Bisexual and over 50 4: Lynnette

Here's the latest in the series of email interviews with bi people over 50. Other potential interviewees always welcome - do get in touch!

Each of the "interviews" is written by the individuals concerned, with the questions in bold coming from me.

*****

My name is Lynnette McFadzen and I live in Portland, Oregon, USA. I am a 57 year-old single white cis-gendered woman with three daughters and four grandchildren. I am single and, at the moment, celibate.

I am disabled but have had many occupations in the past, from nursing to chainsaw chain packaging. The packaging job is where I lost most of my hearing but it really started way before then. After the death of my estranged husband and my mother, I had my biggest breakdown and attempted suicide. That time I sought help. I spent the next 10 years healing and figuring out why my life was so dysfunctional. There was no room for relationships during that time.

How did you come to think of yourself as bisexual?

          

Last year I had finished my second round of chemo for Hepatitis C that I probably contracted as a nurse in my 20s. Not that it is important where I got it - Hep C is non-discerning. The first round failed so I spent a total of two years in treatment. That's a lot of down time to think.

At the end I felt ready to try dating and my old demons re-emerged. I found women attractive. I always had. My first crush was on Audrey Hepburn and I had a series of “girl crushes” throughout my life. But I truly believed all the lies I had been told about bisexuality.I spent the best part of my life proving to myself I was heterosexual and somehow broken and wrong inside. I know that was a contributing factor to my depression and suicide attempts. I really believed my loved ones would be better off without my evilness. What saved me was realizing I could not leave the legacy of suicide to my children and grandchildren. My father had done that to me.

I had never really acted on my same attractions but once and it was a disaster. But with the help of good friends and family I began to learn bisexuality was not what I thought. I turned to the LGBT community and was met with disdain, coolness or outright hostility. I was shocked and disheartened.

So I searched for a bisexual community and eventually was able to find it online. I made good supportive friends with similar stories and similar struggles with internalized biphobia. Through this I was able to accept that, yes I am bisexual. But it took some searching And the search engines at the time were not much help.

It also spurred me to help others like me who felt lost and alone and confused to find and build their support, and realize they can be proud. And have a community of their own since I am limited physically I decided to learn to podcast. And with friends and volunteers we created The BiCast. A podcast for the bisexual community. 

What does being bisexual mean to you?

It means being a complete whole person with no internal shame or feeling of wrongness. Of understanding myself. It means being at peace with me. It has really to do with sex and everything to do with self love. And knowing that just because I am bisexual it doesn't alter my moral compass at all

How has this changed over the years?

I just came out last year. Doing that to myself was the biggest issue. The climate is changing for the general public perception of bisexuality. But the biggest reason I could not accept sooner that I was bisexual was because of what most people believed as I grew up and many still do. That it is a lifestyle choice, that you are shallow, indecisive, hypersexual, liars and all round morally bankrupt. It is changing, but not fast enough for me.

What do other people in your life know about your bisexuality and how do they react?

Everyone knows I'm bi. It's part of being on a podcast about bisexuality. My family and friends are totally supportive. I am blessed with a diverse and loving family and have been fortunate to find amazing people as friends. I am a lucky one. I am in a really safe place.

Looking back over your life so far, is there anything you wish you’d done differently?

I wish sometimes I had come to terms with this at a much earlier age. That I may have dismissed a good relationship as a possibility based on gender. That I had not tortured myself for no reason at all.

I get a bit melancholy but then remember it gives me a better appreciation of the happiness I have now.

What about your hopes or fears for the future (regarding bisexuality)?

Truthfully, I want to see how all bisexuals are treated change, and help others understand they are OK.

Any words of wisdom for younger bi people – or older ones?

For both really. Don't believe what you are told. Find out your own truth. Stay strong.

YOU ARE NOT WRONG. YOU ARE NOT BROKEN. YOU DESERVE RESPECT.YOU ARE A HUMAN BEING. YOU ARE BISEXUAL.

Would you like to help combat bi erasure and increase the visibility of bisexual people over 50? There are plenty of us out there, but far too many people don’t know that.

I am looking for other individuals over 50 who would like to contribute their “email interviews”, as Lynnette has done here. For more about what to do, look at this post. 

Thanks.

Eight reasons why more women in the UK are having same-sex than they were 20 years ago

Women in the 1990s: less likely to have sex with other women

Over the past few days, there has been much discussion in the media about the British National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles.

Fifteen thousand people around the UK aged 16-74 were interviewed about various aspects of their sexual behaviour in 2010-2012.

This survey – the third, following previous surveys held 20 and 10 years ago – has had its headline results published in the Lancet. 

Out of all the interesting research published in the survey, the aspect that has been both under-discussed and is relevant for this blog is this: women are now four times more likely to say they had had same-sex activity than they were 20 years ago. (4% in 1990 to 16% in 2010)

Director of the research, Professor Kaye Welland, was reported in Pink News as saying that this was too big a change to be simply a difference in what women said. In other words, it was not just that they had changed their way of gathering data, or that the women were being more honest. Women actually ARE having more same-sex behaviour than they were 20 years ago. Much, much more.

It is not that women are necessarily having what they coyly describe as “genital contact” – that is only 8% or half of the women reporting same-sex contact - so what does “sex” mean here? And what’s behind the increase? 

Here are eight (connected) reasons why I think more women are having sex with each other. They are only theories, but they sound right to me. If you have any thoughts, I’d love to hear them. (I have comment moderation on, so please be patient if you post!)

Increased acceptability/less prejudice against women-women relationships

As well as the rates of same-sex going up, according to this survey, the percentages of people thinking same-sex relationships were always or sometimes wrong have gone down a great deal too. Women are more likely than men to think such relationships are acceptable – this has gone up from 28% in 1990 to 66% now. Relationships between women are more accepted than are those between men, especially by men, with 52% of men thinking that same-sex relationships between men are always wrong, and 48% that those between women are always wrong. In 1990, those figures were 78% and 76%.

