it's called soft drink: Monosexual privilege - what it is, and what it isn't

bidyke:

(For anyone who doesn’t know me: I’m the one who wrote the Monosexual Privilege Checklist).

Monosexual privilege is NOT about:

Gay and lesbian people, as a group, benefit from monosexism:

  • It makes homosexuality seem more stable as a sexual orientation
  • It makes it easier to use “born this way” type arguments
  • It makes it easier to argue that gay people are no threat to straight population, because “gayness is not contagious”
  • It exorcises concepts like instability, confusion and “it’s just a phase” from gay identities, making it easier to promote to straight publics
  • It exorcises the threat of nonmonogamy that bisexuality carries with it, giving way to monogamy and homonormativity
  • It saves money and resources for LG movements and organizations (because they get to have more of the cake)
  • In general, it helps pave their way to straight mainstream acceptance and acknowledgment

Straight society is responsible for the oppression of bi people - gay and lesbian communities are responsible for collaboration. And yes, they do get cookies for it. That’s why it’s called “monosexual privilege”. You get cookies for being monosexual. The fact that straight people get MORE cookies (hell, they even get the fucking factory) does not mean the cookies are gone.

Think about the way cisgender privilege conflates men and women. Cis women are obviously oppressed because of their gender. Cis men are 10000000 times more privileged than cis women. Does that mean cis privilege doesn’t exist? Does that mean cis women are not privileged over trans* people? No.

But really, I love how tumblr intersectionality goes all to hell the moment someone uses the word “monosexual”.

Source: bidyke

Go home biphobia! YOU SUCK!: I am probably gonna regret this but fucking christ

dreadful-record-of-sin:

I understand that some bisexuals identify their sexuality as “attracted to both people who are and are not my gender”. That is fine and a 100% valid definition and I absolutely support that. It is a good definition.

I also understand that some pansexuals outright…

I’m actually with OP on this one. While I do think there’s a HUGE problem with scapegoating bi people for transphobia and cissexism, we can’t use that to avoid discussing existing transphboia and cissexism in bi communities. I wrote a post about this once, but unsurprisingly, it didn’t get around that much. I also dedicated about 10 pages to this in my book.

I also have to say that I do think there’s a problem with cis people not being attracted to trans* and non-binary people. Here’s what I wrote about this in the post I linked above:

I don’t think that being attracted only to cis men and women is overtly/deliberately transphobic and evil. I don’t think that such people intend to hurt anyone or to practice cis privilege on anyone’s back. However and notwithstanding, I do find that this tendency resonates with cissexist social standards.

People often like to think about attraction as a non-political, inborn, pure, uncontrollable quality which is somehow a given, but in most cases this is not so. More often than not, our attractions are shaped by social standards of beauty and attractiveness – of who/what is “allowed” to be considered attractive, and who/what is not. These standards of beauty are of course deeply political as they are shaped by dominant social beliefs and structures: to name just a few, white people are considered more attractive than people of color, thin people more than fat people, nondisabled people more than disabled people – and cisgender people more than transgender/genderqueer people. In Read My Lips, Riki Wilchins argues that the reason why transgender people are considered unattractive is that their/our bodies are unintelligible in terms of sexual attraction, to a culture which constructs its sexuality upon cisgender bodies. In order to be considered attractive, one must possess a body that “matches” their gender identity. This means that cisgender bodies are structurally privileged in terms of sexuality and sexual attraction – and we know what structural privileging of cisgender identity is called (that’s rights, cissexism).

Lisa Millbank of A Radical TransFeminist wrote very eloquently about how people need to challenge themselves in terms of sexual attraction to include people of marginalized groups, whom society teaches us to find unattractive: Significant Othering: Attraction Down The Privilege Gradient. I advise anyone to whom it may concern, to read this and reflect upon the contents.

Source: dreadful-record-of-sin

TL;DR: Can we please stop saying "non-monosexual"

angrybisexual:

anthean:

writingfromfactorx:

angrybisexual:

…unless we also mean asexuals.

There already is an umbrella term, widely used for some time now, which most people understand in a similar way… “bisexuals”.

