taking yards, i dream of miles @des1red - Tumblr Blog

You know, when you start to define your online identity around treating LGBTQ people with unusual labels as huge community threats… you’re going to gain some anti-feminist and transphobic bedfellows pretty damn quick.

Why don’t you check and see what all you have in common with the people you reblog from, or who reblog from you. You might be surprised to discover what values they think you share!

des1red

@bastardroses said: I’ve only ever seen TERFs disagree with battleaxe bis though. TERFs wish to exclude the trans community, so they believe that bisexuality should only relate to cis people. In direct opposition to this transphobic mindset, battleaxe bis argue that bisexuality has historically always included trans identities.

The “battleaxe bi” position isn’t directly opposed to TERFs or transphobia; it’s directly opposed to pansexuals and the pansexual identity. It’s quite possible to find people (self-identified “battleaxe bis” or not) attacking “pansexuality” from sex essentialist, transmed, anti-nonbinary, and TERF positions.

For example, I’ve seen some bisexuals reject the term pansexual as “unnecessary” with the argument that sexuality is only about the sexes (in contrast to genders) that you’re attracted to and that there are only two sexes, so bisexual covers them all. It is sex essentialist–and cissexist/transphobic by extension–to treat “sex” as an immutable, objective, and binary category that is unconnected to “gender” (as both a social system and a individual’s embodiment/subjectivity/positionality within that system) and which is more fundamentally defining than “gender.” I’ve also stumbled along some anti-pan bi blogs that had transmed-like transphobic views. There’s also room for convergence in anti-pan and anti-trans perspectives from the point of view that bisexuality is stigmatized as “transphobic” or “binary” when actually those things shouldn’t matter anyway. Admittedly, I don’t keep up with TERF discourse on this topic, but I’ve also never seen a TERF defending pansexuality, and would imagine that they’d have reason to attack the label, too.

For the record, I’m against people using bisexuality as a foil for pansexual identity and defining it in limiting ways that most bi people wouldn’t agree with. But I also disagree with the anti-pan position, which I think goes well beyond legitimate criticisms of how people definite pansexuality and bisexuality against each other.

des1red

@bastardroses I actually have seen TERFs defend pansexuality, but ONLY to dunk on the BaBis argument that pansexuality is redundant purely bc bisexuality is already trans inclusive and gender impartial. On a BaB post about how messed up it would be if we created a new term specifically for lesbians who also emphatically date trans women like we did with bi/pan to emphasize attraction to the gender spectrum, a TERF replied, “As if lesbians don’t now have to claim to be attracted to men because of you lot.” (🤮)

At this point tho I think pan should probably just replace the term bi, even though it saddens me that we’ll lose touch with the historical roots of bisexuality I don’t see a way around it. Every young self-proclaimed bisexual I’ve met irl has proudly stated that they are bi and not pan because they date men and women, not trans people—and I have to break to them that this is a transphobic stance. Transphobes now flock to “bi” as an excuse not to examine their internal biases. It’s contaminated.

It’s unlikely that pansexual would replace bisexual, especially considering that bisexual is much, much more widely known and precisely because it has that grounding in history and activism. That’s not something I’m worried about. Plus, the “LGBT” framework already has a degree of insitutionalization in some parts of the world, and bisexual will probably continue to be carried over there.

For example, a form I had to fill out at my doctor’s office asked for sexual orientation and gave the options as Straight, Gay, Bi, Other, Decline. It also included something like “bisexual partners” as a potential risk factor for STIs, which reflects more of a pathologizing discourse in which “bisexuality,” not “pansexuality” is the historical term of choice. Even with that more stigmatizing reference to bisexuality, the form is exposing a wider segment of the population to the language of bisexuality, compared to the pretty niche intra-LGBTQ discussions about pansexuality versus bisexuality. And not even all gay/bi/queer people are exposed to the term pansexual or to even more elaborate lists of LGBTQ identities, just because those terms and frameworks have such an uneven reach. Additionally, there are more books and articles about bisexuality than about pansexuality, and I suspect that young and newly-out people will continue to seek out these resources, and therefore continue to be exposed to bisexual perspectives.

People who explicitly exclude trans people from their dating pool--and use bisexuality specifically to indicate that--don’t make up the majority of bi-identified people. And obviously there are lots of young bi people on Tumblr who passionately maintain that bisexuality isn’t trans-exclusive, and they all exist out there irl somewhere. I don’t think the trans-exclusive bisexual is as widespread a phenomenon as you think, and transphobic dating preferences among cis bisexuals are probably better understood as part of a wider pattern of transphobia among cis people.

I also don’t think it’s possible to ever create a term that will be perfectly free from the “contamination” of debate or undesired uses. But I also don’t think it’s necessary for words to have such pure meanings to be meaningful and useful, so I don’t think this is a huge problem either. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

#it's very annoying when people define bisexuality narrowly to prop up pansexuality #but i just don't think it's the huge issue that some people see it as

des1red

Why don’t you check and see what all you have in common with the people you reblog from, or who reblog from you. You might be surprised to discover what values they think you share!

des1red

For example, I’ve seen some bisexuals reject the term pansexual as “unnecessary” with the argument that sexuality is only about the sexes (in contrast to genders) that you’re attracted to and that there are only two sexes, so bisexual covers them all. It is sex essentialist--and cissexist/transphobic by extension--to treat “sex” as an immutable, objective, and binary category that is unconnected to “gender” (as both a social system and a individual’s embodiment/subjectivity/positionality within that system) and which is more fundamentally defining than “gender.” I’ve also stumbled along some anti-pan bi blogs that had transmed-like transphobic views. There’s also room for convergence in anti-pan and anti-trans perspectives from the point of view that bisexuality is stigmatized as “transphobic” or “binary” when actually those things shouldn’t matter anyway. Admittedly, I don’t keep up with TERF discourse on this topic, but I’ve also never seen a TERF defending pansexuality, and would imagine that they’d have reason to attack the label, too.

robynochs

This week in the Politics section, we take a look at LGBT activist and ‘mother of pride’, Brenda Howard.

Wow, a tribute to Brenda Howard, who was a relentless activist on bi+ and other social justice issues. Brenda was also known as a “mother of pride,” having helped conceive of and organize the first pride march in NYC to commemorate the 1-year anniversary of the Stonewall uprising.

des1red

Brenda Howard was on the coordinating committee for the Christopher Street Liberation Day march, but she doesn’t appear to have been a key figure and she didn’t conceive of the idea for an annual event commemorating the Stonewall Riots.

The narrative that’s sprung up about her after her death seems to be misleading, as far as I can tell, although I appreciate that this tribute includes other things she’s done.

#i'm open to other evidence for her role in stonewall but it needs to be better than what we've been given so far

lesetoilesfous

Btw since today I’m apparently in the mood for controversial posts, and I’ve been seeing a lot of bullshit recently -

I identify as pansexual. I do not, and have never, done so because I think bisexuality precludes trans people. That’s bullshit.

For me, I identify as pansexual because I experience no difference in my levels of romantic / sexual attraction to people of various genders, whereas my friends and partners who have identified as bisexual do.

For example: my ex girlfriend was sexually attracted to all genders, but only romantically attracted to women (including trans women, TERFs fuck off.) My best friend is sexually attracted to all genders, but mostly romantically attracted to men (including trans men, TERFs fuck off.)

