Bisexuals go back to school

You'll see them here, there and everywhere - kids in their new school uniforms, hyped up for the new term. It might be hotter in London than it was a month ago but no matter: it's time to knuckle down to work.
And of course, for some it will be hell.
As reported in Pink News, Stonewall is conducting a survey of young people to see how extensive homophobic bullying is, and the forms it takes. Early results indicate it's every-bloody-where.
The people I know who work in schools and colleges (ie with kids up to 19) report that anti-gay feelings among the young people are extraordinarily widespread. One teacher, working in an inner-city college, told me that the kids were very keen indeed to know whether he was gay, being gay seeming to encompassing every kind of badness. Actual same-sex behaviour wasn't all that they were concerned about: they were very keen on being ultra-masculine or feminine, and they wanted everyone else to be like that too. Another is aware that several of her students are gay but this is a secret that stops with her. Essentially, she protects them from their classmates.
Then of course there's the wide use of the word "gay" as an insult by young people, even on the BBC (DJ Chris Moyles on Radio 1, which was widely reported). But "gay" couldn't be seen as an insult unless being gay was also thought of as something dreadful. After all, no one says, "oh this book is blue-eyed/ vegetarian / flowery. Even liberal adults who don't seem homophobic sometimes say it.
This kind of homophobia in young people seems to have got more entrenched if anything, perhaps because queerness in general has a somewhat higher profile these days. When I was at school, girls were occasionally called "lezzers" but no one really believed they were as no one had ever actually met, or seen, or heard of, a real lesbian.
But I also read a piece recently about how more high school girls (this is in the US) are "making out" with their female friends in order to entice boys. Some of them, allegedly, are as young as 13. It seems likely to me, though, that these girls are completely heterosexual and just doing it for the boys. If you were really keen on another girl, it seems more plausible that you would feel very nervous about being outed, about being rejected.
However, the same piece also claims that gay teenagers are coming out younger. It says that schools with gay/straight alliances make it easier for youngsters to come out. We don't have them in the UK, I don't think, but it seems clear that in progressive or liberal schools, young people are more likely to be accepted whatever their sexuality, and will therefore be able to come out. A boy at my own son's school did precisely that, making an announcement at school assembly. Apparently no one was particularly surprised or bothered. And people using "gay" as an insult were considered downright unsophisticated.
So, if you're a queer student, there's a lesson for you. Make sure you go to the right school. And for that, you need to have the right parents, live in the right catchment area, and make sure there aren't too many religious zealots around.
Good luck! I really hope you don't need it.

Ten reasons you need this bisexual blog

www.bigfoto.com

1. Because almost everyone thinks almost everyone is really gay or straight. Or more probably straight or gay. There is no bisexuality.
2. Except among female celebrities, where there may be bisexuality... of a kind.
3. And although there are a lot of sex sites where bisexual people get together, there's nowhere at all dedicated to the discussion of bisexuality. If you have a blog that does just this, for God's sake get in touch and I'll buy you a drink. A big one. What we have to discuss will take a while.
4. In any case, there are hardly any British blogs that discuss sexuality at all. If they do, it's about bloggers' own personal experiences. See post below.
5. The blogs that do talk about sex are from the US. Come on now, fellow Brits. Let's get talking.
6. And whenever bisexuality is mentioned in public, people still curl their lips, as if to say "oh yeah?"
7. So hardly anyone comes out.
8. Making everyone else think that bisexuality doesn't exist; and bi individuals that they are the only one ever.
9. Especially if they are men.
10. In any case, I need to write this blog. I do. Because it bugs the hell out of me that still, in the 21st century, what seems self-evident to me - that many people, men as well as women, desire, or love, or have sex with, men and women - seems so hard to grasp for so many people. I know I'm not the only one who thinks they need to wise up.

