“
Last night I was seriously considering whether I was a bisexual or not but I don’t think so though I’m not sure if I’d like to be and argh I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, if you like a person, you like the person, not their genitals.
”
”
Jess C. Scott (Tongue-Tied)
“
I suppose it’s not a social norm, and not a manly thing to do — to feel, discuss feelings. So that’s what I’m giving the finger to. Social norms and stuff…what good are social norms, really? I think all they do is project a limited and harmful image of people. It thus impedes a broader social acceptance of what someone, or a group of people, might actually be like.
”
”
Jess C. Scott (New Order)
“
Love should never mean having to live in fear.
”
”
DaShanne Stokes
“
To those who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender -- let me say -- you are not alone. Your struggle, for the end to violence and discrimination, is a shared struggle. Today, I stand with you. And I call upon all countries and people, to stand with you too.
A historic shift is underway. We must tackle the violence, decriminalize consensual same sex relationships and end discrimination. We must educate the public. I call on this council and people of conscience to make this happen.
The time has come.
”
”
Ban Ki-moon
“
Do you fall in love with boys or with girls?" I asked her.
"Sometimes boys," she replied. "Mostly souls.
”
”
Juansen Dizon (Confessions of a Wallflower)
“
Sometimes I think that maybe I like guys more as a concept than a reality. And girls more as a reality than a concept.
”
”
Adiba Jaigirdar (Hani and Ishu’s Guide to Fake Dating)
“
What does love mean if we would deny it to others?
”
”
DaShanne Stokes
“
I am, and always have been - first, last, and always - a child of America.
You raised me. I grew up in the pastures and hills of Texas, but I had been to thirty-four states before I learned how to drive. When I caught the stomach flu in the fifth grade, my mother sent a note to school written on the back of a holiday memo from Vice President Biden. Sorry, sir—we were in a rush, and it was the only paper she had on hand.
I spoke to you for the first time when I was eighteen, on the stage of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, when I introduced my mother as the nominee for president. You cheered for me. I was young and full of hope, and you let me embody the American dream: that a boy who grew up speaking two languages, whose family was blended and beautiful and enduring, could make a home for himself in the White House.
You pinned the flag to my lapel and said, “We’re rooting for you.” As I stand before you today, my hope is that I have not let you down.
Years ago, I met a prince. And though I didn’t realize it at the time, his country had raised him too.
The truth is, Henry and I have been together since the beginning of this year. The truth is, as many of you have read, we have both struggled every day with what this means for our families, our countries, and our futures. The truth is, we have both had to make compromises that cost us sleep at night in order to afford us enough time to share our relationship with the world on our own terms.
We were not afforded that liberty.
But the truth is, also, simply this: love is indomitable. America has always believed this. And so, I am not ashamed to stand here today where presidents have stood and say that I love him, the same as Jack loved Jackie, the same as Lyndon loved Lady Bird. Every person who bears a legacy makes the choice of a partner with whom they will share it, whom the American people will “hold beside them in hearts and memories and history books. America: He is my choice.
Like countless other Americans, I was afraid to say this out loud because of what the consequences might be. To you, specifically, I say: I see you. I am one of you. As long as I have a place in this White House, so will you. I am the First Son of the United States, and I’m bisexual. History will remember us.
If I can ask only one thing of the American people, it’s this: Please, do not let my actions influence your decision in November. The decision you will make this year is so much bigger than anything I could ever say or do, and it will determine the fate of this country for years to come. My mother, your president, is the warrior and the champion that each and every American deserves for four more years of growth, progress, and prosperity. Please, don’t let my actions send us backward. I ask the media not to focus on me or on Henry, but on the campaign, on policy, on the lives and livelihoods of millions of Americans at stake in this election.
And finally, I hope America will remember that I am still the son you raised. My blood still runs from Lometa, Texas, and San Diego, California, and Mexico City. I still remember the sound of your voices from that stage in Philadelphia. I wake up every morning thinking of your hometowns, of the families I’ve met at rallies in Idaho and Oregon and South Carolina. I have never hoped to be anything other than what I was to you then, and what I am to you now—the First Son, yours in actions and words. And I hope when Inauguration Day comes again in January, I will continue to be.
”
”
Casey McQuiston (Red, White & Royal Blue)
“
A tomboy is a bisexual girl’s dream lover.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
The power of love is that it sees all people.
”
”
DaShanne Stokes
“
People think that LGBTs adopting children will hurt them, but it's not being in loving homes that hurts children most.
”
”
DaShanne Stokes
“
Same-sex marriage has not created problems for religious institutions; religious institutions have created problems for same-sex marriage.
”
”
DaShanne Stokes
“
He who is jealous is better off not dating someone who is bisexual.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
Some women who married and also had lesbian relationships were genuinely bisexual. Many others married because they could see no other viable choice in the day.
”
”
Lillian Faderman (Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America)
“
The world could use more love. Why deny it to others?
”
”
DaShanne Stokes
“
I don’t want to be labeled as one thing or another. In the past I’ve had successful relationships with men, and now I’m in this successful relationship with a woman. When it comes to love I am totally open. I don’t want to be put into a category, as in ‘I’m this’ or ‘I’m that.