A lot of my bisexual friends and partners express different levels of sexual and romantic attraction / desire to various genders. My pansexual friends, like me, have never ‘felt’ that difference. For me having sex with a person who identifies with the same gender as me does not feel different At All emotionally to doing so with someone of a different gender. So I identify as pansexual.

I use bisexual and pansexual interchangeably, because I hate that bisexual is used as a dirty word, I feel that some definitions of it Do apply to me, and it has a pretty flag. I also call myself gay and queer, because people often assume I’m straight and that makes me uncomfortable, and unfortunately due to biphobia and panphobia, sometimes you just have to hit the str8s over the head with your homosexuality. Sometimes I’m more comfortable in LGBT+ spaces saying I’m gay/queer than dealing with the toxic bullshit around bisexuality/pansexuality. Sometimes I’ve flirted with girls who’ve literally said they don’t date bi girls because “they’re more likely to cheat”, and saying I’m gay feels like the safer option.

As cleverer and more outspoken people than I have said: other queer people are not your enemy. Straight homophobes are. Homophobic policy makers are. Homophobic law enforcement is. It’s tempting to attack other marginalised people because it’s less frightening than taking on The Establishment, but bear under no illusion: you are a lobster in a pot who is party to your own oppression when you do this.

The only way you get out of the bucket is if you stop attacking other victims and focus on the goddamn wall.

des1red

Yeah, it's fine to identify as pan, but do please be aware that most people who identify as bi aren't doing so specifically to indicate that gender factors into their attraction in some specific way (regardless of whether that is true for them or not). I imagine that pan people are often pressured to explain how their identity differs from bisexuality, but I think it’s best to avoid defining them in contrast to each other at all. It’s enough to say that you call yourself pansexual because you do specifically want to indicate that gender doesn’t factor into your attraction, without generalizing about how bisexuals experience attraction in a way that would complement your use of pansexuality. Just because someone declines to identify as pansexual doesn’t mean that they don’t experience attraction in the same way. Bisexuals can have many patterns of attraction.

(And tbh, it’s ok for people to identify as pansexual even if gender does factor into their attraction; it’s not like the concept of ‘all’-sexual disallows for that.)

#the bi pan discourse

silkavi

Bisexuality is the attraction to 2 genders.

Polysexuality is the attraction to multiple genders, but not all.

Pansexuality is the attraction to all genders.

Omnisexual is the attraction to...all...genders..? What?

Let me get this straight. Many people in the LGBTQ+ community say, "Bisexuality is the attraction to more then one gender". And though that is somewhat true, it doesn't completely make sense. They are making this term flexible to where you can have the attraction to more then one gender, which means you can like 4 or more genders- whichever is your cup of tea. But if you use this term for Bisexuality, you're crushing Polysexuality.

Polysexuality is, like I said up top, the attraction to multiple genders but not all of them, so usually 3+ genders- at least more then 2, so it wouldn't be bisexuality. "Bi" means "two", so Bisexuality should be "the attraction to 2 genders". It doesn't just have to be cis men and women though. You can be bisexual and have the attraction to nonbinary people and women, or just two genders of other in general. That's how Bisexuality was before- why is everyone trying to change it?

This is why people don't understand the difference between Bisexuality and Pansexuality, because when you try to change the Bisexual definition it's literally Polysexuality, and then when someone say they love all genders they keep using Bi instead of Pan- no wonder non-LGBTQ+ people are so confused about us and our community.

And Omnisexuality and Pansexuality are literally the same thing, so why are you creating two terms for the same meaning? Don't tell me, "It's because Omni is multiple" because POLY is multiple. Look at Polygamy. "Poly" as in maybe 3 or more people in a relationship, multiple. Polysexuality is the attraction to multiple genders- therefore Omnisexual can't be in that term, or in the Pansexual term. So therefore, in my conclusion:

Omnisexuality doesn't exist. And if you identify as Omnisexuality, you're actually Pansexual. And Bisexuality is the attraction to 2 genders. If you identify as Bi but are attracted to more then 2 genders, your Polysexuality- or if you're attraction all genders- you're literally Pansexual.

I'm open to my mind being changed. We can have a civil, peaceful conversation. Just make it make sense, please.

des1red

Sure. These terms are all alternatives to each other and cover similar ground.

Bisexual is the most well known, and most commonly understood as “attraction to men and women.” However, self-identified bisexual people themselves can and often do have more nuanced understandings of their desire and of gender. Many are perfectly capable of recognizing that gender can extend beyond a simple binary of man/woman, and including people who fit that experience within the scope of their attraction. A lot of bi people will therefore explain bisexuality as “attraction to more than one gender” or “attraction to same and different genders” in order to avoid the suggestion that “men and women” are the only gender possibilities.

Sexual identity is very personal, and individuals have their own ideas about what it means to be bisexual, and therefore will explain/define it differently. This is normal part of any identity; identities are much more than simple, one-line definitions of a given term. Here are a few quotes that suggest how multiple (but often related) perspectives on bisexuality have been present in the community for decades:

Those of us involved with the 1970s bisexual liberation movement spent a lot of time discussing what bisexuality was. Though never establishing a consensus definition, we tended toward a broad conception. Bisexuality was thought of as a basic capacity to respond erotically and/or emotionally/romantically to either gender, simultaneously or serially, not necessarily in equal measure, but at least enough to make one feel uncomfortable with identification as either heterosexual or homosexual. As far as I can tell, this sense of the term has remained with the movement to the present. Though there is considerable dissatisfaction with the “bisexual” label, no other term has gained wide acceptance. (Stephen Donaldson, “The Bisexual Movement’s Beginnings in the 70s,” in Bisexual Politics: Theories, Queries, & Visions, 1995.)

---

We are angered by those who refuse to accept our existence; our issues; our contributions; our alliances; our voice. It is time for the bisexual voice to be heard. Do not expect each magazine to be representative of all bisexuals, for our diversity is too vast. Do not expect a clear-cut definition of bisexuality to jump out from the pages. We bisexuals bend to define bisexuality in ways that are unique to our own individuality. There are as many definitions of bisexuality as there are bisexuals. Some of us choose not to label ourselves anything at all. ... (Anything That Moves, Issue 2, Spring 1991)

Because the other terms are less well-known, bisexuality is usually not defined in relation to them at all. In other words, most people don’t limit bisexuality to only one section of the space between gay and straight: it’s used to cover that entire area, whether people consider that area to consist of “men and women” or “more than one gender” more broadly.

On the other hand, people who use terms like pansexual, omnisexual, and polysexual not only have to define their identities in their own terms, but are often also asked to explain how their identities “differ” from bisexuality. People may adopt these terms because they prefer the construction, finding more resonance in a prefix meaning “all” or “multiple” rather than “two.” They may see these terms as giving greater emphasis to an aspect of their sexuality they see (and would like to display) as central. For example, a person might adopt the term pansexual because they like the suggestion of sexual or gender expansiveness in a prefix that means “all,” and would like to specifically define their sexuality in terms of all-ness.

However, two things are important to note here. First, the construction of a word is not the same as its meaning. The prefix bi means “two,” but the word “bisexual” doesn’t really mean “two sexual.” The definition of bisexuality doesn’t need to include the word “two” at all, as in its definition “attraction to men and women.” While some alternate definitions maintain a dual character, such as “attraction to same and different genders,” it’s not actually necessary to define bisexuality in relation to two-ness at all. Again, many people understand bisexuality broadly as the area between gay and straight, regardless of the particular definition they give.