More same-sex couples and individuals in the media

Oh yes. I mean, there’s even a UK bank ad featuring female identical twins one of whom has a female partner, the other a male. This is presented as no more of an issue than whether she does or doesn’t like swimming.

Lesbian power couple: Alice Arnold (left) and Clare Balding

There are more lesbian celebrities (Clare Balding, Sandi Toksvig etc) who are just there being presenters, comedians, newsreaders, and so forth. There are also bi celebrities (Jessie J et al) speaking about their interest in women.

More sex in general

Women are having more sexual partners in general than they were 20 years ago. The average for women aged 16-44 in 1990 was 3.7 and now is 7.7. So if there is more sex, there is also likely to be more same-sex too. There’s no research (that I know of, although you might) showing that women are more open and assertive in their sexual desires than 20 years ago, but I wouldn’t be surprised.

Internet dating

You are 25, you live in a tiny village where everyone knows everyone and no one available is of interest to you. But pop online, and dozens of potential partners of whatever gender you desire are just waiting. And you know they are interested in people like you – in terms of gender, looks, interest, what-have-you – because they say so. There may be problems of course, but “do they want to have sex with someone of my gender” isn’t one of them. There is a whole pool of sexual partners who simply would not have been available before. For older people, I think this is much more difficult but for reasons of age, not gender.

The lesbian community

Not so long ago, women usually had to be part of a lesbian community if they wanted women to be their sexual partners. Of course, some women didn’t do this: they happened upon each other by accident, or maybe were part of other radical political movements, or met through friends. But most did. While of course many women were happy in their lesbian community, it had its political, social and sexual norms which you had to adhere to. It didn’t always (and still doesn’t) welcome women who didn’t agree with those norms. Bi women in particular.

But to be fair, I think it is also true that some parts of the lesbian community, anyway, are more tolerant towards women who aren't 150% lesbian, though understandably perhaps not towards women who are "experimenting".

There are also now many more same-sex friendly communities – queer, poly, bi, kink, swinger, pagan, goth, BDSM, etc etc – where women can meet each other. Many of them were around 20 years ago too, but they are much easier to find now. And if there are more women having same-sex, the chances of you just coming across them in everyday life are that much greater.

Pornography

I have no idea what proportion of women look at any kind of porn, but some of them will see other women having sex with each other on screen and start to fantasise about it themselves. I know this to be the case, because some have told me so. Of course, maybe their boyfriends have fantasies about this, or maybe they both do. Or maybe they think their boyfriends want them to (whether they actually do or not).  But maybe they have turned on their computers, gone actively searching for porn or found it by accident, and seen a woman who made them think…

For all of these reasons, women may feel it is less of a big deal to think about having sex with another woman and possibly to act on it.

Katy Perry

 “I kissed a girl and I liked it”

According to today’s colloquium on the survey, which I followed on Twitter through the hashtag #NATSAL, the increase in same-sex between women is because more of them are experimenting, rather than changing their identity [Though I don’t see why it is either experimenting OR changing your identity, or indeed what identity per se necessarily has to do with it at all]. Maybe they listened to the Katy Perry song.

Experimentation

In principle, I am in favour of young people experimenting, with the normal provisos of openness, honesty, safer sex, respecting your partner, and so on. But I still think the concept needs much more unpacking if nothing else than because “experimenting” implies something very trivial and meaningless. While sex can be both trivial and meaningless (as well the reverse), experimenting can be pretty damn serious.

Some women who start off with experimenting will go on to have more, deeper, relationships with other women. They may not call themselves lesbian, or bi, or indeed have the remotest interest in sexual identity or community, but “experimenting” doesn’t always start and finish with a bit of pawing in a club (pleasant though that might be).

Experimenting is just that – trying something out. You don’t necessarily know what the result will be. Your desires and fantasies are not always enough. You need to see whether what you have thought about really works for you – at this place, with this person, at this time in your life.

Performing bisexuality

I think some observers might count this as experimenting too. Yes, some heterosexual women are definitely kissing and groping each other in public, probably for attention, mainly from men. This was first spotted as a phenomenon around 15 years ago, and now seems pretty ubiquitous. The expectation is that this is all a bit of a joke, and that no “real sex” will occur.

But women who are doing this are not necessarily experimenting or even not properly into women. I was shocked (yes reader, I can still be shocked) by women I know to have had genuine relationships with women setting out to torment/arouse men by kissing other women in front of them.

So while I don’t dispute that more women may be sexually experimenting… can this really account for such a vast increase? It doesn’t seem likely. I think it is all of the reasons listed above.

Just for the young?

Given that I have, as I said in my last post, changed the focus of this blog to be on ageing, I do want to touch on what this might mean for us older women.

To start with, are these just young women having all this same-sex? Mostly, yes.

According to the statistics, when asked whether they’ve had any sexual experience or contact with another female, only 3% of women aged 65–74 said yes. It’s 7% for those aged 55–64, 9% aged 45–54, 12% 35–44, 18% women 25–34, and 19% 16–24. If the prevalence of same sex was constant, it would increase with age, based on the accumulation of experience. But the opposite is true. So among younger women, it’s either more common, or more honestly reported, or (as I would guess) both.

But I wonder whether older, previously heterosexual, women will start experimenting too (if not to such a great extent) as we grow and change and explore different opportunities in life. I have certainly read about women having their first female partners when they are 50+ and I am going to write about this phenomenon at some point.

In this survey, women did report “less sexual anxiety” as they got older, which can only be a good thing!

Men

Another thing coming out of this survey is that men are now far less likely to report having same-sex behaviour than are women (7% - the same rate as in 1990 – compared to 16% for women). This seems very low.