Is this a thing? I mean, as an asexual I had always…

Before I respond, I have to say that there were many smart and helpful comments in this thread, and unfortunately I couldn’t reblog them all. So if any of my followers are interested in this topic, do check out the entire thread!

Now, my opinion:

I think that there are a lot of intersecting issues here. One is asexual erasure. I agree with other commentators in this thread that there’s a problem in using a term that technically covers ace people, without actually referring to ace people. It’s kinda like saying “LGBT” and then only talking about gay people. I also think that there’s a lot to explore around the intersections and connections between bisexuality and asexuality, and that this is an important thing to do. But if we want to talk about it, we need to talk about it rather than to use a term that simply makes ace people invisible. As other people pointed out in this thread, people tend to use this term as if asexuality doesn’t exist. Indeed, in a world where there’s no such thing as asexuality, “nonmonosexual” would mean bi/pan. But that’s not the world we live in, and that’s not a term we should use if that’s the sort of effect it creates.

Another issue is the Anything But Bisexual (“ABB”) trope. I do need to say first that I feel really uncomfortable with angrybisexual’s comment that there’s no real difference between bi and pan. It dismisses and invalidates pansexual identities, which is unfair. If an identity exists, then that means people feel in need of it, and that’s legitimate enough for me. Notwithstanding that, I also believe that the fact that most people who are attracted to more than one gender don’t identify as bisexual, at the very least points to wide feelings of discomfort around the word “bisexuality”. And we have to ask ourselves where this discomfort comes from: Is it because the word itself is inherently and irredeemably problematic? Or does it in fact reflect biphobia? Julia Serano wrote about this in Bisexuality and Binaries Revisited:

It seems to me that the primary force driving these alternate label choices is not coming from within the BMNOPPQ community itself, but rather from external pressure exerted on us by other queer subgroups. As I’ve already discussed, there has always been pressure on BMNOPPQ folks to hide or subsume our identities in order to fit into existing gay, lesbian and queer communities. But these days, there is additional pressure placed on us by certain transgender voices that insist that we must stop using the term bisexual because it supposedly “reinforces the gender binary.”

And I do agree. I think bisexuality must be the least legitimate identity among LGBTQ’s (notwithstanding asexuality, which is probably on the same level or sometimes worse), and obviously people at large respond to that. We all want to be accepted, supported and validated. Especially when you’re attracted to more than one gender, and have to contend with a complicated and difficult social reality around that. Avoiding the word “bisexual” can often remove barriers for people in the context of queer communities. But does it mean we can’t use “bisexual” anymore? I feel the opposite: because the word is so delegitimized, we have to use it even more, reclaim it and use it to fight biphobia and monosexism.

The third issue I wanted to raise is that I feel seriously uncomfortable with “non-X” words (“nonmonosexual”, “nonwhite”, “non-heterosexual”, etc.). It’s politically questionable at best to refer to ourselves only in relation to the dominant group. What “nonmonosexual” does is to say: “See that dominant standard? We’re not like that”. It does nothing to challenge the standard itself, but instead uses the it as the basis on which we build our identities. In other words, it reinforces a monosexist standard. It doesn’t allow us to talk about our identities from our standpoint, in relation to ourselves. Saying “nonmonosexual” makes “monosexual” the center. But I want bisexuality to be the center - because we matter and our identities matter, and our ability to speak about ourselves with our own language matters.

At the end of the day, “nonmonosexual” is just another way to avoid saying “bisexual”, and that’s all kinds of problematic.

