Response from a bi-woman to On Our Backs “BI NOW, PAY LATER?” feature…
[I could see the paint blistering on the wall opposite my monitor’s screen. -Thomas]
To give some improbable benefit of the doubt to the participants in the
roundtable on bi women in the last issue of On Our Backs, perhaps it wasn’t
the stunningly bigoted exchange it comes off as. Maybe it’s all on the
editors. Maybe. In any case, there’s a lot on the editors just for
publishing such unsupportable - well, there’s that word again - bigotry,
especially because you completely failed to provide any space - even merely
parallel space - for voices representative of the women being so ignorantly
discussed.
Let’s take a moment to contemplate On Our Backs publishing a similar
roundtable in which “white” was substituted for “dyke” {a word that is not
owned exclusively by monosexual lesbians, by the way} and “women of color”
for “bi”. What about “middle class” for “dyke” and “rough trade” for “bi”?
Of course, there’s the most apt parallel - the racially “pure” so discussing
mixed race folks. This magazine wouldn’t publish those roundtables {at
least not without granting voice to all involved identities} because their
bigotry would be immediately evident. Why wasn’t it this time? Is the
light dawning yet, folks? Probably not, eh? Let me turn up the wattage for
ya’ll.
Now, I’m not gonna be able to illuminate every nuance of wrongness in this
wee letter to the editor. Let me suggest some keywords for further reading,
beginning with the internalized: misogyny, sexism, homophobia, erotophobia,
and an array of other heteropatriarchal norms including rabidly monogamist
notions of love and relating. Oh, and the looming elephant in the room,
PHALLOCENTRISM.
That’s as good a place as any to start. Someone in the roundtable comments
that many men and women seem to be fine with, uh, their women sleeping with
other women, but they lose it when {other} biomen come into the picture.
Hmmm, what could that signify? Oh, wait, I know! Both these men and these
women choose to view women as objects to be possessed and penises as the
ultimate barometer of possession. Gosh, that’s awfully regressed, isn’t it?
I mean, if the whole point of monosexual lesbian purity is that women are
self-determined beings, than why, oh, why cede all of that power to define
to the very men who are supposed to be so beside the point? Rampant
insecurity? Probably, but also completely unchallenged phallocentrism.
Sorry, ya’ll, but I prefer my women be made of much stronger stuff.
Speaking of which, pretty much of all of the women I’ve ever been close to
were completely capable of taking care of themselves financially. They had
to be, so they were. If they’d waited around for a guy or even a gold star
dyke to take care of them, they’d have starved to death. Maybe the panel
was entirely made up of women working from a presumption of middle-class
privilege, but that’s no excuse for assuming that all queer women and all
the men they’re gonna fuck are going to have that same privilege. Yeah, it
helps to have a partner, but the sex of that partner does not completely
determine their economic power. That should be obvious, but then so much
here should be and apparently isn’t.
Moving along, what the hell is up with this repetition of bullshit
misinformation about bi women as disease carriers? Am I the only one who
has spent a lifetime with queer sex education materials that emphasize that
the vector for infection is behavior not orientation? Am I the only one
aware that roughly 40% of Americans have an STD, and half of those are
completely unaware of that fact? Don’t even try that “magic lesbian” shit
either. Gold star dykes are susceptible to disease just like the rest of
us, and yes, they can catch them from going down on their gold star
girlfriends. No penises need ever have been involved.
Of course, the world is damn short on gold star dykes, and I am damn short
on patience with the myth of purity they represent. Though I have actually
had a girlfriend who’s never been near a naked biocock, I can truthfully say
it didn’t make our four year relationship noticeably more queer. Perhaps
that had something to do with the completely ahistorical hysteria inherent
in that notion of purity. Contrary to what several members of the panel
contended, women have been licking each other’s pussies on alternate
Tuesdays for much, much longer than the notion of monosexual lesbianism has
been around, let alone realized. Amazing as it may be to this cadre of
self-congratulatory purists, there were even “lifers”, as Jackie so quaintly
put it, who bent any number of ways long before Kraft-Ebbing decided to
pathologize us with labels.
Come on, ya’ll; how fucked is it that we are oppressed by
heteronormativity, so we laterally oppress each other with homonormativity?