So what does this figure mean? As the (male) commenters on the Pink News site above mention, that depends on so many things. One is certainly: “what counts as sex?”

To quote one commenter:

“In my experience more men than ever are having sex with other men. These men do not regard themselves as gay at all - they just think they are sexually adventurous. As for the anal aspect [there were very low rates of penetrative sex between men] that’s just a distraction thrown into the argument by heterosexuals. Most men who have sex with men have non-penetrative [sex].”

Many other men have said this to me over the years, and I’ll be writing about all of that in some future post.

Bisexuality and ageing

Hello to everyone reading this blog

It has been a long time since I last posted here, longer still since I updated it regularly. There's a whole range of reasons for that - pressures of work and time, new forms of social media that make blogger look positively 20th century - but I've decided to give it another go.

There are many billions of words now online, even more are being written while you are reading this. There is too much out there to keep up with anything that doesn't really hit the mark for an individual reader. Or for an individual writer, particularly when she makes a living contributing to those too-many words, which is why I am changing the focus of this blog.

Who are you?

Looking at the stats for this site, most people come here for information about coming out. Next on the list is celebrities who may or may not be bisexual, or who may have said something about it.

I have nothing at all new to say about coming out, because I did that so long ago. (Even the repeated coming out that all out bi people deal with is simply part of my life.) In any case, the world people come out into now is too different for my initial experiences to be relevant.

So for information about coming out and celebrities, I recomment Twitter. Twitter works very well for responding to (for example) biphobia, homophobia, the various doings of various celebrities, etc. I can't keep up with celebrity doings, and really don't care what they do. But I can see that they are important for many, particularly young, people. If idiots post stupid things about bisexuality, then various bi people will point out the error of their ways far more quickly and forcefully than I would be able to do. And Twitter is also a great place for finding out about things too. 

Ageing

But I am interested now in bisexuality and older people. For the sake of drawing the line somewhere, I'm calling "older people" anyone over 50. 

I am now in my 50s  myself, and what I have to offer the world of bisexuality (and what could possibly be called bisexual theory) is not necessarily what people coming to this blog are after. Nevertheless, blogs are for the writer as much as for the reader - unless you are specifically blogging for money - a way of clearing our thoughts, perhaps, and getting unmonetisable ideas out there.

My thoughts on bisexuality and middle-age/ageing/getting older are what I'll be writing about on this blog from now on. As you will see from the previous post, I did a talk at the University of Nottingham about my experiences of being an “older” bisexual. The site for that event, including the text of my talk, is here. My talk is 4,700 words long, so I'm not posting it in full as a blog post. It's a general talk (not giving away anything hugely personal!) and was designed to be heard in conjunction with Rebecca Jones' presentation on research into bisexuality and ageing. In brief: there isn't much of it.

I have recorded it on Soundcloud, in case you want to listen to my dulcet tones. It's about 25 minutes long and you can find it here.

I did interview - both on email and on Skype - some other bi identifying people over 50 and - surprise - they covered a range of different behaviours, feelings, and so on. But they pretty much all felt invisible, and that's not surprising because they are. 

There are actually many things that haven't really been discussed about sexuality of any sort and ageing, and I think about them more and more these days. I'll write about some of them here. I'll also write in more depth about the issues I addressed in my talk (so you don't need to read it/listen to it) if you don't want to!

But if you are a person of 50+ to whom the concept of bisexuality is personally important - however you identify sexually, as well as if you don't - then I'd love to hear from you. I know there are a lot more of us than we think!

Bisexuality and older people

Hello everyone, very long time no post.

So... I am doing a talk on bisexuality and older people in April - for a health and social science professional/academic audience, although my talk is  general/personal. Other speakers will be looking at research (if any). 

Do any of you, particularly people over 50, have any thoughts on this topic? 

Some topics I am going to touch on - based on my own experience - encompass invisibility, identity, community, impact on partners/relationships/families/children. But you might think of other things you think are important.

Please share this information with anyone who might be interested. You never know - if there is enough information, I could even make it into an e-book at some point.

You can post comments here, or email me at sues_new_email at yahoo dot com

Thanks

Bisexual blog, Bisexual Pride

It’s five years tomorrow since I started this bisexual blog. I don’t update it regularly any more, but it has been very important to me as an outlet for my ideas on bisexuality when other outlets have seemed a bit sparse. And, as hundreds of thousands of people have visited it, it must have been of some interest and importance to a few other people too.

Below, I’m going to post a link to the entry with which I opened this blog. I wrote about EuroPride, held in London that year. Tomorrow is the Pride march in London too. I had a great time at EuroPride in 2006, but in general I find the lack of politics at Pride in London combined with vacuous celebration a bit wearing and tedious. And believe me, I LOVE celebrations in general.

I think the purpose of Pride should be political as well as celebratory – just as a quick for instance, there are homophobic attacks in the UK, and essential solidarity with people in countries where same-sex is illegal and strictly punished. There are tremendous queer activists, such as David Kato in Uganda who was murdered this year, to honour.

In the Pride press pack, their Love Without Borders campaign is one of the things they do talk about. But if you saw the Pride poster (seen on the London underground, but nowhere that I can find on the interwebs), you’d have to search hard to figure out what sort of Pride it was. Smirnoff Pride, perhaps.

There will be a bi stall and bi banner at Pride, London tomorrow and I really wish those attending all the best. It is absolutely essential that bi people are properly visible and there is even an international campaign about it.

Moving on up
Thanks (in a large part) to social media, there seems to be a lot more of a bisexual community than there was back in 2006, in the UK and elsewhere. Twitter and Facebook have put loads of people in touch with each other, and not just virtually. Ideas spin around the world soon as anything.