Let's not talk about sex

So, Abby Lee - author of the brilliantly entertaining blog "the girl with the one track mind", which led to a book of the same name - is probably stopping her blog. The reason: her real identity (Zoe Margolis) was "outed" by a gutter publication masquerading as a Sunday newspaper.
As a result, not only has she had to leave home, but all her friends, family, lovers, work colleagues and passing acquaintances, know what she does, who she does it with, and when and where she masturbates. Being outed means she can't write candidly any more.
This brilliant blog details the attempts of a 33-year-old single woman to find sexual partners. She thinks about sex a lot (ie has a one track mind) and writes about what she does and who she does it with in a witty and engaging way.
What's happened to her has certainly given me pause for thought, both for myself and as a feminist. Now I've made it a personal rule that I won't write about anything here that I wouldn't want my family or my (obviously liberal) employer to see. This blog is about the politics of sex, not actual shagging - especially not any that I've ever done myself! I post under my real name: given that I'm a career journalist/writer, it would be stupid not to. Still, if I ever slip up and say something that isn't in the public domain - that I identify as bisexual, am in a long-term relationship with a man and have had relationships in the past with women and men - then I might have problems.
It's partly because I am a journalist that I am so disgusted by what's happened. Many of us try to be ethical in our dealings with other people. Ms Anna Mikhailova, however, the author of this "expos", is obviously motivated entirely by ambition. While knowing full well that Abby/Zoe is worried about her perfectly legal and moral exploits being known to the world, she goes ahead and does it anyway.
The undivine Ms M throws around plenty of damning words: "shameless", "commitment-free", "low-brow pornography". She also throws into doubt the fact that Zoe actually wrote the book. "Much of its commercial value depends on readers believing it is the true account of a sexually liberated women". Why would anyone think it wasn't? Abby/Zoe writes about fancying some of the actors she works with. Well, why wouldn't she? Anna M hides her prissy moralism very badly.
Of course, she is obviously trying to make her mark - an internet search of her name reveals four pieces done at the Sunday Times (two as a joint byline) and many others at a publication called Oxford Student, so perhaps she was on work experience at the ST.
The ST, a Murdoch-owned paper, has behaved really hypocritically - they published a piece by Abby/Zoe, and excerpted her book. Then, a few weeks later, they do this to her. Why? It seems needlessly mean, particularly as Abby/Zoe writes at length about how worried she is that she will be "found out".
There is no reason for the public to know the real identity of Abby/Zoe. In fact, I doubt if the public is actually interested. She is not a public figure, a celebrity, a member of parliament. She's an ordinary woman on the crew of British films. Or she was. Now, she's not getting any work.

Women, know your place
So for me, this issue has some led to some pretty thumping political conclusions. 1) If you (a woman) want to be taken seriously or have a career, don't write about sex. 2) don't believe for a second that you can think about, or act like, men do when it comes to sex.
The media has decided there are two acceptable ways for women to be sexually - and everyone knows that when women try to be sexual in unacceptable ways, they have to be punished. The first is: woman who wants a long-term relationship, or is already in one, and within that wants sex. If she is young and innocent, or has been married for a long time, fine. If she is over-30 and single, it's going to be tough because there is cellulite and weight gain, men who won't commit, the biological clock, and career demands to worry about. She will have to resort to some kind of manipulation - or at least bloody good luck - to get a man. It's the Bridget Jones scenario. But Bridget Jones started off as a satire.
The second is: kiss and tell girl, who has sex with footballers, and as a career goal wants to be famous, which she will achieve by posing naked for men's magazines. She is invariably under 25. Most of the women in Big Brother fall into this category.
If you might in any way fall into this latter camp, then you can forget any idea that you have the right to think. After all, a one-track mind can only focus on sex; women's poor little brains are much too small to actually have an intellect too. If you think about/write about sex - and especially if you are involved in the sex industry at all, in any way, ever - then you are necesssarily a stupid victim, probably not knowing what is good for you due to sexual abuse or other abuse by men. Look at all the hoo-hah surrounding the Belle de Jour blog/book. BdJ is or was an escort who blogged about it, and the supposition is and was that it couldn't be a real prostitute writing it because it was too well done. Now, I have no idea who BdJ is, whether it is a female escort or a male jobbing hack or a team of people, but in a way it doesn't matter. It's the supposition that all prostitutes are dimwits, incapable of stringing a sentence together / no intelligent woman (who wasn't a junkie) would ever be in the sex industry that I object to. And good liberal journalists (like me) are as likely to believe that as anyone crawling up the posterior of Rupert Murdoch. Perhaps they should check out a blog like this.
But anyway, Abby/Zoe is not in the sex industry. She is simply a woman trying to follow her own desires, writing about wanting sex in a way that many women can recognise. I certainly can. She doesn't write about wanting a boyfriend, about being insecure, about wanting to settle down. Occasionally, she even writes about having sex with women. But in no sense is she a victim in her search for sex.

