Don’t Say This To Your Bisexual Partner
Panel 1
[Image] A three tiered wedding cake with a bride and groom placed on top.
[Caption] I recently got married to my soulmate…
Panel 2
[Image] A closeup of the top tier with the bride and groom figures. Both figures are smiling.
[Caption] …who happens to be a man.
Panel 3
[Image] The bride smiling bride and groom figures. Between them, a hand is placing a heart, which contains the caption text.
[Caption] I’ve been honest from the start: I’m bisexual. I’m attracted to men, women, and anyone in between. It didn’t matter to him, and we fell in love.
Panel 4
[Image] A woman and man sitting on a sofa in front of a TV. On the TV screen is a man, in closeup.
[Caption] But sometimes…
Woman: Ooo he’s hot!
Man: Oh yeah?
Panel 5
[Image] The man and woman on the sofa, facing each other, smiling.
Man: If you could sleep with any celebrity…who would it be?
Woman: Ooooo
Panel 6
[Image] The man, smiling and facing the reader. He has one hand casually raised.
Man: Not that I’d want you to cheat on me with some famous guy.
Panel 7
[Image] The woman looks annoyed, and is facing the man. The man is still smiling, and has his eyes closed. He looks dismissive but content.
Woman: I was actually thinking of a woman.
Man: Oh well, that’s not the same
Panel 8
[Image] The man and the woman on the sofa. The woman looks upset, and has her face in her hand. She is looking downward. The man is still smiling and looking ahead, oblivious.
[Caption] I don’t think he realizes how his disregard for my different attractions affects me. It makes me feel like there is a part of me that is invisible to him. In order to be monogamous, I may look like I am attracted to just one gender, but that doesn’t make it true. Bisexuals do not “pick” or “end up on one side or the other”. I am bisexual and my hope is for the man I love to fully understand and respect that.
Full story
It took me a long time to accept that I am bisexual. And even though I still feel like that single word doesn’t encompass the spectrum of my sexuality, I use it because it saves me time from going into an in-depth conversation with people who I don’t owe any explanations to.
I recently got married to my soul mate, who just so happens to be a man. I was honest from the start of our relationship about my attraction to both men, women, and anyone in between. It didn’t matter to him and we fell in love.
But sometimes it seems like he forgets that side of me. When we discuss hypothetical situations regarding infidelity he’ll say things like “if you cheat on me with some guy,” or “don’t go cheating on me with another man.”
While I would never cheat on him, I like to point out that it doesn’t necessarily need to be a man. I like women too! I also notice that he pays close attention to if I check out a guy but pays no mind if I check out a woman.
I don’t think he realizes how his disregard for my different attractions affects me. It makes me feel like there is a part of me that is invisible to him. In order to be monogamous, I may look like I am attracted to just one gender, but that doesn’t make it true.
Bisexuals do not “pick” or “end up on one side or the other.” I am bisexual, and my hope is for the man I love to fully understand and respect that.
Illustrated by Chrissi H and Amanda Elbeck
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I understand what you’re saying and then some. To a degree, I married the only man I’d bother with. But when I see women, I’m often found checking them out. I am monogamous. That’s often the misunderstanding about bisexuals. That we cannot be faithful. But it is insulting and sometimes I get a strange feeling deep down when my husband has complete disregard toward my desire for a woman. You are not alone my friend. Being bisexual is rather difficult I guess. Not to mention I have borderline personality disorder and it means I’m able to love just about anyone and I find everyone lovable.
Miranda – You hit the nail on the head about one of the most damaging falsehoods about bisexuals: that monogamy is impossible. In reality, a monogamous bisexual is just a likely as any other sexuality. And isn’t it a compliment to their spouse that they are attracted to MORE people and still choose to be faithful to them?
I’m married to a bisexual. Of course I don’t care, I love him and I plan to stay with him forever. But as a straight person, surrounded by a heteronormative society, sometimes I forget. Sometimes I say things that sounds like I’m ignoring that side of him. But when that happens he stops and tells me what I did wrong. I’ve been able to learn and grow so much, which hopefully just makes me more worthy of being his partner.
I wish this comic showed that at all, at the end she’s just sulking and he has no idea that what he said hurt her.
Yeah there isn’t the full story here – but it could be they’ve had the conversation about how his disregard for her bisexuality hurts and she’s upset that he hasn’t listened or learnt anything.
My ex never got my bisexuality, never accepted. He saw it as a threat. There were lots of problems in that relationship.
I think part of it might also be related to insecurity. With a man, he’d always wonder, “What does he have that I don’t?” With a woman, the insecurity is less, because the answer to that question, “What does she have that I don’t?” is more obvious. She obviously has different genitalia and aesthetics, so it’s not an immediate threat in the same way. It *is* easier to accept that there are needs and wants a woman could satisfy that he can’t, than to accept that you’d rather have another man than him.
As a bisexual guy, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this :p And talking about it with some of the partners I’ve had open relationships with. I’m not trying to say the above is definitely true for your husband, but it could be part of it. Men do tend to be more competitive with each other than with women (part of the whole testosterone deal), and also (due to upbringing and the whole social training to never show or admit weakness) less likely to admit to why they’re not as threatened by another woman as they would be by another man. Sometimes, they might not even be fully aware of why they’re not as bothered by the thought of their wife/girlfriend with another woman. And, of course, pornography has done its job there by portraying two women together as a male sexual fantasy, and I think that even for those who don’t regularly watch porn it has created a sort of… acceptance of the thought of two women together, at least as long as one or both of them are also attracted to men. (Twisted and crazy, I know.)
My wife is bisexual. When I met her, she was with a man. She would never cheat on me, just like I would never cheat on her. That said, I rarely tease her about women (like which celebrity would you want), because she’s never mentioned a woman. But, I know if Jimmy Smits comes to our home, all bets are off.
Still, a lot of our friends do not understand that she’s bisexual. I think to a lot of people it’s one or the other.
I do find it rather offensive that men seem to think an attraction to a woman is somehow less threatening to a relationship than an attraction to a man. It’s the same in my eyes.