”
”
Amber Heard
“
There comes a time in a girl’s life where she finds her heart broken, what matters is not the boy who broke it but the boy who stitches it back together
”
”
Kara Lee Hunter (I'm Okay, I Promise)
“
If one does not make an ego out of gender, one would still know whether one is a man or a woman, gay, straight, bisexual, transgender—whatever else we may think of. But those identities need to fit very loosely and be worn very lightly. All sense of privilege or deprivation that has developed around one’s gender identity, all rigidity regarding proper roles and behaviors for the various genders, must be cut through.
”
”
Rita M. Gross
“
Gray,” he whispered in his ear.
Grayson moaned softly in return.
“I'm here for you. I exist only for you. Tell me what you want me to do and I'll do it.
”
”
Elaine White (The Other Side (Decadent, #2))
“
Heteronormativity likes us to think that the only meaningful relationships we can have are romantic,
”
”
Andrea Mosqueda (Just Your Local Bisexual Disaster)
“
She's that bad boy you want, but in a girl who believes in recycling. Freud described the kinds of feelings I had for Amy as loving the same person twice, as a woman and as a man.
”
”
Jennifer Baumgardner (Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics)
“
(...) I think your definition changes based on your experiences." (age twenty-two, bisexual)
Six years later, this same woman noted:
"I date both men and women, but i don't like the word "bisexual", because I think it implies polarity. I guess I started thinking about this around 4 1/2 years ago, when I was involved in a long-term committed relationship with a man, but a queer man. And it made me redefine things, because I didn't believe that a queer man and a queer woman together in a relationship like ours was conventionally heterosexual." (age twenty-eight, bisexual)
”
”
L. B. Diamond (Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women's Love and Desire)
“
I don't know what I was looking for . . . I felt empty. I guess. Not hearing from you made it all seem surreal, like you were never there, a dream, a figment of my imagination.
I went to your site that day to . . . I guess, double-check.
I thought. . . maybe you wrote something, a new story . . . a message . . . anything.
I did find a new story . . .
It wasn't about us . . .
And I ended up feeling even emptier.
”
”
Stjepan Šejić (Sunstone, Vol. 5)
“
Valuing honesty impacts bisexuals differently than straight or gay parents—whereas all might uphold honesty as a family value, only bisexuals grapple with how living day-to-day in a monogamous relationship might be interpreted as deceitful unless they disclose their bisexuality to others.
”
”
Julia Shaw (Bi: The Hidden Culture, History, and Science of Bisexuality)
“
The claim—and it is a common claim within the troll space—that lulz is equal opportunity laughter is belied by the fact that a significant percentage of this laughter is directed at people of color, especially African Americans, women, and gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer (GLBTQ) people.
”
”
Whitney Phillips (This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things: Mapping the Relationship between Online Trolling and Mainstream Culture)
“
Antigay activists have historically maintained that same-sex sexuality is a lifestyle choice that should be discouraged, deemed illegitimate, and even punished by the culture at large. In other words, if lesbian/gay/bisexual people to not have to be gay but are simply choosing a path of decadence and deviance, then the government should have no obligation to protect their civil rights or honor their relationships; to the contrary, the state should actively condemn same-sex sexuality and deny it legal and social recognition in order to discourage others from following that path.
Not surprisingly, advocates for gay/lesbian/bisexual rights see things differently. They counter that sexual orientation is not a matter of choice but an inborn trait that is much beyond an individual's control as skin or eye color. Accordingly, since gay/lesbian/bisexual individuals cannot choose to be heterosexual, it is unethical to discriminate against them and to deny legal recognition to same-sex relationships.
(...)
Perhaps instead of arguing that gay/lesbian/bisexual individuals deserve civil rights because they are powerless to change their behavior, we should affirm the fundamental rights of all people to determine their own emotional and sexual lives.
”
”
L. B. Diamond (Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women's Love and Desire)
“
Konnor wanted to touch and taste him, and take him to the point of ecstasy where he couldn't even remember his own name. And Grayson was more than willing to let him do that.
“Yes, that too.” He smiled, as if he found his surprise amusing. He leaned forward until their lips were inches from each other and whispered, “Anything.
”
”
Elaine White (The Other Side (Decadent, #2))
“
I won't let him come between us, Konnor,” Grayson promised, refusing to let go. “I feel so close to you…more than best friends. It's like we're soul mates. You're the part of me that I've always been missing. And he'll have to kill me to get me away from you,” he swore, unknowingly cementing his place in Konnor's heart with the words. He felt exactly the same.
”
”
Elaine White (The Other Side (Decadent, #2))
“
From the erasure and delegitimization of bisexual and transgender identities to the infantilization of asexuals to the “white-centric” expressions of relationships and identities to the prevalence of monosexism in LGBTQ+ circles, the continued centering of gay and lesbian relationships as the primary and best indicator of individual queer representation is doing harm. It robs us all of the complex and beautiful diversity of how we experience sexuality, gender, and community.
”
”
Jamie Arpin-Ricci
“
Konnor bit his lip and arched into his touch, opening his eyes to his words.
