Misunderstand of Bisexuality

A great deal of confusion around bisexuality seems to stem from the crucial but often-misunderstood distinction between identity and behavior. Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern critiques the Times piece—and bi activists—for insufficiently defining bisexuality as an “identity,” and for leaving the impression that it’s largely “something you simply do” rather than someone you are. If this is true, bisexual erasure is to be expected. Whatever our feelings about monogamy may be, and whatever our success rates in achieving it, most of us, at some point, hunker down with a single partner. If bisexuality is acts-based, it can seem largely irrelevant to say you like both sexes when you’re partnered with one.

On the surface, there’s something perfectly reasonable about defining bisexuality as acts-based. That’s what we do with other identities. Bakers are bakers because they bake. Firemen fight fires. Criminals commit crimes. So bisexuals sleep with both genders, right? But from this simplistic understanding, sloppy stereotypes too easily emerge: Bisexuals must desire both genders equally or they’re not really bi; and if they desire both genders equally, they’ll never be satisfied with monogamy, because they must sleep with someone of each gender consistently to be identifying as bi. Openness to both genders gets redefined as needing both genders. And having a range of desires—which, as Freud pointed out, is the most obvious way to characterize all humans—is reconverted back into the binary our culture just can’t shake: You can like one sex or you can like two equally, but none of this weird spectrum crap.