Mumbly Jumbly

[geminigirl]

1. People are pathologically incapable of reading directions. Especially on their medication. I'm sorry, but I'm not going to put that chemical into my body unless I know a little more about it than take it twice a day or whatever.

2. I've stopped one of my allergy meds. It doesn't feel all that awful, but I think I'm going to get them to switch my regular allergy medication to one that will do that which I was taking the second medication for. I feel better on it, but I haven't been off it more than about 48 hours, so I'm giving it time. And no, I didn't ask the doctor about it.

3. I'm wary of relationships that are playing themselves out online. There's one particular person in a community I read who seems to make me uncomfortable with the way she gushes about her partner. It's not even because of my current situation; it's something that I noticed a while back. Ah well, this isn't usenet, I can't killfile posters.

4. More ramblings about bisexuality. We were debriefing at our staff meeting about the cultural competency stuff we were doing last week. It was mentioned that we have a bisexual board member (I didn't know that! I'm glad. Visible bi people are important!) and that person is married. It was also mentioned that people feel like it's okay to ask this person all kinds of relatively personal questions about bisexuality of this person, and how weird and uncomfortable that is. And why do people think it's okay to ask? I got a couple of interesting looks from the other end of the table, from people who know that I've been asked these questions here at work and from people who've asked some of them. I've been told that I'm the only bisexual person that someone knows...all that. (I have no idea if the person making this point at the meeting knows that I'm bi...then again, anyone who's read my resume, and I know he has could probably pick it up from there.)

(Okay, I think it's important to ask the questions, and to answer them...but that's an aside.)

Is it a feeling that bisexuality is "weirder" than homosexuality? Is it that there's a feeling that "this person is kinda like me so it's okay to ask?" Is it just too hard to understand that "grey" is just as valid as "black" and "white"?
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"And I don't know if I believe in me, but I still believe in my friends"

Comments

[slinkr.livejournal.com]

I think some of it is not so much that bisexuality is "weird", but that it's not always clear what it means in practice.

If I say I'm gay, people assume I have relationships with women and that's pretty straightforward (although it may not actually be true. There were periods when I didn't have relationships with anyone, but was still gay).

If you say you're bi, it's not clear that one can assume that you have relationships with men, women, or both. So one might ask. If one only knew you in a professional context, one would be hard-pressed to ask politely, but that doesn't stop everyone.

[joshuapanther.livejournal.com]

3. I'm wary of relationships that are playing themselves out online.

And that's what visits are for.

Relationships shouldn't play themselves out in bars or at clubs or in any one place at all. This is just another place to meet people for a start.

[lcohen]

>3. I'm wary of relationships that are playing themselves out online. There's one particular person in a community I read who seems to make me uncomfortable with the way she gushes about her partner.

<makes note> must stop gushing about ayana online.

>Is it a feeling that bisexuality is "weirder" than homosexuality? Is it that there's a feeling that "this person is kinda like me so it's okay to ask?" Is it just too hard to understand that "grey" is just as valid as "black" and "white"?

i agree with a lot of slinkr's answer, but i have to mention that straight people ask me a lot of questions about my life, too. i've thankfully stopped getting "which one of you is the man" sorts of questions, but people do ask how this, that or the other thing works. as long as it's respectful, i just figure it comes with the territory of being different from the norm. i get asked about being jewish, too.

i know i dont know u....

[psychokittiekat.livejournal.com]

but i have this horrible tendency to comment on journal entries that touch me...

i am a bisexual 19 year old female... and the questions get asked all the time everywhere i go... friends of mine actually used to introduce me as bisexual... it was wierd.. but then again i've never been "normal"...

i got a lot of problems at work about it... i worked at starbucks...(i prob shouldnt say that).... and there were lots of gay guys...and gay managers...but god forbid u were bi..whether u were male or female... it sucked ass...

i have no problem answering the questions that get asked... i just care where and when they are asked...

im currently engaged to a great guy and am not having any type of relations with females...(just thought i'd mention it... reminded me of the board member being married)

Re: i know i dont know u....

