Bisexuality. Something that used to be seen as alluring and chic now reads as a default schtick. What was once a limitless approach to love has become a halfhearted attempt at homosexuality. But what is the only thing worse than being bisexual? Being a bisexual girl with a boyfriend.
Bisexual girls with boyfriends seem to be a growing phenomenon – and one that not many care for. But the more I have thought about it, the more I argue that they are actually far from a phenomenon and closer to a sort of predestination. Yet, for a demographic so populous, their presence in queer spaces is often unwelcome, and the validity of their queerness is quickly dismissed. While many of these girls are very queer in their theory, they are not seen as queer enough due to their practices, which is where the slander for bisexual girls with boyfriends arises.
While all sexes are subject to fetishization, bisexual girls seem to face greater scrutiny for their lack of originality and the discrepant nature of their queerness. Much of this criticism comes from the queer community itself, which then alienates these girls, deeming them a disgrace to their freedoms.
Now, by no means are bisexual girls or their boyfriends being rolled up in carpets or doused in gasoline, but the negative connotations surrounding their being is real and ever-growing. Casual, lighthearted biphobia seems fine in passing, but not when it onsets an internal struggle to be “queer enough.” Struggles of this sort are vexing enough, but then you are faced with your boyfriend, a constant reminder that perhaps you really are not queer enough. Resentment sparks, curiosity seeds. The only word to describe it, truly, is uncomfortable.
At the risk of “woe is me,” I beg the question: how does one cope with being a bisexual girl with a boyfriend?
As dramatic as it may sound, I think that a good place to start is by acknowledging and forgiving any shame you have surrounding your identity. When you have grace with yourself, you can then gain some clarity and recognize that it is not your fault. You did not choose to be bisexual, and chances are, you did not even choose to have a boyfriend.
Something that both bisexuals and their critics fail to realize is that being a bisexual girl with a boyfriend is not a rite of passage; rather, it is a statistical inevitability. For every beautiful woman that graces this green earth, God placed a couple of dozen average Joes to be the chip on their shoulder. Dating men as a bisexual girl can merely be a matter of proximity, and with the landscape of dating becoming increasingly efficient, men have become unavoidable while remaining dispensable.
Along with the proximity that comes with men, there are socially conditioned and biologically innate conveniences to dating them as women. As young growing girls, our parents sit us down to explain the birds and the bees, not the dental dam. We then go to school, where we learn to wait for boys to ask us to the dance, not the other way around.
As we get a little older, and the time to start dating comes, we already know what goes in what hole and when to pay for dinner (the answer is never, if you are playing your cards right). We know all the ropes before we have even tied the knot. Bisexual girls with boyfriends embody the social conditions in which they are raised.
Human nature teaches us to fear the unknown, and dating women as a woman in a heteronormative society will always be an unknown, regardless of how many times you have done it. There is no clear answer as to who should pay for what, or what exactly goes where, and for how long. Many bisexual women will recognize that, and then it becomes a barrier to them pursuing real, romantic relationships with women. This is why the queerness of some women never progresses past making their Barbies kiss in grade school, or a private tab you click out of before you pass the phone to your boyfriend.
Believe me when I tell you that not all bisexual girls who have never been with women, whether that be romantically or sexually, have not done so out of disinterest. It is likely that they just have not been able to surpass their trepidations. That, or they have not had the opportunity, and that opportunity ends when you get a boyfriend.
Women who are comfortable with their queerness and want to be in real, romantic relationships with other women are then doomed to dating pools flooded with wishy-washy bisexual girls still insecure in their identity. Bisexual girls who have recognized their trepidations to meaningfully dating women but are unwilling to surpass their discomfort then reduce other women to a behind-the-scenes act, taking them only to bed and never to breakfast.
As a bisexual girl with a boyfriend, I must admit that some criticisms of the demographic are within reason, but solely due to these types of women. Bisexual girls who do not date women but will still have sex with them are no better than the average straight man, an unimpressive demographic who they will proudly date, and sometimes at the same time.
Bisexual girls with the type of boyfriend that gets off on their sexual fluidity, who do not care if they hook up with women, are invalidating their own identity as a queer person and fueling the idea that bisexuality overall is illegitimate. The men they date neither see them as legitimate, granted that they will still wear their ring.
Now, having an understanding of the reasoning for bisexual girls with boyfriends, the societal pressures promoting heterosexual relationships, and the erasure perpetuated by one’s own communities, one can begin to cope with their circumstances.
While we do not have to make bisexual girls with boyfriends the face of the queer community, we should not be ridiculing them for being in straight relationships. The ridicule they face is nothing more than a lack of understanding of the complex social and sexual environments in which women are raised to exist. So whatever shame you feel for being a bisexual girl with a boyfriend, know that the true shame lies with the ignorant. We cannot be shamed by the ignorant, and our queerness will not be erased by people who cannot see the things greater than themselves.