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.

PRIDE is upon us

It's that time of year again. Pride. Aka Gay Christmas. Aka the time of year when folks across the rainbow spectrum come together, party/celebrate, overextend themselves under the hot sun at day/strobe lights at night, and then ultimately crash on Tuesday morning. Pride.

For many years I didn't feel entitled to be a part of Pride. I didn't attend the parade or events, I had mixed feelings about people parading their sexuality through the streets (yay, growing up Catholic), and I didn't know where I fit into the whole "celebrate your queerness thing." As a bi person growing up, I heard about Gay Pride and Lesbian Pride but absolute silence on any mention of Bi Pride. I felt that there simply wasn't a space during Pride time that I could access, belong to, or be loudly, vocally my queer self. After doing some internet research and talking to some queer folks, I realize that I am not alone in feeling this way during Pride.

Image borrowed from Bi.org's blog. But you get the idea, right?

To this day, many queer women (and men) still don't feel like there is a place for them at Pride. In 2016, the dating app HER did a survey (approx 3,000 US women responded) and found that about one third of respondents felt unwelcome/not included at Pride. This speaks volumes. LGBTQ Nation also posted a recent article about this sense of unease and exclusivity at Pride events. Pride events tend to center around white, gay, cis-male culture - this might be because of patriarchy, racism, and economic reasons that would be hard to untangle here in this blog post. Further, even though the Queer Community writ large is supposed to be this awesome all-encompassing culture of inclusion and acceptance, there's still the "leave your opposite-sex partner at home during Pride" vibe palpable in the air. If you don't believe me, check out this Tumblr post that has been making the rounds on the internet:

From the website NotAdamandSteve.com I highly recommend that you read the article in the link.

When I started dating women, I began to come out more to Pride events...especially if I was with a same-sex partner. But when I started dating Bear, I didn't feel comfortable bringing him around to Pride events - especially ones geared towards women only. But even in mixed events, I felt awkward with him there next to me. I realized that I was feeling invisible as a bi/queer woman. Holding the hand of a big, masculine, cis-gendered Bear during Pride made me look de facto straight. Something that makes my queer insides cringe.

Truth (also, I really want to fix the grammar in this to "are most of them")

Feeling invisible happens to me daily because of my personal Femme styling and because folks may know about my husband but not about Birdfriend or Yak. Being affectionate with Bear at Pride events makes me feel as though any queer participant looking at us would see a straight couple. Bear wants to be included in Pride - both as my partner but also as my ally and support. He wants to celebrate my queerness with me. Something that I find really sweet and encouraging. In past years, I kept this joint celebrating contained to Pride Sunday, a night where the entire community tends to go all out, all together. This year, I'm including Bear in some of my Saturday festivities as well (he's coming with me to his first kink event!) because I want him to feel that he is an active participant in my queer life.

I also need to do some internal work around this issue as well. This article is something that I have been mulling over the past few days and I can relate to aspects of the writer's experience. The quote below is a personal truth I hold, but I think I need to next-level this idea and realize that it expands outwards to include being queer in public space:

Because I know in my heart that I am:

And that I deserve to celebrate my queerness at Pride.

Luckily for me, I live in Vancouver where there are several events and marches that are geared to other sections of the rainbow community other than cis-male gay events. I will be marching in the Dyke March (even though I'm not a dyke) on Saturday with Birdfriend, Meerkat, and a friend. This March is one of the most important events to me at Pride as it's my only real opportunity to be seen in public as queer with my chosen family connections, lovers, and friends. I love how the Dyke March explicitly states that this event/festival is for:

Can I get a high-five? Anyways, I'm feeling more grounded and ready to integrate more fully as my whole self at Pride this year, not just the parts of me that certain members of the community want to engage with. Further, I'm avoiding/boycotting events that are corporate, white, cis-centric focused and instead spending my hard earned dollar on events that are inclusive of POC (people of colour), accessible, and open to all genders/orientations. Huzzah!

The Menagerie goes to BitF

For the past four years, I have replenished my soul in summer by heading either north or Southeast to go to the local Burning Man event (Burn in the Forest, or BitF hereafter). There's something really satisfying about camping outside with friends and locals while sharing our stories, art, and sometimes our bodies. This year, my entire polycule (which I call the Menagerie due to all the animals therein) went to BitF together. We camped mostly together, went to events together, cuddled together, laughed together, and had a great time.

A polycule is: A romantic network, or a particular subset of relationships within a romantic network, whose members are closely connected. Also used to describe a sketch or visualization of a romantic network, as these drawings often resemble the depiction of molecules used in organic chemistry. Elements of friendship also have space in a polycule.

