Q: Sorry for this random message, but I guess I’m in need of comfort. I’ve been reading a lot of radfem blogs out of curiosity, and I am ashamed to be bi now. I just feel so discouraged and awful. I’m starting to doubt my attraction to women because it’ll never be valid enough if I’m also attracted to men. Straight men already treat my feelings for women as something silly and fake, but knowing there are lesbians out there who do the same makes me want to go back in the closet and never come out.
A:You can always come here if you need to talk!
… To be honest, I just want to give you a huge hug, and a mug of tea, and talk this over with you in a quiet, warm coffee shop somewhere, and make you feel better about this. Tea helps, trust me. :)
One of the most horrible things to do, is to read the things that the lesbian radfems write. And the only way to not feel horrible from it, is to not read the words they type angrily into their computers.
What you write here, though, is exactly what I feel. And I think it’s what a lot of other bi women feel too.
We have straight men sexualizing us… Seeing our attraction to other women as their own personal edition of Girls Gone Wild, a sexual encyclopedia of hot-girl-on-girl-smut… but any feelings attached to that amazing sex are invalid. Only penis matters enough to validate our sexual experiences.
But we have straight women telling us that “Yeah I’m totally bisexual… when I am drunk,” and how they “kissed a girl and liked it.” And they invalidate our experiences too, telling us, hey, everyone gets a little horny for the opposite sex when we are drunk. Even if, for us, it’s not just when alcohol slips into the mix.
But we have lesbians telling us that we aren’t gay enough. We won’t ever be gay enough. We can date women, and we can love Tegan and Sara, and we can wear plaid, and we can cut our hair short… But we are not gay enough for them, because we can find love with a man too.
We even have pan people telling us that we aren’t valid either, because we exclude all the other genders… based on their definition of our word.
But think of a woman that you have always found attractive. Not just beautiful, not just funny, not just a nice person… But a woman that you are genuinely attracted to. Attracted to in the way that you are attracted to men.
Now think of taking her in your arms, and of kissing her, ever so lightly on her lips, and of holding her tightly.
The way that that thought makes you feel will never, ever, ever be touchable by the objectification and dismissal of men, or by the rejection and hate of radfem lesbians.
And let me tell you something…. Radfems are just a small part of feminism. And of the radfems, an even smaller portion are lesbians. I have met amazing lesbians who would definitely date, and have dated, bi women. And I have met amazing men who don’t completely invalidate the feelings and experiences of bi women by making them out to be mere “hot stories” and flings.
There are women out there for us to fall in love with. And even if a few of them think of us as “tainted” because we can be attracted to and love men, it’s not all of them. And it doesn’t make what we feel any less real.
Be who you are, and fight those who want to crush that.
You can always write directly to fnobiphobia who says, I went through what you are now going through and it was awful, and I want to help you to over-come that. :(