Yesterday I read the status update of a Facebook friend that prompted over 60 responses. The topic was about bisexuality and although I decided not to respond as I tend not to comment on most status messages I read, I definitely had an emotional reaction. The responses to the status varied and created a heated debate and I hope a couple friends of mine don’t mind my extracting pieces from their conversation and creating this blog. I’m doing so because a portion of it hit a certain nerve that I’ve dealt with in the past and occasionally still encounter. A few years back I similarly tackled this topic via a myspace blog after I met a woman who challenged my sexual orientation based on my appearance and assumed I was bisexual, likely straight, but certainly not a lesbian. Reaaalllly irked me. The bothersome pieces of the messages I read yesterday were that if a woman has dated and/or been married to a man in the past and she now engages in relationships with women, that she’s not a “real” lesbian and that she’s bisexual. Hmmm….
I can only speak from my own experience as a woman with that background and when I hear comments such as those I find it personally offensive for anyone other than me to tell me who/what I must be. The Kinsey scale suggests that a person’s sexual past can be labeled by a number, with 0 falling at exclusively heterosexual and a 6 at exclusively homosexual, with many tottering somewhere in between. I’ve engaged in conversations with literally hundreds of women and while they sit in various ranges on the scale, I can say that I, personally, only know one 6. And that’s including some of my wonderful “stud” friends as well. But does that mean that these women are bisexual and not lesbians because they were with men in the past? I don’t believe that to be the case.
Sure, we all know women who swing between relationships with men and women and rather than allowing them to express their freedom to love whomever, we label them confused. And I’ll gladly admit that I’m just now getting a better understanding of women who fall into that arena. Often we do want them to “choose” and when they desert women for men, we shun them. If they leave men for women, we congratulate them for joining our team.
If bisexuality is sincerely the attraction and ability to love a man or a woman, then I can 100% confirm that bisexual I am not just because I was once married and because I have children. If I was sincerely able to love a man the way I love women (Brandy ;-)), I would have stayed married without question. Saved myself, my daughters, and their father the turmoil that surrounded my choice to disrupt my family to live what is true to me. It’s an unfair statement to suggest that I’m bisexual (again, based upon a few comments I read) when my heart and my being know otherwise. So I’m not a full-fledged 6; no problem, I can live with that. Do I have an attraction toward men? Nope. Do I foresee the possibility of being with one in the future? No, I don’t.
My walk to this wonderful place I’m in now was not easy. As a matter of fact, for a couple of years I tried to convince myself that I was bisexual. These were years of guilt, hurt, depression and suicidal tendencies, all in coming to terms with my truth as a lesbian. If I were bisexual that wouldn’t have been the case; I believe I would have had the capacity to live the “American dream” others saw for me and I, too, thought I could live as well. But that wasn’t me.
We welcome your thoughts/perspective….
©Nikki Rashan, March 2011
