BISEXUALITY SUSPICIONS
Isn't it funny that if a guy claims he's bisexual, people suspect he's really just gay, but if a woman claims she's bisexual, people suspect she's really just straight?

And does anyone doubt a man's bisexuality if he has sex with both men and women, but only has romantic relationships with women? Put that shoe on a woman's foot and people will think the chick is not really queer if she hasn't had a committed romantic entanglement with women in addition to humping them.

Do you have to have sex with other people to be a sexual person? Of course not. Do you have to have "relationships" with people to have preferences about what kind of people you would LIKE to have relationships with? Are your preferences limited to what is available to you and what you feel comfortable pursuing and what you are lucky enough to have reciprocated? I don't think so.

If you are an asexual woman and only get romantic with other women (though never actually have sex with them) does that mean you're not a lesbian? No. It just means you are a lesbian who doesn't have sex. There are truckloads of them out there, and no politically correct person would deny them their dykehood because they aren't licking carpet every night.

I don't like to call myself "bisexual" because it's a stupid word indicating a) that there are only two easily-identified genders to have sex with, b) that sexuality is based on gender preferences, and c) that "bisexuality" deviates from the norm. I disagree with all of those things. I think it's natural to want to have sex. With pretty much everybody. With other sexual folk be they men, women, a delightful amalgam of masculine and feminine, or a curious absence of characteristics discernible as either. Of course people develop certain tastes for certain traits, and lots of people develop really strong sexual preferences based on gender and some people were even born with those really strong preferences. But I believe it's most natural for most people to just. be. SEXUAL. Because of that I balk at using the word bisexual.

Do I use it anyway? Yeah, sometimes. Because I think it's fair to efficiently give people an idea of my preference in short order, and "bisexual" is the best most easily-recognizable word to describe my sexual preferences, in spite of the arguments I have with the term and the qualifications I like to attach to it. When given the opportunity to fill in the blank myself, I call myself omnisexual -- people ask me what I mean by "omnisexual" (if they can't intuit the meaning themselves) whereas the term "pansexual" (which I think means the same thing) is more confusing and a little too cool for me. But I would use that word if more people knew what it means. I had never heard of it until a couple of years ago when FurryGirl asked me if that's what I meant by "omnisexual".

It strikes me as incredibly fucked up that the only words we know for sexuality are so limiting in such specific ways when it seems only natural to be very UNlimited in our sexuality.

It also strikes me as incredibly fucked up for our sexuality to be viewed as so inextricably linked to our "relationships". It's prudish and makes far too much of both sex AND romance. I don't need to like someone or want to date them to really enjoy fucking them. In fact, I've enjoyed having sex with people I really DISliked. I don't think this makes me a beast, I think it makes me human and means I've given myself permission to ENJOY my humanity. I think it makes me a more tolerant person to enjoy communing sexually with someone I might otherwise have nothing in common with. It would be unhealthy (and probably beastly) if I *only* had sex with people I disliked, but my point is that sexuality thrives and wills itself independent of relationships (that are "more" than sexual). In the same way, I do not think that people who are asexual or go through periods of abstinence should have their romantic relationships with other people deemed "less" than mature or loving just because they don't screw.

Too few people are willing to champion our SEXUAL rights, instead everything is about marriage and other puritanical bullshit. I get sick of it and sick of everything having to be about something larger and grander and more long lasting than a wank or a fuck or a moment of pleasure (or even simply saying you aren't interested in wanking or fucking and happily derive pleasure from other things). I am *not* saying that sexuality isn't politically charged and not something big and grand, I'm just saying that we deserve to enjoy our sexuality as hedonistically as we want or as little as we want as long as we don't hurt anybody else in doing so -- not very many people are willing to stand up publicly and say that, instead the pursuit of pleasure is buried as an embarrassment under a bunch of complicated bullshit.

I'm writing these loosely-connected thoughts in response to frustrating things I've read online and seen on the disgusting television, and just for the pure fun of spewing my own opinions.
posted by Trixie at 3/03/2006 02:29:00 PM -