The second thing to note is that a person who declines to adopt a more particular identity like pansexual isn’t necessarily indicating that “all-ness” isn’t a part of their sexuality or that the prefix bi is more fitting for their sexuality than the prefix pan. They may simply see that kind of specificity of terminology as unnecessary, or may prefer a more widely-used term, or they not even be familiar with this alternative.

Unfortunately, some people are under the impression that these terms do or should represent fundamentally different sexual orientations, each with their own distinct pattern of attraction. It’s probably more often people who identify with the lesser known alternatives who believe this, since people who identify as bisexual may not be familiar with these other options. People then carve up the area between gay and straight and assign a portion of it to each of the terms. Bisexuality is then defined more narrowly or with a different emphasis to how it’s usually used by self-identifying bisexuals: sometimes as “attraction to two genders only” or as “attraction to more than one gender where gender plays a role in attraction.”

These aren’t good general definitions of bisexuality because this isn’t what most people--whether bisexual or part of the general population--are actually using the word to communicate. They are also definitions that are usually imposed by people who don’t identify as bisexual, who instead identify with the other alternatives and who are attempting to claim a monopoly for their identity over a particular portion of that area between gay and straight, and so say that bisexuality must be something other than what they want their identity to mean. But bisexual identity shouldn’t be dictated by non-bisexuals, especially when they’re defining bisexuality as less progressive or inclusive than their own group.

In reality, there’s no problem with these terms overlapping in meaning or in what sexualities or patterns of attraction they could potentially be applied to. The problem is when people claim that their identity is the only one that can cover certain experiences.

#pansexuality #pan vs bi #the bi pan discourse

woman-loving

Bisexuality in an early gay community

Selection from An Evening at the Garden of Allah: A Gay Cabaret in Seattle by Don Paulson and Roger Simpson, 1996. This book looks at the Garden of Allah, Seattle’s first gay-owned gay bar, which was open between 1946 and 1956. Although she doesn’t use the term “bisexual,” Rita Kelsey describes herself as “not exactly gay myself and…not the other way,” and talks about two women and a man as “the three loves in [her] life.” This selection also describes another marriage between a woman and a man who met at the Garden that was motivated my more practical concerns, a reminder that heterosexual marriage can’t always be taken as an indication of sexual interest between the parties.

In the Garden, lesbians enjoyed a bar that catered to them, even though they were generally outnumbered by the gay men in the audience. A woman could dance with another woman in many bars in the city, but the Garden fostered that intimacy. In that protective setting, Seattle lesbians went about finding partners and defining a public presence for the first time.

RITA KELSEY

Rita Kelsey’s home north of Seattle still is a guesthouse for friends from the Garden of Allah. She owns the home she shares now with dogs and cats. She showed me scrapbooks crammed with pictures, including those of many of her friends from the Garden days. * I went to the Garden for the first time on April 2, 1947, with Nickey Arthur, my friend and lover. I’m not exactly gay myself and I’m not the other way. I don’t know where I am although sex has never meant that much to me. My interest is where people are coming from. But I love gay people far more than the others.

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cowardly-bisexual

who would have thought that bella "i'm not bisexual i'm pansexual" thorne would pretend to be a sex worker for clout, stealing income from survival sex workers and charging people for non nude pics

what a surprise

cowardly-bisexual

it's not like pansexuals have a habit of pretending they're something they're not, shitting on marginalised communities and upholding their sexual purity

honestly i'm SHOCKED

cowardly-bisexual

a habit of pretending they're something they're not: pretending they're not bisexual

shitting on marginalised communities: every pretense for why pansexuality is a separate sexual orientation is homo-, bi- or transphobic

upholding their sexual purity: "hearts not parts", "i like people for their personality"

des1red

It’s both cruel and intellectually dishonest to suggest that Bella Thorne illuminates some collective character flaw inherent to people who identify as pansexual. It’s no more meaningful than pointing to Faith Cheltenham in order to make a general claim about bisexual identity. How opportunistic to use this as ammunition for such a petty issue.

hellomynameisbisexual

des1red

This actually is depicting “bisexual” in a narrow, limited way. Given the distribution of flags, it suggests that “bisexual” best suits people who would only date men and women who aren’t non-binary, while other ranges of attraction or preferences are better suited by other terms. These other terms may also be used to name these experiences, but they aren’t “better” at naming them than bisexual. Saying otherwise links “bisexual” centrally to this one position (only wanting to date men and women who aren’t non-binary), which many bi people aren’t using it to mean. Really, if people want to talk about these other identities, then should do so without contrasting them with the meaning of bisexuality at all.

#the bi pan discourse

woman-loving

Ironically enough, Rita Mae Brown, who is well known as the author of the 1973 lesbian novel Rubyfruit Jungle and was also a founding member of the lesbian separatist Furies Collective (during which time she expressed disapproval of bisexuality), apparently continued to have sexual relationships with men, and later called “lesbian” a “misnomer” for herself and claimed most people were “degrees of bisexual.”

Which just goes to show that even some of the influential women involved in shaping quintessential “lesbian culture,” including the parts of it that professed a rejection of bisexuality, could themselves have complicated sexual practices and self-understandings which didn’t totally preclude relationships with men.

From the dissertation “Love and Liberation: Second-Wave Feminisms and the Problem of Romantic Love” by Robin Kay-Marie Payne, 2010:

Whether Brown was truly the “only visible lesbian” is certainly debatable; however, the bigger contradiction that becomes most apparent in her memoir, her diaries, and her personal correspondence was that Brown was actually a practicing bisexual. During her tenure in the Radicalesbians and The Furies, Brown had counted herself among the coterie of political lesbians who saw bisexuality as a cop-out and once wrote: “You can’t have your cake and eat it too. You can’t be tied to male privilege with the right hand while clutching to your sister with the left.” She continued, “Lesbianism is the only road toward removing yourself from male ways and beginning to learn equality.”[135] Perhaps Brown’s views had softened or maybe she counted herself among the few evolved folks who could live the ideal, despite the persistence of male supremacy. Maybe she did not count her own dalliances with men as exercises in heterosexual privilege since she did not have long-term romantic relationships with them. Perhaps she decided she would also like to have her cake and eat it too. Regardless of theoretical justifications (or lack thereof), the fact remained that after the mid-1970s, Brown sometimes engaged in sexual relationships with men. She mentioned at least twice in her diary that she had the occasional affair with a “kind and bright woman or man,”[136] and on another occasion claimed to “belong to neither camp” of straight women or lesbians “nor the bisexuals.” “I find the entire process of categorization obscene,” she wrote.[137]

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panphobia, exclusionism, and other forms of insular tumblr bigotry are as dangerous as terfism. not because they result in the same consequences, but because they serve to isolate people while implanting terf-adjacent ideas within them. It essentially gives terfs footsoldiers to harrass queer people, as well as future recruits. There's definitely a transmed-terf pipeline, among others. It also shifts the overton window towards terfism. Take these sorts just as seriously as terfs.

I’d actually like to find ways to criticize these different positions beyond just linking them to transmisogynists.

