Purgatory: the erasure of bisexuality

Looking back, there were obvious signs that pointed towards my bisexuality as a child. I had often fantasied about other girls at school, and had been distraught after a long-term female best friend decided she didn’t want to be my friend anymore. The feelings I felt then I now recognise as being the same grief I felt after subsequent breakups. While I hadn’t labelled it as that at the time, it was certainly true that I was in love with her. In fact, the label of bisexuality was one that I didn’t really identify with for many years, associating it with promiscuity and attention-seeking. This internalised biphobia continued until my late teens, manifesting itself as self-hatred, the origin of which I could never place. While the word ‘confused’ has been used to undermine bisexual experiences in the past, it was certainly something that resonated with me. I knew that I was attracted to women but found it confusing that I had the same feelings for men, constantly trying to order myself to pick one and stick with it.

I had grown up as a Catholic, attended an all-girl Catholic secondary school and been very involved in the Church. However, as I grew older I felt that I’d developed a double life; sleeping with my secret girlfriend on a Saturday night and then going to church as an ‘innocent virgin’ on a Sunday morning. This split in my identity made it even harder to come to terms with my sexuality, feeling intense guilt any time either the Church or the LGBT community were discussed. These feelings of guilt with the Church have obvious roots; sprouting from the daily reminders that homosexuality was not welcome in my religious community, believing that we all have a choice to not act on our sinful thoughts. However, as I started to explore my sexuality more, I realised that some members of the LGBT community were also less welcoming. I found this out while attending a party with my then-girlfriend, when an older lesbian friend of hers told me that I’d either use this relationship as a ‘stepping-stone into lesbianism’ or as ‘a playful experimentation’ that would end in me realising I was straight. It made me self-conscious of the label bisexual, worrying that people thought my experiences were irrelevant or disingenuous. I felt that I had been placed into a metaphorical purgatory, where neither community would accept me.

 This continued for many years, until I left my home in the South West of England to move to Edinburgh for university. By this point I had distanced myself from the Church, realising that many of my personal politics (such as my views on abortion and gender roles) were incompatible with this denomination of Christianity. Moving the almost 500 miles from my home, also allowed me to be more open about my sexuality, with my first non-closeted girlfriend. While my family did not know (as many of them still don’t), all of my friends, colleagues and classmates did. It felt freeing being able to be proud of who I was. That was until we broke up and a few months later I got a boyfriend. Almost immediately, I felt that people were judging me, thinking that my previous relationship wasn’t genuine. This pushed me swiftly back in the closet, as I found it was too awkward to explain the situation. However, I found that a part of my identity was locked away with it, feeling that I no longer had any agency to discuss matters affecting the LGBT community because I was in a heterosexual-presenting relationship.

Now, there is one thing that I think is important to mention here. I have noticed that being in a heterosexual-presenting relationship affords me a certain level of privilege; the most obvious of which is that I don’t have to worry about hate crimes based on my outward sexuality. This is important as I recognise a big difference in the way people have treated me over the years, based on the gender of my partner.

Notwithstanding this privilege, the gender of my partner does not change my sexuality. When I am with a woman, I am not a lesbian. When I am with a man, I am not straight. I am and always will be bisexual. This poses unique challenges.

As previously mentioned, bisexuality erasure is a very real experience with many bisexual women feeling that they have to ‘pick a side’ or their integrity will be questioned. This erasure is worsened by the reality that 81% of bisexual people end up in opposite sex relationships (Pew Research Centre, 2013), which is often attributed to the theory that people feel forced into pursuing relationships that are more socially acceptable due to the patriarchal and heteronormative society we live in.  

Promiscuity is also an interesting and damaging stereotype which is associated with bisexuality, stemming from the supposed ‘confusion’ and therefore experimentation that people believe to exist. It is often believed that bisexual people are more likely to cheat or engage in irresponsible sexual practices (such as having multiple partners without protection or testing). This stereotype is dangerous for multiple reasons, one (from a feminist perspective} is that it shames people (particularly women) in their sexual activity as well as undermining the emotional aspect of attraction. This again contributes to the belief that bisexual relationships are not as authentic as other relationships due to the supposed focus on sex. This was something I struggled with a lot growing up, particularly due to my Catholic background. The ‘whore/virgin’ dichotomy has always been of great interest to me as it reveals a lot about how our society views women. We are either pure but naïve or experienced but disgusting. This shaped my early views of myself as a sexual person, being told that I must remain a virgin in my Catholic identity but wanting to explore my seemingly ‘promiscuous’ bisexual desires. I have grown to embrace my sexuality as a more multifaceted identity, which includes both sexual and emotional attraction, neither of which being a negative thing.

I recently read a fantastic book (which I encourage you all to read!) called ‘The Bi-Ble’. It is a collection of essays on bisexuality, exploring a variety of topics. This book articulated the feelings and thoughts that I never had the courage to discuss and helped me to be confident in my identity. It also highlighted some alarming statistics linked to the bisexual experience, for example, recent research shows that bisexual people tend to report ‘lower levels of perceived social support, with higher levels of depression, anxiety, PTSD and suicidal ideation or attempts’ (Roberts et all, 2015). This demonstrates the importance of differentiating bisexual experiences from other sexualities due to their unique challenges, and that reducing the visibility of bisexual people could have a detrimental effect on changing those statistics.

We may never escape the ‘purgatory’ that our society puts us in, however, it is important to keep reminding people that we are here, our experiences are valid and we will not be erased.

By Kitty Taylor-Brown