Also, there are many more bi bloggers than there were in 2006 when I couldn’t find any British ones at all. It’s very hard to keep blogging in the long term and many have opened and closed. But thanks to the Bi Bloggers aggregator site, organised by the ever-efficient Jen Yockney, anyone who’s interested in British bi bloggers can see that there’s quite a lot of it about. And of course there are many other bi bloggers around the world (particularly North America). If a bi celebrity comes out, or a prominent queer columnist such as Dan Savage opines on bisexuality, there are plenty of other people who can write about it. There are other aspects of bisexuality that people don’t write about, though, and when I write here in the future that’s what I’ll be covering.

Anyway, as anyone who knows a smidgeon of blogging theory can tell you, less is most definitely more. So happy bisexual birthday and Pride – whether it’s been or still to come where you are – and be happy that things really can and do get better.

Here’s what I wrote in 2006.

British newspaper publishes good bi article shock

Hallelujah! The first positive piece about bisexuality in an eon is published.

Basically, writer A, Stephanie Theobald (writer of chick lit), used to be a lesbian. Now she’s having a relationship with a man. Viz, writer B, Jake Arnott (far more famous writer of gay gangster novels). He has always been bisexual but mostly had relationships with men. Now they’re in lurve and want to tell the liberal intelligentsia about it.

Or: two novelists each have a new book to push, and they’ve found a handy two-in-one angle for a nifty little feature.

But...

Mr Writer
I have absolutely no beef with Mr A. I have never read any of his books (or hers for that matter) but what he says is interesting… In fact, it's all good: the first famousish bi man out and proud in the UK since Tom Robinson.

According to the piece, he has identified as bi since he was young, and came out as such in the 80s. But he didn’t find acceptance on the politicised gay scene at the time; nor did he find much scope for bi political activity. So, although he was always in relationships with men, he always knew that was not the whole story. Then he met Ms Theobald.

Ms Writer
Stephanie Theobald was (I think) a fashion/style journalist, and a lesbian. Back in 2002, she wrote the most virulent piece of drivel that I have ever seen on male bisexuality, since the work of 1950s sexologists or contemporary religious bigots, or rejected comments on this site. And it was published! In the Guardian! No way am I going to link to it (can’t find it anyway). But it was all the usual stereotypes with extra added venom.

She thought bi women were sell-outs too and wrote so at length. Then she became one. Oh well, it just goes to show what many people think – that those who are secure in their own sexuality don’t have to ridicule that of others.

Out and proud hypocrites, as she styles herself, are simply hypocrites. She doesn't say she's wrong, or apologise, just jokes about it. Pah!

It occurs to me that this is the first time I have ever really slammed any other "bi" people on this site, but I do believe that she deserves it.

Bi The Way
Well I saw this film mentioned in my last post, and certainly didn’t hate it as much as the Bi-Furious writers, although their criticisms - too many to list here - are generally valid. It was about a world that seemed very foreign to me – bi teenagers in the US. At least it was laugh-out-loud funny in places. And it did show that, for some young people, being bi meant they were a target for bi and homophobia, not just lots of sex!

One thing that really pissed me off though: no activists. Robyn Ochs was allowed precisely one sentence. Of course those young people (and others like them) are going to feel abandoned and isolated if they don’t know there is a whole movement of individuals who are battling for them. The bi movement/theorists seem to be made invisible in all places and times. As the bi-furious people wrote, there was no sense of bis being part of a queer community at all.

Complete absence of a sense of history or geography too. Lookie here, filmmakers Brittany Blockman and Josephine Decker, bisexuality didn’t spring out of nowhere last year or the year before, some time after Madonna kissed Britney. Bisexuality exists everywhere and at every time. And not just for teenagers, either.

Is there a ‘bisexual’ in LGBT history month?

Well no, probably not. This February's UK-based yearly event is, as in all other years, probably entirely “b” free.

A trawl through the website (10% of the 367 events anyway, before I got bored) indicates nothing specifically bi. There are lots of events where bi people could well be included among all-encompassing “gay” events. But nothing to imply that bisexuality might have a history in and of itself.

Anyone who might think it does could do worse than look at the links to this blog’s history posts. I have listed them on the right of this page. History is my thing, you see (well one of them! I am bi, I have lots!).

The ever-active Jen Yockney posted on bimedia.org that there was just one event with a bi speaker. This happened last week – but on a Tuesday morning!

Who do I blame?
Well, not the organisers. They publicise the events, it seems, they don’t arrange or commission them. This is a great “month” to put on, regardless.

A society that thinks that bi people in the past were really gay? So therefore to see bi people separately is simply wrong? Possibly.

A bi community that has shrivelled away, so that putting on any events is asking a lot of a very small number of people? Not really.

It’s true, too, that lesbian and gay history (particularly gay men) is much more documented than bi history. It can (and often does, and certainly used to) take in anyone interested in same-sex.

So I am left with no one to vent my frustration on. Ideas, anyone?

Moving on
I kind of think this shouldn’t happen next year. There ought to be at least a few more events on bisexuality throughout the ages. So who would run it? Get money for speakers’ expenses? Any ideas? It would be interesting, no?

At any rate, I promise to do a few more bi history posts on here this month. I do, I really do.


PS I went on a work-sponsored “writing for the web” course today. And I am tailoring this piece accordingly. Can you tell the difference between this and what I have written before, dearest regular readers? This piece seems very tabloidesque to me.

Why you and I still need this bisexual blog

As they say in France: Jamais s’exprimer, jamais s’expliquer (roughly: never complain, never explain) and the past few posts here have been little more than complaints and explanations – well, enough already!