The position that the term “pansexuality” inherently furthers fetishism toward trans people and a disparaging view of bi people, and that we therefore must eliminate its use entirely to escape harm, is false. I think it’s a negative development that people are rallying around it. But I honestly can’t see that this view has anything to do with transmisogyny on its own, and I don’t think it inevitably evolves into transmisogyny.

As I suggested before, I don’t think this stance against “pansexuality” is actually a radical, liberatory position, and it’s amenable to other people (such as transmeds) who also don’t hold radical, liberatory perspectives. Therefore rallying around it may lead to greater contact with people who express more conditional acceptance toward trans people or overt transmisogyny. Which is a problem, and people may be susceptible to picking up those views in turn. But I think that’s more because cis people and TME people more broadly come into the conversation with latent transphobic and transmisogynistic views that have failed to be addressed robustly by the feminist/leftist/LGBTQ spaces they’re part of.

I really see transmisogyny, the suite of other positions commonly held by radfems (e.g. anti-sex work, anti-kink, biphobia), and other insular tumblr rallying points (which may be peripheral to radfems) as separate issues that each need to be addressed on their own, and aren’t inherently tied together. The reliance on pointing to terfism as the ultimate dangerous end to which all undesirable positions risk sliding doesn’t provide a robust understanding of why any specific position is actually wrong, or even why transmisogyny is wrong. I agree with birlinterrupted’s perspective on this, too, and I question whether this is really an effective strategy for inoculating people against either transmisogynist talking points or any of these other positions.

#Anonymous

des1red

Why don’t you check and see what all you have in common with the people you reblog from, or who reblog from you. You might be surprised to discover what values they think you share!

zoingfandom-moved

The terf thing also true if one vehemently speaks out about lesbophobia, especially in earlier tumblr years. And the anti-feminist thing if you criticize social justice. A greater variety and distributions in opinions is good imo because it’s making people less cliquey and to make opinions from less monolithic perspectives (ex, a leftist against pansexuality is less likely to be as nasty as an anti-feminist).

des1red

I’m not sure we’re on the same page. A leftist who thinks the very existence of the label “pansexual”–regardless of how it’s being defined–is a threat that demands elimination is still elevating a non-issue to a pseudo-activist agenda where it just doesn’t belong, and also risks disrupting potential community networks over something largely inconsequential. I don’t think that the existence of bad opinions is automatically valuable just because it broadens the variety of opinions.

zoingfandom-moved

To imply it makes them anything like terfs and anti-feminists just for sharing an opinion is going too far. All sides of debates as dubious as the pansexual debate need enough subjectivity to accept difference in opinion sometimes. A pro-pansexual leftist who vehemently uplifts pansexuality, calls to deplatform those against or critical of pansexuality, and spends a lot of time and emotionality on the subject is also wasting breath. Pansexual is neither the exalted essence to protect nor the devilish scheme to exorcise, that some make it out to be.

des1red

The implication of my post was not that bi people on Tumblr campaigning against the “pansexual” label are just like TERFs or anti-feminists. The point is that it’s easy for people with transphobic, sexist, or otherwise reactionary-tending values to join in with this campaign because it’s not actually a radical, liberatory position. I also suggested that people check the source of anti-pansexual posts (or the people who follow them for their anti-pansexual posts), to see if they actually share the same values. Which I think is also decent advice for people who are about to reblog a post vaguely condemning “SJWs” or “call out culture,” and also posts about lesbophobia that talk about the need to protect lesbian sexuality from “males” or other common TERF talking points.

I think difference of opinion can and should be tolerated sometimes, and that learning how to navigate differences of opinion over some of these LGBTQ terminology questions would be better than trying to enforce a universal stance on them. But part of the issue here is also how we are to evaluate opinions and reach a decision about which we can tolerate and which we will take a more aggressive stance against. The sanctity of ‘just sharing an opinion’ isn’t something I can affirm; TERFs and anti-feminists are also ‘just sharing an opinion,’ but I don’t think those opinions need to be tolerated..

My disagreement with the anti-pansexual bi crowd is that they see people being ok with the label “pansexual” as an opinion they can’t tolerate, while I think they should tolerate it. And that’s because I disagree that with them that it’s intrinsically biphobic/transphobic, and that the stakes in this issue are really that high. It seems like you also disagree with that. But at no point have I ever treated pansexuality as an exalted essence or called to de-platform any of the people I’ve engaged with. This hypothetical pro-pansexual leftist position is beyond the scope of my post and I’m not going to comment on it. You’re free to make your own post about it though.

zoingfandom-moved

Show me where i said you treat pansexual as an exalted essence. Considering the pushback behind pansexual comes from pansexuals who do define their orientation in transphobic and arrogant ways, and claim they are excluded everytime someone doesn’t explicitly say pan, at least I am unsurprised there’s people so strongly against it, and neither should pansexuals be. I commented on this post because it’s in the bad faith vein of “if you happen to overlap opinions with x, that’s bad”. Though it seems this conversation has no where left to go.

des1red

I strongly object to that characterization of my post, but I would agree that the conversation is no longer productive.

scissortailedsaint

ok friends! let’s talks about lesbian-feminism & bisexuality (historical context for ongoing conflicts)

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fbdo1986

now forgive me if this is something that has already been discussed in bi circles but i thought of something and i feel like it might be something new to bring to the table when discussing bimisogyny and bi women’s shame for being attracted to men.

if we continue to perpetuate that all bi women must hate their attraction to men, we will not be able to spot internalized lesbophobia properly. if a bi woman, from the get go of adopting her identity is freely able to express her attraction to men there will be very little problems in identifying when a girl who currently identifies as bi may be struggling with internalized lesbophobia. like some have said, if someone hates being attracted to men so much, they might not be attracted to men. this seems so simple, but yet through showing examples of bi women that are so one dimensional and always are upset by their “flaw” of being interested in men, how are we able to acknowledge when these problems occur, if the “bi woman’s experience” is one that belittles the full spectrum of bisexuality?

i believe that if these expectations of bi women are torn down, and we allow bi women to freely express their attraction to men, where they feel open about doing so while feeling just as bisexual as when they discuss and express their attraction to women, we will ultimately create stronger bonds between the bi and lesbian communities. if bi women have no expectation to conform—to perform, to cater to only women and prioritize only women in their dating lives—for acceptance, we can gain a better understanding of one another better. it will enrich the true understanding of a bi woman’s sexuality, thus eliminating solidarity behind the guise of spiting the “Gay Lite” bi woman. this can help bring the two parties’ same gender attraction to discussion with no part of flimsy acceptance which is often, through what isn’t the bi woman’s true self.

bakerybutch

this is a really good point! (and i actually haven’t seen it discussed much)

normalizing the “being bi means i like every woman ever and maybe 2 men because i have such high standards” hurts bi women and is the result of how bi women are forced to downplay and belittle their attraction to men in order to be accepted in LGBT and WLW spaces, and it hurts lesbians.

the “i’m bi but i like maybe one man/only fictional men” is a classic example of compulsory heterosexuality preventing lesbians from realizing they’re lesbians, and suggesting that this is just “how every bi woman feels” only contributes to that. if attraction to men doesn’t come naturally to you, if it doesn’t bring you joy, if it even grosses you out and you find your standards for men are so high as to be unattainable, then you probably don’t actually like men.

des1red

I agree with the overall direction of this post. But at the same time, bi women are also allowed to have conflicted feelings about men, which may also come about by simply being a woman in a sexist society. So I’m wondering if there are any specific steps you’re asking bi women to take. Are you suggesting that bi women shouldn’t make jokes about having higher standards for men than women? Or perhaps that people shouldn’t reblog them from others? I don’t want bi women constrained by the expectation that they don’t discuss attraction to men, but I also don’t want bi women to feel like they can’t express complicated feelings toward men either.