“No matter how cruel I am to you, resisting what's between us, you always know when I need you the most,” he explained quietly. “I needed you desperately and you gave me the most incredible pleasure. And when I tried to hide from you…when I thought you didn't want me…you showed me how wrong I was.”
Grayson smiled as Konnor grasped his hair and dragged him down into a scorching kiss. He was more than happy to comply with his demands, since he wanted nothing more than to fade into him and make them one person.
”
”
Elaine White (The Other Side (Decadent, #2))
“
While one would expect a liberated society to regard bisexuality as the norm, this view would not mean that all persons would behave bisexually … The nonrepressed person recognizes his bisexual potential, he is not some ideal person midway along the Kinsey behavioral scale. People would still fall in love and form relationships, and these relationships would be homosexual as well as heterosexual. What would be different is that the social difference between the two would vanish, and once this happened we would lose the feeling of being limited, of having to choose between an exclusively straight or exclusively gay world.
”
”
Dennis Altman (Homosexual: Oppresion & Liberation)
“
[Adrienne Rich] was one of the only major intellectuals since Freud to assert that homosexuality was anything other than a problem. She is also notable for describing a continuum, like Kinesey's, of lesbian love - a continuum that begins with the intimacy of a mother nursing her daughter and ends with a nurturing, egalitarian love relationship between two women. While this theory eventually contributed to the stifling stereotype that lesbians only cuddle and nuzzle in bed, supporting each other and drinking chamomile tea, Rich was savvy to link same-sex love - so taboo, so unnatural - with a role for women seen as unassailable: being a mother.
”
”
Jennifer Baumgardner (Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics)
“
From my experience, I perceived Bill and Hillary to share a strong friendship and business relationship. Since I knew them both to be bisexual8, the media hyped ‘affairs’ could not be what they appeared. I called them a “perversion diversion” from the real crimes Bill and Hillary were guilty of. Hillary’s act as a jilted wife was a deliberate “division decision.” Knowing the Clintons and social engineering tactics, the illusion was created to separate her from Bill in the public eye so that she would eventually run for President as intended. Just as Bill went into the office of President as a “Democrat” to make the public feel they had a change from “Republicans” leading them into the New World Order, Hillary would be the illusion of change from male Presidents.
”
”
Cathy O'Brien (ACCESS DENIED For Reasons Of National Security: Documented Journey From CIA Mind Control Slave To U.S. Government Whistleblower)
“
Konnor said a silent prayer and made his move. He slid his hand over the curve of Grayson's neck and took the gigantic leap into the unknown. He kissed him.
A few braincells died the moment Grayson kissed him back. Then a few more, when those perfect lips he'd been admiring for the last six months opened beneath his kiss.
He kissed Grayson the way he'd always wanted to kiss him, teasing those parted lips with a lick of appreciation before slipping his tongue into his mouth. A tongue brushed his and he moaned at the little shots of pleasure that coursed through his whole body.
Kissing Grayson was better than any sex with Tam. Just as he'd always known it would be. He had always found kissing to be such an intimate thing, so delicious and nerve shattering. No physical thing could say what a kiss could; not in his mind.
”
”
Elaine White (The Other Side (Decadent, #2))
“
I will grant you one wish, for your birthday. Anything at all, except sex.”
“Wait…what?”
“You heard me. So what do you want?” Grayson questioned, keeping calm about the whole thing.
Konnor thought those words over in his head again. He was literally telling him he could do what he wanted with him, as a birthday treat, as long as they didn't sleep together.
“Wait a minute. Are you saying that if I wanted to…” he asked, but found that he didn't want to embarrass Grayson by saying it. His eyes went there any way. They focused on his crotch withoutshame, wondering if he would get to remove clothes.
“Yes,” he nodded.
“And you'd let me? Why?” he asked, too stunned to do anything else but ask.
“Because it's not your fault I'm straight. And it's not your fault you're attracted to me. If I can't give you everything you want I can at least give you a birthday to remember, right?” Grayson smiled.
Konnor felt like kissing him so hard he wouldn't be straight any more.
”
”
Elaine White (The Other Side (Decadent, #2))
“
But since we’re on the topic of identity and narrative voice - here’s an interesting conundrum. You may know that The Correspondence Artist won a Lambda Award. I love the Lambda Literary Foundation, and I was thrilled to win a Lammy. My book won in the category of “Bisexual Fiction.” The Awards (or nearly all of them) are categorized according to the sexual identity of the dominant character in a work of fiction, not the author. I’m not sure if “dominant” is the word they use, but you get the idea. The foregrounded character. In The Correspondence Artist, the narrator is a woman, but you’re never sure about the gender of her lover. You’re also never sure about the lover’s age or ethnicity - these things change too, and pretty dramatically. Also, sometimes when the narrator corresponds with her lover by email, she (the narrator) makes reference to her “hard on.” That is, part of her erotic play with her lover has to do with destabilizing the ways she refers to her own sex (by which I mean both gender and naughty bits). So really, the narrator and her lover are only verifiably “bisexual” in the Freudian sense of the term - that is, it’s unclear if they have sex with people of the same sex, but they each have a complex gender identity that shifts over time. Looking at the various possible categorizations for that book, I think “Bisexual Fiction” was the most appropriate, but better, of course, would have been “Queer Fiction.” Maybe even trans, though surely that would have raised some hackles.
