A few weeks ago, I got an email from someone who noted that I’m bisexual and wondered what it was like being a bisexual author. She noted that there were a lot of lesbian perspectives, but not a whole lot of bisexual ones – especially in the F/F community. And she has a point.
I suspect that there are actually an awful lot of bisexual people in the F/F kink community, but for one reason or another they’re fairly invisible. I can’t speak for everyone, but the biggest reason I personally don’t bring up the bisexual thing very often is because it’s not really relevant to anything 90% of the time. Most of the time I feel as if it would be weird and borderline disrespectful to bring up men in a F/F space, mostly because there are so very few spaces that actually are F/F. When you find one, its nice not to bring up men, just for once.
I’ve personally never hidden the fact that I’m bi, or the fact that I have a male partner. It’s also wildly obvious to anyone with eyes that I write both M/F and F/F books, so there’s another giveaway there.
At the end of the day however, when you’re having an F/F discussion in an F/F venue it’s just awkward and a little out of place to bring up bisexuality in the form of chatting about guys. Most of the time it would be the equivalent of adding an entirely unnecessary ‘also, penis’ to the end of every sentence. Also, penis.
See what I mean?
I do see however, how this bisexual invisibility would be sort of alienating to some people. I know sometimes I feel like I might be mistaken for a lesbian, which wouldn’t bother me at all, but which might not be fair either. I mean, what if people only liked reading my F/F stories because they thought I was a lesbian? What if they felt tricked upon discovering that there was a fellow about the place? Should I disclaimer everything I write with a WARNING: NOT A REAL LESBIAN!
Perhaps a little over the top, methinks.
Being bisexual is a little bit like being a switch, although you know you’re both, quite often you can only express one side of yourself at a time. It’s not possible to simultaneously top and bottom the same person, and it’s not possible to have a monogamous relationship with both a man and a woman at the same time.
Bisexuality does have some additional stigma in the lesbian community too, because more than one bisexual has broken a lesbian’s heart in twain by buggering off to be with a man. And bisexuals sort of get to fly under the radar, avoiding a lot of the hardship that comes with being an out and proud lesbian woman. Both those things could easily lead to a perhaps understandable, if not entirely constructive, resentment of the bisexual.
Having said that, I’ve never personally experienced any of that. Everybody has been lovely to me and those who perhaps weren’t so taken with me were probably annoyed by things other than who I take to bed at night.
So what’s the bisexual perspective? Well from my perspective, it’s pretty great. The F/F community has been nothing but kind and loving toward me, they’ve certainly embraced my work with enthusiasm and I have to say one of the reasons I love writing F/F so much is because I know I’m doing it for people who really love it. There’s an energy in the F/F community that I’ve never found elsewhere. The space, as it were, pulses with a feminine intensity that is invigorating to be around – even digitally.
I don’t know if that answers the question. I don’t know if there even was originally a question to be answered. Suffice to say, I think bisexual women are very welcome in the F/F community and have as much of a role to play as those who identify as lesbian. It’s a space defined by femininity, not sexuality. It’s a sisterhood. And it’s awesome.
