Bi Chic

Bi Chic

Cyd: It was a typical day at LYRIC, a community center for queer kids in San Francisco, when my friend Sue began to complain:

Sue: It pisses me off because now everyone at school thinks they’re bi, but if I say I’m bi then everyone is like, “oh you’re just trying to be part of the in-crowd, or whatever.” Pisses me off.

Cyd: Obviously I had to ask why she, a bisexual girl, was complaining.

Sue: Now everyone just assumes that I’m bullshitting whenever I say I’m bi because everyone’s bi these days.

Cyd: As a lesbian I always found it amusing when my bi friends would whine about these other “fake” bi girls. You know, those girls who would pretend to like girls in order to be cool or pick up guys. Amongst all my friends there seemed to be this certain unsavory image of these bisexual girls. It was like they were a plague upon the young gay community, springing out of their closets like a brood of bunny rabbits – cute, but annoying.

Unidentified speaker: It’s become like a joke. Because it’s a trend, it’s become just like, really not very serious anymore –

Cyd: But then, after joking for a moment, I asked them how they can mock other bi people even though they’ve been accused of putting on an act themselves.

Unidentified speaker: Oh –well—actually there’s just…hmmm…

Cyd: Oh-kay? I decided to investigate “Bi Chic”: the apparent trendiness of bisexuality among young women. My first real interview only reinforced this idea of the stereotypical bi girl. It was the day of the spirit rally, and my friend Kelsey and I were escaping school pride in a nearby park. At the time, Kelsey’s hair was apple green--though, when this airs, she likely would have gone through like, three different colors. I started out by asking her, “Do you know any chicks who say they’re bi just to pick up guys, or to be more popular?”

Kelsey: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [laughs] I have seen a lot of girls who are like, “I’m bi!” and then the boys around them are like, “That’s hot”, and the girl’s like, “Can I get your number?” and the guy’s like, “Hell yes, threesome!” and then, like, the hook up right there and then that threesome never happens because it’s just the guy and the girl. But, yes, I’ve seen that too much.

Cyd: Well, where?

Kelsey: In the media. Ugh, it’s horrible. In media, and like, in real life, like at, uhhh, I’m not even gonna –

Cyd: I asked her for more examples from real life, but all I got was this vague story of some girl she knew in summer school. I began to grow suspicious.

[t.A.Tu.’s “All The Things She Said” begins in the background]

Cyd: The media certainly has its share of lesbian and bisexual characters, more often than not poorly portrayed. Most infamous, we have “Exhibit A” – t.A.T.u. [song plays] – a band consisting of two “lesbian” girls who rode the wings of controversy to popularity only to admit later that it was all an act. Now you even have shows like “L Word”, with lesbian and bisexual characters portrayed predominately by straight girls. Homosexuality, especially female homosexuality, in a male-dominated media, is nothing more than a cheap trick to win ratings. So I wondered if the media’s pandering had any effect on their target audience: straight males. I started talking with an old friend of mine on the football team, Matt Day. Then he asked if his friend Joe could be interviewed, and then Charlie, and then Roberto. Soon I was interviewing half of the football team. [various team members introduce themselves] When I finally found out that Matt had been recrui

Unidentified team member: You could get so many boys to talk about it…

Cyd: Needless to say, I was intimidated. But I soon found out that at least some of the guys were very insightful. They respected lesbians and bisexuals and understood that no, unlike the movies and pornography that they know so well, lesbians aren’t just girls who like to play around with other girls until a real man shows up. So even though the jocks can distinguish fake TV lesbians from real queer girls, I still was not quite convinced that all of these trendy bi girls my friends and I whined about deserved any validation. I mean, everything just seemed too easy for them. Coming out and wearing their sexuality like a new t-shirt while my other gay and lesbian friends had struggled with their identity for years.

Emma: Desire me in my imperfection. Don’t dismiss my sexuality as infection. I am the instigator, the oracle, a delusion. I feel that people see me upside down, and in their mind, they try to turn me around...

Cyd: And then I met Emma. I had met her at one of those queer youth conferences. I had fallen completely, totally, madly, irrationally, and hopelessly in love with her. But later at the dance that night she told me she was bi. I manage to hold my tongue before I can ruin everything, but I found her just too insightful to keep my microphone away. It became painfully apparent that she was nothing like those trendy, fake bi girls I sought to investigate. No, her understanding and awareness transcended all of that.

Emma: I don’t think that you can tell someone else that they’re lying about their own sexuality. Even if they are, like, that’s a really strange thing to say, like somebody, they know it better than you do. I would never tell anybody, “You’re lying, you’re not bisexual.” So I think it’s a really offensive thing to hear.

Cyd: Emma faced a whole different set of challenges foreign to me – challenges from both the gay and straight community.

Emma: I think there is a lot of pressure to choose, and a lot of people try to, like, get out of people, “Don’t you like girls a little bit better? Or guys a little bit better?” There’s not a lot of comprehension of liking both. For me, part of what’s liberating about being bisexual is being attracted to somebody isn’t about whether they’re a girl or a guy, it’s just about them.

Cyd: The whole time I was interviewing Emma, it was one of those “a-ha” moments, like a sustained epiphany. She hit the truth completely. Some people are going to experiment, and you should respect them for what they’re going through. Because what they’re going through is like what a lesbian, or anyone else coming out is going through. I still think those fake bi chicks who emulate all of the “hot lesbian action” in the media deserve less validation than those who actually are struggling with their identity. But trying to determine who deserves acceptance and who does not can only bring more harm. When it comes down to it, “Bi Chic” brandishes a double-edged sword. It is easier for bisexual people to come out now, it’s trendy and it seems almost normal. But beneath it all, especially among others in the queer community, there lingers an underlying layer of suspicion and envy. In a community that thirsts for tolerance, bisexuals seem to have finally attained the liberation we all long for.

For outLoud Radio, I'm Celia La Luz.