This is my 100th post on this blog, and the one that probably gets the most traffic is Ten Reasons You Need This Bisexual Blog, which makes me think: all is not yet well…

Two things strike me very forcefully through all the Google alerts I get (on bisexual, bi, bisexuality). One is that, for a few people – Queer, college/university attached, polyamorous, trans-friendly – bisexuality is nothing much. Sometimes, it can even be seen as regressive, stuck in the “two-genders only” norm. Coming out, for them, may not even be really necessary or appropriate. Being attracted to “men” or “women” is not expected. For the moment. While they’re in that environment.

The other is that there is still such a large group of people who say to themselves: I think I’m bisexual, help! Many people – often, but not only, teenagers; often, but not only, people who are not part of progressive communities, do not identify as queer, are in established relationships, do not know where their local lesbian or gay bar is (if any) – find being bisexual, or even thinking about it, very frightening. They think their whole world is going to fall apart, and they may be right. They have had criticism or rejection from people they have told and they wonder if anyone can help them. They need support now, but where do they go to find it? (Of course, nothing like all bi people fall into either of these groups, but you get my drift.)

Bi people, like all people, need validation, to know that they are OK, that there are others like them, that they deserve and can achieve, love. That’s why you still need this bisexual blog, and why I do too.

Bis thriving in Australia

Often, I worry that I come across as a bit miserabilist. Well – not this time. Because thanks to a commenter on my last post, I’ve been reading Thriving as a Bisexual or Queer Woman: Tips on how to flourish.

A great antidote to all the (sadly true) stuff about bis having bad mental health etc, this booklet does exactly what it says on the cover and tells you how a range of Australian women who identify as bi or queer are thoroughly enjoying life.
According to the 20 women interviewed by Mary Heath and Ea Mulligan, having a network of close, bi-accepting open-minded friends, involvement in bi groups and organisations, involvement in a bi community, coming out, personal strength and honesty, living passionately, and (for most) having a sense of spirituality, were important to thriving. Makes sense, really.

Elsewhere in the world?
I did propose to a publisher once that I write a book called something like How To Be a Happy Bisexual. She “wasn’t sure how it would work” (different, yet somehow similar, to “there isn’t a market for it”). Not enough money to be made, no doubt.
This, though, is original research that seems to have been funded by the Australian Lesbian Medical Association (Wow! Do similar associations exist elsewhere in the world? That can give funding?) and Flinders university in Adelaide. You can download it as a pdf and it doesn’t cost you a penny. In its layout and design, it looks bright and positive too, so you get the message that way as well.
Lucky, lucky Aussies. I think perhaps it is a society where the things enabling you to thrive are easier to get than they are elsewhere. But I’m sure those of us in the rest of the world (and those who aren’t women too) can learn a lot from this. Download it, it really is inspirational.

Friends

There’s a saying, I don’t know if you know it, which goes roughly as follows:

What do gay men take on their second date? What second date?
What do lesbians take on their second date? All their furniture because they’re moving in.

So far, so clichéd. But what about:

What do bisexuals take on their second date? Their friends, because after all what’s the difference between friends and lovers?

I read that, or something like it, on a wall at a bi conference once and it’s stuck in my mind. For many people, particularly – but not only - in the politicised bi community, the friends/lovers blurriness is something to celebrate. You ought to be friends with your lovers, right? And people who have been your lovers, who have shared that kind of particular closeness ought to stay your friends. The relationship ought to be able to change and encompass being sexual or not.

Then again, you can be so close to your friends that you find the attraction growing into a sexual one.

Sounds lovely. Now doubt some people, some of the time, can manage this (and I’m not even going to go into jealousy, emotional trauma, and so on in this post!)

And/or lovers
But for myself, I have always found the friends/lovers thing very hard to manage. My normal pattern, for instance, is to have a group of friends rather than one particularly close one. However, when I have had a female “best friend” as I have had a couple of times in my life, the sexual tension has always been hard to navigate. To start with, they have always been heterosexual. Then again, I have sometimes felt confused about what sexual attraction means in that context. With someone I hardly know, if I feel a desire to be with them a lot of the time, I’d put that down to attraction. But if you are already close, what does that mean?

I remember a woman I interviewed once – and I think it is women, much more than men, who are confused by the borders of sex and friendship – who said that she felt her sexual feelings towards women kept her distant from other women as she was worried about how they’d react to her bisexuality and made her fearful of rejection. So much for all women being bi! I understand what she means, too, as I have felt it myself. When other (straight) women have said things in my presence like: it’s so relaxing being with women because you don’t have to worry about sex, I do feel like quietly screaming. No dear, not for me it isn’t.

Straight people, most of the time, don’t have to think about this. This is something lesbians – and to a lesser extent gay men - have to face as well. So how do we all manage it?

Touching a nerve

Aargh! Where do other bloggers find the time? I know that I’m substantially under par on the energy front, but even so! I had fully intended to post up a good few more bi history items – some are even half written - but they will have to wait.

There is something that I can direct you to in the meantime, though. It’s nerve.com’s bisexual issue. Full of fascinating stuff – the sort of stuff I’d like to write if I could only get down to it. Oh and and I wanted the world at large to know about my sex life. Pah!

So if you want to know where to find out what intelligent writers think about gender monogamy, coming out for the second time, or what “lesbians until graduation” are doing these days, look here.

Getting Bi

Bi? Fancy yourself as a writer? Then you should send your contributions to the wonderful women below. The first edition of Getting Bi was and is absolutely fantastic and fascinating... If you haven't got a copy, buy one instantly here.

Otherwise, read below....

CALL FOR ESSAYS:

Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals Around the World, 2nd edition

--Do you have something to say about being bisexual?

--Do you have a story about coming out as bi?

--Do you feel you could identify as bisexual but choose not to?

--Do you find connections (or conflicts) between your bisexuality and
other parts of your identity or life?

