It's Bisexuality Awareness week!

I did it! A full year of thoughtful queer content!

It's been fully one year since I started this blog about bisexuality, queer themes, polyamory, and wellness intersectionality. My how the time flies! I want to thank all of my readers for staying with me, and supporting me throughout my process! Thank you for your feedback, and don't be afraid to leave comments on my posts! I enjoy thoughtful (and respectful) discourse about topics I present.

It's that time of year again!

It's Bisexual Awareness Week in case you didn't know...and 2017 has been a year where more and more folks are coming out as bi/queer as there is a bit more understanding in society about life beyond the binary. And yet....there's still the problem of representation for bisexual/queer folks in media, in children's stories, in politics, and the ongoing issues of negative social and health outcomes for bisexuals that need to be addressed.

Let me back this up a bit. Yes, there are now more sexually diverse and gender-variant characters on TV, and yes, more celebrities have come out about being bisexual/queer/poly this year, thus increasing bisexual visibility in media. However, I'm still noticing how many people online and in the real world don't really understand or respect bisexuality/queerness. Especially when it comes to services, medical needs, and specific queer parenting challenges. It's like society is sometimes willing to grudgingly admit that bisexuals exist but then don't put any supports in place to sustain that awareness. This article shows the range of experiences that bi people face when coming out (huzzah for Teen Vogue!)

Attitudes like the ones in this graphic below continue to persist in the real world and online:

The whole "picking a side" thing really is a complex issue. On the one hand, if you "pick a side" you may be ostracized by the LGBTQ2 community as settling, especially if you "choose" a heteronormative monogamous relationship. Or you de facto become gay to straight people (hello, invisibility). On the other hand, if you don't "pick a side," you're often seen as a "messy" bisexual, greedy, promiscuous (not a negative in my view) or a fence-sitter. Ugh. No way to win!

"This banner's on the fence. Bisexuals aren't." From this Tumblr account.

Here's an excellent video that sums up how (some) people respond when you tell them you are bi/queer:

"Aha! So it IS a choice!" - groan...

It's a tough thing to come out to people as someone who loves and fucks outside the gender binary. Especially when you are unsure of how they will react to the news. In an effort to be more visible, I've started coming out to more and more coworkers, but I'm mindful of which people I share my life info with because I don't want to feel potential negative social or career implications, even though my rights are enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights & Freedoms of 1982. This fear is something that straight people will never understand, and it keeps me mindful of my safety. Even though this blog is public, I am careful of which audience I share it to on Facebook and I've removed the ability to track me down via this blog (again, to ensure my safety). I've also started sharing my poly reality with coworkers as well in an effort to normalize it, promote awareness, and get support when things are overwhelming. So far, it's been pretty positive. Folks tend to be confused about non-monogamy, especially when I tell them that I'm married to a man, and often the poly thing is harder for people to wrap their heads around than being bi. However, my sexuality and polyamory are totally intertwined (but I recognize that this isn't the case for all bi people).

Do I have to pick one path? Poly allows me to pick more than one, thus, I'm not choosing a side, but choosing something like "d) All of the Above" if this was a multiple choice question.

Bisexual/queer folks experience double discrimination as well as invisibility - from the straight community AND from the gay/lesbian community. Let me use the following two "exhibits" to demonstrate what I mean by double discrimination.

Exhibit A: A bisexual woman's experience of discrimination based on perception and partner's gender:

Seriously?!

Exhibit B: Discrimination from the gay community:

Here's a prime example of discrimination against a bi person from a gay person.

And while there are many resources available to Gays and Lesbians for emotional, mental, and physical health, there is almost no such similar infrastructure in place for bi/queer folk. In fact, you never even hear about the existence of a "bisexual community," it's always "the Gay and Lesbian X, Y, Z...." The only place that I have really felt a sense of community is online, and with the one I intentionally built around me - my chosen family. I'm lucky that my doctor even bothers to ask me if I have sex with men and women as most doctors will assume you are straight unless you tell them. 

I feel that Vancouver is making some good strides to create events that foster awareness and make space for folks across the gender and sexuality spectrum to come together and witness and celebrate each other (especially during Pride season). I can go to queer events and feel like I can be me and (mostly) be seen. However, I think that Canada could do better overall with regards to bisexual awareness, based on the fact that the events listed on www.bivisibilityday.com are kind of lacking and only for Toronto-area residents:

Come on rest of Canada! Let's get this bi-coastal bi party started!

You may be wondering what you can do to help with biphobia, bi-erasure, discrimination, and shit attitudes towards queers? Well, here's some ideas:

Read books and blogs written by bisexuals to gain further awareness and understanding. Go onto YouTube and watch some videos by a bisexual vloggers (like Eliel Cruz below). Ask questions if you don't understand what to do better as an ally. Add a bisexual visibility day banner to your Facebook profile picture. March with your friends at Pride. Work with other LG groups to promote intra-queer understanding and inclusivity. Donate to bisexual organizations that work to help eradicate those sad statistics about bisexual health outcomes, like the Bisexual Resource Centre. 