Feeling less shame about attraction to men would be a positive development for bi women, but I don’t know if that would necessarily make it easier to sort out who’s “really” bisexual from who’s “really” a lesbian. I’m not sure that I think strangers even ought to be commenting on that question to individuals who make posts like that. (Can’t say I’d want any post I made talking about complicated sexuality feelings to be met with “have you considered that you’re really xyz?”)

I’d just want to point out, too, that “I like maybe one man/only fictional men” doesn’t preclude a woman from being a lesbian (and maybe she’ll reassess those feelings and decide she doesn’t consider them attraction), but it’s also a perfectly fine reason for a woman to identify as bi, if she feels like that experience is notable or fulfilling and she wants to include it within her orientation. Personally, I feel like it would also be helpful if there were less pressure on WLW to know for sure how they feel about men.

des1red

Why don’t you check and see what all you have in common with the people you reblog from, or who reblog from you. You might be surprised to discover what values they think you share!

Why don’t you check and see what all you have in common with the people you reblog from, or who reblog from you. You might be surprised to discover what values they think you share!

zoingfandom-moved

des1red

I’m not sure we’re on the same page. A leftist who thinks the very existence of the label “pansexual”--regardless of how it’s being defined--is a threat that demands elimination is still elevating a non-issue to a pseudo-activist agenda where it just doesn’t belong, and also risks disrupting potential community networks over something largely inconsequential. I don’t think that the existence of bad opinions is automatically valuable just because it broadens the variety of opinions.

bicth-and-in-that-order

See shit like this is why y’all need to shut up about bi lesbian discourse because it’s seeping into real life and straight men are co-opting wlw terms and pressuring lesbians into relationships/sex. I’m not about to tolerate men pursuing me ANYWAYS because they don’t know if I’m homoromantic or whatever. And yes , straight men were already self entitled enough as it is, but y’all don’t need to add fuel to the fire

sweetestgarbagebear

I can’t believe people are blaming the audacity of men on bi women who also identify as lesbian (for a lot of reasons one being perhaps they are not attracted or interested in men).

I mean… honestly guys like this one don’t actually care, they think if they ask enough times and enough ways that eventually they’ll get a yes regardless.

Stop blaming bisexual women for male entitlement

tumbloggingat-theendofallthings

Stop trying to blame fellow marginalized people for the entitled straight men that we’re also having to deal with, who are now so entitled they’re trying to co-opt our language. Stop pinning this on bi lesbians and blame the fucker that’s so entitled he’s using our language as a weapon. Consider that blaming bi women is already a default and biphobic attitude levied against us by the majority of the vocal lesbian community and whatever reasons any individual has for using the bi lesbian label does not give you the right to blame the bi community for the entitled attitude this post actually speaks to. Consider that even if the moniker didn’t exist, this guy would likely still have asked this same question, minus the label, because his attitude is one of entitled straight men when confronted with sexually unavailable women of any kind.

agenderakali

The bi community as a whole is not being blamed, the bi lesbian movement is being blamed. I don’t appreciate the framing that self identified bi lesbians stand for the entire bi community, including bi people who DO NOT agree for this push to make biphobic labels like bi lesbian and bihet “””valid”””.

Stop accusing us of biphobia for stating that bi and lesbian are separate identities for a reason. By trying to redefine lesbian and leave us with no language to describe our experiences you are HURTING us, contributing to the already present cultural idea that lesbians “aren’t fully gay and just need to meet the right man”, encouraging the transphobic idea that gay men and lesbians can’t be attracted to nonbinary people or that it’s valid for transphobes to claim zero attraction to all nonbinary people, shitting on decades of bi activism that asserted bi people are not half straight or half gay, they are BI, perpetuating the popular TERF conceptof febfems/political lesbianism just with a new label slapped on it, aaaaaaaaaaand being lesbophobic as shit.

lgbtpolitics

2 things here

1) This whole attitude of “men like this will say it regardless” ie exactly the type of thing I was addressing in my last post about left wing politics… thats just not true the reason there are so many men who will persist after a no, is because there is a cultural expectation that men will pursue a woman who doesnt want it at first and then he “wears her down”. That exact phrase is used in so many shows/films about a relationship that is supposed to be a romantic story. What we tell people about relationships and sexuality does matter, it does have an effect.

2) This isnt about bi women or even as stated above, women who could be described as bi lesbians, it’s about the label itself, and how it affects perceptions of both bisexual women and lesbians.

Also I’d like to see some proof of the claim that the majority of lesbians are biphobic??? Thats a pretty steep claim made about a marginalised group.

des1red

I don’t think it’s reasonable to assume that the speaker doesn’t understand that most people use “lesbian” to mean a woman who’s into women and not men. That looks like a troll.

I think we need to be able to say when someone doesn’t appear to be acting in good faith. So often men (and any would-be predator) will deliberately misunderstand a woman’s words or boundaries or discomfort. I think it’s important sometimes to identify the problem not as a lack of understanding (an innocent ignorance that can be solved externally through greater education) but a refusal of understanding (an internal choice that the actor is responsible for). When we accept every apparent “misunderstanding” as genuine, we let people off the hook for these choices.

And yes, when you point the finger at women who use these terms for creating this “confusion,” you’re allowing the real source of the “confusion”–the speaker’s deliberate mystification of women’s boundaries–to continue unchallenged.

There is a cultural expectation that men can get away with pressuring women into sex or relationships, and an acceptance that these actions can be rationalized through the hypothetical possibility that she will eventually enjoy it. Sometimes men will point to other women’s actions to rationalize that his target will eventually enjoy it, or point to the woman’s own past actions. This whole rationalization ought to be short-circuited. The theoretical possibility that a person might like something isn’t more important than a person’s current, actual boundaries. This pretext does not justify rejecting people’s boundaries. That’s what we need to affirm to push back against these expectations.

Blaming women who identify as “bi lesbians” for men’s decision to pressure lesbians into “giving them a chance” accepts the premise that, if you can’t prove that you could never potentially enjoy a relationship with someone, it’s not unjustified to pressure you into a relationship. (This is what’s implicit in your logic if you think it’s absolutely crucial that men understand that a lesbian would never be interested in a man.) This does not get to the root of the problem. It leaves bi women and straight women exposed (since their sexuality is “open” to men, they could potentially enjoy it if pressured long enough), and it also protects lesbians only so far as they can “prove” their sexuality to the man’s satisfaction. And of course, a man can willfully fail to be convinced whenever it’s convenient to him.

What perception do you think the term “bi lesbian” lends to people? That it’s ok to pressure lesbians into sex because they might also/really be bi? The underlying logic there is that it’s ok to pressure bi women into sex. Is there something about the bisexual label that inevitably convinces people that we’re fair game? Of course, we’re still just dealing with pretexts, because I’m sure the same people would see no problem pressuring lesbians in sex without routing their logic through the idea that they’re (also) bisexual; the real issue is that they’re ok with pressuring people into sex.