What a man can do
If she was a man, no one would be remotely interested. I presume there are blogs about straight(ish) men pursuing sex with women, but no one gives them book deals or is interested in knowing who they really are. And gay men are almost expected to talk about/write about casual sex: Mark Simpson, for instance, who among other things writes fascinating stuff about having sex with "straight" men, is perfectly explicit.
But Abby/Zoe is a woman, and she has not played by the rules. She specifically says that she started blogging to write about sex a progressive, feminist, sex-positive way, something she didn't see covered elsewhere. Interestingly, some of the reviews on the amazon site also think she is pandering to male fantasies. But there are mentally healthy women who are interested in casual sex. There are!
"The idea that men use love to get sex and women use sex to get love is a myth," she says. "In my experience, men want and need love just as much as women, and women seek sexual pleasure just as much as men do. The difference is that it's still unacceptable for men to admit to that emotional need, in case they are labelled weak or feminine, and if a woman is open about her sexual desires, she's instantly labelled a slut." As she has clearly been.
As Natalie Angier, Pulitzer-prize winning science correspondent puts it "Women are said to have lower sex drives than men, yet they are universally punished if they display evidence to the contrary."
Just like Abby Lee/Zoe Margolis is being punished right now. And Anna Mikhailova, traitor to women who want to play by their own rules, has her reward: a byline, a few hundred pounds, and a leg up on a very slippery career ladder.

Choices, choices

In the Guardian today, a woman asks for advice about her desire for a baby (while in a long-term heterosexual relationship) and her simultaneous / conflicting desire to have a relationship with a woman. It's here.

Now, far be it from me to offer advice to anyone. What do I know? What, indeed, do any agony aunts / pundits / readers offering advice on the basis of not-very-much-at-all know? All we have to go on about this woman's dilemma is what can be fitted into the allocated few hundred words.
That being as it may, it seems to me that she is operating purely in a fantasy world: she wonders what it would be like to have a relationship with a woman. She doesn't seem to have anyone actually in mind; she's not mentioning how much she's lusting after someone, or even anyone. Mightn't it be true that, once she actually got together with a woman she'd discover - hey, this is pretty much the same as having a relationship with a man? Or not.
Specifics aside, though, what she is getting at is much the same as many bisexual people who only realise their same-sex attractions after being married or in established het relationships. What should they do - if anything? Who can they talk to? Is there anyone else out there like them, and how have they coped? And, very very important, if they tell their partner how I feel, will she/he tell me to sling my hook? Bugger off. And not in a good way.
Talking to people on the bi helpline (when it was going, in pre-internet days) told me that a very large proportion of people who called were bi men who didn't know what to tell their wives. They felt they would almost certainly be rejected. Indeed, if you read any agony aunt advice to partners of men who are "suspected" of bi behaviour or feelings, you'd say that was almost certainly the case. Indeed, should be the case. The interviews I did for my not-yet-will-it-ever-be published book showed bi men - apart from those in the bi community - having a really tough time of it, with women not
But research done by people like Australians Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli and Sara Lubowitz (well, as far as I know, just them, as most research seems to be dedicated to showing either that bi men don't exist or that they are/aren't HIV risks) showed that the female partners of bisexual men had a tremendous range of responses - from lust to disgust and everything in between. You can get it from here.
The expectation seems to be that bi men are going to be rejected by their partners, but bi women aren't. That's not necessarily true either. What does sometimes happen is that husbands/boyfriends start by thinking it's a great idea, but when it becomes apparent that it's about more than a succession of "hot bi babes" flocking to bed with them, then insecurity starts to niggle away.
So going back to the woman in the paper, shouldn't she be talking about her desires to her partner? OK, it does sound as if she is thinking about having a relationship with someone else instead of him, rather than the more radical possibility of as well as him. No doubt he will be hurt whatever she does. But she is giving a fantasy relationship - one with a phantom woman she has never met - a lot more power than a real one by keeping her feelings to herself.

