’ve decided you’re not ready to come out yet, or not ready to come out to everyone, or if you’re only tentatively getting used to using the label for yourself. You’re not faking it because you’re dating one person of one gender, or if you’ve only ever been with one gender. You’re not faking it because there is fundamentally no good reason to fake it.

You have a place in queer culture, you are irrevocably part of the LGBTQ+ community, you’re here with us. Find yourself in LGBTQ art, culture, music, film, find yourself in all of it. You belong there. Celebrate your identity and your acceptance of it, loudly, quietly, somewhere in between – in your own head or through a megaphone, but celebrate it. This month, yes, and beyond that, too.

So, you’re bisexual. And I love you.

If you’d like to read more of my writing on sexuality, take a gander at the links below, and please consider supporting me on Patreon!

Hot Bisexuals, the Safety of Sexiness, and the Fetishization of Queer Women

Through a Glee, Darkly: Transphobia, Biphobia, and the LGBT Community 

Bisexuality on Television 

What I Wish I’d Known About Sex as a Bisexual Woman

In and Out of the Closet: Bisexuality and Me

TV’s problem with the word “bisexual”

Inhumanity, Bisexuality, and American Horror Story: Hotel

Greey, Lying, or Slutty: Straight-Passing and Bi-Erasure