Source: angrybisexual

the-queerdo-brigade: todayiamadrian: mudpiefactory: dani-kin: the-queerdo-brigade: Rebloggable by request. Links found in the original post: “Here is a good post by a bisexual person on pansexual people misdefining bisexuality.” “Here is a good post by a pansexual on problematic definitions of pansexuality.” “This and this are prime examples [of pansexual people claiming themselves as the breakers of the gender binary].” “See my previous posts on nonbinary people in nonmonosexual communities here, here, and here.” THIS IS AMAZING.  YES.  THIS. wow this expresses so many things that I could never quite process What about pansexual people who don’t hate on bi people or mis-define bisexuality? What about pan people who aren’t ignorant towards trans* identities? What about pansexual people who have trans* identities? Why does every other post I see on pansexuality have these broad generalizations about what pansexual people say and think?  Congratulations on the most roundabout version of “we’re not all like that” I’ve ever seen. Nowhere did I say “all pan people.” I used cis and binary identity qualifiers where relevant. And by the way, binary trans*people perpetuate a lot of binarism and nonbinary erasure. So what about all those pan people who “aren’t like that” that I didn’t talk about? What do you want, a pat on the back? A fruit basket with a card saying “congratulations on not personally being one of the people who misrepresent, appropriate, and generally shit on my identity”? I don’t owe you a fucking mention, not one. OMG!
Zoom Info
the-queerdo-brigade: todayiamadrian: mudpiefactory: dani-kin: the-queerdo-brigade: Rebloggable by request. Links found in the original post: “Here is a good post by a bisexual person on pansexual people misdefining bisexuality.” “Here is a good post by a pansexual on problematic definitions of pansexuality.” “This and this are prime examples [of pansexual people claiming themselves as the breakers of the gender binary].” “See my previous posts on nonbinary people in nonmonosexual communities here, here, and here.” THIS IS AMAZING.  YES.  THIS. wow this expresses so many things that I could never quite process What about pansexual people who don’t hate on bi people or mis-define bisexuality? What about pan people who aren’t ignorant towards trans* identities? What about pansexual people who have trans* identities? Why does every other post I see on pansexuality have these broad generalizations about what pansexual people say and think?  Congratulations on the most roundabout version of “we’re not all like that” I’ve ever seen. Nowhere did I say “all pan people.” I used cis and binary identity qualifiers where relevant. And by the way, binary trans*people perpetuate a lot of binarism and nonbinary erasure. So what about all those pan people who “aren’t like that” that I didn’t talk about? What do you want, a pat on the back? A fruit basket with a card saying “congratulations on not personally being one of the people who misrepresent, appropriate, and generally shit on my identity”? I don’t owe you a fucking mention, not one. OMG!
Zoom Info
the-queerdo-brigade: todayiamadrian: mudpiefactory: dani-kin: the-queerdo-brigade: Rebloggable by request. Links found in the original post: “Here is a good post by a bisexual person on pansexual people misdefining bisexuality.” “Here is a good post by a pansexual on problematic definitions of pansexuality.” “This and this are prime examples [of pansexual people claiming themselves as the breakers of the gender binary].” “See my previous posts on nonbinary people in nonmonosexual communities here, here, and here.” THIS IS AMAZING.  YES.  THIS. wow this expresses so many things that I could never quite process What about pansexual people who don’t hate on bi people or mis-define bisexuality? What about pan people who aren’t ignorant towards trans* identities? What about pansexual people who have trans* identities? Why does every other post I see on pansexuality have these broad generalizations about what pansexual people say and think?  Congratulations on the most roundabout version of “we’re not all like that” I’ve ever seen. Nowhere did I say “all pan people.” I used cis and binary identity qualifiers where relevant. And by the way, binary trans*people perpetuate a lot of binarism and nonbinary erasure. So what about all those pan people who “aren’t like that” that I didn’t talk about? What do you want, a pat on the back? A fruit basket with a card saying “congratulations on not personally being one of the people who misrepresent, appropriate, and generally shit on my identity”? I don’t owe you a fucking mention, not one. OMG!
Zoom Info

the-queerdo-brigade:

todayiamadrian:

mudpiefactory:

dani-kin:

the-queerdo-brigade:

Rebloggable by request.

Links found in the original post:

  • “Here is a good post by a bisexual person on pansexual people misdefining bisexuality.”
  • “Here is a good post by a pansexual on problematic definitions of pansexuality.”
  • “This and this are prime examples [of pansexual people claiming themselves as the breakers of the gender binary].”
  • “See my previous posts on nonbinary people in nonmonosexual communities here, here, and here.”