So, I just submitted I’m Trying to Reach You for this year’s Lambda Awards and I had to choose a category. Well. As I said, the narrator identifies as a gay man. I guess you’d say the primary erotic relationship is with his boyfriend, Sven. But he has an obsession with a weird middle-aged white lady dancer on YouTube who happens to be me, and ultimately you come to understand that she is involved in an erotic relationship with a lesbian electric guitarist. And this romance isn’t just a titillating spectacle for a voyeuristic narrator: it turns out to be the founding myth of our national poetics! They are Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman! Sorry for all the spoilers. I never mind spoilers because I never read for plot. Maybe the editor (hello Emily) will want to head plot-sensitive readers off at the pass if you publish this paragraph. Anyway, the question then is: does authorial self-referentiality matter? Does the national mythos matter? Is this a work of Bisexual or Lesbian Fiction? Is Walt trans? I ended up submitting the book as Gay (Male) Fiction. The administrator of the prizes also thought this was appropriate, since Gray is the narrator. And Gray is not me, but also not not me, just as Emily Dickinson is not me but also not not me, and Walt Whitman is not my lover but also not not my lover. Again, it’s a really queer book, but the point is kind of to trip you up about what you thought you knew about gender anyway.
”
”
Barbara Browning
“
Buxton says that when one partner in a marriage comes out as gay, lesbian, or bisexual, about a third of the couples break up right away, a third break up after about two years, and a third stay married indefinitely.3 We don’t know a whole lot about that last third—the more than 30 percent of mixed-orientation marriages that remain intact. From the research I’ve read, many of them are negotiating open relationships, but few consider themselves polyamorous or identify with or seek out a nonmonogamous community. As a result, they are left out of significant discussions about nonmonogamy. Research and writing on this topic (including Buxton’s) makes a point of distinguishing between partners who come out as gay or lesbian and partners who come out as bisexual. Those are individual identity choices; I am less concerned with how a person identifies and more interested in the relationship between the straight spouse and the nonstraight spouse, because that ultimately determines what style of open relationship will work for them. Some couples remain primary partners and continue to have a sexual relationship, while others end the sexual element of their partnership.
”
”
Tristan Taormino (Opening Up: A Guide To Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships)
“
Heterosexual people, conforming to conventional dictate, are pillars of the society with which they are identified. Bisexuals and homosexuals, on the other hand, make valiant efforts to free themselves from the fetters of its conditioning power, and therefore come nearer to authentic behaviour. By reason of their rebellion, they are inclined to reject secondhand living as laid down by social conventions. It is not surprising that one finds many of them in the forefront of the fight for a new society, a society when authenticity is the guiding principle. But others are so much caught up in defensive behaviour that they neglect the pursuit of individual freedom in preference for a collective regimentation, which ensures a more successful battle against the cruel and subtle persecution by ‘normal people’. Nevertheless, they are, by virtue of their still precarious position, well endowed to realize that the assignment of roles which rules every aspect of behaviour, permeates society like an infectious disease, that there is a social sickness about which leads via hypocrisy and falsity to alienation. Their own fringe position makes them particularly sensitive to the schizoid shortcomings of our society where nobody knows what the other thinks, or feels, and where relationships lose their essential qualities—solidarity and trust.
”
”
Charlotte Wolff, M.D.
“
Buxton says that when one partner in a marriage comes out as gay, lesbian, or bisexual, about a third of the couples break up right away, a third break up after about two years, and a third stay married indefinitely.3 We don’t know a whole lot about that last third—the more than 30 percent of mixed-orientation marriages that remain intact. From the research I’ve read, many of them are negotiating open relationships, but few consider themselves polyamorous or identify with or seek out a nonmonogamous community. As a result, they are left out of significant discussions about nonmonogamy. Research and writing on this topic (including Buxton’s) makes a point of distinguishing between partners who come out as gay or lesbian and partners who come out as bisexual. Those are individual identity choices; I am less concerned with how a person identifies and more interested in the relationship between the straight spouse and the nonstraight spouse, because that ultimately determines what style of open relationship will work for them. Some couples remain primary partners and continue to have a sexual relationship, while others end the sexual element of their partnership. In one of Buxton’s studies, the straight husband of a bisexual woman wrote: “I compare my wife and me to a glove with fingers that fit absolutely perfect. It’s the thumb that is just wrong. The more we struggle to make the thumb fit, the worse off we make the fingers. If we free ourselves to adjust the gloves for our thumbs, then the fingers return to their old wonderful fit.”4
”
”
Tristan Taormino (Opening Up: A Guide To Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships)
“