California dreaming

I've just come back from rural France - great holiday, thanks for asking - and it's set me wondering: where's the best place to be bisexual? When I say "be" bisexual, what I mean (in brief) is: the ability to be open about your sexuality if you want; the chance of meeting people who might just understand you; and an absence of violence towards people whose sexuality or appearance is not that of the mainstream.
And I've come up with a possibility: California. Now, of course, I've never actually been to the place, my US-side jaunts being restricted to the east and middle of the country. So what I'm about to write is based on no personal evidence whatsoever! Still, when did that ever stop bloggers?
But it does seem to be the place where there is more questioning of conventional notions of sexuality and gender identity than anywhere else in the world. After all, people like Susie Bright and Carol Queen live and work there. It's a state with a long history of accepting alternative politics and lifestyles and where cutting-edge sexual politics do find an audience. Imagine trying to make a living as a queerish sexual pundit in the UK... Even my bank manager laughed.
Then of course, there's those beautiful women in The L Word (or am I perhaps confusing fantasy with reality....?)
Not that London's bad. It's even quite good in that people in general are laid-back about sexuality and not too bothered about how others live. There are places to find sexual partners if you want them. And, importantly, there's the newish civil partnerships, which mean that lesbian and gay couples have sort-of equality before the law.
So where would be a really crap place? Anywhere where same-sex behaviour is illegal; anywhere where strong fundamentalist religion is part of the everyday landscape - and that means large swathes of the US; places where you might go years on end without meeting another "like-minded" individual.
Well, what do you think, you Californians? Is it all a bowl of cherries out there in the sunshine? Or is the fact that Arnold Schwarzenegger is Governor enough to get you all heading east?

Cruising for girls

So lesbians are learning to cruise. At all-night women-only saunas and via the internet. Allegedly. It's no longer just gay men after some no-strings how's your father.
In a feature in the Guardian today www.guardian.co.uk/gayrights/story/0,,1834025,00.html, one Jaq Bayles writes about this "new" lesbian sexuality. Well, if lesbians were having more casual sex, it wouldn't be so surprising, would it? Thanks to gaydar and internet sex sites for people of every sexuality, everyone's doing it. Potential lovers are just so easy to get hold of.
A couple of months ago a friend/one-time girlfriend and I agreed (in a half-jokey way) that we would never have got together if gaydar had existed then. Certainly, there's a lot more women to choose from: if I wanted to find a 25-year-old blue eyed banker who also liked salsa dancing, that wouldn't be too much to ask. Gaydargirl has plenty of bi women, or lesbians who are happy to date bi women, too.
There's also a massive increase in swinging due to the internet, and I have interviewed several women who told me they had got into it precisely in order to have casual sex with women. But as their male partners were always very much in evidence, that was sometimes a bit hard to organise.
One of the reasons why lesbian sex - or indeed any sort of casual sex - is so much easier to get via the internet is that it takes away so much of the physical and emotional danger. I do remember about 15 years or so ago some lesbians tried to set up a cruising area on Hampstead Heath. But it never really took off. I certainly would never have gone there, even if I was crawling the walls, and the physical danger aspect is a definite part of that. It was also the idea that you were really ceding control: in the semi-dark, how can you see if you fancy someone? What if it all turned out to be an emotional nightmare? What if you got cold feet?

