Do You Have Bisexual Tendencies?
Posted by: Amelia McDonell-Parry
Filed in:
relationships
11:00AM, Thursday July 9th 2009
Watching “The Real World: Cancun” makes me feel old for multiple reasons.
1. I am five years too old to actually be cast on the show.
2. It’s so insanely vapid that I cannot actually watch a full episode, which says a lot considering I can stomach an entire marathon of “Keeping Up With The Kardashians.”
3. Every single girl in the cast seems to be bisexual.
Why does point three make me feel old? Well, I think I just missed the boat on the bisexuality trend. Hear me out. I believe sexuality is a spectrum and where we fall on that spectrum when we’re born and how our sexuality evolves as a result of societal influence depends on the person. I also don’t think it’s relevant whether a person is gay, straight or bi, whether they were born that way or “chose” that “lifestyle,” as I don’t think what goes on in a person’s bedroom or romantic life is anyone’s business.
In the last five years or so, female bisexuality has become quite “cool.” On one hand, this is awesome, because it’s encouraged and allowed people to open their minds and hearts to the love and sexual pleasure you can find with both a man and a woman. The negative side, of course, is that much of the attention paid to ladies-lovin’-ladies was in the context of male enjoyment—girls making out in bars to turn on their boyfriends, for example. The increasing number of bisexual woman on reality TV shows (this season’s “Real World/Road Rules Challenge,” for example, had, like five bisexual women) and in movies, I think has it easier for women under the age of, say, 26, to acknowledge any “bisexual tendencies” they may have.
I grew up in a very open-minded, liberal household. My parents would not give a hoot if I was gay, straight, bisexual, or transgender—all they want is for me to be happy. I also went to a very liberal college—the University of California at Santa Crux, whose school mascot is the banana slug, which just shows you the kind of cuddly hippies I was surrounded by—yet, off the top of my head, I can only think of one woman who I was close friends with that had sex with both men and women, though I never heard her label herself as bisexual. She had the same perspective as I do about sexuality—that it’s a spectrum—but she didn’t like labels. Aside from her, I knew plenty of lesbians and lots of straight women, but very few women who casually hooked up with each other the way they hooked up with guys. Yet many of the younger women I know, either still in college, or out for just a couple of years, do identify as bisexual. Like I said, it feels like I missed the boat.
My sexuality, at age 29, feels pretty “defined.” I was in a serious relationship from age 24 until recently, so I didn’t think much about my sexuality during that time, outside of how it affected us as a couple. Now that I’m single again, I’m thinking about my sexual identity a little more closely. I’m pretty open-minded to new experiences, but being with a woman has never been something that has even really occurred to me. Women of the latest “Real World” generation have come to know their sexuality in a time when considering the same sex as an option is not necessarily different or strange. I made out with a girl in college, just once, under the influence of, um, a substance (just say no, folks) and I only did it because she was making out with the guy I wanted to be making out with. So I got in on that action to get a piece of him and felt really icky about it afterward. Looking back, my discomfort had nothing to do with her being a girl, but regardless, the experience sort of soured me on having any future sexual experiences with a woman.
So, what say you, Frisky readers—do you have “bisexual tendencies”? Do you think the increase of girl-on-girl sex on TV and in movies has influenced real women?
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Raugiel
wrote on July 9 2009 @ 11:17 am: [report]
You are about my age, so I have to ask, how did you miss the “bisexuality trend” among girls in the 1990s? When I was in HS, it was the IT thing to act at being bisexual (to such a degree that I thought it was played out and people our age had realized that some people were bi-sexual and others weren’t really and it wasn’t something that should earn positive or negative cool points ether way).
If girls are still making out with girls when they don’t feel like to get attention, that is sad. It is also hurtful to folks who are actually bi-sexual. Pretending at an alternative sexuality is a really easy way to hurt someone who actually has that sexuality, or to give their community a bad reputation by your flighty-ness or apparent “cure”.
DancerNinja
wrote on July 9 2009 @ 11:19 am: [report]
I recently heard the term “bar-sexual” as a term for women who make out with other women specifically because it’s cool, fun, or turns on some dude. They don’t actually want sex with women. And since these actions typically occur with the use of alcohol in party atmospheres… hence the term.
bogart4017
wrote on July 9 2009 @ 11:38 am: [report]
There were some 26 yo women in the late 90’s who referred to themselves as “bi-curious”. Best i could figure is they had boyfriends and girlfriends and couldnt make up their mind which way they “swang”. I dated one for a while who seemed hetero but she had a girlfriend on the side. The other wound up married to a guy and had a child by him. Did her desire for women just dry up after she got married? And what would make a women whose previous relationships were with men suddenly mess with women while maintaining a guy on the side?
