Sententiola

Is that erasure?  I’m not an expert on this stuff.  I have relatively little experience of erasure, of how it happens and how it harms.  But to me this doesn’t read like she’s saying bisexuality doesn’t exist.  Or even denying she is bisexual herself.  It reads like she’s saying she doesn’t use that term because ‘everybody likes to dump on the bisexuals’.  Which, from what I gather, is kind of true?

Does simply choosing not to call yourself bisexual constitute erasure of bisexuality?  Are we taking that approach now?  Are we saying that bisexual people are obliged to identify themselves as such, even when they can expect to be stigmatized or marginalized or not taken seriously, even within queer communities, as a result?  Are we saying that people who are afraid or ashamed to call themselves bisexual are actually being oppressive?  Why are we interested in criticizing those people rather than the structures that are making them feel that way?

Okay, I recognize that it’s a self-perpetuating problem.  The under-representation and the marginalization deter people from proclaiming their bisexuality, and at the same time the fact that people don’t proclaim it means it continues to be under-represented and marginalized.  That’s clearly a reason to praise and celebrate people who resist that trend and make their bisexuality known.  It sounds like you’re one of those people, and I celebrate you for it.  But shouldn’t we be very careful before going from ‘people who are open about their bisexuality are doing a good thing and should be praised’ to ‘people who are not open about their bisexuality are doing a bad thing and should be criticized’?

But anyway, I’ve got a bit off the track here, because I’m writing as if it’s a given that Nixon is, despite what she says, bisexual.  It isn’t.  Even if there is some sort of moral obligation on people who are bisexual to say that they are, I don’t think we can say that she has that obligation because I don’t think we can say that she’s bisexual.  Here are three reasons why.

First, okay, so she had sex with men in the past.  Now she’s in a relationship with a woman.  It seems to be a monogamous relationship.  As far as we know, she hasn’t had sex with a man in the last, like, eight years.  A lot of gay people have had straight relationships at one time or another.  Some quite serious ones.  Then they stop having them.  Are they all always bisexual for the rest of their lives?  Is there a certain number of years that have to pass?  Or do you become gay as soon as you disavow your former relationships and confess that you were living a lie the whole time?  Can’t sexuality change?

Secondly, there are more than two genders.  That doesn’t mean that people can’t be bisexual or that all bisexual people are ‘really’ pansexual or whatever, but it does mean that even if you think it’s okay to label someone’s sexuality according to some kind of ‘objective’ criteria regardless of their self-identification, you can’t logically assume that a woman who has sex with men and women is bisexual.  That person may also have sex with people who have another gender, or people who have no gender.  We don’t know.

Thirdly, and coming back to the theme of my post yesterday, we can’t confidently say that Cynthia Nixon is bisexual because she doesn’t say she’s bisexual.  Because, look, maybe I’m being overly rainbows-and-butterflies idealistic about this, but I think it would be nice if we could support her right to define her own sexuality even if she were trying to erase other people’s.  It would be nice if we could support her right to define her own sexuality, regardless of anything she says or does, because it’s her right, because getting to define your own sexuality and describe it in your own terms is not a privilege that you have to earn by doing good deeds but something that we should support even the most obnoxious hateful people to do, because that’s the kind of revolution we want.  One where people don’t deny or question your identity, your own account of yourself, even if you’re kind of a douche a lot of the time, because that’s just one of those things that we don’t do to people.

I know that isn’t my judgment to make.  I’m not bisexual.  If you think Nixon is being so harmful and oppressive to you that her own account of her sexuality doesn’t deserve respect or support, I have to concede that I’m less qualified than you are to make that assessment.  All I can say is that I wish it weren’t like that; and that I’d like a queer community that regards accepting people’s self-descriptions as a basic rule and that criticizes the forces that oppress people rather than the people who don’t manage to overcome those forces.  That’s the sort of community I see people I admire working for, and that’s what I want.