Trained to change behaviour
Radical feminist Sheila Jeffreys says that women are being "trained" to change their sexual behaviour by sex entrepreneurs. Now I hate this idea that women are these pure beings, existing in some kind of pre-lapsarian state - until some nasty men, or pseudo-men, or women acting as agents for men - come to corrupt them. Only then will they want to have heterosex / S/M / promiscuous lesbian sex - depending on the decade she was writing in - rather than the utterly egalitarian un-messy (in any sense) lesbian sex that she thinks best for women. I may be parodying her views - or at least exaggerating them - but not by much. Women do always, and have always, liked all sorts of different things sexually. There was always casual sex and some lesbians have occasionally slept with men. The idea that it has suddenly started is nonsense.
Where I do sort of agree with the nay-sayers (in this case a bloke, queer theorist Stephen Maddison, is the idea that "cruising is a commodified, competitive and highly ritualistic business". Yup, no chance for an older, unattractive, shy person. And he also says "Gaydar culture institutionalises erotic interplay, turning adventure and wonder into a sexual McDonald's."
True. How much more spontaneous to meet a short-term sweetie walking down the street or in a bar, with no money changing hands, data being captured, or cookies placed on your computer. But much more of a risk - and much less likely that you'll get the person that you want.

Bi-stars

So, singer Nelly Furtado is bi. (See <http://tinyurl.co.uk/lmlm> which was posted on the Bimedia yahoo group by the ever-efficient Grant Denkinson). Thinks women are beautiful and sexy. Believes everyone is really bisexual and loves hanging out with her gay friends. And that experimentation is a part of human history.
Whoopee-doo.
These days, it seems almost mandatory for female stars to talk about how much they like girls. But has anyone ever seen one with an actual girlfriend? Or even talking about a woman they fell in love with x years ago who was so important to them?
Hello... I don't think I hear many voices calling.
Rebecca Loos has many faults, no doubt, but at the very least she was a proper bisexual, not bi-lite. She had real relationships with women, lived with at least one. Anne Heche was deeply and publically involved with Ellen DeGeneres in between boyfriends. Madonna may or may not have been involved with Sandra Bernhardt but they were "linked"... about 15 years ago.
Any more? Do let me know.

Just one look
Is it any more than an easy popularity ploy for female celebrities to imply that they find women attractive? Such celebs are exotic, interesting but still pretty safe and always always conventionally feminine. After all, women don't seem to mind it, men are presumed to enjoy it, and the queer community can claim another star on their side. And the celebrities - they sell more of whatever commodity they are trying to sell. That hint of bi shifts units.
When this celebrity-bi stuff first appeared, I was pleased. I thought that the more publicity about bisexuality there was, the better. That simply discussing the issue, getting it out in the open, increasing visibility - as we used to say - was an end in itself and would benefit all of us.
Now, I'm more than a little peeved. This kind of "straight-bi" confession is what many people think bisexuality IS. And for some, their bisexuality is like that. But when there is only one view of bisexuality that ever appears in the press, it just seems to me like oppression under another guise. That how my sexuality - for instance - is and has been is as hidden as ever. It certainly doesn't help bi women who want to be taken seriously by lesbians.
And let's not even get started about bisexual men. Bi celebrity boys? In your dreams. Anyway, that's a whole other rant!

The B letter in the L Word

Yikes! How time flies when you're supposed to be writing a blog. The real world of bisexuality has been pretty quiet in the last week, dear reader, but one thing that has been exercising my neural pathways is the new series of the L Word. After simply adoring season one, I'd been worried about this series: season two had some storylines of staggering implausibility, and dreary longeurs where they were doing the TV version of Phil Space. It was all too easy to see why it never made it to UK terrestrial television. Season three, however, is cracking... in some ways. I have seen three episodes now (lucky me, having a "screening" DVD) and there are some really interesting plot twists and turns. Real life (maintaining long-term relationships, illness, homophobia, George Bush) impinges good and proper. But there is one serious disappointment.