Thanks for helping making my world more inclusive! I hope that through my writings that readers will gain more understanding, compassion, and that the information herein promotes behaviours that create more LGBTQ2 cohesiveness. Peace.

Where are we now?

The past month or so has been full of personal challenges for me that I haven't been ready to write about and share on my blog until now. When it comes to exposing some of my deepest thoughts and feelings, I try to ensure that I write from a place of calm objective honesty, rather than irrational myopic bias. Some of what I'm going to share today is connected to previous posts like Communication Breakdown, but some thoughts will be entirely new to my blogsphere.

2017 has been a year of big changes in my life. I got married, I'm in the process of packing for moving in with the Bear (finally), and I've been devoting a lot of my energy to finding more appropriate employment. I've been deepening my poly connections, whilst making some new friends and reconnecting with old ones along the way. I've been navigating difficult health issues (both physical and mental) and trying to find a way forward to wellness.

August was a particularly rough month for me. I was dealing with intense feelings around being excluded from my poly circle (again, due to money, and physical limitations); I had removed the hormonal IUD I've been on for the past five years which was messing up my body chemistry big time; and I was head-long in the search for new housing. My stress level was therefore, really high. My physical pain symptoms made sleep difficult. My mental health started to decline...and sleep became very challenging. I could feel my true self feeling trapped in a little jail surrounded by depression and hard thoughts. And I felt powerless inside to stop some of the thoughts and behaviours that were elicited by my depression. My thoughts became extreme and Bear had to run interference when he saw/heard that I was clearly going off the rails. Thank you Bear for helping me through those hard moments.

OMG the varying feels of depression. This is fairly accurate for me at times.

Depression for me comes in waves. And it can be exacerbated by other people's depression too. I have to make sure that my mental health issues don't get compounded by those of my various partners.

This time, the depression was a direct result of grieving what I felt was a perceived change in my relationship with Birdfriend. While things have been shifting this year between us, something happened in the couple months directly after we came home from New Zealand. I'm not even sure what that "thing" was that changed. But we both felt it. And it got aggravated by me feeling left out and not supported with regards to my chronic pain and ability. And then my brain and the maelstrom of mad thoughts took over and things have been in steady decline between us for the past few months. To the point where it was painful for me to even think about Birdfriend. And I shut down.

Birdfriend has been very patient and trying to be supportive. But they have been very frustrated with me as well, and I don't really blame them for it. It's tough being partnered with someone who has mental health issues that cycle through being fine, and then NOT. And when I'm really not well, I push people away - including Birdfriend (which I can image has been painful for them). I know that my depression is tough on Bear too - he's dealt with the brunt of my darkness. However, trying to talk about depression when you are in it is next to impossible, hence the quote above. It's a Catch-22 type of situation. You know that dialogue will help things, but you are so deep in your head that you can't even see anything outside of yourself. Like the old saying, "can't see the forest for the trees." It's a really shitty place to experience life from, and sometimes I'm simply not able to shake myself out of the feeling.

Yep. Sometimes I'm doing the reassuring, and at other times, I'm needing reassurance.

This past week I've had a few very in-depth and difficult conversations. They were MUCH needed conversations, but still, hard to have. The first one(s) was with Birdfriend around how we both aren't really happy with the current incarnation of our connection and how to address that without "throwing the baby out with the bathwater." This conversation was a long time in the making, probably almost a year...and it was good to really check-in and be honest with each other about our feelings and how we can better hear, be with, and support one another. We are still trying to "land" this conversation as there is more discussion and negotiation needed in order to move forward. However, we are both committed to finding a way forward that works for us both. And I do have faith that we will find a way. Our relationship is one of the most unique, nourishing, expansive connections I've ever had in my life. And I value and cherish it immensely, as does Birdfriend.

Ah, pre-conversation jitters. How they make just starting a tough conversation all the more difficult.

The second conversation I've had this week has been with Yak. I realize that I haven't been writing much about Yak and my connection with her for the past few months, and I plan on writing something specific soon... Yak and I have been cycling through what feels like the same conversation for the past several months about how to conceptualize and evolve our current relationship. It was clear that we both feel lots of love and passion for each other, but that there was also a feeling of limitation on both sides. I felt limited in that I wanted to offer more to Yak, and she felt limited because she thought I was living from a place of hierarchical poly and thus, she couldn't have more from me. It took us months to finally figure it out and have a clearer conversation about it, and I'm so glad that we did figure out what the wrench in the works was because it was making us both kind of nuts. I know that more conversations with Yak are needed so that we both feel heard and are getting our needs met in and out of the relationship. And again, I have faith that we will find a way forward.