This was the first time that I've had all three of my current poly people together in one place for more than a few hours. It was a bit challenging at times regarding time management (three lovely folks to spend time with, plus all those parties/events/workshops to go to!) but I feel as though I managed it fairly well. I think that the communication I did beforehand with each person helped to clear expectations and intentions as well.

It was really nice to be so openly with all three of my humans - the Bear, the Birdfriend, and the Yak. It's rare that all three of us occupy the same space together, and it felt really enriching and affirming to be myself with my loves in a public environment. Really freeing! I know that at times there was a bit of mild jealousy floating around regarding sex but I think for the most part it went really well for all three of us. I tried to spend dedicated time with each person, and we hung out as a group pretty much the entire weekend.

Birdfriend also had Meerkat to spend time with, so there's another link on the polycule chain. Plus my previous comet (let's call her Lizard) was also there and I had a really sweet moment with her.

Having my three loves around me also showed me how natural polyamory is for me. I feel the flow of love move through me and want to share it with my dearest ones. I don't move/act based on hierarchy or "shoulds" - I move/act based on authentic feelings of connection. But I recognize that others don't necessarily feel the same, and so I try to be as conscientious of the feelings of whichever person I am with (or all three of them if all are around). I hope that my partners feel that I succeed in this matter.

Random online platitude that rings true for me.

It's really gratifying to feel the bigger poly picture having space and support in my life outside of my relationships and blogging. Since writing this blog, I have been more open to share with people in the world (face to face) about my orientation and life. I feel as though because I am an approachable fox, that folks can ask me questions about my perspective on poly, relationships, and sex and not be judged for their curiosity (or ignorance). I am by no means an expert on this topic, but I do feel as though sharing my story with the world has helped others understand poly (and LGBTQ2 topics) and has hopefully helped folks feel connected when they read about how my experience is similar to theirs or has helped folks with clarifying their feelings around poly.

My foxy selfie at BitF 2017.

Thanks to all my readers out there. I appreciate your following and I appreciate your kind and honest queries about poly, how things "work," and sexuality in general. Keep being curious! Keep exploring yourselves and each other! Keep wondering, searching, and striving!

My next blog post will likely be about either Pride or some heavier topic (giving you a fair warning). My head is very full during these busy summer days, but I want to get my thoughts down in print to share with y'all. Have a blessed weekend.

Communication Breakdown

Lately in my blog posts, I haven't been writing much about either Birdfriend or Yak because I'd been focusing on my wedding and other things happening in my life but I feel as though the time has come for me to open up a bit more on those fronts. Lots of changes have been happening in my poly circle in the past year, and I've been adjusting as best I can - some days better than others to be sure.

Birdfriend has been dating someone for about 8 months now. Let's call her Meerkat. Meerkat is a lovely addition to our growing menagerie, and it's really wonderful to see Birdfriend so happy. Compersion! I'm still getting to know Meerkat as a person, and it's clear that she's committed to living the poly life, which makes me feel secure and grateful. It's also refreshing to meet another person who is well versed in poly and doesn't need much hand-holding in terms of what's going on.

Image borrowed from this website. I know they are logos, but it was hard to resist this image...

With new editions however, often come shifts and even rifts... I've always been Birdfriend's activity partner - we would go to cultural events like plays, go to Queer events together, go to kink parties together, go for walks etc. That has shifted quite a bit with the introduction of Meerkat into Birdfriend's life. Meerkat has an astonishing number of things in common with Birdfriend, and their outlook on future life seems very well aligned. I have been very happy and supportive of their deepening relationship. But I also have been struggling with feelings of displacement. There are things that I cannot do with Birdfriend that Meerkat can. And I've noticed that while Meerkat has more access to Birdfriend, my access has actually decreased in the past several months. Part of that was also due to wedding planning and obligations. But part of it was due to some miscommunication between Birdfriend and I, and time and funding constraints also played a role.

One person speaks and another person listens. But do they understand?

Communication is central to any relationship. Everyone who has ever read a book about relationships knows this. But what happens when communication breaks down? When people stop feeling heard and shut off? How does one move forward then? (To clarify - I'm talking about myself here).

Communication gradually began to break down between Birdfriend and I a few months back. I would share feelings of being left out of group plans/hikes/events and voice my frustration, and they would try to listen and offer solutions but I wasn't able to do more than share my feelings and didn't know how to "solve" the problem. I didn't necessarily feel understood, but I know that Birdfriend heard my words and yet nothing outwardly changed. And so, my frustration grew, and grew, until it exploded about two weeks ago. I erupted in anger and realized that I had been keeping my emotions in check (i.e. repressed) and was trying just a "good soldier" who should be grateful to get whatever breadcrumbs of time and affection I got. It was a bad scene in my head I tell you. I cried a lot. And I felt so disempowered. The only way I could show agency was to remove myself from any and all scenarios where I would have to be reminded of the fact that once again, I was not invited or could not physically (or monetarily) spend time with my poly circle folks. This seems completely counter-intuitive because I really want to spend time with my people. To anyone who is aware of what depression can do to relationships, this is a common occurrence. The depressed person pulls back even more when they need connection most. The brain is a complicated (and sometimes fucked up) thing.

