I noticed there's a bit of stigma (more like a lot) about bisexuality on the net. Although I am quite sure that I am a bisexual woman, I don't feel like I wish to come out and join the LGBTQQA community yet because I don't fit many of the cliched stereotypes going on. I find the rainbow flag extremely distasteful and ostentatious, and at least where I am, many of the LGBTQQA people are fairly unattractive. I am extremely monogamous and loyal in relationships and I can not see myself fitting the attention-loving temporary bisexuality that's running rampant among young folks these days. In other words, I know my sexual identity, but I don't fit in with the LGBTQQA community because I don't share much else in common with the most "outstanding" members of said community. On this note, I've found myself getting quite depressed over the entire situation. I wish I could fit in and be loved for who I am, but I feel that I won't necessarily be. If I had been born a man, I don't think I'd be necessarily happier about my extra parts, but I'd probably be categorized as straight. I am attracted to both men and women, but romantically and physical appearance-wise, I am immediately more attracted to women. It gets more and more complicated everyday as I try to explore my sexual identity while staying true to myself.
Hi Foxfeather, I'm also a young bi woman, and here are my thoughts on what you shared with us. Thanks for being open about it. It wasn't exactly pleasant to read, but you're not the only one with these impressions and it's important to talk about it. Ah, but that's exactly it. They're stereotypes. I don't fit any of them, and I don't care. I know LGBT people who fit some stereotypes and not others, I know some who are very clichéd -- and none of them are more LGBT than the others. We don't have to be stereotypes. Well... There isn't much I can say about that. I love it, personally, but if you don't like the colors, well... No one's asking you to wear a rainbow t-shirt. Such a huge generalization. The LGBT people I've met on campus are rather more attractive than the average person, but that doesn't mean anything. Also, have you met so many LGBT people where you live to be able to say that? And that can be absolutely compatible with bisexuality. What does it mean to "join" the LGBT community, anyway? I am LGBT, but I never got the membership card. You don't have to go to every gay pride, every gay bar and club, every party if that's not your thing. You don't have to do everything with the "community." I have LGBT friends, I have straight+cis friends, and it's not like there's this wall between the "community" and the "others." But I really do enjoy the occasional meet-up with an LGBT group, and I feel you could, too. The people who come to the meetings I go to are very diverse, for lack of a better word, and knowing them, it's impossible for me to speak generalizations about the "community." They're individuals. I think getting to know a couple LGBT people as people would be good for you and make you feel more comfortable about stereotypes.
Hi Foxfeather! You start by saying that you feel that there is stigma against bisexuality on the net, as if you are on the receiving end of this stigma, and yet what you say seems to rest on the most cliched and prejudiced views of the community and bisexuals in particular. It looks like you take the negative stereotypes of bisexuals and other LGBTQQA people and treat them as reality and a reason to distance yourself from them, because 'you are not like them". It frankly comes across as rude, if not offensive. I am personally not offended by it, because I know everyone who comes here struggles with acceptance and this is clearly your struggle, but this is how you currently come across. What you have just described is biphobic: mistaking sexual promiscuity for bisexuality. Yes, many young people are promiscuous, whether they are gay or straight or bisexual, furthermore many straight people (especially women) act bicurious to attract men, but this has little to do with bisexuality as such. Bisexual people can be as monogamous and committed as straight or gay people, and they need to fight this prejudicial view that the are by nature more promiscuous, everyday. What you see out there, and what you take to be 'the community' is simply people who happen to be maybe more outgoing or exibitionist, because in every section of society people with those kinds of characteristics will be more likely to seek exposure and attention, and so this is what you will see, but it by no means characterises the whole of the 'community'. The thought process of focusing on negative aspects of sexual minorities and using this to say to yourself "I am not like them", is a consequence of internalised homophobia and queer phobia, and a mechanism of personal denial. You can still be you, the way you are now, and be bisexual: being bisexual requires simply being bisexual, and it does not mean that you have to instantly adopt and enact all the cliches and stereotypes that you might have of bisexual people.
Why? Its just a rainbow flag, and has in its many variations not only been used by the LGBT movement, but also to mean Peace and many other meanings throughout history. In its LGBT incarnation the colours were designed to symbolise: life (red), healing (orange), sunlight (yellow), nature (green), harmony (blue), and spirit (purple/violet) How is this distasteful? (*Confused*)