Blithering bisexuals
Yes, you've guessed it, it's the bi characters. Jenny is still recovering from her period in a mental hospital after self-harming, and Alice... well she's turned into an obsessive stalker, turning her flat into a shrine to Dana. Why can't one of them be solid and boring? Repressed? A multimillionaire? A tennis star? Or at least more grounded. Of course, many people have issues with their mental health - yours truly certainly not excepted - but why the bi characters? Both of them. Isn't this just another stereotype: bisexuals as confused, unstable, yada yada yada. Studies from respectable bodies such as MIND have shown that bi people have worse mental health than other groups, but lesbians don't do tremendously well either and we don't see that on the L Word. OK it's entertainment, the women look great, the plot romps along, but that needn't stop proper issues being addressed and - bisexuality aside - it doesn't.
Still maybe there's hope. There are hints that at least one other character might be entertaining heterosexual fantasies. Three guesses who it might be.

Bisexuality over 21

This post is a kind of an answer to Laura's comment (posted in response to Time to be a Rubber Fetishist, below). She said:

"When I was at university lots of girls and boys were experimenting with same sex/different sex relationships and flings but to my knowledge very few continued into adulthood... perhaps because there weren't any role models?"


The invisibility of bisexuals (pretty much everywhere outside of an organised bi community) is something I'm going to come back to again and again in this blog. The reasons for it are complex but this is it in a nutshell...
Mainstream society finds bisexuality so threatening to the status quo that it needs to make bisexuality as unappealing or impossible as it can. Bisexuality exposes as a lie the notion that people are divided into good straights and bad gays, with a brick wall between the two. It forces a recognition that fewer people are wholly straight or gay than everyone likes to think. That's something almost no one wants to hear.
It's also a vicious circle: because bisexuality is so invisible, and because there are so many myths and stereotypes about it, people in general dislike bisexuals. Therefore few say publicly that they are bisexual. Why would people tell others they are bi if the reaction they would get is overwhelmingly negative? Bisexuality is very often - at present - fraught with difficulty: no approval from friends or family, only a tiny community of people to support you even if you can find them, no "bisexual scene" to come out to.

"Well, of course, I dabbled when I was a student"
So is this the only (only!) reason that Laura's friends stopped their experimentations? Well, first of all let's look at that word "experimenting"... It might be simply that - you try something, you decide you don't like it, you don't repeat the experience. Personally, I tried horse-riding: I don't regret it, but I have no desire to do it again. Some people, for sure, who have experimented with both sexes are just trying it on for size. Trite as it sounds, experimentation when you are a young adult is part of growing up. (Although people experiment at other times of their lives too.)
But the difficulty for me is that the words bisexuality and experimentation are often muddled up together. Many people's bisexuality is considered - by themselves and others - as only about experimentation, just a temporary thing while they sort themselves out. Then there's that other synonym "dabble" - over-used by straight and gay people alike. It makes our desires sound like a bit of a joke, something to be taken lightly - when my own sexual feelings have been serious as cancer. And you don't dabble in love, for instance, or long-term relationships, only sex.

Keeping it quiet
Here's another possibility, though: maybe Laura's friends did continue their same sex/different sex behaviour into adulthood, secretly. Many people, probably most, who say to themselves "I am bisexual" or use terms like "my bi side" or have sex with men and women within, say, a five year period, won't tell their friends. I still, even now, get people saying to me: "Oh you're the only one I've ever met". What they actually mean is: "You're the only person who's ever told me they're bi".
But if bisexuality really was that rare then I'd never meet any either - and outside of the bi community, it's rare that I meet people who are openly bi. What I have had, instead, is people "confessing" to me once they know I am bisexual. These confessees, women and men, know perfectly well their sexual and emotional attractions are not confined to one or other side of the gender divide and sometimes they have acted on these feelings. What they don't know is how to cope with them. Honestly, if I had a pound for every person who asked me if I thought they were bisexual...