--Do you have something to say about desire? About relationships? About
religion? About community? About politics? About the position of
bisexuals in the place or community you call home?

If you answered yes to any of the above questions, we want to publish you!

*We seek short personal essays or poems (200-1000 words) by bisexuals
from Central or South America, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Asia, or
Africa. We seek Muslim voices from anywhere in the world. *(Essays from
people from other places and backgrounds will also be considered but our
present focus is on broadening representation. )

If you don't want your name in print, you can write under a pseudonym.
If you think you're not a "real" writer and would like to be included in
this anthology, we want you. If you're not comfortable writing, we can
interview you. If you are not comfortable writing in English, write in
your native language and we will translate your essay.

Essays will be published in the second edition of Getting Bi: Voices of
Bisexuals Around the World. The new anthology will be published in 2009,
in dual editions (English and Spanish).

The first (2005) edition includes personal narratives by people from 32
different countries, on 6 continents, ranging in age from 15-79. Please
help us make this amazing collection even broader in scope!

Send submissions to Robyn Ochs (robyn@robynochs. com) by June 30, 2008.

Thank you, and please help us spread the word! !

Robyn Ochs (http://www.robynochs.com) & Sarah E. Rowley, Editors

Bisexuals lost in France

I’m doing a spot of travel writing at the moment (yes I told you I didn’t just write on bisexuality) and I’m in Avignon, France.

Gay behaviour, or people who look as though the might be gay, are not terribly thick on the ground in France as a whole – so I was rather surprised to find myself in what seemed to be a gay restaurant. Le Brigadier du theatre serves traditional provencal food, and is decorated in high camp style with gold and silver cherubs, red walls, and chandeliery dripping from all vertical and horizontal surfaces. And men (well, one other woman who seemed to be with a gay couple). Tables full of men.

I don’t pretend to understand French culture. Not really. They have a big thing about the naturalness and inevitability of male/female relationships – or rather L’Homme et La Femme. Masculinity and femininity (for men and women respectively!) rule. Then there’s the influence of the Catholic church, the family… In southern or Catholic-influenced Europe, as distinct from Anglo-Saxon Europe, sexuality is considered to be a private matter and not something to shout about. As a result, the gay scene and identity has never taken off in quite the same way.

Can we see you?
The Parisian group Bi Cause (because love is a right) seems to be up and running, though. They meet every week and there’s a lot on their website if you can read French (and I think you can translate sites through some kind of online magic too, no?) Apparently, there’s an article by Catherine Deschamps (who wrote the book Bisexualite Le Dernier Tabou – not translated into English as far as I know) in the newest Journal of Bisexuality - which I can't find an online link for! - talks about Bi Invisibility, something that was discussed a great deal in the English-speaking bi world 10 or 20 years ago. We now have rather a lot of spurious bi visibility – as I said before – so this kind of discussion has died away. Perhaps French pop stars don’t paw each other a la Madonna and Britney.

When in France
I have plenty of previous in France. As I wrote before, I spent part of my yearning youth in Paris. I expected to encounter bisexuality there (why?) but certainly didn’t. Instead, I found men, men and more men – pests that they were. I didn’t know till later that I was living on the edge of an upmarket red-light area.

But in the 1980s, when I worked at an organisation called the Women’s Film, TV and Video network, my colleagues and I went to the women’s film festival that was and is held annually in the Parisian suburb of Creteil. Many of the women at the festival embraced a kind of high femininity which we from the UK found both regressive and baffling. One of the festival programmes showed a woman directing a film while also wearing a ballet tutu. I mean to say?!

When we were there we (my non-sexual friends and I) went to the Turkish baths at the Mosque – and what an eye-opener that was. I’m not saying that there was any actual sex going on there between the women – oh no no no – but what there was was the highest level of sexual tension, rubbing of body lotion into one’s friends bodies, and basic staring that I have ever seen anywhere. Maybe it’s not like that now – the last time I went, I was on my own and it was entirely different – but in the 80s, it was awesome. Literally.

We also went to a then-famous lesbian club Le Monocle (14 blvd Edgar Quinet, in the 14th arrondissement). It was odd. Although there were women there who were obvious couples, there were also men who’d clearly gone there to gawp. Remember, this was at the time when, in the English-speaking world, lesbian-feminism ruled. I just googled the club, and it still exists – the new Monocle – as a swingers club.

That tells you a lot you need to know really. There is a massive swingers scene in Paris (just look at the loisirs section in Pariscop magazine). Man and Woman united –naturellement – but with the saucy naughtiness that stereotypical Frenchness implies.

Underground at the House of Homosexual Culture

This coming Saturday, I’m going to be spending the day at the above, running the tea stall. There’ll be beverages, and fairy cakes – of course – and Santa’s little helpers of every gender. The wonderful writer Sarah Waters will be opening it. So if you’re in London, come on down.
I won’t be the only bi curiosity on show: those socially-minded folks The Bisexual Underground will have a stall. They meet monthly in a London pub for darts, board games, chatting and so forth.
And I think the Bi Underground is about it for the organised London bi scene at the moment – I can’t even tell if the London Bi women’s group is still going, or the London main group that was active for 20 years. Of course, there are places like fetish superclub Torture Garden – a “not safe for work site” - of course, where there is no shortage of behavioural bisexuality on display. Male/male couples, female/female couples, female/male couples, groups of friends or lovers, people who are clearly transsexual or whose gender is hard to determine… Everyone can be gorgeous if they have made an effort; everyone has a chance of being desired by someone there.

