Does this statement from people you’ve come out to piss anyone else off or is it just me? I’ve gone through life not accepting myself and my attractions and when I finally do it’s devalued with this statement. Makes me feel like a straight girl that occasionally has a crush on a woman when this isn’t the case.
It pisses me off, too. I attempted suicide because I couldn't make my attraction to women disappear and was enrolled in conversion therapy as a teenager. After years of working through my own self-hatred, I've finally been able to accept myself as I am and this is so often met with dismissals like this or outright disbelief. It is exhausting.
I’m sorry to hear that you went through so much. I’m glad you’re at a place of comfort with yourself now.
One of the problems bisexuals face is non acceptance from the straight community as well as the gay community. For many years I tried to convince myself that I had to pick a side. Eventually I accepted that bisexuality was as just a legitimate orientation as homosexuality or heterosexuality. Once I accepted that it was easier to accept myself. It's probably one of the main reasons that bisexual men are more likely to be closeted than gay men are.
So this begs the question, where do you get support from like minded people? Where do you find those that relate?
I'm going to be a little contrary here and say that, from what we know from Kinsey's (admittedly flawed) research, there's an element of truth to the statement. Kinsey found that only about 10% of people were Kinsey 0 (100% straight), and everyone else was somewhere on the spectrum. I personally don't see this as devaluing to bisexual people at all; we know that society, organized religion, media, and culture all tend to send messages that same-sex attraction "isn't OK" or at the least is a deviation from normal. And human beings have an inherent need to belong (it's hard wired), thus anything that takes away belonging is going to make us feel inferior. I see the 'everyone's a little bit bi" statement as an attempt to validate; to say "Yes, it's OK that you are that way" rather than belittling the act of coming out. I suspect if you ask people who have said that why teyare saying it, you will probably get a similar answer. This is in no way intended to invalidate anyone's experience of feeling let down by that answer, but only to offer a different perspective.
Thank you Chip and I do agree with you. On reflection I think those statements have hit me at a time that it’s a big deal to me. Maybe the way I interpreted it was shrugging it off, which is good because it’s not a big deal to others but I felt at the time like a straight girl with a crush and a little silly. As another poster said above I am a little apprehensive also about not being straight or gay enough for both communities. I am however comfortable to just be me so won’t be trying to strive one way.
It thought it was 10% on the edges put to together, huh interesting. Also were the main flaws from that due to who he interviewed since they were apparently more likley to be honest about having same sex encounters or something. Basically having some sort of attraction outside of your preference seems to be normal. I personally identify as straight because even if I do same a minor attraction (Assuming I'm not in the 5-10%) it's just not enough for me to feel like it would be right to call myself anything but.
Its kind of a backhanded statement, sort of like southerners saying "bless their heart". I don't talk about being bi mainly to avoid the hassle of people spouting nonsense like the above.
It may well be. It's been a while since I looked at the actual studies. There were a bunch of methodologial issues, in part because we did not understand as much about confounding factors in the 1940s. One major issue was sampling bias; many of his study subjects were incarcerated, which, of course, does not represent a general population sample. Nonetheless, much of the data and results have since been replicated. Labels are conveience. Orientation isn't binary or trinary, so labels are an approximation, and what you describe fits many others perfectly as well.
This! It's the attitude of it's something so tiny when inside its bubbling away as something so big and newly accepted. I want to share in my new sense of acceptance and freedom.
Is it possible they were trying to make you feel better and it just backfired? Part of why we lgbt people struggle is that it makes us feel odd or out of place. Maybe their intent was to make you feel less odd. I guess it’s hard to know without knowing that person or hearing the overall conversation though. Maybe it was backhanded, but it’s also possible it was well-intended and was just the wrong thing to say to you in that moment, to Chip’s point.
This may be the case for some people, but every time I've personally heard this phrase used it has been in the context of dismissing me or other bi folks. A couple weeks back, I jokingly mentioned that I didn't care about Dumbledore being gay (or not) in the Harry Potter series (30 year olds still debating HP). Someone said that I would care if I were gay. I mentioned that I was bi and the response was, "Well, everyone is a little bi, so...". It's clear that the implication was that I didn't count as a "real" member of the community. This is kind of a silly example, but it was a very recent experience. That said, I take your point. I think it is important for bi folks to not attribute malice where none is intended. Some of us, myself included, have come to expect exclusion and dismissal from both sides, and so we may be too quick interpret sayings like the above as some sort of an attack.
Agree with this completely. I’m sure there’s no malice in it, just seems to be a dismissal. Take this thread for example, and I mean this with respect and maybe something to ponder and reflect on, the bisexuals on this thread have related and empathised, everyone else has explained. I mean this in no way to be divisive, more an interesting observation.
I find this whole discussion so interesting because I've literally only heard this expression from bi people, and I don't even know that many. It's interesting to see another perspective.
Interesting! I think it’s maybe how and when it’s used, I’m not sure. For all I know it might also be the other persons way of sharing about them what they are comfortable with. This thread has definitly got me thinking, reflecting and noticing.