THIS IS AMAZING.  YES.  THIS.

wow this expresses so many things that I could never quite process

What about pansexual people who don’t hate on bi people or mis-define bisexuality? What about pan people who aren’t ignorant towards trans* identities? What about pansexual people who have trans* identities? Why does every other post I see on pansexuality have these broad generalizations about what pansexual people say and think? 

Congratulations on the most roundabout version of “we’re not all like that” I’ve ever seen.

Nowhere did I say “all pan people.” I used cis and binary identity qualifiers where relevant. And by the way, binary trans*people perpetuate a lot of binarism and nonbinary erasure.

So what about all those pan people who “aren’t like that” that I didn’t talk about? What do you want, a pat on the back? A fruit basket with a card saying “congratulations on not personally being one of the people who misrepresent, appropriate, and generally shit on my identity”? I don’t owe you a fucking mention, not one.

OMG!

(via angrybisexual)

Source: the-queerdo-brigade

Coming soon to a text post near you!: backupandround: queenlisasimpson: hello bisexual and otherwise...

a-little-bi-furious:

tearingdownthatfence:

twbasketcase:

bidyke:

queenlisasimpson:

toiletdemon:

backupandround:

queenlisasimpson:

hello bisexual and otherwise non-monosexual women.

if lesbians do not want to date you that is not oppression.

No, it’s not. What it is, however, is kind of douchey, if the only reason they don’t want to date us is because we’re bi*. That…

All of the above apart from OP’s blah-blahing

It really is your loss. Also thanks for contributing to the ongoing image of us as empty-headed fucktoys that are okay to sleep with if you’re drunk enough and haven’t gotten with a ‘real lesbian’ at the bar, but completely unsuitable for actually interacting with or treating like human beings

Then you wonder why so many of us haven’t had actual relationships with women and accuse us of faking because of this, like how do we make you comfortable with our existence? Or, to be honest, why the fuck should we, seeing as you don’t seem to care about whether we feel welcome or even human in your ~*Glorious Real Gold Star Lesbian*~ presence

Ding dong I am bisexual so well done.

You’re response is beyond gross and it’s almost in Nice Guy territory. What I was saying is that 

1. Though people in the gay community might buy into bi stereotypes, they are not our oppressors

2. Bisexuals need to sort out our priorities. Combat the stereotypes themselves rather than the outcome.

Ding dong, here’s some priorities for you.

Really feeling like the “lesbians [blah blah blah] stereotypes [blah blah blah] not oppression [blah blah blah]” is becoming a trope for diverting our attention from the real issues.

Always reblog those statistics.

If you know there are more important things to do then why are you starting shit in the tag and getting everyone talking about this?

smh

Wait, so getting angry at people refusing to date us simply because we’re bisexual is nice guy syndrome? I think the grossest thing in is thread is that comparison.

I mean sweet lord, forgive us for not being A-OK with people rejecting us solely based on stereotypes of us being dirty, deceitful, and shallow mentally ill closet-cases. Fuck us right?

It’s been said before in this thread, there really is no reason to not date someone because they’re bisexual unless you believe the stereotypes and support the erasure and exclusion of bisexuals.

That leads to deeper stuff than hurt feelings as the statistics indicate. And just because you are not the overarching oppressor does not mean you cannot contribute to our oppression, hell even bisexuals can contribute to systematic oppression by acting on their internalized biphobia. So don’t pretend that you can shut down these conversations and call outs with pointing to the root cause, you’re still perpetuating hate that adds up to our oppression, that’s a big deal.

And I for one am sick of the smokescreen people create when trying to silence our anger, whether it comes up when we get rejected romantically because of our sexuality or when we state statistics concerning bigger issues for bisexuals, by framing our complaints with “hey it’s not oppression, x and y are not our oppressors, it’s not a big deal.”

Well you’re not helping me out of this oppression, and you’re fueling the oppression I face by supporting biphobes and silencing bisexuals…so, what is this exactly? 

Don’t want to date a particular bisexual for other reasons like body-odor, lack of interests or creepy behavior? Sure, who gives a shit? It’s your life.

Don’t want to date any bisexual ever because you believe they’ll cheat on you, they’ll carry diseases and/or they’re really just straight people playing gay for attention? You’re a shitty person and I hope nobody dates you, you can get the hell away from me.