People like us?
So is it the lack of role models that stops people continuing with same sex/different sex relationships - or talking publicly about them?
To be sure, that's part of it. And perhaps the massive publicity that a certain sort of female bisexuality (bi-try, "party-trick lesbianism", whatever) has had in recent years means that young women are more inclined to express their sexual feelings for each other. Whether that means it's easier for them to have actual relationships is another matter. Heterosexuality rules today as much as ever.
But I think the whole idea of role models is a bit flawed. A person who is my role model might be a total turn-off for someone else. There are female bisexual role models out there if you want them - from Frida Kahlo to Angelina Jolie - although I'm not sure what real relevance they have to, say, an ordinary London woman with an office job.
That's not so true for men. I can't think of any celebrity-style bi male role models who are alive and famous right now. And all this invisibility is far worse for men. Indeed, they are often told that there aren't any out bi men... because no men are really bi.
There are non-celebrity role models though - Robyn Ochs, say, who compiles the Bisexual Resource Guide in Boston, and speaks about bisexuality here, there and everywhere. But whether the woman in the street would know about her is another matter.
Role models or not, what is essential, though, is for bisexuals and bisexuality to be more visible, more prominent, in order to counteract all the propaganda and misinformation about us. My blog is one microscopic part of that - as are the bi resource and community sites on the web, and the real world groups when you can find them and even, perhaps, the sex and dating sites. Then, more people will come out as bi, negative stereotypes will be challenged, and the vicious circle might become a virtuous one.

Time to be a rubber fetishist

So, the UK's sexual health is getting worse. According to figures released yesterday, syphilis is on the increase 10 years after it was almost eradicated, with a 23% increase in 2004-2005, 39% 2003-2004. This is the storywww.guardian.co.uk/medicine/story/0,,1812907,00.html>.
That's just an extension of a problem that has existed since the mid 90s. Between 1996 and 2002, according to the same body (The Health Protection Agency) syphilis rates in British men went up by 960% and in the West Midlands by 4,800%. God knows what they were doing in Brum.
It's mostly those old baddies "gay and bisexual men" who are contracting syphilis and, apparently, 60% of all new diagnoses of syphilis were in men who are HIV positive. This isn’t in the Guardian story, but is reported here www.aidsalliance.org/sw5207.asp?page=1>.
Now the girls are getting in on the act. The increase of syphilis in women last year was 2.5 times that of men and many of these women are "suspected of 'swinging'"! Or maybe not, but the HPA says they are mature women, not prostitutes, who are part of "particular social circles". Statistics - oh, you look it up! - show that young women are having more sexual partners so it's not a huge leap to imagine that mature women might well be at it too.
So what lies behind this increase in syphilis? Of course, this is a complex issue, one with many causes and effects. The restriction in the hours of many clap clinics, for one. And the fact that, unlike queer people of my generation, young gay/bi men haven't seen their peers die, horribly, in their thousands. Or, indeed, been to parts of the developing world where people are doing that right now. Syphilis and HIV differ in many ways, of course, but they are both spread by unsafe sex. And that's what more and more people in Britain are practising now.

You know what to do
Of course, there's a simple solution. Every time you have penis-penetrating-anything sex, especially with someone who isn't your regular partner, use a condom. Use a condom and, again... use a condom. And given that syphilis can be acquired by oral sex. Well, you do the math. OK, so sometimes people carried away by the moment and forget or stop caring. If you are infected by someone who swears they are true to you and always have been, then that is a horrific breach of trust. And asking all people, even monogamous ones, to use condoms all the time is unrealistic and not something that the NHS seems to be doing.
But if you horny people who have sex with multiple partners actually used condoms regularly when you shagged, instead of thinking that infection wouldn't happen to you, or condoms take away the sensation, or that you choose your partners carefully and never go with anyone who "looks gay" - all of which have actually been said to me by people, male and female, with straight faces (pun intended) - then rates of sexually transmitted infections would go right down. And you wouldn't even have to give up your fun.