Consider: Anyone can turn his hand to anything. This sounds very simple, but its psychological effects are incalculable. The fact that everyone between seventeen and thirty-five or so is liable to be (as Nim put it) “tied down to childbearing,” implies that no one is quite so thoroughly “tied down” here as women, elsewhere, are likely to be—psychologically or physically. Burden and privilege are shared out pretty equally; everybody has the same risk to run or choice to make. Therefore nobody here is quite so free as a free male anywhere else. Consider: A child has no psycho-sexual relationship to his mother and father. There is no myth of Oedipus on Winter. Consider: There is no unconsenting sex, no rape. As with most mammals other than man, coitus can be performed only by mutual invitation and consent; otherwise it is not possible. Seduction certainly is possible, but it must have to be awfully well timed. Consider: There is no division of humanity into strong and weak halves, protective/protected, dominant/submissive, owner/chattel, active/passive. In fact the whole tendency to dualism that pervades human thinking may be found to be lessened, or changed, on Winter. The following must go into my finished Directives: when you meet a Gethenian you cannot and must not do what a bisexual naturally does, which is to cast him in the role of Man or Woman, while adopting towards him a corresponding role dependent on your expectations of the patterned or possible interactions between persons of the same or the opposite sex. Our entire pattern of sociosexual interaction is nonexistent here. They cannot play the game. They do not see one another as men or women. This is almost impossible for our imagination to accept. What is the first question we ask about a newborn baby? Yet you cannot think of a Gethenian as “it.” They are not neuters. They are potentials, or integrals. Lacking the Karhidish “human pronoun” used for persons in somer, I must say “he,” for the same reasons as we used the masculine pronoun in referring to a transcendent god: it is less defined, less specific, than the neuter or the feminine. But the very use of the pronoun in my thoughts leads me continually to forget that the Karhider I am with is not a man, but a manwoman. The First Mobile, if one is sent, must be warned that unless he is very self-assured, or senile, his pride will suffer. A man wants his virility regarded, a woman wants her femininity appreciated, however indirect and subtle the indications of regard and appreciation. On Winter they will not exist. One is respected and judged only as a human being. It is an appalling experience. Back
”
”
Ursula K. Le Guin (The Left Hand of Darkness)
“
Weston, having been born in Chicago, was raised with typical, well-grounded, mid-western values. On his 16th birthday, his father gave him a Kodak camera with which he started what would become his lifetime vocation. During the summer of 1908, Weston met Flora May Chandler, a schoolteacher who was seven years older than he was. The following year the couple married and in time they had four sons.
Weston and his family moved to Southern California and opened a portrait studio on Brand Boulevard, in the artsy section of Glendale, California, called Tropico. His artistic skills soon became apparent and he became well known for his portraits of famous people, such as Carl Sandburg and Max Eastman. In the autumn of 1913, hearing of his work, Margrethe Mather, a photographer from Los Angeles, came to his studio, where Weston asked her to be his studio assistant. It didn’t take long before the two developed a passionate, intimate relationship. Both Weston and Mather became active in the growing bohemian cultural scene in Los Angeles. She was extremely outgoing and artistic in a most flamboyant way. Her bohemian sexual values were new to Weston’s conventional thinking, but Mather excited him and presented him with a new outlook that he found enticing. Mather was beautiful, and being bisexual and having been a high-class prostitute, was delightfully worldly. Mather's uninhibited lifestyle became irresistible to Weston and her photography took him into a new and exciting art form. As Mather worked and overtly played with him, she presented a lifestyle that was in stark contrast to Weston’s conventional home life, and he soon came to see his wife Flora as a person with whom he had little in common.
Weston expanded his horizons but tried to keep his affairs with other women a secret. As he immersed himself further into nude photography, it became more difficult to hide his new lifestyle from his wife. Flora became suspicious about this secret life, but apparently suffered in silence. One of the first of many women who agreed to model nude for Weston was Tina Modotti. Although Mather remained with Weston, Tina soon became his primary model and remained so for the next several years. There was an instant attraction between Tina Modotti, Mather and Edward Weston, and although he remained married, Tina became his student, model and lover. Richey soon became aware of the affair, but it didn’t seem to bother him, as they all continued to remain good friends. The relationship Tina had with Weston could definitely be considered “cheating,” since knowledge of the affair was withheld as much as possible from his wife Flora May.
Perhaps his wife knew and condoned this new promiscuous relationship, since she had also endured the intense liaison with Margrethe Mather. Tina, Mather and Weston continued working together until Tina and Weston suddenly left for Mexico in 1923.
As a group, they were all a part of the cozy, artsy, bohemian society of Los Angeles, which was where they were introduced to the then-fashionable, communistic philosophy.
”
”
Hank Bracker
“
It is not surprising that efforts to keep gay, lesbian, and bisexual people in their place arise in the wedding context. Sexual orientation is a relational property; it’s about the sex or gender of the people with whom you have relationships or desire to have relationships. It manifests itself in the context of those relationships, and unless it manifests itself, would-be discriminators can’t target it.
”
”
John Corvino (Debating Religious Liberty and Discrimination)
“
Janet Bunterman had no reason to believe her husband, who for several years had been carrying on a relationship with a bisexual Danish couple who owned a consignment shop in Pasadena. Sometimes he accompanied them on long weekends to Ojai or Moab. Janet Bunterman tolerated Ned Bunterman's antics because he did a semi-competent job of managing their daughter's earnings, and because Janet herself was sweatily involved with her thirty year old tennis instructor.