Amelia McDonell-Parry
wrote on July 9 2009 @ 11:44 am: [report]
@Raugiel To clarify, I was a pretty late bloomer—I didn’t do anything in high school, besides have crushes (no kissing, no nothing), and didn’t have any sexual experiences until college. That’s really when I started to get in touch with my sexuality.
sadie
wrote on July 9 2009 @ 11:47 am: [report]
I don’t know if it is regional but I am in my early 30s and have always lived on the east coast and many women I’ve known have considered sexuality a spectrum and have kissed or had sex with other women, even if they usually tend to go for guys. I don’t think it needs a label or critique.
Women are inherently beautiful and sometimes they kiss each other because they want to. I wouldn’t assume all girls kissing girls (regardless of where they do it) are doing it for male attention. Maybe they are doing it because it’s fun. If they’re doing it just for attention, that’s too bad for them.
Personally, I have kissed girls. I didn’t do it around any men at all. I consider myself straight. The girls in question were pretty friends and it was fun. I’m married now. If I wasn’t maybe I’d kiss girls again. I don’t do it now because my marriage is monogamous. I never did it to impress anyone and I don’t think people who are gay or straight can choose to change their preference. I know I have my own preferences but that doesn’t mean I don’t occasionally like to kiss girls. They’re soft, they smell nice, they’re cute… what’s not to love?
lassitude
wrote on July 9 2009 @ 12:05 pm: [report]
I’m also 29, and observed the same phenomenon about younger women having had an easier time expressing bisexual tendancies. I grew up in an extremely conservative household (Roman Catholic father, Anglican mother) that wasn’t really open to anything outside of the white + Christian + heterosexual + republican model. Over time, my parents’ views softened and they began to realize it was possible to be a good, functional person and be [insert anything else outside of aforementioned model]; however, they still preferred, and quite vocally so, that their own children be at least straight and romantically involved exclusively with whites.
All during my childhood and into my teens, as most of the rest of America and the world began to disavow anti-gay prejudice and so forth, I still heard my parents saying “If one of our kids was gay, we’d disown him or her. And bisexuals? That’s just as bad! Sick!”. I’d already rejected the church, and laissez-faire capitalism, and my first (and only) elementary school-era boyfriend was three-quarters Asian; so I didn’t want to push my luck by ever admitting that I was increasingly finding girls to be more interesting and appealing than boys. I knew I was interested in them as I entered middle school, around age 12. I also knew I could never, ever admit it or act on it. I lived in Arizona back then, and any sort of “gay chic” simply did not exist yet. I knew enough people who had been labeled gay, lesbian, bisexual, or anything “less than straight” who were made to pay for their differences in perpetual social strife. I found it easier to just deny my sexuality across the board, and pursue nobody.
Today, I live outwardly as a “regular old straight girl”, having been in a heterosexual relationship for nine years. While it’s all fine and good, I’ve never been without an attraction to women. Sometimes I feel haunted by it because I’ve never been in the right circumstance to indulge it. Even after it became trendy for girls and women to engage in bisexual or “lesbian” behaviors, I was still inclined to keep it all to myself… It was bad enough growing up with things so intolerant but I thought it might be worse to try to have meaningful experiences with people who were doing it all for show. If I’ve ever had any regrets about life, it’s that I never got to explore that side of myself.
MissChaotic
wrote on July 9 2009 @ 12:10 pm: [report]
I just had this discussion with my friend! I think everybody questions it at one point or another. But some are more open to trying it out, or questioning it further than others.
metricula
wrote on July 9 2009 @ 12:14 pm: [report]
It’s just more in the media. Being bi (“real” or for show) was always trendy.
Brooke
wrote on July 9 2009 @ 12:17 pm: [report]
I think it is only natural for women of my generation to have bisexual tendencies. Society puts so much emphasis on beauty and body image. We are raised to find ourselves attractive and are therefore simply attracted to the female body.
Raugiel
wrote on July 9 2009 @ 12:26 pm: [report]
@ Amelia McDonell-Parry: I shouldn’t have assumed, but since most of the pretend-bi gals I knew were also huge attention hogs, I figured it would be hard to miss them. Of course, it could also be locational too. I grew up on the coasts, which often get “new sexuality trends” before other areas of the country.