[marlowe1.livejournal.com]

There is the Freudian belief that homosexuality is a phase that one goes through on the way to heterosexuality. It's a belief that automatically turns people's stomachs no matter what their beliefs are concerning sexuality. Homophobes will loudly protest that they NEVER had a crush on their gym teacher when they were 7. Homosexuals know that they aren't "just going through a phase" as their mothers would like to believe (met one guy with a double male symbol tattooed to his arm. He said that when his mom saw that she said "Do you really think you're going to be gay all your life?" and he was like "well, yeah.")

And like any universally despised theory, there is just enough truth to it to make people really nervous (else they wouldn't be so quick to condemn it). Why else do 12 year old girls buy into bands made up of extremely un-masculine men such as N'Sync or New Kids on the Block (or Andy Gibb or...)?

Bisexuals represent a kind of proof that that theory does have merit - at least in the eyes of people that would think about it. Since the theory automatically implies that everyone has homosexual and heterosexual urges, someone that admits to having homosexual and heterosexual urges (and not only that - acts upon them) makes the people that don't want to admit to their homosexual (or heterosexual) urges very uncomfortable.

That and after decades of getting people to call it sexual orientation, bisexuals come along and bring it back to sexual preference.

Re: i know i dont know u....

[geminigirl]

Are you living in the Dark Ages?

There are theories upon theories more recent than Freudian theories about sexual identity development, with foundations in the entire realm of knowledge we have, not narrowly focused as Freud was. In all of my social work and counseling training, I never met anyone who worked with sexual orientation from a Freudian perspective.

I suggest you take a look at the APA's page, in particular these two quotes...

"No. Sexual orientation emerges for most people in early adolescence without any prior sexual experience. And some people report trying very hard over many years to change their sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual with no success. For these reasons, psychologists do not consider sexual orientation for most people to be a conscious choice that can be voluntarily changed"

and

"How a particular sexual orientation develops in any individual is not well understood by scientists. Various theories have proposed differing sources for sexual orientation, including genetic or inborn hormonal factors and life experiences during early childhood. However, many scientists share the view that sexual orientation is shaped for most people at an early age through complex interactions of biological, psychological and social factors."

You might also look into Vivienne Cass, and her model of identity development.

I know no bisexuals who refer to their orientation as "sexual preference", though I know many who will define their orientation as "bisexual with a preference for ," including myslef. Preference is my liking Chinese food better than Thai or Italian better than Indian food. Preference is my attraction to women over men. But I'm not not attracted to men, and there have been times in my life where men are more appealing to me than women.

I'd also suggest you look here, and here.

Plenty?

[yesthattom.livejournal.com]

Thank you for posting a "everyone is bisexual" post. I haven't had a chance to flame someone for being ignorant in a long time.

People that say "everyone is bisexual" are trying to make bisexuals disappear. If "everyone is bisexual" then bisexuality doesn't need to be talked about. If "everyone is bisexual" then we can ignore bisexuals, pretend they don't exist, and forget about them.

The reality is that bisexuals do exist. And guess what? The gay and lesbian community should be scared.

You see, everyone thinks that bisexuals are just part of the g/l movement. They aren't. Yes, our legislative goals overlap, but only because you don't know us well enough. The reality is that you should be so damn scared of bisexuals that if you threw away your Freudian theories and picked up on the academic and political writings from THIS CENTURY you'd be unable to sleep at night.

Let me put it in simple terms. The g/l movement is dead meat and when they self-destruct, the bisexuals will rule.

The g/l rhetoric has, since the 1970's, stated "we're born this way" and begged for protections based on that. "We can't change it! Poor poor us! We're so fucked up we need government protections!"

The problem with this argument is that it is self-hating. "Oh poor, poor us!" is like saying "If we weren't defective we'd be straight 'cause straight is great!"

