Looking Like What You Are: On Bisexual Invisibility
I’m stealing the title for this entry from a great book, Looking
Like What You Are: Sexual Style, Race, and Lesbian Identity by Lisa Walker. (I think I promised no
footnotes in the blog but I can’t mention a book without giving publication
information, even parenthetically. It’s New York University Press, 2001.) But in this case the identity that concerns
me is not that of lesbian, but rather that of bisexual. How does one look like
a bisexual? One might respond, like many of my straight friends do, by asking
why it matters. Isn’t that a private matter? Why should I care who you sleep
with? That’s easy to say if the world’s assumptions about you match your
reality, if your sexual orientation is sufficiently mainstream to be the norm,
part of the background, and hence not worthy of note.
But if your sexual
tastes and preferences require an explanatory paragraph, and if your sexual
identity is a big part of who you are, then it’s not so easy not being recognized for what you
are. In some ways my situation is easier than that of women I know who have to
dress a certain way for work. I’m not a lawyer or a business person. Working in
the university environment with all the protection of tenure, I can wear pretty
much whatever I like. But as it turns my
own tastes and preferences are no help in this matter. I suppose I could style
myself as “femme” except I don’t like make-up and I wear my hair shoulder
length and unkept. Friends say I look “academic” and I think that means rumpled
with glasses and a frequently furrowed brow. So most often I just tell people,
somehow working sexual orientation into conversations.
I am often amused,
though sometimes annoyed by the reaction that since I have a partner and a
family, my sexual orientation is irrelevant. If I insist that it does matter,
that it’s important to me not to be thought of a straight, then people feel
free to ask impertinent questions about my sex life. I feel like I ought to
carry around a list of references, a sexual cv even, complete with names,
dates, activities listed. But I am a private person. This is information I
share with close friends but it’s not the sort of conversation I want to have
with workplace colleagues or casual acquaintances. It shouldn’t matter in the
slightest in what and with whom my recent sex life consists. That’s even
setting aside fantasy life, tastes in porn, fleeting attractions, and various
and sundry crushes and flirtations all of which are part of one’s identity as a
sexual being. Notice that no one assumes that heterosexuals stop being
heterosexual if they haven’t had a partner in a while. Just imagine saying to
a straight friend, “Oh, sex, well you haven’t done that in a few years so you
must be over it by now surely?” (Thanks to Pepper for making this point in his
presentation at the international bisexuality conference in Toronto.)
One solution I
briefly considered is button wearing. I could just label myself with brightly
coloured pins which read “This is what a bisexual feminist looks like.” or
“Don’t assume I’m straight.” or “Queer.”
Here’s my favourite: “I’m bisexual and I’m not attracted to you.” But I’m also
a sensitive soul and didn’t want to hurt any feelings or have the wrong person
think the button was addressed to her/him. Now back in my ripped jean jacket,
Doc Marten, army surplus messenger bag carrying days this would have worked.
But I am less comfortable pinning buttons on my suit jackets or leather purses.
Besides it’s a cluttered messy look so I buy buttons, think about wearing them,
and instead let them collect at the bottom of my backpack where I prick my
finger while searching for loose change. (Note to self: clean out back pack.)
The problem is
compounded by age. I’m in my early 40s so not so old at all really but I get
occasional glimpses of the future. Older women in our society are assumed to
have no interest in sex whatsoever—the ‘cougar’ phenomena notwithstanding. We
can barely imagine women past the childbearing age as sexually active with
their husbands, let alone if they have broader sexual tastes. Once past 60 in
order to be read as sexual women need to dress outrageously, in overtly over
the top sexual ways. An aside: It also
gets odd as one ages because many more of the 60 + women I meet look like
lesbians. Short, spiky, silver hair abounds. Birkenstocks, comfortable clothes,
no make up, wire frame glasses…. Now it’s not my preferred lesbian aesthetic
but it’s nonetheless a recognizably lesbian “look.” Except that many of these
women are straight. Yet, the message they are sending is one shared with queer
women: a lack of concern for what straight men think of their appearance, a
value of function over fashion, comfort over style. I’ve taken to chatting with
a few such women at conferences only to be disappointed in my assumptions.
