Why We Fear and Envy the Bisexual

Ask any group of lesbians what their feelings are towards bisexual women and you are bound to turn up at least one bitter comment. Those of us who are familiar with lesbian culture will cringe at the thought of asking our brethren to discuss bisexuals. In fact, we may harbor ill will towards the bisexual women ourselves.

What does the average bisexual woman possess that makes us so uncomfortable? A bisexual woman looks just like any other woman. She may have gone to the same schools we did growing up. She may work at our dentists’ office or at the local grocery store. There is nothing physically remarkable about the bisexual woman. Does this scare us? Perhaps.

Many lesbians fall into the ‘dyke’ category. This definition changes with the lesbian you ask but the standards fall along these lines: short to medium hair, little to no make-up, handy with tools/cars/general fix-it, men’s clothing or at least ‘non-gender-bias’ clothing. You get the general idea. Along with the ‘dyke’ category you also have ‘crunchy’ or ‘earthy’ lesbians, ‘power’ lesbians, ‘gender f*cker’ lesbians, ‘chic’ and ‘lipstick lesbians’.

Bisexual women tend to look like your average straight woman. When I was still struggling to find myself I spent a period of time under the label ‘bisexual’. I had long hair and wore girly clothes and flirted with men and women equally. Today when people learn that I once ‘batted for the other team’ they are shocked. “But you look like such a dyke!” they say. It’s true. These days I go for the men’s oxford button down dress shirts and khakis. Gone is the long hair and make-up.

Lesbians like to categorize each other. We like to be able to look at someone and know who and what they are. Part of it is the need to know who our sisters are. We want to know that the woman we’ve been eyeing is, in fact, gay before we go hit on her and make a fool of ourselves. We want men to not hit on us when we’re trying to walk down the street.

Recently there has been a focus on lesbians and fashion thanks to the lovely Showtime show The L Word. I adore this show and cannot wait for the second season to start. However, the women in the show (while gorgeous) just are not the norm. Many lesbians found themselves looking at one another in a mixture of surprise and embarrassment as they asked, “Are we supposed to look like that?” There’s not one woman on that show that could be considered ‘butch’. Many of us were left out in the cold.

We look at these women as we look at bisexuals. “They’re too pretty to be lesbians” seems to be the theme of most comments. They do an amazing job of presenting situations and the lifestyle of lesbians but they just don’t look the part. Bisexuals can physically mold themselves into whatever the situation calls for. A heterosexual shindig? No problem! Viola! She looks straight. Muncher Mash at the local dyke bar? Again, no problem! Ding! She looks like a lesbian (of whichever variety floats her boat).

We hate the way she floats through life’s tricky sexual traps with ease. She’s open to either sex and gets to have the best of both worlds. She can decide to settle down with a man and get married and have some kids. Or, she can become a life partner of a woman. It depends on who she falls for. She’s considered trendy and a little racy. While her straight friends will think little of her dalliances with women, her lesbian friends will think a great deal about her male lovers.

Women can be pretty insecure about things they should know better about. Come on, admit it, we can be. Especially when the hormones are pumping. Now, imagine all the pressure we feel to measure up to other women. We look at Barbie with admiration or seething hate. We pin up models for inspiration or a target for our darts. We worry that some other woman is going to turn our man’s head. Now, imagine you had to worry about other men turning your mate’s head, as well.

Welcome to the plight of the gay gal and her bisexual lover. We fear the bisexual because she could leave us for that which we cannot compete with: a man. No matter what toy you’ve got in your drawer, or how butch you can be, if your bisexual girl wants to be with a man, you’re going to lose.

This is where the bisexual women stand up and say, “Excuse me, but if I wanted to be with a man, I wouldn’t be with a woman and vice versa. If I’m with you then I’m with you because I care for you, not for what lies between your legs.”

And to that I say, “Amen, sister!” But I’m here to tell you about lesbians and our fear and envy of you.

There’s a reason why we fear you’ll leave us for a man. Because it happens. Over and over and over again. And sometimes you even tell us it’s because you’ve decided you really want to be with a man and not a woman. So, instead of going, “Well, screw you, too, sister!” we obsess and make general assumptions that all bisexuals are just confused heterosexuals. The twenty-something heteroflexibles are adding to your problem. They’re straight when they want to be, gay when they feel like it and bisexual when they just can’t decide.

We all seem to forget that we’re supposed to experiment with sexuality. We’re supposed to try on different roles in the bedroom and see which fits best. We should always be open to a possibility we hadn’t considered before because it might just be what we always wanted and never knew existed.

We envy bisexual woman because they get to be a part of both teams. We’d love to be able to meld that easily. We envy you because you wind up being more accepted in the straight world than we are.

We fear you because you go where we have no interest and you threaten to take us there should we fall for you. You can decide to leave us for that which we have no hope of comparing to. Even when we logically look at the chance you might leave us for a man we still get caught up in the fact that we feel we’re being told “Lesbian relationships aren’t real, can’t last, and are wrong.”

Finally, many of us are just puzzled that you could go from a woman to a man. Lesbians tend to think that women are superior to men and that the only reason a woman would go back to a man afterwards was because she wanted to be accepted or because she’s afraid of her sexuality.

While I hope I haven’t offended anyone, I think the most important thing I could say here is that while some lesbians may come off as harsh towards bisexuals it is mostly out of fear. And yes, envy. It happens with very femme lesbians, too, and their more insecure partners. If we’re with you, chances are we love you. And if we love you, we definitely don’t want to lose you. I just hope enough of us wake up to the reality that we can create our own self-fulfilling prophecies.