By Natasha Avital
“Oh…so you have an open relationship then.”
It’s a statement, not a question. From this woman who hardly even knows me. From this woman with whom I’ve never discussed my relationship before. All of a sudden, she thinks she knows such an intimate part of my life…not only that, but she also thinks she knows such an intimate part of my boyfriend’s life, this man she doesn’t even know.
And all because of two words: “I’m bisexual.” Two words, and this woman already has in her head a distorted image she thinks is the perfect picture of my relationship.
“How dare you?” I wanna scream. “You don’t know me!” I wanna scream. But this is before Bi-Sides, before bi activism in my life. So I only say “No, no, we don’t.”
This is me still too immersed in a LG culture that often mocks and erases the B and T, too immersed in a culture that often sees me as an outsider, a fake, a joke, or a problem to be solved. This happens during the months of the horrific homophobic death threats one of my friends is getting, and I let myself believe that maybe those gay men and lesbians are right after all: having people making broad assumptions about my life based solely on my way of loving is not a serious enough issue to deserve attention when other people have it so much worse. The fact that I myself, based solely on my way of loving, have been the victim of online harassment, and said to be better off dead, goes unnoticed. I already bought the lie that there’s only so much opression to go around.
“But you’re so pretty…and smart.”
This is after Bi-Sides, after the work and lives of so many amazing bisexual people from many places in the globe have empowered me to not be passive around “micro” oppressions, because there isn’t such a thing. No oppression stands alone…they all feed off each other, often the major ones a product of a world where the less blatant ones go unnoticed, an ugly part of everyday life that should have never been allowed to nest there.
“So, only ugly, stupid women can be bi then?” The words are forming in my mouth, the dry cutting tone meant to leave no doubt that this is one of the most asinine remarks I’ve ever heard in my short life.
But then I remember where I am: in the front seat (because he insisted I sit on the front seat) of this cab whose driver I’m seeing for the second time in my life, but who has already shown how little he cares for my personal space, with his remarks that I’m sure he thinks are compliments, but just make me very, very aware that I am, after all, sitting in a stranger’s car.
I remember the ghastly British statistics about bisexual women being the ones at the highest risk for sexual assault. And I remember how ghastly it was that this news came as no surprise to me. In a world that makes it clear that a woman’s desire for sex makes her available for any man willing to force his desirefor sex upon her, and that projects the distorted image of bi women as sex-crazed creatures attracted to anything that moves, or sex-crazed women so desperate for male atention that they will have sex with other women for the sole purpose of titillating men…well, is it any wonder that those two damaging myths will combine to make sure that those sex-crazed, “anything goes,” biSEXual, assault victims “had it coming,” really?
And I’m afraid to say anything, because I don’t know what kind of distorted image the word “bisexual” has conjured up in this man’s mind by years of combined homophobia, biphobia and misogyny. I’m way too used to people thinking they know me based on those two little words to get into an argument and forget for even a second that I am, after all, sitting in a stranger’s car.
Natasha is a member of Bi-Sides, currently one of the only three exclusively bisexual support groups in Brazil. She’s also a member of E-Jovem, Brazil’s only youth LGBT organization.