Queen Frostine
wrote on July 9 2009 @ 12:43 pm: [report]
First sexual experience was with a girl. Then boys. Loved both, loved the variety. Definitely bi all the way, not just curious with tendencies. And I never questioned it, I just went with whatever was attractive and had chemistry. At age 29, I don’t see gender anymore, in regards to attraction.
zoogrrl
wrote on July 9 2009 @ 12:55 pm: [report]
I am bi, and I tend to get a little offended at the plentiful “barsexuals” (great one, BTW) around the bar scene. To me, sexual attraction is between me and that other person, no matter what the gender, and I don’t need an audience to validate my hotness.No matter who I’m dating, we will NOT be having sex on the pool table at Fat Cat’s.
And besides - that tight-lipped, prissy, not-real kiss in the picture would never have happened if the camera wasn’t there. They look like they’re kissing their grandmothers.
Gabriella
wrote on July 9 2009 @ 01:09 pm: [report]
I kissed a girl & I liked it… I was three. I was bi most of my life, at this point seems like forever compared to you young ladies. After being caught by my mother during a HS fling (with a girl) my wise Italian mother said “Gabriella it’s a stage… you will change.” At 27 I had a choice to make- get married with a gorgeous wonderful man or calling mama to tell her it’s not a stage. Keep in mind as a single child raised in Italy this was not going to be an easy task. After a lot of soul searching, running to America and years of therapy I finally told mama It’s not a stage, I have never looked back, nor do I regret the decision I made.
LostInStars
wrote on July 9 2009 @ 01:54 pm: [report]
I like girls, I like boys. I don’t really call myself bisexual because I don’t feel like I should have to label who am I just because I’m attracted to different people for different reasons.
@DancerNinja: LOL. Perfect term. Those girls make me sick. How attention starved do you have to be to get drunk and make out with a girl in some bar? And if you -are- genuinely attracted, or curious or whatever, about girls, why would you test the waters in front of your boyfriend? Guh.
sparklestar
wrote on July 9 2009 @ 02:27 pm: [report]
Yes.
justme
wrote on July 9 2009 @ 02:57 pm: [report]
I’ve only had a crush on one girl. She was a year below me in high school and she had an ass that just wouldn’t quit! I never spoke to her.
I hate the girls that slut it up with each other for the boy’s pleasure.
secretsquirrel
wrote on July 10 2009 @ 03:18 pm: [report]
Hrrmm, I’m ALL about the men. Men, men, men. Big, masculine, take charge. I can appreciate a beautiful woman, I don’t mind girl-on-girl porn, I just have no interest in trying it. Men who want to try a 3some that way are very disappointed in me. I usually ask if they want a 3some with a bi man and that ends that discussion.
mlyway
wrote on July 10 2009 @ 07:18 pm: [report]
Now I definitely see the negative sides to girls kissing girls in front of the guys, but there is a certain type of pleasure I get knowing that either my boyfriend or a guy I like is intrigued by the whole girl-on-girl action. There are also times I have kissed girls when there are no guys present—purely for fun. I do not call it experimenting, because I know I am straight, and besides kissing, I am not interested/attracted to other girls in that way. I would say I am fairly open to trying things because one doesn’t know if they do not like something unless they try it. But it’s not like I go around kissing girls all the time—just once in awhile.
cjmar
wrote on July 11 2009 @ 12:42 pm: [report]
UC Santa Cruz alumni here too
Never really was into the “acting bisexual” thing but I’m totally accepting of any person’s choice.
sylviasma
wrote on July 11 2009 @ 03:03 pm: [report]
I hate this… I am legitametally bisexual I cant help my self I fully enjoy women and men. NO ONE chooses this, no matter who you date they are always wondering if you are fulfilled with them because they know you always want them both. It creates such a big trust issue because they are always thinking you are looking for some one of the opposite sex. For me being bisexual has only created more problems so any one who is saying they are bisexual for the attention is just disgusting. If I could just choose one sex I WOULD.
Antiquity
wrote on July 11 2009 @ 03:58 pm: [report]
I’m with Sylviasma on this one. I didn’t chose my sexuality and it does cause issues and insecurities in relationships. I just so happen to have equal attractions to both genders and I enjoy it most of the time. It’s not an age thing, it’s not a trend, or any of that bs. Girls on that dumb show that call themselves bisexual make me sick because they think its so cute to get attention that way.