For my readers, I would like to clarify something. I don't believe in, nor participate in hierarchical polyamory. I think it's shit, frankly. I find that hierarchies make participants who are "lower in rank" feel less or even unimportant, can make folks feel like they have little agency in the relationship, and can make partners feel marginalized. I don't want my sweeties to feel that way. I believe in a more egalitarian soly-poly type approach to relationships (bordering on relationship anarchy). When I am with my partner, I am with them. I try not to look at my phone or message my other partners; I try and give them my full self in the moment; and I make space for them daily (messages, happy thoughts, making plans etc).

While I do have a primary partner in Bear, I sometimes don't really feel like I need the word "primary" to describe in my head what I feel for him. He's my spouse, and my husbear, and my partner. Birdfriend is my non-primary, but again, I feel like I could drop the "non-primary" and just call them partner. Yak is my lover, and that currently fits, but I'm open to changing the label if it no longer fits for us.

I'm going to close this blog post with a most excellent comic from Kimchi Cuddles:

Plenty of room in my heart for all three of my partners.

Where the bi boys are

Since I developed this blog about a year ago, I've been wanting to write a piece specifically about bisexual men. I am very curious about how the experiences of bisexual men differ from women, and so I've been collecting online articles, watching YouTube videos, and speaking with the bi men in my social circle to get a better idea of how bisexual men move through the world. The differences are interesting to say the least...

Where bisexual women are often perceived as straight and wanting male attention, bisexual men are often perceived as gay. These stereotypes are toxic and cissexist. I think that Eliel Cruz said it best in this article:

For a man to be interested in multiple genders, especially those from either ends of the feminine or masculine spectrum, breaks down the cisheternormative idea of a binary attraction in which masculinity must attract femininity.
The stereotype, which is cissexist, is that bi women are actually straight and bi men are actually gay because of the attraction to men. A patriarchal, and binary, understanding of sexuality says that once you like men you must only like men.

Here's a painful example from a survey that Glamour Magazine ran last year:

The "bisexual men don't exist" idea is so prevalent that men are often pushed to either create a supportive community because there is no space for them in LGBTQ2 circles despite the B being a clear part of that acronym; or they stay in the closet or are vague about their sexuality to others because they don't feel safe to come out and be accepted for who they are. Because bisexual men are often just seen as gay and therefore, sexual predators (shudder, another stereotype that needs to die), they get pushed out of their jobs if they come out, like this bi teacher in Kentucky who came out to his class to help support a suicidal LGBTQ2 teen. We need to support these men. They are people too!

For more "reactions" by women about men coming out to them as bi, go check out this article.

This video is an awesome look into the stereotypes around bisexual men, definitely worth a watch! TheNotAdam has many "Ask a Bi Guy" episodes, so if you want to delve deep into topics around men's bisexuality, go for it!

Given how I view human sexuality as this fluid, evolving, and highly personal thing, I totally disagree with the stereotype about bi men being gay. The bisexual men I know are: married to men, date women but fuck men, date men but fuck women, or date/fuck all genders. This stereotype just doesn't hold water, and it plays into the larger problematic stereotype that all bi/queer folks seem to deal with - that you can't be bi/queer - you have to pick a side. Which is rubbish, really. And to say that men aren't sexually fluid is to discount their experiences and their stories. Attraction exists on a continuum, as does sexuality, and this is true for all genders.

One my my favourite YouTube vloggers, Arielle Scarcella, posted this awesome video just this past week where "Bisexual Guys Explain [liking] Men vs. Women". It was really illuminating to watch.

Another painful stereotype about bisexual men has to do with the transmission of HIV and STI's to women and this causes many women to expressly NOT date bisexual men. Women see bisexual men as risky and make assumptions about their honesty around self-reporting HIV, testing, and safe sexual practices. To those women, I like to give them a bit of a slap across the face and ask them when was the last time their cis-hetero male partner was tested. While it is true that gay and bisexual men are dis-proportionally affected by HIV, it does not stand to reason that all of these men are potentially HIV positive. Straight men can transmit HIV to their female partners too. Moreover, it's now been shown that biphobia puts bisexual men at risk for increased STI's because the stigma keeps them in the closet, and prevents them from seeking medical testing and care.

This data is from 2009 - I'd like to see an updated graph. But the story is clear...

Interestingly, the #1 issue that gay/bisexual men reported (click here for full report) wasn't around HIV (that was tied for the #2 issue with "equal rights" and "marriage equality") but rather about discrimination/stigma/lack of acceptance. This mirrors what I have seen in bisexual women's data as well. Clearly, this issue is a cause for concern as it reflects the negative health outcomes reported last September by the Movement Advancement Project. Thus, if we tackle the stigma (in both the hetero and LGBTQ2 arenas) around bisexuality, I believe that we could improve mental health and sexual health outcomes for us folks under the bi umbrella.