#bi-erasure

[bringthesauerkraut]

why you so obsessed with a man if you gay

people are fucking freaks

Ooh first random anon hate. This really is gonna be a fun four years lol.

So literally hundreds of posts on a very small blog about a very particular man & you catch the ONE unrelated post in which I mention I had a wife. Look… I'm very flattered but sadly to say I am currently taken. Also you would be in a queue If I ever encounter an alternate timeline in which either Jon Stewart or Weird Al became available.

If you'll indulge me, let me ask a question back. Why is this important to you? Are you confused? Are you just trolling? Because if this is the best you've got let me tell you that I once did two weeks of a touring production of Riverdance with 3 fractured bones in my ankle. This ain't gonna hurt me.

But if you're genuinely confused as to why I, someone who had a long term same sex relationship would say their biggest crush is a man (well, a version of the man anyway since I do not know him in any personal capacity) my answer is 'because he is'. There's no sinister plot here or a long drawn out complicated reason. For people who need a label I identify as Pansexual but honestly I'm only attracted to people who make me laugh. & simply put, he's always made me laugh & I think he's hot as hell.

This ask feels a little on the Bi-erasure scale. 'People can be attracted to who they want BUT they cannot have a preference OR once they are in a relationship they must stop being attracted to the opposing gender of their partner' People be attracted to people. That's it.

You clearly spend much time trawling through stuff to find small mentions with the intent to start a dialogue for good or ill. Why? People only tend to get fixated on things that matter to them whether they are aware of it or not.

So if you would, before you next participate in this time honoured tradition of hounding someone about their own personal life choices but next time you get someone who is actually going to be upset by your actions, please can you explain to me in great detail why you enjoy this. I want to know what specific satisfaction you get out of this. I want to know the exact moment it makes you smile & you feel yes, I have done something I enjoy today. I want you to describe the feeling of warmth spreading through you knowing that you intentionally (hopefully) ruined someone's day & that person now thinks of you as a lesser person & an archetype of the people others are always warning them to avoid? But be quick, I think your mum is calling you for dinner.

[usagistuskino]

villanelle has been confirmed bisexual for awhile now, so please stop calling her a lesbian. lesbians and bisexuals are both two groups that suffer representation wise - and are often disrespected by the rest of the queer community, but we gain nothing by infighting and erasing each other. she is still a sapphic-wlw icon, even if her attractions are beyond the scope of just women. having preferences for one over the other, (she has been seen with multiple genders in the series, and the novels also show her being interesting in multiple genders). villanelle is bisexual, and that's okay. it doesn't make her love for eve any less. it doesn't make her queerness any less. it doesn't make her death and subsequent aftermath disrespect any less queerphobic and harmful. so please, let's stop doing this to each other ! sapphics should stand together and support each other.

[thenightling]

Probably opening a can of worms but...

I've identified as bi since the late 90s.  Now I'm supposedly something else.  Maybe Queer is the safest answer.   The way people have changed bi into a very narrow field annoys me. "Bi means you don't like trans or nonbinary."  No, it doesn't.  We never meant it to excluse anything when the term became popular.   "But it's in the word.  Bi for binary."  No, bi means two.  Your gender and everyone else's.  That's two. "Bi means you are attracted to the gender and not the person.  Pan means the person comes first, then gender." What?   "Bi doesn't include aliens or mermaids and werewolves."  ...Why? I'd use bi and pan interchangeably but then people ask "What's the difference?" And I can't think of an answer I don't find, on some level, ridiculous.  

Believe it or not, there was a time bisexual, pansexual, and omnisexual all meant pretty much the same thing.

[hisana123]

I've been in a bit of a bind here. I love men. I only occasionally like women. I know bisexuality has been called a spectrum more than it is 50/50, but just the term "bisexual" alone doesn't give me a sense of identity. Because I feel like I'd be wearing someone else's hat. Marching someone else's march. I was always told that the right label would give you comfort, but that word doesn't for me.

For one thing, my small attraction for women is not making me in a terrible urge to tell my parents. It slightly hurts, but I feel like I could go the rest of my life not telling them because they might think it was a bigger part of me than I actually feel it is. And I'm in love with my boyfriend(who is aware of my feelings), so I feel like there's no point in putting any seeds of doubt in my parents' heads that I'll end up with anyone but him.

For another thing, I don't have any sexual desire for women beyond possibly 2nd base.

I once heard the term "heteroflexible," and that feels closer to me, but people say it contributes to bi-erasure, and the last thing I want to do is offend. But can an identity be wrong if it's how I feel? Is there some other word that is out there for people like me who are not completely straight but don't feel comfortable claiming to be bi?

*Edit: It's been a couple months since I've posted this and the urge to talk about it kept rising and falling out of mind, until I finally started to accept that it was okay to call myself bi today(it still takes a little getting used to). As soon as I did that, I ended up telling my bros, and then the urge to tell my Mom was suddenly overwhelming. I thought I could hold it in forever, but I couldn't. I only felt comfortable enough to hint at it rather than spell it out, and she didn't ask any uncomfortable questions, she just wholeheartedly accepted me.

If anyone else is going through what I went through, please know that whether you prefer the term bisexual or feel it doesn't fit you in the moment, it's okay. No one knows your preferences more than you do. Just know that the right people will accept you with or without labels.

[chey-tips22]

Watching the various Below Deck series (on BD season 6 right now), and it's a shame that every show - even the ones where the crew mention sexualities seem to contribute to bi-erasure/pan-erasure

Examples from the recent seasons:

Bruno says he falls in love with the soul / the person not the label or gender. Bruno says he has had women and men as partners. Bruno at the end of the series on the reunion is engaged to his partner Josef. They ask him if that means he is gay after all.

Kate spends one series dating a woman called Ro, after previously dating men. She then hooks up with 'Jesus' in the following season. Ben spends the period where she is dating Ro asking if that means Kate was always a lesbian. At the reunion, she is asked 'men or women' and chooses men.

Various crewmates reference 'swinging both ways' or 'dating regardless of the trousers' etc. And whilst none of this guarantees that they identify as bisexual or pansexual, the word or possibility never even comes up.

Hope it will in future seasons. It's not a key part of the series but it feels ridiculous in all the sex talk and hookups that people seem to think the option doesn't exist.

[hieronymph]

Watching The Boys.

The bi-erasure of Maeve fucking hurts.

I know it is a commentary that depicts the truth.

Glad Elena brought it up.

[chaoticbis]

I'm tired of people denying the possibility of Vanya being bisexual. Bottom line is we don't know her sexuality, and being in an abusive relationship with a man doesn't mean she still can't be attracted to them. Sure, she could be lesbian, and thats great. I don’t want to discourage people from having their own head canons, but denying she might be bi is bi-erasure.

[quiteaccurate]

Cas is the love of his life