What makes some of us uncomfortable with bisexual women? It is because we think they're either lesbians having straight sex or straight women testing out their fantasies on us before returning to men?
In today's post-modern, queer-focused world, bisexuality is being promoted to lesbians as the latest fashionable trend. This has resulted in lesbian politics, namely feminism, being passed over for sexual hedonism, where the only thing that matters is sexual pleasure and desire. Similarly, bisexuality is sold to heterosexual women as some type of recreational activity far from their "natural home" of straight sex. It is seen as "temporary lesbianism."
It is more à la mode to have sex with a man if you are a lesbian than if you're a straight woman, who is merely doing what she is expected to do "naturally." Lesbians having heterosexual sex are seen as transgressive, when in fact they are simply reverting to a traditional way of being a woman. For a straight woman, having a girlfriend on the side is almost like having the latest Prada handbag.
Camille Paglia, the most famous "anti-lesbian lesbian," has written reams about how she worships the penis and cannot understand those of us who do not. In fact Paglia, like many lesbian tourists who sleep with women on the weekend and go back to hubby on Monday morning, thinks lesbian sex needs to be "spiced up" by the odd "het" shag:
Women, I think, are naturally bisexual. You know I'm not telling lesbians to stop sleeping only with women, but to leave open a part of the brain toward men and accept male lust and find men extremely attractive and get horny in relation to men and ogle their bodies and do something with them, then sex with women will be hotter.
Has Paglia internalized so much anti-lesbian oppression that she, too, thinks that all lesbians need is a good bit of heterosexual-style shagging?
But many lesbians, and even bisexual women themselves, mistrust the concept of swinging both ways. One U.S. study of bisexuality, which draws on interviews with 400 self-identified lesbians and bisexual women, found that a substantial number of bisexuals prefer to hang out with lesbians instead of other bisexual women in social situations, and have greater political trust in lesbians than they do in other bisexual women. It was also found that "[s]ome bisexual women actually doubt whether bisexual women exist at all."
Whatever our views and politics about lesbianism may be, we cannot deny that women face compulsory heterosexuality from birth. Despite huge progress since I came out in 1977, it is still not really acceptable to reject men and choose not to live under their guardianship, whether you are in Saudi Arabia or the U.K.
When I write about making a positive choice to be a lesbian, and that I believe there is no gay (or for that matter bisexual) "gene," I am accused of being an ideological robot and therefore not genuinely sexually attracted to women. That is nonsense. I personally feel that straight women are missing out on the best sex on the planet, but that is their choice.
If we put aside lesbian feminism, the way most people approach sexuality is that they think we are straight, gay, or attracted to both sexes. For bisexual women living under the tyranny of sexism, choosing to be lesbian is a liberatory act.
Those of us who grew up in a time and context where there was a political analysis of sexuality were able to make a positive choice to be a lesbian. I believed then, and I believe now, that if bisexual women had an ounce of sexual politics, they would stop sleeping with men.
Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/julie-bind
i mean if you want to sleep with them, w/e have fun, but men are the perpetrators of misogyny
Misogyny sucks. It sucks that whatever assholes you've encountered were assholes. But to simply paint half the people on the planet with one brush and label them all as assholes is every bit as ridiculous as any other kind of bigotry.
It's complete bullshit. I reserve the right to be both a feminist and have a male partner, and I also reserve the right to be offended when people insult him, directly or indirectly.
i thought it grew on trees or formed in the core of the sun or existed as an intrinsic part of the cosmic fabric in the core of every individual atom
now i don't know what to think
i sort of might subconsciously be suspicious of magnesium from now on
Thanks for turning shit about bisexual women into MORE shit about bisexual women. For fuck's sake.
Come to the South. We've got loads of female perpetrators of misogyny, too.
Being female does not automatically exempt you from misogynistic behaviour. Therefore, sleeping with women exclusively will not eradicate misogyny. Again, all it will do is prevent you from having potentially fun sex with people you are attracted to.
men are the class of people who benefit from misogyny and who perpetrate it against women as a class. living in a sexist society, all women internalize this misogyny to some extent and turn it against themselves and others. however, they do not have the political power to oppress via misogyny, and it is men who work hard to ensure misogyny continues to flourish
I agree that men benefit from male privilege, every day, all the time. By and large, men have the political power to oppress us. That much is obvious. But I personally know guys who go out an spend their time helping women overcome violence and poverty every day. Not because they want to find a girlfriend or some creepy shit like that, but because they think it's stupid and sexist that we have less based on our gender. There is no way for a person to just shirk privilege; however, I commend someone who uses their privilege to benefit those who have none.
I will not reject half of the freaking WORLD based on the genitalia that people happened to be born with. Instead, I WILL take people on a case-by-case basis, and not lump everyone together into one monolithic "enemy" category. Again, MISOGYNY is the enemy, not the gender of the person itself. If the gender itself only counts, how do you account for trans people? How do you account for people with more than one genital feature (ie, hermaphrodites?) Genitalia is not the enemy here. Therefore, to say that a person born with a penis is automatically an enemy is BS. Faulty cause and effect, plain and simple.
If I sleep with women, it's BAD and WRONG because it's icky or gay, or I'm trying to impress someone or get attention, and not because I'm attracted to them. If I sleep with men, it's because they're SUBJUGATING ME or I'm BRAINWASHED, and not because I'm attracted to them. Bi women can't win. Any sex is apparently not for fun or pleasure or discovery, but a political act. Any time I have sex, it's apparently up for someone else's approval, and NOT the person I'm sleeping with!
Do you see how incredibly misogynistic this bullshit is, coming from a FEMALE "feminist" author?
Edited at 2012-06-15 12:30 am (UTC)