Is there a bi culture?
I’ve been asking myself this question quite often lately and I think the answer is probably, sadly, no. The reason for the question is that I’m hanging out a lot with, and seeing lots of events advertising: lesbian and gay culture, lesbian and gay communities, bla bla bla. This event is, after all, organised by the House of Homosexual Culture. They are great blokes and I love them. Bisexuals have a place on the gay scene, and always have had, even if we haven’t been recognised. But is that enough? Could there ever be a house of bisexual culture?
It's hard to imagine. Bi people are too diverse. That’s why I have a link called 57 Varieties. Some bi people veer towards gay culture, others straight. There’s no one thing we all want.
There’s a queer culture – encompassing all sorts of people who happen to be not mainstream heterosexual, but which leaves out many “straight-acting” bis. And there are subcultures with lots of bisexual people – swingers to anarchists and hippies (well, I think the anarchist bit is true, anyway).
But can you call the few bi groups, conferences, newsletters and so on a culture? Not really. I’ve tried to define (for myself) what “a bisexual culture” might encompass but I can’t. Clothes, creativity, music, secret signals to indicate to someone that you might be bi? No. There isn't any of that.
There is, though, a history of bisexuality – in particular how it was seen by the general public - ranging from bohemians and the Bloomsbury Group in the 1920s and 30s, David Bowie in the 70s, the influence of feminism and the sexual liberation movements around the same time, plus the organised bi community. That’s something you can trace, and I’ve stressed that quite a bit in this blog. It’s something to hold on to.

Something for the weekend

It's Celebrate Bisexuality Day on Sunday (23rd) - a bit shocking really in the "where has time gone" kind of a way. So what to do, ladies and gentlemen, what to do?

Well, most people will probably be carrying on as normal, possibly having a drink, or dipping into a box of chocolates, doing usual Sunday stuff. There doesn't seem to be a lot of organised activity this year, compared with last.

The main celebration I can find in the US is in Boston this evening (Thursday 20th) where they are launching a new Bisexual Health book.

In London, there's Poly Day on Saturday - there's a fair old overlap between the organised poly and bi communities, so expect to see some people there.

In Holland, also on Saturday, they are having a Bisexual Symposium.
If, like me, you don't read Dutch it's easy enough to automatically translate it. It seems as if they are getting the results of a big survey of 50,000 people entitled "How Bi Are You", which used Fritz Klein's sexual orientation grid. When I find out some more about it, I'll let you know.

So on to Sunday, and in Glasgow: at the MED cafe at the LGBT centre on Bell Street, they'll be serving bi-pride coloured cocktails during the afternoon and evening.
Is that a sky-blue pink cocktail then, and if so what's it made of?

Apparently, though, Second Life is where it's all at. At a blog called Second Life Insider, I found this.

September 23 is Celebrate Bisexuality Day the world over, and now it's finally come to SL. Erasmus Hartunian of the BiCafe Beach Place will be holding an event from 5 AM to 7 PM SL Time that will include Live concerts, DJs, Fashion Shows, Art Exhibits, Games, and Contests, with over $100,000 in prizes and give-aways scheduled for every hour of the day.

Interestingly, SL boasts the largest association of bisexuals in the world -- its Bisexuals in Second Life is over 1200 members strong. BiCafe.com, the longest running social web site for bisexuals founded in 1997, has its virtual home in BiCafe Beach Place, and will be celebrating its 10th year anniversary at this event. Come join the party and show your support!

Hmm.... does anyone who reads this blog go on Second Life? Maybe Second Lifers spend all their time there instead of the wider internet world.... When I get a home computer with a broadband connection that actually works properly, I'll check it out.

Further reading

Two reports on books on bisexuality today – not reviews exactly, rather some observations about them…

Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics is by Jennifer Baumgardner. She’s prominent in the Third Wave feminist movement that seems to be quite lively in the US.

[On one British feminist mailing list I am on, come International Women’s Day, US feminists who happen to be in London always ask why they can’t find out what’s happening. Answer, always, comes there none: nothing is happening, that’s why. If there is anything it’s usually along the lines of “Businesswoman’s association tells you how to reach empowerment through setting up a highly profitable pampering organisation”. Which, to me, isn’t feminism at all. Of course, some sort of feminist movement does exist – see the Observer Woman section of the Observer newspaper section this Sunday (perhaps it will be online too, via www.guardian.co.uk) where a range of young feminists aged 19-26 talk about what they are doing. Heartening stuff. Still and all, feminism is in a lull before an inevitable storm comes up in the future. Politics goes in cycles, I believe.]

Look Both Ways is a memoir first and foremost – reminiscences about Baumgardner's own experience of bisexuality and how it has and hasn’t fitted in to her life and where it does and doesn’t fit into feminism. She also interviews some famous feminists of the 60s and 70s era to see how having relationships with women was seen and the impact it had on those feminists who had them. But her main argument, I suppose, is that young women these days are embracing a certain sort of light-hearted bisexuality as a positive way-station to being a complete person. Hmm… possibly. Some of them.

What it isn’t about is about bisexual politics. Although she mentions prominent bi activists Robyn Ochs and Lani Ka’ahumanu(both of whom are feminists who have edited books on bisexuality), and the organisation BiNet, she never once mentions the Bi community. I find that baffling… It seems as if she only perceives of the politics of bisexuality within the feminist movement. Indeed, she seems quite clear that there is no bi movement, even though she lives in New York City where I would have thought the most casual search would have found her a group.

Bi America: Myths, Truths and Struggles of an Invisible Community, by William Burleson, is the polar opposite of this – being only about the bi community – in particular in the Minneapolis-St Paul area where the writer lives. Indeed, it discusses exactly what it says on the cover. I just wonder about the many bi people who aren’t in that community: what do they think? “Bi people” and the “bi community” are not synonymous terms, even in the US. Of course, he does mention this, and mentions where else you might find bi people, what exactly the community consists of and where it’s going to. I suppose trying to find out what these “non-community” even more invisible bisexuals think is one of my own hobbyhorses. There’s a lot in here and it certainly would be a helpful book for someone coming out as bi or their loved ones who want to understand them.