”
”
Carl Hiaasen (Star Island (Skink, #6))
“
Heterosexual These are people who are physically, emotionally, and romantically attracted to members of the opposite sex. This means that girls like boys and boys who like girls. Sometimes, people who fit into this category are known as being ‘straight.’ Homosexual Being homosexual means you’re physically, emotionally, and romantically attracted to people who are the same sex as you. This means boys who like boys and girls who like girls. Sometimes, people who fit into this category are known as being ‘gay.’ Bisexual Being bisexual means you are attracted to both the same sex as you and people who are the opposite sex as you. This refers to boys who are attracted to both boys and girls and girls who are attracted to both girls and boys. Asexual Being asexual means you’re not attracted to anyone, nor very interested in sex at all. Of course, being asexual means you still want to have emotional relationships with other people, but you may not want the physical act of sexual intercourse.
”
”
Annabel E. Lewis (What Happens To My Body and Mind: A Complete Boys' Guide to Growing Up incl. 10 Ultimate Skin-Care Tips | Puberty Books for Boys Age 9-12)
“
Kate Millett: Marxist, feminist, advocate for gay rights, for new sexuality, for new spousal relationships, and on and on. She channeled her revolutionary energies into a campaign to take down marriage and family, the backbone of American society. And she practiced what she preached. Though she was married, she practiced lesbianism, becoming bisexual. She had started that lifestyle at Columbia while writing Sexual Politics. This would, predictably, end her marriage to her husband, who found the trashing of these norms unnatural and detrimental to the health of their marriage. Of course, to many in our brave new world, this makes Kate a heroine. Today, the bio for Kate Millett at the “GLBTQ” website hails her as a “groundbreaking” “bisexual feminist literary and social critic.
”
”
Paul Kengor (The Devil and Karl Marx: Communism's Long March of Death, Deception, and Infiltration)
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Frank and the Transylvanians might be participants in a glam rock concert. Frank indulges in sexually provocative posturing while wearing women’s underwear, and has bisexual romps with Janet and Rocky. This, alongside Magenta and Riff Raff’s possibly incestuous relationship and their deliberately mysterious and grotesque presence, could be seen as an extension of the glam-rock personas of the early 1970s. Eddie, on the other hand, is a leather-jacketed, motorbike-riding character, originally played in the United States by Meatloaf, but often characterised as looking and sounding like Elvis. This characterisation relies on the folk or country blues associations of a nostalgic rock’n’roll sound in ‘Whatever Happened to Saturday Night’. This is regarded as passé within glam rock and he is killed. Janet and Brad are associated with the lighter pop sound of ‘Damn it Janet’, which from a rock aesthetic might be regarded as superficial. Brad is made to appear insignificant and foolish, while Janet’s musical language adapts as the plot develops. Rocky’s ‘The Sword of Damocles’, draws on associations of sensuality through the use of rumba patterns and prefigures his overwhelming sexual activity.
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Dr Millie Taylor (Musical Theatre, Realism and Entertainment (Ashgate Interdisciplinary Studies in Opera))
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6. CHRISTIAN REFORMED CHURCH Nor is this movement confined to liberal denominations. The Christian Reformed Church (CRC) is still thought to be largely evangelical, and it was only in 1995 that the CRC approved the ordination of women. But now the First Christian Reformed Church in Toronto has “opened church leadership to practicing homosexual members ‘living in committed relationships,’ a move that the denomination expressly prohibits.”24 In addition, Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the college of the Christian Reformed Church, has increasingly allowed expressions of support for homosexuals to be evident on its campus. World magazine reports: Calvin has since 2002 observed something called “Ribbon Week,” during which heterosexual students wear ribbons to show their support for those who desire to sleep with people of the same sex. Calvin President Gaylen Byker . . . [said], “. . . homosexuality is qualitatively different from other sexual sin. It is a disorder,” not chosen by the person. Having Ribbon Week, he said, “is like having cerebral palsy week.” Pro-homosexuality material has crept into Calvin’s curriculum. . . . At least some Calvin students have internalized the school’s thinking on homosexuality. . . . In January, campus newspaper editor Christian Bell crossed swords with Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association’s Michigan chapter, and an ardent foe of legislation that gives special rights to homosexuals. . . . In an e-mail exchange with Mr. Glenn before his visit, Mr. Bell called him “a hate-mongering, homophobic bigot . . . from a documented hate group.” Mr. Bell later issued a public apology.25 This article on Calvin College in World generated a barrage of pro and con letters to the editor in the following weeks, all of which can still be read online.26 Many writers expressed appreciation for a college like Calvin that is open to the expression of different viewpoints but still maintains a clear Christian commitment. No one claimed the quotes in the article were inaccurate, but some claimed they did not give a balanced view. Some letters from current and recent students confirmed the essential accuracy of the World article, such as this one: I commend Lynn Vincent for writing “Shifting sand?” (May 10). As a sophomore at Calvin, I have been exposed firsthand to the changing of Calvin’s foundation. Being a transfer student, I was not fully aware of the special events like “Ribbon Week.” I asked a classmate what her purple ribbon meant and she said it’s a sign of acceptance of all people. I later found out that “all people” meant gays, lesbians, and bisexuals. I have been appalled by posters advertising a support group for GLBs (as they are called) around campus. God condemned the practice, so why cannot God’s judgment against GLB be proclaimed at Calvin? I am glad Calvin’s lack of the morals it was founded on is being made known to the Christian community outside of Calvin. Much prayer and action is needed if a change is to take place.—Katie Wagenmaker, Coopersville, Mich.27 Then in June 2004, the Christian Reformed Church named as the editor of Banner, its denominational magazine, the Rev. Robert De Moor, who had earlier written an editorial supporting legal recognition for homosexuals as “domestic partners.” The CRC’s position paper on homosexuality states, “Christian homosexuals, like all Christians, are called to discipleship, to holy obedience, and to the use of their gifts in the cause of the kingdom. Opportunities to serve within the offices and the life of the congregation should be afforded to them as they are to heterosexual Christians.”28 This does not indicate that the Christian Reformed Church has approved of homosexual activity (it has not), but it does indicate the existence of a significant struggle within the denomination, and the likelihood of more to come.