In the next 10-20 years genetic research will find the cause of homosexuality is... oh shit... wait... there isn't really a genetic cause... because homosexuality doesn't completely exist it's a social construct and ... well, there's this one gene, no... a pair... no... a group of genes and they don't "cause" homosexuality they just are an indicator... like having a certain gene doesn't give you MS, it just makes you're more likely to get it. And there are social factors. What you eat, how you live. Oh shit! Homosexuality isn't a concrete thing that can be measured! If it can't be measured it can't be proven and if it can't be proven we can't make laws about it!

And slowly over time, all these "born this way" legislation will crumble. One my one the courts will overturn bits and pieces until they might as well not exist.

And all those self-hating homosexuals that cried "poor me! poor me! i'm a defective human" will be so embarassed about the badly written legislation that they passed.

And someone will realize that for decades the g/l community as been ignoring anthropologists who have been pointing out that "gay" an an identity only exists in the US and Europe. It is a completely foreign concept in latino and african cultures... who have same-sex sex activity that is not anything like what "the west" refers to as "being gay". Oops! That's what you get for ignoring hundreds of social scientists when making over-reaching claims about genetics. Oh the embarassment!

And then the bisexuals will pull out all the articles and thesis' written in the 1990s and 2000s that refused to be self-hating and instead said, "We're fucking who we want, because freedom means we should be able to do that. We're loving who we want because freedom means we should be able to do that. Pursuit of happiness and all that, damn it!"

Non-genetic things can be protected as "civil rights": Things like religion, political party, military status, and such.

And then we'll pass laws that don't say, "us poor homosexuals are defective, and need protections based on genetics" but "we're proud bi, non-bi, non-labelling, and kinsey this and kinsey that and kinsey all over the place and we deserve civil rights because we should be able to make a CHOICE. Yes, some of us feel it's biologically determined, but its their right to CHOOSE to feel that way." And we'll write legislation that is in the same vein as laws that protect people for having made the choices that they want (like religion, military status, etc.).

Because true sexual freedom means being able to follow your preferences whether that's because its your orientation or just 'cause it feels right.

Plenty?

[yesthattom.livejournal.com]

(continued from previous post)

Which leads me to an interesting little note. Once bisexuals have taken over, we'll laugh and say things that make gays invisible. Because in reality, real gays are something like 1-2% of our world. Such a small percentage, making you invisible will be easy. Bisexuals are more like 90% of the world. We rule! When people try to come out as "gay" we'll just smile knowingly and say, "everyone's a little gay" and make them feel like shit.

But for now, we'll just ignore you. Mister Tim Lieder. Starting... right... now!

Re: Plenty?

[kimuchi.livejournal.com]

Hey, I have been known to say "everyone's bisexual" and I have no interest in making bisexuals disappear (obviously). When I say it, I mean the majority of people are attracted to a selection of folks in both genders to varying degrees, and everyone should just relax and enjoy themselves rather than acting out in inappropriate ways. *shrug*

But anyway, I agree that the categories of heterosexual, homosexual, and yes bisexual are all social constructs. We would probably be better off without the lot of them, in my opinion. If people could just be themselves and not worry about which pigeon hole they belong in the world would be a much less stressy place.

Re: Plenty?

[clauclauclaudia]

... but that's not what he said.

He said there's a Freudian theory that some people buy into, and that some of those people can be in denial of their own homosexual or bisexual urges, and that they will find real live gay or bisexual people threatening as a result.

"Bisexuals represent a kind of proof that that theory does have merit - at least in the eyes of people that would think about it." See the "kind of" and "at least" qualifiers? If you're already stressed about whether you're subject to such urges, and then you meet an out bisexual...

I'm amazed that's the part of the post that was picked upon, rather than the preference/orientation nonsense.

I don't like either phrasing, but I certainly know bisexuals who use both. Is there some activist party line that "preference" is verboten?

*waves hi to geminigirl--I followed yesthattom's link here*

I agree that "we're born this way" is a namby-pamby self-pitying argument, and I never subscribed to it when I identified as lesbian, and I resent the implication that it's the property of the/a bisexual movement. Still, I'm unfamiliar with any legislation that's dependent upon the "born this way" bogon.

But I don't think that was what marlowe was arguing anyway.

When the bisexuals take over, you'll find me, as always, in the Devil's Advocate box.