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We're Here, We're Queer
Aug. 5th, 2014 07:30 pmI caught part of an interview with the author of a book called The Actress, which looks like not at all my kind of book, but to each her own. Part of the reason it looks like not my kind of book is the way the author came off in the interview. That question sometimes comes up about "well can you like art if you hate the creator of that art," and for me the answer is yes but also that it's rare, at least when it comes to narrative art. If I think you're an idiot I probably also find your writing idiotic. And somewhat vice versa. If you're worried I don't like you, you should probably be careful about showing me fiction you've written unless it's great.
In any case, this genius author was talking about how her book explores queerness in Hollywood and how gender is performative and people can have homosexual relationships but continue to self-define as straight, or heterosexual relationships and continue to self-define as gay, and this is all reasonable, and my putting it this way gives the author a little bit more credit than is due because a very smart interviewer was asking questions that made these answers inevitable and was dogged about sticking to topic.
But the author decided it was absolutely essential to declare that she thinks only a very small percentage of the population is bisexual and that only a very small percentage of the people who identify as bisexual are bisexual.
She did not clarify this at all; clearly she thinks this is so non-controversial it isn't worthy of supporting evidence.
I am so tired of bisexual invisibility, y'all. What the hell do we have to do at this point? It's not enough to say we're bisexual. It's not enough to have sex with men and women. It's not enough to talk openly about our attractions. Apparently, even if gender is fluid and performative, if we slept with women and then men, we're ex-lesbian. Unless we go back to sleeping with women again, in which case we were lesbian that whole time.
I'm not sure what the standard is that makes us count as "real" bisexuals. I think we might have to be poly, and have to always have exactly the same number of male and female partners. Exactly the same! No exceptions! Probably with all sex acts involving at least three people, just to make exactly sure, and even then we need to be really careful we are getting exactly the same amount of orgasms from both men and women and making exactly the same amount of eye contact. But also that our partners aren't into it, because then maybe we're just performing hetero or homosexuality for the other partner as part of our secret straightness or lesbianism?
I mean, shit.
Just so you know, from now on if I see you in a pink dress, that thing is red or white, because pink isn't real. Unless your hot cocoa is half chocolate by volume, it's just milk. If your half-caf coffee isn't filled exactly half decaf, and you better fucking measure rather than eyballing a cup with tapered sides, that coffee is full caffeine.
In any case, this genius author was talking about how her book explores queerness in Hollywood and how gender is performative and people can have homosexual relationships but continue to self-define as straight, or heterosexual relationships and continue to self-define as gay, and this is all reasonable, and my putting it this way gives the author a little bit more credit than is due because a very smart interviewer was asking questions that made these answers inevitable and was dogged about sticking to topic.
But the author decided it was absolutely essential to declare that she thinks only a very small percentage of the population is bisexual and that only a very small percentage of the people who identify as bisexual are bisexual.
She did not clarify this at all; clearly she thinks this is so non-controversial it isn't worthy of supporting evidence.
I am so tired of bisexual invisibility, y'all. What the hell do we have to do at this point? It's not enough to say we're bisexual. It's not enough to have sex with men and women. It's not enough to talk openly about our attractions. Apparently, even if gender is fluid and performative, if we slept with women and then men, we're ex-lesbian. Unless we go back to sleeping with women again, in which case we were lesbian that whole time.
I'm not sure what the standard is that makes us count as "real" bisexuals. I think we might have to be poly, and have to always have exactly the same number of male and female partners. Exactly the same! No exceptions! Probably with all sex acts involving at least three people, just to make exactly sure, and even then we need to be really careful we are getting exactly the same amount of orgasms from both men and women and making exactly the same amount of eye contact. But also that our partners aren't into it, because then maybe we're just performing hetero or homosexuality for the other partner as part of our secret straightness or lesbianism?
I mean, shit.
Just so you know, from now on if I see you in a pink dress, that thing is red or white, because pink isn't real. Unless your hot cocoa is half chocolate by volume, it's just milk. If your half-caf coffee isn't filled exactly half decaf, and you better fucking measure rather than eyballing a cup with tapered sides, that coffee is full caffeine.