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Wayne Grudem (Evangelical Feminism: A New Path to Liberalism?)
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Margrethe Mather, a photographer from Los Angeles, came to his studio in Glendale, California called Tropico, where Weston asked her to be his studio assistant. It didn’t take long before the two developed a passionate, lustful, relationship. Both Weston and Mather became active in the growing bohemian cultural scene in the greater Los Angeles area. She was extremely outgoing and artistic in a most flamboyant way. Her bohemian sexual values were new to Weston’s conventional thinking, but Mather excited him and presented him with a new outlook that he found enticing. Mather was beautiful, and being bisexual and having been a high-class prostitute, was delightfully worldly. Mather's uninhibited lifestyle became irresistible to Weston and her photography took him into a new and exciting art form. As Mather worked and overtly played with him, she presented a lifestyle that was in stark contrast to Weston’s conventional home life, and he soon came to see his wife Flora as a person with whom he had little in common.
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Hank Bracker
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I’ve been so dishonest with Bradley about the depth of me and Veronica’s relationship because Bradley adamantly denounces men who allow their significant other to have bisexual relationships. He says cheating is cheating, be it with a man or woman.
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Jessica N. Watkins (Love, Sex, Lies)
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Judith Stacey—a prominent New York University professor who is in no way regarded as a fringe figure, in testifying before Congress against the Defense of Marriage Act—expressed hope that the revisionist view’s triumph would give marriage “varied, creative, and adaptive contours . . . [leading some to] question the dyadic limitations of Western marriage and seek . . . small group marriages.”44 In their statement “Beyond Same-Sex Marriage,” more than three hundred “LGBT and allied” scholars and advocates—including prominent Ivy League professors—call for legally recognizing sexual relationships involving more than two partners.45 University of Calgary Professor Elizabeth Brake thinks that justice requires us to use legal recognition to “denormalize[] heterosexual monogamy as a way of life” and correct for “past discrimination against homosexuals, bisexuals, polygamists, and care networks.”46
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Sherif Girgis (What Is Marriage?: Man and Woman: A Defense)
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I don’t know what I was thinking trusting Sapphire’s ass when I met him back in Jersey. I had just gotten out of a bad relationship and I had sworn myself off men for good. I was bisexual; I loved the feel of being penetrated but the taste and the feel of a woman as well.
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Myiesha (A New Jersey Love Story 4: The Finale)
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Happiness can be a confusing concept for Christians. On one hand, if we serve a good God who promises us a full and abundant life, shouldn't we be happy? On the other hand, any careful reading of the life and way of Jesus reveals a life open to suffering and self-denial. The very message of the gospel confronts the shortcuts humans take to happiness and calls those who follow Christ to a new way of life. This apparent tension has commonly become a weapon in the shouting matches between gay-affirming voices and traditional voices. The affirming voices call for the unimpeded opportunity for LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer) people to experience self-fulfillment through sexual intimacy, relationship, marriage, equal status, and so on. The traditional voices point to a path of self-denial and suffering as the way to live out God's standards. For a gay Christian, when happiness and suffering are pitted against one another, this dilemma can disintegrate into a no-win situation and a source of shame.
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Wendy Vanderwal-Gritter (Generous Spaciousness: Responding to Gay Christians in the Church)
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I just told my mom that I’m in a polyamorous relationship and that I’m bisexual.
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Ames Mills (Riches To Riches: Part One)
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The study found 11 positive aspects of being bisexual: “freedom from social labels, honesty and authenticity, having a unique perspective, increased levels of insight and awareness, freedom to love without regard for sex/gender, freedom to explore relationships, freedom of sexual expression, acceptance of diversity, belonging to a community, understanding privilege and oppression, and becoming an advocate/activist.
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Julia Shaw (Bi: The Hidden Culture, History, and Science of Bisexuality)
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Specifically, participants said they cherished five types of freedom that came from being bisexual, including the freedom to love without regard for biological sex or gender, freedom from social labels and gender roles, freedom to explore diverse relationships and experiences like consensual nonmonogamy, and freedom of sexual expression. Finally, participants stated they experienced “freedom to live authentically and honestly.