That should be the response to any one who tries to disguise their prejudice by calling them “preferences.” I think it’s gross to even entertain those kinds of people and their messed up ideas about my sexuality, playing games in the bisexuality tag of “oh, it’s not oppression, stop whinging” enables these mega-douches to treat me and others like crap, divert resources and time that could be spent on bigger issues into people doing mental gymnastics trying to justify their and others biphobia, and coming into our spaces to tell us that being upset about this stuff is trivial, rather than help dismantle the systems which oppress us.

We’re not forcing biphobic lesbians to date bisexual women, the kicker is we were careful not to call it oppression either because it is more complex than that and that has already been outlined in this thread for OP. Yet another misconception used to dismiss all bi issues and justify exclusion of bisexuals as being hostile to the gay and lesbian community.

We just want the right to respond to that kind of overt biphobia with anger and the right to call it bullshit, hell just to talk about it, can we not even talk about it without people coming into the bisexuality tag to tell us to shut up?

The very fact that OP thinks that’s on a par with a sexually aggressive harasser not respecting women’s boundaries and complaining about how all women are bitches for not being impressed that they are such a “nice guy”, show we really have problems being heard and listened to here.

More awesome commentary. Bi Tumblr, you are being so amazing with this thread. I just wanted to thank you all, you make me feel like there’s still hope in this world <3

Source: queenlisasimpson

Go home biphobia! YOU SUCK!: pareia: gohomebiphobia: There’s some weird, awful, self-fulfilling...

pareia:

gohomebiphobia:

There’s some weird, awful, self-fulfilling circle going on here.

Lesbian and gay people dislike having bi people in their circles, due to any number of reasons, so they exclude them.

The bi people are scared to go into “queer” spaces, so they live their lives…

+100000 to creating bi communities. This is basically what my activism is about IRL. I have worked really hard over the past 4 years to found a bisexual community where I live. It’s still small, but it’s active and wonderful and supportive and everything that it needs to be (politically too!). This is also what I want my next book to be about: bisexual activism and organizing. I don’t know when I’ll find the time to write it, because I just started my MA… but it will happen sometime in the next few years.

Go home biphobia! YOU SUCK!: cybernotter: gohomebiphobia: rainbowbreathingbisexual:...

cybernotter:

gohomebiphobia:

rainbowbreathingbisexual:

queenlisasimpson:

Coming soon to a text post near you!: backupandround: queenlisasimpson: hello bisexual and otherwise…

toiletdemon:

backupandround:

queenlisasimpson:

hello bisexual and otherwise non-monosexual women.

if lesbians do not want to date you that is not oppression.

No, it’s not. What it is, however, is kind of douchey, if the only reason they don’t want to date us is because we’re bi*. That…

All of the above apart from OP’s blah-blahing

It really is your loss. Also thanks for contributing to the ongoing image of us as empty-headed fucktoys that are okay to sleep with if you’re drunk enough and haven’t gotten with a ‘real lesbian’ at the bar, but completely unsuitable for actually interacting with or treating like human beings

Then you wonder why so many of us haven’t had actual relationships with women and accuse us of faking because of this, like how do we make you comfortable with our existence? Or, to be honest, why the fuck should we, seeing as you don’t seem to care about whether we feel welcome or even human in your ~*Glorious Real Gold Star Lesbian*~ presence

Ding dong I am bisexual so well done.

You’re response is beyond gross and it’s almost in Nice Guy territory. What I was saying is that 

1. Though people in the gay community might buy into bi stereotypes, they are not our oppressors

2. Bisexuals need to sort out our priorities. Combat the stereotypes themselves rather than the outcome.

Dating isn’t the be all and end all of the LGBTQ community. I’ve never understood the focus on “[x] won’t date me because I’m bisexual” when we have so many other issues at hand like the actual stereotypes.

The OP’s point is valid and I feel like a lot has been pulled out from the original post. “If lesbians do not want to date you that is not oppression.” Doesn’t mean biphobia so I don’t know what I’ve missed.

