I wrote this because I'm not a nice person and I don't manage my time well

[cosmolinguist]

Okay, this was something I alluded to before but didn't get around to writing about because I didn't want to waste my energy or (poor enough as it is, lately) focus on this.

But what the hell, I'm feeling more chipper tonight. And his tweets (1, 2) got RTed into my timeline this evening and...I find myself just as annoyed as I was at first that he doesn't even get what he's done wrong, and is playing the martyr about persecution he hasn't really gotten.

This guy "wrote" an article consisting almost entirely of two straight women's responses to "would you date a bisexual?" one who said yes and one who said no. He wrote six sentences at the beginning: "Have you heard the news? Men can be bisexual, it’s not a phase, confusion or gay men telling half-truths." etc.

Then a woman spouting the most outrageous biphobia. Despite starting with "for me, it's pretty simple," I can't actually make sense out of half of what she says, but I can recognize traces of "they must be straight really or gay really," "it's a phase you grow out of," "I couldn't feel I was satisfying a bisexual because he'd want a man." It also includes "I can't see my thoughts changing on that" and "My theory (I could be completely wrong)" followed by a completely wrong theory.

The pro-bi woman makes some sweeping statements of her own ("confident and at home with who they are," "open-minded mentality") which apply to as many non-bi people I know as the bi ones, and fail to apply equally often. I'm sure her rebuttals to biphobia she claims to get from friends (aren't you worried he'll cheat on you with a man, you're only one person so how can you satisfy a bisexual) are sincere but as is so often the case the best sound like they lack conviction when the worst are full of passionate intensity, as the poet said.

And then there's the question "Would you date a bisexual man?" (stupid even for this kind of 'reader poll' considering plenty of readers wouldn't date any kind of a man...) with big orange YES and NO boxes underneath, and that's it. No more context, no connecting or closing text. In his rebuttal, the writer says "Unfortunately my conclusion where I celebrate dating bisexual men was cut when it went to print" but I think we can probably guess he's in favor of people dating bisexual men so it doesn't seem like we've lost anything there.

Before he even mentions this, he spends a lot of time justifying his article with irritating self-righteousness.

As a campaigner for bisexuals I have to make tough judgment calls on the way I discuss issues. I decided early on there where two ways I could play this. Option A, only be positive, ignore all the problems and pretend that everything is great because I am bisexual. Option B – I could address the problems and highlight failings in people’s attitude towards bisexuals. I chose Option B.

No, mate, you didn't. You didn't address the problem in the slightest. You quoted the problem, offering no context or solutions or support or literally any words at all beyond "men can be bisexual! but some women won't date them!" You're not even "discussing issues," much less making "tough judgment calls" about them.

I’ve previously written articles where I’ve highlighted misunderstandings about bisexual people and given sassy retorts that bisexuals can use the next time they hear them. In order to do such things I’ve had to acknowledge the biphobic comments out there.

Yes. Acknowledging biphobia isn't the problem. It's leaving it there that's the problem. I can't say I have high hopes for your "sassy retorts" but if you'd even offered some of those your article might conceivably have been of some use to someone, bisexual or not. As it is, it doesn't challenge or advance anyone's opinions, whatever they were to begin with.

My target audience for everything I do is young bisexuals who aren’t confident enough in themselves or their sexuality. They are more likely to be bullied, told what their sexuality is and generally discriminated against. I feel it’s my duty to be honest with them, to not only tell them why being bisexual is awesome but also to highlight some of the problems they may run in to.

They're more likely to have experienced all these negatives...so what benefit do they get from you just throwing another example into their face? If they're lacking confidence, give them some. This is the furthest thing from that.

Printing a biphobic opinion did two things. One; it allowed bisexuals to hear some of the arguments they may encounter so now if they hear it in real life it won’t catch them off guard. Two; it shone a spotlight on comments that bisexual people hear every single day.

These are the same thing. And really, I know a lot of bisexuals. A plurality of bisexuals. We want and need a lot of things. But I've never heard any of them say they wish they read more about "some of the arguments they encounter in real life."

Because...we encounter that in real life! If your target audience is non-bi people who don't think biphobia is a thing, okay (I'm sick to the back teeth that we haven't cleared this first hurdle of "do bisexuals exist and does biphobia exist" yet but I'm aware that no amount of me wanting to be past this is going to get us past this!). But you just said in the last paragraph that your target was young bisexuals. Who get the mos of this kind of thing, according to you. So...again I wonder how you think you're helping them.

Frankly I don’t care if people were offended – now maybe next time they are out for drinks with the gals and hear someone say something like that, they will condem it.

To hear this guy tell it, only women can be guilty of biphobia. Which I find interesting because every bi man I know (like every bi who's not a man, really) also is conscious of biphobia coming from gay men, who can be just as unwilling to date a bisexual man for some of the same reasons this straight woman mentioned and some specific to homosexuals (disdain for "breeders" or "straight privilege"/"straight passing" or whatever) and some specific to gay men (which as far as I can tell boil down to misogyny/the potential for catching girl cooties).

Something about this screams "generalizing from a bad personal experience," and does an unfortunate job of finding the universal in the individual.

Another thing that really made my eyes roll were those who said, ‘would you publish an article asking would you date a disabled/black person?’ This type of uneducated nonsense is unacceptable, especially from so called equality campaigners. If they don’t realise that the issues of, disabled, black, gay and bi people are completely different situations that need tailored approaches I question why they have their jobs.

Now this I think is interesting because I have been taught not to compare oppressions in this way. It erases the existence of multiply-oppressed people -- what about the disabled black bisexuals?! -- and its good intentions don't prevent it from being derailing.