But as for myself, I’m not going to help maintain a sharp line between lesbians and bi women, which I do not agree with, so that other women could potentially avoid harassment on logical grounds which would concede that harassment against me isn’t so objectionable. Pressuring people into sex isn’t ok, no means no, and a woman telling a man she’s a lesbian can reasonably be considered a no and should be accepted as such. I think those are the points that need to be affirmed.

lgbtpolitics

Whether that specific man is talking in bad faith is not the point-neither of us have any proof of that. It’s not about letting people off the hook either, it’s about acknowledging that the ideas we perpetuate about sexuality factor into how other people perceive those things. What bit is it you think hes lying about? Hes saying some lesbians are bisexual which according to you, is true.

No one is saying it’s okay to pressure bi women, or even women who identify as bi lesbians into sex. Stating that an idea lends itself to sexual harassment of certain women, doesnt mean sexually harassing other women isnt as objectionable.

You’re saying you agree that a woman being a lesbian should be taken as a no but also that lesbians can be into men. How do those two things work together?

des1red

A woman who identifies as both bisexual and lesbian might do so for various reasons. She might not be open to being with men, in which case there’s no issue. Other women may have different reasons for identifying as both, and may be be open to dating men. However, it remains true that “lesbian” is most commonly used to indicate interest in women and disinterest in men, and I think it’s entirely reasonable to ask people to assume that’s how the word is being used, unless or until the woman in question volunteers some further information about herself.

I think we need to be wary about claiming that actual women and their sexualities and identities promote sexual harassment against certain women (almost always including themselves, I’d imagine). What’s usually happening is that men will use some women’s behavior–even imagined behavior–as part of a pretext for harassing someone, by claiming it’s plausible that their target might eventually enjoy something, and therefore they don’t have to accept “no” for an answer. Again, a key point in that logic is that it’s sometimes ok to pressure people into sex or relationships, if they could plausibly end up enjoying it.

If we fail to identify this value as the real issue, we have a problem. Just the simple fact that there are some women who enjoy sex with men could be used as part of this pretext if nothing else is available. Are we prepared to say that any woman who agrees to have sex with a man is providing men with justification to harass other women into agreeing?

Or let’s look at something more relevant: there are some women who initially come out as lesbians, and who may identify as lesbians for years, but then get close to a man and decide they want to have a relationship with him. At that point they may reassess their identity and maybe change it. From an outsider’s perspective, this fits the narrative of a lesbian who eventually finds the right man, which people love to use as a pretext for badgering lesbians about their identity. How do you think we should assess situations like this? Are such women insurmountable obstacles to lesbians gaining respect, since they’re always out there lending justification for harassment?

I don’t think we should look at it like that, or that we even ought to see these cases as regrettable. The idea that lesbians generally will eventually end up with men is homophobic, but the possibility that some self-identified lesbian will eventually get with a man isn’t an issue. The problem is that people consider it acceptable to harass lesbians about being open to men. We shouldn’t confuse the specific pretext people are using in their rationalization with the actual root of the problem.

Returning to the speaker in the screenshot: the “lie” would be that the girl in question has failed to communicate a disinterest in men, that the term “lesbian” never has anything to do with a disinterest in men, that it’s perfectly reasonable for a guy to ask out a lesbian, and that his interest in “educating” people about the bi lesbian identity isn’t self-interested. I don’t think the falsity of any of these points in unclear to the speaker, and that he’s only pretending it is.

And yeah, we can’t know for sure whether this is just a troll. (But the fact that the speaker is even aware of the “homoromantic homosexual” identity format suggests to me that they have at least some familiarity with LGBTQ topics, which makes me doubt that this is just some hapless cis straight man.) However, I do think the possibility is worth pointing out, seeing as how people are comfortable reblogging this post that blames women-loving women with fringe identities for men’s harassment, without considering that their ire is deliberately being stoked by someone who isn’t acting in good faith.

lgbtpolitics

I’ve known women who quite happily tell people that women always play hard to get and no doesnt really mean no. Do you disagree that those women are guilty of perpetuating a culture where sexual harassment is acceptable? Something being part of a culture means that we are all capable of perpetuating it, and women being the majority of targets of sexual harassment doesnt automatically give them a pass in what they say about sex and relationships. This isnt even just about women who identify as bi lesbians. Anyone, be they are man or woman, who pushes the idea that lesbian can mean being into men aswell is then perpetuating the idea that lesbians are into men.

Women having sex with men is not the issue. You’re conflating someone saying they are a lesbian with someone directly saying no. Of course anyone who says no, regardless of their own gender or sexuality, should be met with acceptance of this no and the other party backing off. The issue here is not that this man is not taking no for an answer, it’s that hes not taking being a lesbian as a no.

Someone deciding they arent a lesbian is not inviting sexual harassment towards lesbians no. It is a tricky issue in regards to how much of lgbt activism is about saying people definitely wont change their minds and yeah I feel like that narrative does harm people who do but that’s a whole other story really. However, if they went out and made a point of teaching others that actually lesbians can be converted into being attracted to men, then yes they would be perpetuating that same culture. This is the issue with the bisexual lesbian identity. It’s not about individuals who feel that term would describe them, it’s about people “educating” others that lesbians can be bisexual. Which people definitely are doing, in the interest of not excluding bi lesbians from lesbian spaces, whether or not this specific guy is acting in good faith.

des1red

Absolutely, if a woman is telling men that women don’t really mean “no” when they say “no,” she’s involved in perpetuating the dismissal of women’s boundaries. Of course, the man is still ultimately accountable for whether he chooses to ignore a woman’s “no,” because he is capable of deciding not to act on this terrible advice, even with her.

But what I think you’re conflating is a woman telling men to hit on lesbians or teaching men that lesbians can be converted (and that it’s therefore ok to try to convert lesbians, this is a key point) with a woman simply describing herself as “bi lesbian.” I would join you objecting to the first two actions. But I won’t accept that a woman who’s simply describing her own sexuality is giving men the tools to harass other women or herself, or that her identity “lends itself” to men harassing women.

I also think there’s a huge difference between saying that “lesbians are into men” and saying that some lesbians (by which I mean, women currently identifying as lesbians) are open to doing (some) things with (some) men, or will be in the future. Because, really, that’s just a fact. Even if nobody identified as “bi lesbian”–which in itself doesn’t necessarily mean a woman is open to men–some lesbians would still have sex with men. That might be because they recently discovered they actually are interested in men, or because they’re experimenting, or self-harming, or engaging in sex work, or because they’ve been pressured into it, etc.

I don’t think the fact that some lesbians will have sex with men has any particular value attached to it; it doesn’t mean anything. Even taking all these together, it doesn’t follow that lesbians are generally into men, or that we shouldn’t take a woman describing herself as a lesbian as communicating a disinterest in men. This is a matter of understanding how words are commonly used, and recognizing when a specific use or action is peripheral to its central cultural meaning, or even to what an individual herself means by it. (Also, I feel like it needs to be pointed out, but a woman describing herself as a “bi lesbian” also isn’t exactly the same as a woman describing herself as a “lesbian” without qualification.)

Men are capable of being attentive to how “lesbian” is commonly used, and whether a particular woman’s use of it is atypical or casual (e.g. a bi woman describing herself as a lesbian in an off-hand way), and of not generalizing about other lesbians based on these usages. It really comes down to whether a man is prepared to respect women’s sexualities and boundaries, or whether he’s prepared to jump on any pretext to question them.