I can understand the response to OP, but I also understand OP. And I do agree that the responses to OP reek of Nice Guy.

The problem though, is I’ve never seen a lesbian or gay man give a reason for not dating bisexuals that isn’t biphobic. It’s usually based off of an assumption that we will cheat on them or leave them for a het paired relationship, or that we are super slutty, not worth dating, attention whores, etc.

No, it’s not oppression, but usually the refusal to date bi women is fueled by biphobia, and is also accompanied by exclusion of bi women from queer spaces. 

I feel the need to differentiate between “lesbians not dating you, a bi/multisexual woman” vs “lesbians refusing to date bi/multisexual women.” I’m not sure which the OP meant, though I assume all the responses have discussed the latter interpretation.

I understand the OP’s point, but if it’s the second interpretation, I feel it’s a little misguided. (If it’s the first, I apologize that you’ve been so misunderstood! But perhaps this will clarify the reaction.) I’ve heard a lot of bisexual people talking about bisexual stereotypes, one of which is the whole “bisexual women are colluding with the patriarchy by fucking men while also fulfilling their lesbian fantasies/bisexual women will always have more authentic relationships with men than with women/bisexual women are trying to attract men/bisexual women are sexually available to men/bisexual means dtf/bisexuals will cheat/bisexuals can’t ‘settle’ or ‘pick one’/bisexuals are no good for long-term relationships” can of worms.

I often hear bisexual people talking about this idea; how it leads to tangible physical harm like sexual assault; how it’s promoted by media portrayals of bisexuals and by prominent gay figures in the GLbt community; how it can be hard to find queer community due to lesbian and gay people who believe bisexuals don’t belong in their space (which generally includes hostility to bisexuals in gay bars, lack of services for bisexuals offered by GLbt organizations, referring to bisexuals as allies, and yes, refusing to date bisexuals due to their bisexual orientation, among other things); and various other issues.

A recent post by a-little-bi-furious discusses Tumblr backlash against bisexuals as a way to keep people distracted from some of the very serious information about bisexual oppression that’s recently come to light. I absolutely do not believe that was the intent of the OP, but in an environment where otherwise accurate posts will distort truths or avoid inconvenient truths, anything with the intent of shutting up bisexuals appears suspicious.

*I do not doubt that there are bisexual women who feel entitled to relationships with lesbians. However, the OP comes across as addressing “bisexual women,” rather than these bisexual women, which is where the problem lies, since bisexual people are being routinely criticized for discussing serious issues by having those issues reduced to the simplest, most trivial aspects of the problem.

Awesome commentary. I bolded the most important parts.

I need to reiterate cybernotter’s point, that the phenomenon of lesbians refusing to date bisexuals is not the end all of harm caused to bisexuals by way of biphobia: it’s the visible end result of much broader oppression. It reflects wide negative attitudes and treatment against bi people, and it causes real harm. I have indeed read cases in which bisexual women were sexually assaulted or raped by lesbian partners as a direct result of biphobia. We also all know about the extreme social isolation that bi people need to contend with, which I believe is a major cause of bisexual depression and suicidality (which, lest we forget, bisexuals suffer from in much higher levels than straight and gay/lesbian people).

Presenting this fact as if this is the worse thing that has ever happened to someone on the grounds of biphobia is simply insulting to all those who have been assaulted, raped, felt isolated and depressed, or committed suicide.

It also makes it out as though gay and lesbian communities are the main source of biphobia and monosexism, which in turn makes the problem of biphobia/monosexism appear anecdotal at best. If biphobia and monosexism really were nothing but an inner-community problem, that would certainly have reduced from the importance/priority of bisexual issues - after all, these types of inconvenience pale in comparison with the real, material oppression of many lesbian, gay and trans* people. But this is not the world we live in. In the world we live in, inner-LGBT communities’ negative attitudes is a reflection of a much broader type of oppression, which is largely performed and perpetuated by straight society.

Talking about biphobia/monosexism as if they were only performed by gay and lesbian people:

  1. Scapegoats gays and lesbians for all oppression of bi people.
  2. Minimizes and trivializes our oppression.

Source: queenlisasimpson

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