The L Word
On a lighter note, the third season of The L Word is starting soon in the UK... Living TV, July 19th, 10pm. A little bird - actually, a medium-sized one - told me she has seen most of it at London's lesbian club Southtopia and this time the storylines are pretty heart-rending. I wonder if Season One's bisexuals (or at any rate, their bisexuality) will stage a come-back?

Bisexuals at Europride

Yesterday was Europride in London - and what a day it was. The busiest, most crowded, most popular shopping streets in central London were traffic-free while thousands of queers gathered with their whistles and their all-pink union jacks. Any and every group - from the Fire Brigade, to LGBT Muslims, to Battersea Dogs' Home - sent their delegation to march or wave from a lorry. Temperatures in the lower reaches of "hot", a cloudless blue sky and the faintest of welcome breezes; Soho to Trafalgar Square full of revellers and ralliers, poofs and picnickers, friends and lovers; an atmosphere of genuine celebration absent from the city's Prides since they became a focus for corporate sponsors and boybands. It was truly wonderful. I have never experienced anything like it.
It was also 30 years since my first Pride. A day when a few hundred still-brave stragglers, most of them men according to my memory, faced down the appalled and bemused stares of passersby to wander into the park to hear Tom Robinson singing "Glad to Be Gay". It felt dangerous and exciting, particularly if, like me, you were only 19. Homophobia was rife and completely mainstream: 1976 was not just another century but another country for people wanting same-sex relationships. Poland, perhaps, where good Catholics go on the radio and pontificate happily about finishing off the job Hitler started - exterminating the queers.

Where were the bisexuals?
So where was the bisexual presence at Europride? Well, clearly everywhere... and nowhere much. There were London Bisexual Group and Bicon banners with perhaps 20 people marching behind them (Well, maybe there were more banners, but not that I noticed). There were plenty of groups with the letter B in their names... but whether they have actual bisexual members to merit that B... well, I wonder. I know that many bi people think that groups add the B so they don't need to take bisexuals into consideration in any other way.
It's a paradox that while there is more discussion about bisexuality than ever - even if it's to claim that it doesn’t exist - and more and more women say that they are bi - even if it’s just that trivial "look at me with another woman, boys" stuff –that politically organised bisexuality seems to be at a low ebb. (In the UK, that is; in north America, things seem much more lively). There are some tremendously active individuals out there, and some great mailing lists and forums to join, but shouldn't a city like London have gazillions of bisexuals - all ages, races and opinions - willing to march together? I know they are out there somewhere - I mean they advertise for sex partners often enough - but what is it about the bi community that doesn't appeal? We used to say that people didn’t have "access to information". No doubt that's still true for a few, but I think more are actively rejecting it.

Bi community... or not
When I was researching my not-yet/will-it-ever-be published book on bisexuality, some of the people I interviewed (who all called themselves bisexual in one way or another) were vehemently against the bi community. Some didn't think sexuality was political (and so probably wouldn't march anyway); but others couldn't relate to the gender-queer S/M geek look that many bis take on; some felt the bi community was just a talking shop and they found that boring; some allied themselves with the straight or gay community according to the sex of their partner; yet others thought that gathering with people just on the basis of a shared sexuality was daft - they wanted to make friends on the basis of shared tastes, interests or opinions.
Myself, I do feel a part of it - although my involvement is mainly online these days. I rarely go to groups or conferences any more (been there, done that); few of my friends call themselves bisexual (sometimes in the face of the evidence); and I feel conventional, middle-aged and gender-straight in bi-groups (and certainly not outside them)!
Perhaps it's because the idea of there being a bisexual banner - both literal and metaphorical - under which to gather, is extremely important to me. That's because pride, in the sense of self-esteem, is something that far too many bisexuals still don't have about their sexuality. I do have it - in fact I have it in bucketloads - but I wouldn't have developed it without the bi community. The bi community specifically - not lesbian, gay or queer - which helped me realise that bisexuality is not just possible, but wonderful.
So come on then, let's make the bi presence bigger, bolder and brighter. At Prides up and down the UK... and everywhere else. I have just one question.
How?