That just leads to parallel repressions, closets, and self-loathings. For
example, as a femme, Shar seems to feel the need to Uncle Tom it up to
insure that her gender won’t get her evicted from a monosexual lesbian
community that still gets its cotton panties in a bunch over femme and butch
complexities.
I feel no such compulsion. I’m a queer, poly, switch femme woman. I like
queer women of all stripes, femme and butch dykes, genderqueers,
trans-identified men, and yes, even {gasp!} queer biomen. {Yes, I said queer
men. Another big hole in the logic at that roundtable was that all the men
queer women would be fucking would be straight. Hello, people. Wake the
fuck up. Like dykes and fags haven’t been fucking each other since before
those words were coined. Shit.} Anyone who doesn’t like it is not someone
I want to bother fucking, never mind becoming emotionally involved with.
What I would like, though, is a queer women’s community that doesn’t keep
shooting itself in the goddamned foot with this incessant boundary policing.
Did we learn nothing from the Sex Wars? However we live our queernesses,
we are not straight. We ought to damn well be able to create some kind of
space for each other ‘cuz there sure as hell isn’t anyone else who’s gonna
do it for us.
-Janine M. deManda, Oakland, CA
http://www.onourbacksmag.com/feature.html
BI NOW, PAY LATER?
Six dykes dish the perils and pleasures of sex and love with bisexual women
moderated by Shar Rednour
photography by Shawn Tamaribuchi
Do bi girls know how to fuck a dyke right? Is it true that all dykes are
biphobic? Does desiring the masculinity of a butch automatically make you
bi? And why do bi gals even want to fuck us? Shar Rednour wrassled up a
group of dykes to answer these questions and more.
Shar: Do you have a ‘rule’ regarding dating bi women?
Fresh: I date women, that’s the category [laughing]. I don’t date women who
are currently dating men. Wait a minute, I just lied because I date sex
workers.
Shelley: Currently I’m not dating as much as I am just sleeping with
different people. I don’t care if they’re dating men. If I was to get into
a serious relationship right now, [thoughtfully] I wouldn’t care if she’s
bi, if I like her enough.
Cheri: I have been in a three-year committed relationship with a bi woman.
When I was single and dating, I slept with women who slept with men. But in
an LTR, I wouldn’t want her to sleep with any men.
Roxxie: It depends on the person and how honest she is. I’ve dated bi and
lesbian women for 26 years. The relationships that were the most painful
were the ones who weren’t honest or didn’t know. In general I think that
some people, who are otherwise sane and predictable, will do strange things
that even they can’t predict in regards to their sexuality. As I’ve gotten
older, I appreciate honesty.
Shar: You mean self-honesty? Bi or not, they just need to tell you?
Roxxie: Or tell me, ‘Look I’m a total sexual freak, I have a boyfriend I
see once a week so I can never see you on a Thursday.’ Then I tell myself,
‘Keep this emotionally casual.’ The most hurt I’ve ever been was being in a
relationship with someone who was bi and who didn’t tell me until she went
off with a man.
Shar: Do you think she did that just to hurt you?
Roxxie: I think it’s easy to go to men if you are around more men than
dykes. If you are into slightly masculine women then [that desire] is often
transferable.
Fresh: I spent a lot of my younger years dating straight women. It’s the
masculine they are attracted to and I think it’s the same with bisexual
women. It’s the masculinity they want. I don’r think that’s true for every
femme or woman but there’s a high possibility that if she’s attracted to
butches, she could sleep with a guy.
Shelley: If they like a mixture of masculine and feminine, a guy who’s not
like Rocky.
Fresh: I disagree. One of my exes is with a very butch guy.
Shar: Do you have any special rules or boundaries for dating bi women?
Fresh: Safe sex. I am really into oral sex and I want to know what I am
getting into. I may choose to not have oral sex.
Cheri: No to sleeping with men. Recently Amy and I opened up our
relationship but not to men.
Shar: Do you know why? [Cheri shrugs] Germaphobia? Safe-sex issue?
Emotional issue?
Cheri: It’s a man issue.
Roxxie: That’s interesting because that’s how a lot of guys are about their
girlfriends. It’s okay to sleep with another woman but not with a man.
Cheri: Why do they say that?
Roxxie: I think it’s a dominance thing and to be The One. Is it inherent in
masculinity?
Jackie: My sexual identity has a lot to do with it, not my lover’s identity
but mine which is wrapped around sexual dominance, top role, possession. I
got very precise about what I needed right before I got with Shar.
