[Image: A pink outline of a wedding cake and bells on a black background. From below and up to the top, a fire is cradling the cake. Text: “I am BISEXUAL and I think MARRIAGE is STRAIGHT CAPITALIST PATRIARCHAL BULLSHIT”]
Response to HRC’s terrible campaign.
For further reading: Fuck marriage, fuck equality
One of the great strengths of the Bisexual Community is it’s long tradition of (graciously!) welcoming a wide variety of voices, opinions and people.
*posts photos of my face and random art pieces*
Gain followers.*posts anti-HRC and anti-assimilation discussions*
Lose followers.Hmm.
ME: Emma I’m going to marry Allison
Emma: Ok
ME: Do you want to ask me any questions why I’m marrying a girl and not a boy?
Emma: Yes! CAN I PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE BE THE FLOWER GIRL?!
ME: Sure, do you have any other questions about me and Allison getting married?
Emma: YES! PLEASE PLEASE CAN THERE BE VANILLA CAKE! CHOCOLATE CAKE MAKES MY TUMMY HURT
ME: Its settle then, we’re having vanilla cake
[anon submission]
Several of the myths about bisexuality come from the common root that we are defined by our partners. This misconception is a direct cause of bisexual invisibility, and is frequently compounded into erasure. The common myths that come directly or indirectly from this include:
- Bisexuals are incapable of monogamy – they will cheat on you with another gender, can’t be satisfied with one partner, aren’t really bisexual if they aren’t polyamorous.
- Bisexuality is a transitional phase rather than a stable identity – bi now, gay later.
In a monosexual worldview, it’s easy to use our partners as markers of our sexuality. In the straight community, what is the “trophy wife” but a visible indicator of heterosexual virility? … In the monosexual part of the queer community, to walk down the street with your same-gender partner is an affirmation of your Pride, your ability to be just like everybody else. But if you are bi, and you have one partner, if they have a clearly defined gender you are lumped into one of the monosexual categories.
Polyamorous bisexuals would seem to be able to make their bisexuality more visible. This is debatable, because what they make visible by walking down the street tends to be myths about polyamory rather than about bisexuality … nearly all representations of bisexuality involve either simultaneous partners of multiple genders, or some form of serial alternating monogamy with varying levels of commitment …
The metamyth, that when we’re with someone of the opposite gender we’re straight, and with someone of the same gender we’re gay, is purely a case of being defined by the gender of our partners. No other sexual orientation faces this myth. Further, if our partner is genderqueer, I posit that someone assuming that our identity is monosexual is denying our genderqueer partner hir identity and assigning a gender to them. Show me a monogamous bisexual (and there are more of us around than you know, because, SHAZAM, you can’t see us when we’re in the same room with you unless we say so), and I’ll show you someone who has been assumed to be monosexual …
So this is why I make a point of labeling myself as a monogamous bisexual. By being visible as such, I break down the metamyth, which also breaks down the idea that I will leave my wife someday for a man, that I am a greedy cheater on the make, and the myth that I’m just a gay man with a beard (willing or otherwise).
My wife is not my beard. My beard is that stuff growing out of my face. I’m not straight, and she not only knows that, she’s as comfortable as I am with it, and she knows that I’m not going to cheat on her with anyone of any gender. I wish people would quit assuming that I will.
Fuck marriage, fuck equality
*** Which also happens to be Snippet #10. These snippets are taken from my book in writing, Notes for a Bisexual Revolution. For more, check out the notes for a bisexual revolution tag. ***
Comments are disabled on this post because I’m very busy with finishing the book and have no spare energies to deal with the outrage which would surely come. I might decide to reopen it for comments some time in the future, but for now, this is how it is.
Fuck marriage, fuck equality
For about a decade, same sex marriage has been the flagship issue of the GGGG movement*. Marketed as the single-issue battle which would bring equality and solve GGGG-phobia for all, it has been the main focus of GGGG activist and political effort. The struggle for same sex marriage has been presented to us as a struggle for full equality and citizenship. We are told that the one step separating between us – “the gays” – and perfect rainbow utopia is the ability to register our same sex relationships with the state**. As soon as this right is won, apparently, we’ll be all able to walk away into the sunset.