Now, you’ve said the issue is about people “educating” others about bisexual lesbians, and not women simply feeling the terms describe them. Do you think a woman identifying this way is an inherent issue, if she’s not telling men to hit on lesbians or to stop assuming that lesbians aren’t interested in men?

lgbtpolitics

Ok so I feel that the real issue here is one of an “officlal” (for want of a better word) identity vs a flippant use of a term.

So if a woman, in a conversation with people who know her or whatever, flippantly describes herself as a bisexual lesbian, that is different to people insisting that some lesbians are actually bisexual. Thats the real issue with the label- it’s not that someone may at some point say those words together, it’s that diluting the definition of the words lesbian and bisexual can have negative effects on lesbians and bisexual women. Do you see what I mean ? I’m not sure that was very clear.

Certainly, some lesbians have had relationships with men- I am one of them. Obviously in that regard it can be quite complicated. I am of the belief that some of the hard lines drawn on sexuality can make it harder to question yourself. But that is what that is, it is questioning or experimenting with your sexuality. If a lesbian is regularly sleeping with or dating men she should probably question whether she is a lesbian.

In the sense of an individual woman its obviously hard to condemn someone hypothetically with no context. If that is just what she believes to be true, then it’s not really on her. But that is exactly why I’m saying the issue is around spreading those ideas, because it creates a society in which people believe lesbians might be bisexual.

des1red

I mean, I just have a very different perspective on it.

I think it’s already true in a real way that some lesbians are bisexual (some bi women initially identify as lesbians and really see that as being a truth about themselves) or would agree to have sex with men for some reason. That’s already the reality we live in and I don’t see that ever going away. So I would never suggest that if this possibility were true (it is, even if unlikely for any given lesbian), then homophobia was in some ways more understandable or justifiable.

I think you’re presuming that a a society that believes that some lesbians might be bisexual is automatically one that will dismiss lesbian sexuality (or have other negative effects), but I don’t think that’s true. There are actually other unspoken values and presumptions involved in the willingness to dismiss lesbian sexuality. I think it would be better to identify those values and presumptions and confront them directly, rather than concede that it’s necessary for people to know that a lesbian could absolutely never be bisexual before we can expect them to respect lesbians’ sexualities. This is an unacceptable condition on the acceptance and respect we should be demanding, as far as I’m concerned.

As for vocabulary, I don’t see that “lesbian” has ever been used 100% of the time to mean “a woman who is exclusively attracted to women.” “Lesbian” has a fairly narrow range of related connotations, which center around women’s (usually sexual) interest in women. There’s often some sense that this interest in women occurs in opposition to interest in men, which I don’t think is unrelated to the cultural idea that genuine, lasting interest in women could not coexist with genuine, lasting interest in men. There’s also been a tension been “lesbian” as descriptive of a type of relation (between women) or a type of woman, and cultural ambiguity over the relationship between these two variables. (E.g. if we see a woman in a relationship with another woman, do we know she’s a particular “type,” because presumably only that “type” would be motivated to pursue this kind of relationship? While some people, when pressed, will say, “no, of course we don’t know whether she’s lesbian or bisexual,” it’s wildly common for people to casually identify any women expressing interest in women as lesbians, whether because they do think behavior indicates type and/or because they also use “lesbian” to indicate behavior and any actors who perform it.)

As a sexual orientation or identity, “lesbian” is most commonly explained as including disinterest in men, although not always in terms of “attraction.” Defining “lesbian” in terms of practice or desire, such as “a woman who (only) has sex/forms relationships with women” or who only wants to do those things, hasn’t been uncommon. Even somewhat looser definitions like “a woman whose significant relationships are primarily with women” can be found in lesbian literature. I think a woman who identifies as “lesbian” based on these definitions, regardless of whether she also identifies as “bi,” is using the word in line with how it’s been used, and would still fit under the common understanding of “lesbian.”

So I wouldn’t see cases like that as a “dilution” of the term at all. I think they can actually be quite in line with the central meaning of the word, within this range of related connotations that it has–and has always had. I think people are mistaken when they suppose that “lesbian” has reached a single, settled-upon meaning and that it’s “a woman exclusively attracted to women.” This is really more of a normative ideal, what people think “lesbian” should exclusively mean, that they’re working toward achieving by rejecting other explanations. That’s not a project I’m gonna help with; I think this range of related meanings provides “lesbian” with a richness that is actually desirable, and that recognizing this richness helps us understand how the term commonly has been and continues to be used.

Yeah, there are women who will identify with “lesbian” for atypical reasons, and I personally might not care for how a woman is describing what “lesbian” means to her and why she uses it. I’m personally not too concerned about this, because these cases seem to be uncommon, and I don’t think they’re on the verge of being so popularized that they would eclipse the predominant understanding of “lesbian.” (The backlash against “bi lesbian” has generated waaaaaay more discussion and “awareness” of this identity than I had ever seen in my decade plus of being out.) I can still object to people pushing a radically different definition of “lesbian,” such as one were disinterest in men never has any place. And honestly no one can stop you from objecting to people using “lesbian” in whatever way you don’t like, I just wish you would find other grounds than the idea that “bi lesbian” lends justification to men’s harassment of lesbians.

(I won’t touch on how “bi lesbian” relates to the meaning of bisexuality. People will pay lip service to how this identity also has an equivalent negative impact on bi women, but I think the driving concern is really to protect lesbian identity from the taint/threat of bisexuality.)

I think the question of “official” identities is interesting though, because even if a woman considers “bi lesbian” to be the best term for herself, she still might not lead with that in her offline interactions with others, especially if she doesn’t know them well or if they’re straight, or she might just speak from one position or the other depending on the context. I also wonder if, when we’re thinking about “official” identities, we’re really just thinking about what we’re going to include on the glossaries we make as part of our LGBTQ educational resources, for newly out or questioning people and for outsiders. I sure have some complaints about these kinds of resources and what people would like to feature in them. But I also think that things like glossaries and “official” resources represent a pretty superficial engagement with sexual identity, and I think we should move away from seeing these as any kind of end-all, be-all for what it means to be, e.g. a lesbian or bi woman.

Anyway, that’s about all I have to say about it for today, but thanks for engaging with me.

zoingfandom-moved

We have a lot of the same thinking (perhaps all??) about lesbian identity, des1red.

I was going to reblog some early reply about how this blames sexual harassment on bi women, but lgbtpolitics’s comments showed me of the fact–if bi lesbians are a thing, then what’s happening the screenshot is something we have to get used to. And then I noticed, the guy in the screenshot isn’t actually doing anything wrong (except perhaps coercively using the SAM)–he’s not being harassy or forceful. His “crime” is being aware of the fact that bi lesbians exist.

I think a man who is particularly cognizant about lesbian issues would not be thinking it’s okay to ask out lesbians, but we can’t expect even well-intentioned men to know this, especially when we’re communicating that yes, lesbians can date men.

We could ask bi lesbians to be aware of what they’re communicating–to specify bi lesbian of they’re open to dating men–but that’s not something we can enforce, especially if we’re just spreading positivity about bi lesbians.

We could tell the lesbian community to get used to men asking lesbians out, but I don’t want to be the one to do it rofl.

des1red

I actually don’t think it’s necessary to communicate that “lesbians can date men,” except in the sense that lesbians have diverse life histories and this fact shouldn’t be used to disregard a lesbian’s sexuality (which actually is a good point to make, imo).