These books are also both “very American” – relevant only up to a point to people who aren’t in the US. They’re both enjoyable, interesting and readable books, but they feel to me like they’re written about a very foreign country.

I believe

There's a group on Facebook called "Everytime you say you don't believe in bisexuals, one dies".

Just like the fairies in Peter Pan. And how true that is.

If you are told you don't exist, something about you dies. If your life, your feelings, your experiences are supposedly a mirage, where does that leave you? Nowhere.

But some of us are clapping, shouting, doing whatever it takes to say: I believe in bisexuals. And part of the reason we do that is because we are bisexual ourselves.

Why do I do it?

I was asked recently, by a woman researching an article to be published in Bi Tribune magazine in the States, why I was still involved in the bi community when - for so many other people, even activists - it was a short-term thing, something to help them "come to terms with their sexuality" which they moved on from sooner rather than later.
Well, I'm not sure what my involvement actually consists of these days. I don't go to meetings any more - not that there are any in London to go to, really, apart from this. I'm not sure how I would be a bi-community activist in the sense that people in the US can be.
This blog - and my book writing, when I do it - is, I suppose, my activism. What I do to contribute to the bi community and bisexual individuals at large.
Even after all these years, I am still intellectually fascinated by sexuality and bisexuality in particular. It seems to me that much of the underpinning of society - that we are only attracted to either men, or women, never both, - is based on a downright lie. A lie that has done huge amounts of harm to lots of people, certainly me. What people do and feel, and why they do and feel it, is of endless fascination to me. I like uncovering secrets in general, and a lot of bisexuality is shrouded in secrecy.
Also, I have been in a relationship with a man for 12 years and this is a way of staying connected to a very important part of myself. My being bisexual, remaining attracted to people regardless of gender, and of having had serious relationships with women as well as men, means - to me - that I see the world very differently from someone who is straight; or someone who has come out to become gay. I see that time and again when I am talking to gay/straight people. What I don't understand is my friends who, say, used to be lesbian and are now straight. They feel decisively not part of the queer community any more.
This, I suppose, is my niche. No one else is blogging like this. Not many people are writing on bisexuality - certainly not in the UK - and there is a need for it. Lots of people ask me for advice etc and seem to value my thoughts. I have thoughts on other subjects, but so do many other people and there seems to be no reason why my views on them should be valued, rather than anyone else's. I write fiction, which some people seem to think is quite good, but then so do many others.
And having thought about bisexuality for so many years (let's say, oh, 35) and read everything on it that I am aware of, I guess I am an "expert" and that, in itself, keeps me going.

Second Life

I'll quote you this, shall I? It's from the bicafe site.

"Bisexuals in SecondLife has become the largest bi group in ANY world
With over 850 members, Bisexuals in SecondLife is also the most active bi group anywhere with more parties and meetings than all the real world bi groups put together!
Three Sunday meetings at the BiCoastal Center at Carnforth to cover time zones from Europe to Australia.
Thursday parties with DJ dancing and prizes up for grab at Euro friendly time.
Friday night parties at the Diamond Dog Club with DJ dancing and sexy themes (on California time).

BiCafe is tracking all these events and has added a new option to let you select SecondLife as your favorite away region which will show in your profile with the iconic SL hand.
And now you can even search for BiCafe members in SecondLife."

Gosh.

Well, out of over 4.6 million "inhabitants". 7,808 people are online as I type this. There's a guidebook - $22.04 on amazon - that tells you what to do, and I know that a few people have made a lot of money there. Indeed, nearly US$1.5 has been spent there over the past 24 hours.

So "Second Life" is actually seen as a real place now, rather than a set of movable drawings floating around in the ether. After all, Reuters reports news from there, Radio 1 has held concerts, literary agents scout for writers, and we can all look like prettier, more plastic, versions of ourselves.
But bisexuals on second life, now that is interesting. Because this is a parallel world, where you can truly be anything you want to be, something that eludes most of us in one way or another. No one needs to know who you really are, if you don't want them to. You can be part of this group wherever you like - you don't need to be near a large metropolis in a queer-friendly part of the world. You don't need to be remotely out in your daily life or local community. No one need know what you are doing. None of the barriers that stop people meeting in real life are there.
It's well-known that there's been a downturn in all sorts of support groups - bi and otherwise - since the rise of the net. Bisexual.com, for instance, has far more people visiting, chatting, meeting, asking each other for advice, than ever went to a group.
So that's great, and I'm pleased. But if existing in this parallel world is sufficiently comfortable that bi people don't need to be out in real life, then bisexuality will remain something largely invisible - to be disparaged, giggled about, and not taken seriously.

Can any mother help me?
I am absolutely dying to read this. It's a book about a mothers' correspondence club that operated from 1935 onwards; the Guardian gave it an absolutely rave review.
These women - unhappy, trapped, lonely - were lucky enough to find each other by a mixture of good contacts and good fortune. The letter-writing/compiling letters into a book process must have been lengthy, and of course they were only a tiny number among those women who probably felt that way. Reading about this book makes me think about the women in my own family of the time, who had a lot to cope with, and particularly my own mother - who's more on my mind than she's ever been since she had a stroke just after Christmas.
Nowadays, however, like those Second Life bisexuals, it couldn't be simpler to meet another person in a similar situation to yours. You might be able to find them in five minutes. Maybe even five seconds.
Could the contrast between then and now be any more stark?

They recruit!

It's true what they told you: bisexuals are trying to turn your young people into wicked deviants. The
bisexual recruitment army wants YOU to be the bi-est.
And B*R*A's original 1881 motto: "We're Looking For a Few Good Men, and a Few Good Women, And A Place That Sells Sturdy Beds"
The saucepots!

Tags bisexual+politics humour