But before we start with the walking away, we first need to examine what it is that we are asking. Marriage, as an institution, has been a tool of patriarchy, capitalism, and government for about as long as it’s existed. It’s been used to control women, divide and consolidate money and resources, and to strengthen the power of states over their subjects. All in all, for most of history and to this day, it has been one of the most dangerous institutions created by society.
Fuck queer assimilation. Credit: Night Terror//Art Terror
Do you read Bi radical (aka Shiri Eisner’s) stuff on Bisexual & Queer Politics and Theory? You don’t? You should! You may shout, rant and disagree; or praise and send fan-mail … but you will be educated and made to think.
“[My husband] said that, unlike straight women who commit to one man out of all the possible men in the world, I have promised to love him out of all possible people in the world, both men and women. In this sense my coming out as bisexual made him feel extra special.” ~~ Reverend Dr Janet Edwards, Presbyterian Minister & Board Member of More Light Presbyterians.
In 2008 Rev. Edwards was tried and unanimously acquitted by a church court for presiding at the wedding of two women.
This issue is Critical to Bisexual People since it uses the excuse of a parent having different gender partners who are then subject to differing marriage & family law to disrupt a child’s relationships and life
“An Ohio appeals court ruled that a lesbian mom who had previously been granted access to the daughter she and her former partner had are now void. Their reasoning: her former partner who was the biological mom is now married to a man who has adopted the child and, due to a 2004 state constitutional amendment, the non-biological parents is legally a ‘non-relative.’
“Pink News reports that a lower court ruled previously that Maggie Gross was entitled to access the seven-year-old biological daughter of her former partner, Jennifer Herrick. But the Franklin County Court of Appeals overturned that ruling, determining that because Herrick’s new husband adopted the child, all previous relationships are now null and void. The court said, according to the report, ‘because the adoption is meant to provide a new family for the child, it in effect severs: “legal relationships with non-relatives, such as [Ms Gross], who attempt to base their claims on relationships in existence prior to the adoption.”’
“Gross told the Columbus Dispatch that this ruling essentially erases half of her daughter’s life.
“‘They’re saying that half of all this never happened, that half of her life didn’t exist,’ Gross said of the 7-year-old girl, who was almost 3 when Gross and Herrick ended their relationship in 2008. ‘That defies logic.’
“While this ruling may be a correct application of Ohio law, it illustrates the harm the state’s anti-LGBT constitutional amendment does to same-sex families. An opposite sex-couple would never be in this situation. Because the state treated Gross and Herrick as legally unrelated, this seven year old will no longer be able to regularly see one of her parents, who is now legally a ‘non-relative’ because of Ohio’s discriminatory law…”
For the record: It’s an issue of MARRIAGE EQUALITY not “Gay Marriage”.
Many of the people who marry their same gender partners are BISEXUAL!
Edit: Just to add to the list there are also Trans*, Pansexual, Genderfluid, Genderqueer, and many more people who have a stake in marriage equality. And just as a friendly reminder marriage is not the end of this fight.
Umm … always remembering of course that quite a lot of Bisexual People are also Trans*, Genderfluid, Genderqueer or otherwise Gender Non-conforming. While absolutely sure that was just written in an attempt to be super-inclusive it can sometimes be read as accidentally “othering” all non-Cis and/or non Heteronormative/Homonormative bisexual people.
On the 8th anniversary of marriage equality in Massachusetts, and my 8th wedding anniversary: Thank you, Massachusetts.
![bidyke:
[Image: A pink outline of a wedding cake and bells on a black background. From below and up to the top, a fire is cradling the cake. Text: “I am BISEXUAL and I think MARRIAGE is STRAIGHT CAPITALIST PATRIARCHAL BULLSHIT”]
Response to HRC’s terrible campaign.
For further reading: Fuck marriage, fuck equality
One of the great strengths of the Bisexual Community is it’s long tradition of (graciously!) welcoming a wide variety of voices, opinions and people.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/18b29a422f6de2b83e410edfc3259276/tumblr_mkb9d6rFLy1r13rduo1_500.jpg)