Like, I’m bringing up the point that ‘some lesbians might be bisexual’ here to dispute the ideas that “lesbian” can have this purity of meaning (someone who will absolutely never do anything with men), and that if only we can safeguard that meaning from bi (lesbian) appropriators, it will keep lesbians safe and respected. But in general, I don’t really see it as crucial information that needs to broadly communicated; if a straight person is ever in a situation where a gay person is interested in doing something with them, that’s something that I think can be worked out between the two parties.

I’m still curious as to why people assume that a “bi lesbian” would be open to dating men, or that this is what they intend to communicate through the term. I imagine that this would be true of some people who use it, but it’s definitely not what I’d assuming when hearing a woman describe herself that way. I also imagine that… if a woman was interested in a particular man, she might choose to explain her identity and sexuality more in depth, to make it clear that she was open to men. So again, I feel like a lot of this conversation can happen at the point where it’s actually relevant, in a more individualized way.

I also don’t think lesbians need to just accept that men will ask them out even after they say that they’re lesbians. I guess, if everyone really did take “no” as answer, then the issue would be less urgent, since a lesbian would presumably only need to clarify once and then the matter would be dropped.

But I’d totally disagree that it’s too much to ask for men to take a woman describing herself as “lesbian” as a indication of disinterest, and to respect that. Yes, perhaps sometimes a lesbian-identified woman befriends a man, and they get close, and she decides that she actually does like him. I’m not going to hold it against a man who’s in a situation where the dynamics of a friendship start to feel different if he wants to clarify the nature of that relationship. But even that couldn’t be generalized into Acceptable Times to Ask Out Your Lesbian Friend, because some guys will read anything at all a woman does as a sign that she’s ~really~ into him.

I think what’s really just needed is for men to approach lesbians with respect, and from there to be sensitive to the nuances of that lesbian’s identity and boundaries, and to the particular dynamics and boundaries within his friendship with her. If any of those things change, he can roll with those changes with the same respect and sensitivity. But part of respecting lesbians is, I would insist, assuming that they’re disinterested in men.

I also continue to think the person in the screencap is a troll, lol. I’m a lot more cynical than y’all I suppose. Yeah, I could say they’re doing something wrong: they’ve set themselves up to argue against the idea that a 23yo man is doing anything objectionable by hitting on a teenage lesbian. I mean, what even is the point of that thread, if not performance? No one can actually stop him from hitting on her, and there’s no special trick needed if you’re genuinely just wanting to clarify someone’s interest. I mean, a man presuming that he’s going to explain to everybody what “lesbian” ~really~ means and educate young lesbians that some lesbians might be into guys (self-serving and highly suspect) is already WAAAAY out of bounds and needs to back off.

And yes, we can criticize guys for doing stuff like that.

zoingfandom-moved

Oh, you’re scissortailedsaint/woman-loving!! No wonder we share opinions.

We may not say lesbians can date men, but if bi lesbians are legit, then it’s a true statement, and one that will be repeated by others. Nuances are often lost on people. We may hope cishet men can get it, but most aren’t informed enough in the many aspects of orientation. Especially when there’s conflicting info, like the two repliers encouraging him to go forward. So I guess I can see why this can be extrapolated to rejecting bi lesbianism, because discouraging the combo would numerically reduce situations like these.

des1red

Well, I don’t just hope but expect all cis straight men to be quick enough on the uptake that they don’t ask out women they only know identify as lesbians, and I will judge them mercilessly if they do. And I would encourage others to as well. u.u

woman-loving

a while back i was reading an article[1] that talked about there being “slippages in meaning” in the way sexologists wrote about sexual inversion. specifically, the author mentioned a term (antipathic sexuality, if you’re curious) which was sometimes used as a synonym for “homosexuality” and other times used to describe residual opposite-sex features that, according to the sexologist, are present in everyone. the author pointed out how the slippage between these two meanings–this aspect of inversion as something particular to homosexuals versus universal to everyone–results in everyone coming under scrutiny for traces of homosexuality. she calls this "a crucial part of the production and regulation of [all] sexual-racial subjects.“

i really liked this idea of slippages between the particular and the universal, where anyone can be under suspicion of sexual (or racial) abnormality. i don’t think this aspect of stigma is fully appreciated by people who want to rigidly link things like misogyny, lesbophobia, or biphobia to particular subjects (women, lesbians, bisexuals), and say that those forces are only about particular groups and so only impact those particular groups.

i usually see people make this claim when the question posed is who “experiences” these social forces, which is also equated with who is oppressed by them. you end up with this tight correlation between certain real subjects (e.g. “women who are only attracted to women”) and an oppressive force that identifies and attacks those subjects, while bypassing all others which it considers irrelevant–except in accidental cases of “misdirection.” the overriding concern in these cases seems to be to clarify who is allowed to claim certain identities, experiences, and oppressions (and the political and moral statuses that go with them). but i don’t think this is a good approach.

i’ve talked around this before, but i think it can be helpful to look at the figure of the lesbian/dyke as something whose regulating force is optimized by the slippage between the universal and the particular. in other words, the lesbian/dyke is imagined as a particular, bad type of woman, but is defined in such a way that any woman runs the risk of being identified as one. this is possible because, in this lesbophobic discourse, the lesbian/dyke is defined by a willful defiance and (attempted) usurpation of men. she is not a subject identified by a specific, quantifiable trait (“a woman who is only attracted to women”), which can therefore be easily distinguished from “normal” women. even though the lesbian/dyke is imagined to look extremely different from other women (ugly, mannish), traces of her can be seen in any defiance or rejection of men.

this isn’t, of course, the full extent of everything there is to say about lesbophobia. nor is this the only discourse of lesbianism. but i think you can get a more accurate picture of this stigma when misrecognition–both in the sense of ‘failing’ to understand what a ‘real’ lesbian is, and ‘incorrectly’ seeing her in others–is seen as a crucial part of the process. but it would mean giving up the idea that lesbophobia starts with the correct identification of a ‘true’ lesbian subject who is alone targeted for punishment and regulation.

we can look at there being slippages between man/woman as well, which allows for greater regulation of all gendered subjects. for example, while common sense–as produced by ideology–may tell us that the prototypical (white) man and woman are completely, naturally distinct, there are other levels where this distinction is deliberately blurred. this is clear in the racial construction of gender, where a sharp distinction between men and women is denied to racialized subjects. it can be seen more generally in the way men especially must continuously prove that they are not (like?) women.

we can identify here a discrepancy between the naturalizing claims made about gender, and how gender actually operates. in the second example, there seem to be various gradations–which may be present simultaneously–in what the slippage occurs between: the man who fails to be a man may be (discursively) a woman, a sissy, a f*gg*t, and in any case subject to gendered regulation and violence. when even subjects that are ostensibly “clearly” defined as men continue to be haunted (as storr would say) by the possibility of womanhood or other gender-sexual failures, perhaps this opens up social space for a variety of subject positions to be be imagined.

no conclusion. 🤷

[1] "The Sexual Reproduction of ‘Race’: Bisexuality, History and Racialization,” Merl Storr, in The Bisexual Imaginary: Representation, Identity and Desire, ed. Bi Academic Intervention, 1999.

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