Shar: So many femmes just want butches, but then when it’s hard to get laid
as a femme dyke they inevitably pick a man over no sex. Me and my friend
Bridgette are two of the few femme dykes who love femme women and would not
go off with a guy. That’s a whole other roundtable.
Cheri: Amy and I have ongoing issues that change or come up organically. I
didn’t understand why or how I had biphobia. At first I would just get
upset about her past with men. When I’m around men I feel smaller than
them. I worked at a Fortune 500 company for four years; as an Asian woman I
always felt that they were judging me.
Shelley: I think when I first came out I was pretty biphobic. I spent a
long time growing up seeing all these girls I had crushes on go off with
guys. I feel better about it now.
Shar: How many concerns about bi women are really issues with men and not
worries or jealousy or insecurity in a relationship?
Jackie: STDs.
Shelley: It’s a power thing.
Fresh: I think it’s sad when bi dykes go with men because it’s easier. It’s
easier to get married. It’s easier to make a family. Even today it’s still
hard to be gay. There are people in the closet even in San Francisco.
Shar: I had a lot of class issues regarding my ex liking men. You are
picking someone with first-class citizenship. I admit I have a lot of class
concerns though. I hated her liking rich girls, too.
Fresh: A guy can provide for you if you want security. If you don’t believe
that, things work out and money comes, which is how a lot of lesbians get
by.
Shelley: I have an ex who had a hard life and, frankly, this was one thing
that could be easy for her.
Roxxie: I wish that bi women would get more behind lesbian issues. Matter
of fact, I wish everyone in the universe who ever liked us, or who are our
friends or family would get behind lesbian issues. If for just one day they
thought what would it be like to be lesbian today and vote, what would that
be like? We need to make coalitions with these people so close to us. For
Miss So-and-So to be able to get her pussy licked on Tuesday just because
she wants to. To get to have an experimental range, we fuckin, made that
happen.
Jackie: They wouldn’t be getting any lesbo action if it wasn’t us existing
here as dykes.
Fresh: Exactly.
Jackie: We can be grateful for all the bis who are at the forefront,
especially women who have privilege or access. We just need more of them.
As long as you are aligning your politics and putting your ass on the
streets, then I’m fine.
Fresh: But going back to jealousy issues, I would feel more threatened by a
butch than a guy.
Jackie: Sexually, I now would have more issues with a butch top than a man.
Shar: Let’s list all the pluses of dating bi women.
Shelley: Bi women are more likely to fuck you.
Roxxie: That’s true.
Shelley: They aren’t big pillow queens, not that all femme are.
Shar: Of course, but no qualifying! Remember we are OpinioNation.
Fresh: I like that bi women are the least likely to try to fuck me.
Shar: Bi women always think they are going to get a lot of oral sex, so
that’s good for you, right? [Shar teases and Fresh smiles, nodding
affirmatively.]
Roxxie: I learned incredible amounts about my own sexuality from bi women.
I can tell them things that just, for example, if I told another butch top
we would get stuck in those roles and I would be afraid of judgment.
Cheri: I’ve learned so much about sex. They are so enlightened about sex
because they aren’t at one end or the other. They know how to flow within
the place of sexuality. Another plus is often they are attracted to
fluidity. Whether it’s butch, FTMs, men, women, I am not stuck with who I
am and who I can be with.
Shar: On Craigslist there has been a firestorm of e-mails regarding bi
women only wanting femmes, and there is always a lot of backlash to those
postings from butches and femmes. But not all women requesting femme women
are butch-phobic.
Fresh: But a lot of them are butch-bashing.
Cheri: I was at the bi conference and was in a room with 200 women who were
saying they would love to date lesbians for LTRs but they are afraid.
Jackie: You mean they have biphobia-phobia? [we laugh]
Cheri: If you’re a bi woman and I have biphobia, then why would you date me
if you know there’s going to be grief coming your way?
Fresh: I believe that everyone’s bi and I don’t know how many choose men
because it’s safe.
Jackie: We’re lifers.
Cheri: So it’s all these fears we have about being with bi women, battling
my own assumptions about men, sweating all that out, and then thinking
about class and privilege and what’s hindering us from being with bi women?
Then turning that around to say ‘ what’s hindering them from being with
us?’