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Julia Shaw (Bi: The Hidden Culture, History, and Science of Bisexuality)
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Specifically, participants said they cherished five types of freedom that came from being bisexual, including the freedom to love without regard for biological sex or gender, freedom from social labels and gender roles, freedom to explore diverse relationships and experiences like consensual nonmonogamy, and freedom of sexual expression. Finally, participants stated they experienced “freedom to live authentically and honestly.” As
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Julia Shaw (Bi: The Hidden Culture, History, and Science of Bisexuality)
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Bisexuality is good; it is the capacity to love people of either sex. The reason so few of us are bisexual is because society made such a big stink about homosexuality that we got forced into seeing ourselves as either straight or non-straight….Gays will begin to turn onto women when 1) it's something that we do because we want to, and not because we should, and 2) when women's liberation changes the nature of heterosexual relationships.
We continue to call ourselves homosexual, not bisexual, even if we do make it with the opposite sex, because saying, "Oh, I'm Bi" is a cop-out for a gay. We get told it's OK to sleep with guys as long as we sleep with women too, and that's still putting homosexuality down. We'll be gay until everyone has forgotten that it's an issue. Then we'll begin to be complete.
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Carl Wittman
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people must recognize that many of them who are not visibly queer in some way are afforded some modicum of heterosexual privilege—an argument that also comes up often when gay people discuss bisexual, polysexual,[19] and pansexual[20] people, who might be seen as straight by society part of the time depending on whether their relationships happen to be cross-gender (or perceived that way) at the time.
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Julie Sondra Decker (The Invisible Orientation: An Introduction to Asexuality)
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My ex never told me about her gender confusion until after we broke up, I was mystified as to why the relationship was failing!
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Steven Magee
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In my opinion it is only necessary that the person feel that they are bisexual, that is to say, that they be aware of their feelings. Our experiences, relationships, feelings: each are a thing apart.
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Robyn Ochs (Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals Around the World)
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The man whom the Renaissance later presented as a monster of cruelty and perversion was a mass of contradictions. He was astute, brave, and highly impulsive – capable of deep deception, tyrannical cruelty, and acts of sudden kindness. He was moody and unpredictable, a bisexual who shunned close relationships, never forgave an insult, but who came to be loved for his pious foundations. The key traits of his mature character were already in place: the later tyrant who was also a scholar; the obsessive military strategist who loved Persian poetry and gardening; the expert at logistics and practical planning who was so superstitious that he relied on the court astrologer to confirm military decisions; the Islamic warrior who could be generous to his non-Muslim subjects and enjoyed the company of foreigners and unorthodox religious thinkers.
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Roger Crowley (1453: The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West)
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Reducing bisexual experience around oppression to the visual aspect only, necessarily means erasing all those other aspects of bisexual oppression that aren't perceived as visible or intuitive.
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Shiri Eisner (Bi: Notes for a Bisexual Revolution)
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we live in a society where heterosexuality is considered the norm. It is important for those who do not fit the heterosexual mold to define their sexuality in order to pressure mainstream society to include same-sex couples in their concept of possible human relationships. It also enables those who are not heterosexual to have a context for their own experience.
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Kata Orndorff (Bi Lives: Bisexual Women Tell Their Stories)
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From this we learn that when the soul is in a female incarnation it will function negatively in Assiah and Briah, but positively in Yetzirah and Atziluth. In other words, a woman is physically and mentally negative, but psychically and spiritually positive, and the reverse holds good for a man. In initiates, however, there is a considerable degree of compensation, for each learns the technique of both positive and negative psychic methods. The Divine Spark, which is the nucleus of every living soul, is, of course, bisexual, containing the roots of both aspects, as does Kether, to which it corresponds. In the more highly evolved souls the compensating aspect is developed in some degree at least. The purely female woman and the purely male man prove to be oversexed as judged by civilised standards, and can only find an appropriate place in primitive societies, where fertility is the primary demand that society makes upon its women, and hunting and fighting are the constant occupation of the men.
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Dion Fortune (The Mystical Qabalah)
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For the D-Day spies were, without question, one of the oddest military units ever assembled. They included a bisexual Peruvian playgirl, a tiny Polish fighter pilot, a mercurial Frenchwoman, a Serbian seducer, and a deeply eccentric Spaniard with a diploma in chicken farming. Together, under Robertson’s guidance, they delivered all the little lies that together made up the big lie. Their success depended on the delicate, dubious relationship between spy and spymasters, both German and British.
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Ben Macintyre (Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies)
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To understand women who look both ways requires hearing their stories, not just noting the sex of their current partner. And when you listen closely, it's apparent these women have learned something crucial in these relationships.
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Jennifer Baumgardner
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God/Goddess is Bisexual as they are a he/she who is two-spirited. If you are in a heterosexual relationship, there is still the female love for the female or the male for the male in addition to the male for the female. You cannot separate these forces when you are a two-spirited, Twin Flame being. Homosexuality is just as spiritual, sacred, valuable, and necessary as heterosexuality.
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Deborah Bravandt