Do you think bisexuals are overlooked?>

Overlooked in what way?

 

Pop culture? I don't think it matters, no celebrity can choose their sexuality and it shouldn't matter what a character's sexuality is.

News? I'm not sure, I don't really look.

 

In the media, yes. There are a lot of Bisexual celebrities who are very open about their sexuality, but are often written as being straight by the media.
In real life, people tend to think you're either doing it for attention or you're actually just gay.

 

I feel in news discussions most sexualities outside of heterosexual or homosexual are over looked and aren't discussed enough. Of those sexualities overlooked bisexuality is probably one of the least over looked. That's my personal opinion

 

Well I've never cared much about bisexuals. Either you want to screw me or you don't.
Does that count as overlooking?

 

Yes

 

In a lot of contexts, yes. For example, marriage equality is referred to as "gay marriage". Granted, it's many gay and lesbian organizations that advocated for marriage equality and bisexuals could have gotten married in the past proven they married an opposite-gender partner but still. But in the media, you don't hear a lot of people bring up bisexuals. For the longest time, no one even really referred to our community as the LGBT community. We were considered just the gay community, even with the presence of bisexuals, transgender people and so many other identities related to sexuality and/or gender. Bisexuals are starting to receive a little more recognition from the media but it's not always positive. For example, many bisexual characters in television and film are still depicted as being "really gay". And even in the LGBT community, we give bisexuals a hard time. Many gay and lesbian folks refuse to date bisexuals although plenty of gay and lesbian people certainly don't mind and bisexuals are often lambasted for misconceptions about our sexuality where it's like "oh you're not pansexual so you're not inclusive because you don't date non binary people". Completely false. Bisexuals can date non binary people. I would instead hazard to ask how pansexuality is fundamentally different.

 

Not really, they're the only ones who get to be on tv.

 

Some of the words used above confuse me because I am not familiar with them and don't use them.

The straight community is either mystified or confused by them in many cases. Many members of the LG community want them to pick a side, it seems.

Also, society thinks it's FAR more ok for women to be bisexual than men.

They're not overlooked. However, they sit in a gray area that isn't always an easy place to be.

 

Since when? Not trying to jump your shit, man, but I am genuinely curious.

 

Yes, we are massively overlooked. Most people think bisexuality is not a real orientation; people are all either straight or gay. There's even a book written about this, I think it's called: Straight, Gay or Lying.
Makes my blood boil at times.

 

It's a shame, I have heard many straight people say they don't believe in bisexuality. I have heard the craziest things actually. Some include:
"Girls can be bisexual, but guys can't."
"People just say they are bisexual so they don't have to say they're gay."

I swear people do not know how naive they sound. And as ForNarnia said, celebrities that have come out as bisexual are still said to be 'straight' most of the time because they are married to the opposite sex.

 

I don't think they are overlooked, but I feel like they aren't taken seriously. I feel like when someone says that they're bisexual, people automatically judge them and think they are either going through a phase, or they're only halfway out of the closet.

 

Precisely.

 

I feel overlooked to an extent. I have felt at times I'm dammed by both sexes. I'm not one or the other. The stereotypes of being more likley to cheat. WTF. I've never cheated on anyone ive had a relationship with and I could write a book of names of pick your gender, race, religion, etc that have cheated on a partner. I'll shut up.

 

I would say so, yes. I feel that the society that I live in isn't mature enough to handle bisexuality yet. I think there might be any reasons to this. The first that comes to mind is that bisexuals often doubt themselves so much, which makes it harder to form a strong bi pride movement. Gay pride is stronger, I believe, not only because they're greater in number, but because they're qualitatively more powerful, in that once out, they can really show the world their colors and claim a place for themselves in society. This is not as easily done when you have a smaller community, that is also more prone, or at least it seems so to me, to doubt themselves and waver. I know I fall into that trap, in that I'm not sure whether I would ever be able to be closer than maybe friends with benefits with another woman. There are probably lots of other reasons, also - some have been mentioned above.
EDIT: I would also like to add that I happen to be a mild believer in that "everyone is bisexual" - though not literally, of course. Just in the sense that I don't usually like dealing with theoretical matters in absolutes. I believe that in a natural environment - that is, without societal conditioning - bisexuality (let's say, Kinsey 4.5-Kinsey 1.5) would be more common than it is today.

 

(Long post, sorry. Also, I don't know as much about problems with male bisexuality as with female bisexuality, so most of my points will be about that.)

I would say yes, but not as much pansexuality or asexuality. At this point in time, almost no one believes that homosexuality does not exist, but there is still a sizable number of people believe bisexuality is not a thing, probably because of gay people who came out as bisexual at first to soften the blow to their parents, the fact that a lot of bisexuals marry and so are seen to choose a side, and just to the fact that most people identify as monosexuals. Bisexuals also face skepticism from both heterosexuals and even the LGBT+ community. They are often regarded as not queer enough for the LGBT+ community, but too queer for the general population. If you look up statistics, you will see that even though bisexuals make up the highest percentage of the LGBT+ community, they are the least likely to be out.

There is also the double standard regarding bisexual men and bisexual women (nonbinary bisexuals are overlooked so much that most people don't think they exist). You've probably heard that all women are bisexual while no men are. This leads to another point: bisexuals, especially women, are more likely to stereotyped and sexualized (bisexual men are usually ignored). Bisexual women are pretty much a fetish for a lot of people. All bisexuals are stereotyped to be lying, but men are generally seen as gay and trying to deny it, women are generally seen as straight and wanting attention. Because of this, I've heard of a lot of lesbians who refuse to date bisexuals because they think they are straight. There also comes another problem for bisexual women - if you look it up, almost half of bisexual women report that they have been raped at some time during their life. They are more accepted than bisexual men, but they are also more objectified.

Now with media, I think that bisexuals definitely get less representation than homosexuals, at least from what I've seen, with female representation more common than male representation. Bisexuals are also more likely to be stereotyped as sexually promiscuous in media. Actually, I don't recall ever reading a book or watching a movie where there was a male who was attracted to more than one gender and who was not portrayed as promiscuous or having a high sex drive. There is also a thing where media tends to erase bisexuality. This either shows as a character clearly showing an attraction to both genders yet identifying as straight or gay (darn it Buffy the Vampire Slayer) or as a character clearly showing an attraction to both genders yet saying "they don't like labels (which is fair enough, but nearly every. darn. time.)."

All that being said, I think that after homosexuals bisexuals are recognized/represented a lot better that other members of the LGBT+ community. They are viewed better than trans people, and a lot of people have no clue that pansexuality/asexuality exist. But yeah, they are still overlooked.

 

Absolutely! You always here about "gay" rights and stuff. When I see the media use LGBT they generally are just referring to the L and G.