Lots of times, for instance, people try to compare the reactions to mental illness and physical illness, and try to make the point that you shouldn't give someone shit for being depressed because you wouldn't give someone shit who had cancer or whatever, with the implication that this is unfair because it's not the person's fault. While I agree with that conclusion, that premise doesn't get you here, because plenty of people with physical illnesses or conditions do get the same kind of shit as a mentally ill person. So talking this way assumes we're all clued-up and perfect on physical limitations, that it's only on mental illness that we have some catching up to do. Pretty much any time someone says "you wouldn't say the same thing about X group," people are saying and doing that same thing to X: I could actually imagine a "would you date a disabled person?" being written and published in a very similar way to this! So these comparisons are not good.

But not for the reason this guy says! "The issues of, disabled, black, gay and bi people are completely different situations that need tailored approaches"...hm, well I'm in Purple Prose, a new book about bisexuality, in the chapter about disability talking about similar patterns I've noticed in my disability and my sexuality and how they can inform each other, so that's what I think about all these things being "completely different."

My bisexual activism will be intersectional or it will be bullshit. This guy's is bullshit.

I also found it rather irritating that so many people from the LGBT world come forward to condemn the publication for allowing these comments to go out. We should be applauding them for running such a feature? Did the article get even one mention of the fact that it was the first time a man has had the word ‘bisexual’ tattooed across their chest published on a large news website? No!

I think that fact (pictured on both the Metro article and this cry-piece) got exactly as much comment as it deserves, in that case.

This idea that bisexuals are so desperate for publicity that we should be grateful for any little scraps is also dangerous. Yes we're underrepresented and misunderstood, but that doesn't mean we have to be happy about shit like this.

The only thing I can say to all these LGBT campaigners that have tweeted disgust is that I think you’re lazy!

I...was not expecting that! There are a lot of things I'd call "LGBT campaigners" in general and on bisexual issues in particular but... I feel "lazy" belies a poor grasp on the problems most bisexuals have with them.

Your approach of ‘let’s just ignore the haters and boycott the things we don’t like’ has achieved nothing. You have to start a dialogue with them to change things.

Where's the dialogue then, mate? What have you started? You just dropped this turd of an article and want us to be impressed at your shirtlessness. I'm just glad you managed to avoid talking about censorship or freeze peach. You think people are complaining because we want you to ignore this? It's not enough to point at it; we expect more. You're not a martyr for the truth, you just called up something you didn't know how to put down.

"One thing that was apparent from the trolling I received on Twitter was that not many bisexuals were offended by the piece"

How many of us do there need to be before you stop being so self-righteous? I'll set up a facebook event for it.

I do think it's interesting that he contrasts "LGBT campaigners" and "bisexuals," here and when he says "The LGBT campaigners don’t know what bisexuals want." Even this guy seems to have noticed that the two groups seem to be mutually exclusive!

The opinion from prominent LGBT voices was that I shouldn’t be talking about it. A bisexual being erased and told not to question things by gay people is nothing new.

See? "Prominent LGBT voices" are conflated with gay men, specifically. Which is the first thing in this article I can relate to!

Ask yourself, when was the last time an LGBT organisation did a campaign promoting women with bisexual boyfriends? – or the first for that matter? The truth is bisexuals are often last on the list of priorities for LGBT groups...

Okay there's the second thing I agree with, bisexuals are last on the list, though I'm unsure what he wants us to campaign on re: "women with bisexual boyfriends" except Get Me a Girlfriend.

and that’s why I’ve always believed bisexuals should go solo and campaign for their equality on their own.

Okay, we're back down to one thing I agree with so far.

The thing you have to remember is that national newspapers don’t need to discuss bisexuality everyday. What I do is PR for bisexuals and I have to make content that all of the newspapers readers will click on. In my short time campaigning I’ve got bisexual issues on to national news sites numerous times – far more than any LGBT group has done in the same period.

Citation needed? Though sadly it's not like they set a very high bar...

I know what I’m doing and I’m the best person for the job.

Lord. I'd say give me the confidence of this mediocre white man, but I'm afraid that much of an overdose might ruin me like it apparently has him. There are so many people I'd rather see writing for the likes of the Metro about bisexuality.

The truth is I don’t care what LGBT groups have to say, I don’t care what Twitter has to say and I certainly don’t care about what gay and straight people have to say.

Yeah, I can tell you don't care, by how many words you haven't written here. I didn't know I cared as much about this as I did, but all these words I've written tell me I do! Possibly inadvisably! But inarguably.

My loyalty and the entire reason I dedicate so much of my free time is to help ...the young bisexual guys and girls who aren’t confident in themselves or their sexuality yet and who are discriminated against by straight and gay people. The very people who often feel let down by LGBT groups.

Man, which is it? Do you care about the straight and gay people and the LGBT groups or not? I think you do, and I think you're too consumed by the need for bluff swagger to be consistent about admitting that. I hope your masculinity becomes less fragile. I hope you don't always have to answer criticism of your work with personal affrontery and defensive aggression. I know writing can feel really personal but it's not you. You might be really great, but this isn't.

Comments

[bethanthepurple.livejournal.com]

GRRRRR!!!!

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

Thanks for writing this! When I saw your earlier post I was a bit confused about what you didn't like about that article -- though that is mostly because I only skim-read it, and didn't pick up on lots of what you've explained here.

[cosmolinguist]

Skim-reading is probably better, would've saved some of my sanity if I'd done that. :)