What hurt even more is then that Birdfriend then verbally used my depression and behaviour as a point of argument in an email response venting their frustration back at me. It wasn't very fair and I'm still trying to "come back" from that one. While they have apologized for the intensity of their emails, these words stung and it will take me some time to rebound into feeling OK to share this side of myself with Birdfriend.

For anyone who hasn't had the "pleasure" of being acquainted with Depression, here's what the average cycle looks like for many people. It can be incredibly difficult to break this cycle as some factors remain firmly outside of a person's control.

Birdfriend, Meerkat, Yak, and Moose (Yak's bff) are all off hiking together this entire week. It's all the group has been able to talk about for months. It's hard because I also enjoy hiking and camping, but I have to avoid sleeping on the ground (Thermarest is simply not good enough) and I can't carry lots of weight on my back for long periods of time. I know that Yak and Birdfriend have looked at alternative ways to include me in hiking trips, but for the most part they are kind of stumped. And so the group continues to go on weekend trips and adventures without me.

Extroverted fox is sad to be left at home when forest friends are out frolicking....

I still don't know the best way to resolve this. I want to spend time with my menagerie but I am wondering if I should instead focus on meeting other folks like me with similar limitations and create more community there. It didn't help when Birdfriend told me that maybe I should do that. It's hurtful because there is a part of me that wonders if I need to actually let go of some of my closest people in my life simply because I do not fit in with their lifestyle anymore. Where is there space for a Fox that used to be in the centre of things but is now on the outside? How can I be included without being made to feel badly about my physical, financial, or mental limitations? How can I move forward with Birdfriend in a positive, affirming, and healing manner?

I have to wait until sometime late next week or even after to have a follow-up conversation with Birdfriend. I cannot do anything to repair and rebuild our connection until they return and until they have actual time to commit to this work. It's a challenge because Birdfriend works multiple jobs and also volunteers - hard to schedule! But I know that both of us are committed to working through this and finding a way forward. That's the greatest strength about polyamory - no matter what is happening, there is always space to come back to the table and renegotiate the relationship, including one's boundaries, needs and desires, and even space to transform the relationship into something else if need be. I am grateful that Birdfriend is willing to talk, even if it is challenging.

Time to connect.

Father's Day approacheth

This Sunday is Father's Day. A day where kids celebrate how awesome their masculine parent is. It's now unfortunately a day that sparks some sadness deep within me as my dad passed away just over two years ago.

My dad had mouth/throat cancer from smoking. It wasn't the first nor his second cancer that killed him, but the third one that did him in. My dad was also an alcoholic. The last few years of his life were not happy ones for him. Mostly because he was miserable and could not find the joy in anything, but also due to his substance abuse, isolation/loneliness, and illness.

This would apply for the years 1997-2015 for me, more than half my life.

To say that my dad was a very difficult person to be around would be an understatement. He would rant about politics, people ("the great unwashed" as he liked to call humanity), and about the evils of LGBTQ2 people. He came from rural Ireland, and never had any gay friends that I am aware of. He was arrogant, confrontational, rude, and elitist.

And yet, he was my dad...and I miss him.

I came out to my dad twice. Once at 16 when I felt I would die/implode from cognitive dissonance from not being out and again as an adult when I told him about a lesbian relationship that I had been in for more than a year at the time. When I was 16, it was my dad that told me that my bisexuality (or queerness) was just a phase. This "it's just a phase" thing haunted me and really got my internalized biphobia going.

UGH. Feeling "not queer enough" or as though being bi was a stepping stone to something else.

In 2011 when I informed my father that I had been dating a woman for more than a year and a half, he made a face and looked rather uncomfortable but seemed somewhat willing to accept it in the moment. Yes, I had concealed the relationship from my parents for that long - I felt that it was unsafe for me to be open about the relationship with my family. I felt that I would be criticized or worse, reviled and disowned. I am glad that I faced my fear and came out again, even though it was really difficult for me at the time.

My dad's daily speech was littered with hate-filled statements towards POC, LGBTQ2 people, and anyone who practiced Islam (sound familiar?) It was hard for me growing up hearing these negative values around other lifestyles and cultures on a regular basis. It meant that I had a lot of misinformation, and that I developed internalized biphobia during my formative years. It was especially difficult because my dad was my unofficial cheerleader when I was a child. He was the more affectionate parent, and he always let me know that I was brilliant, kind, sweet, and beautiful. So when he became an alcoholic, it was very painful for me to witness and I was greatly affected by his words and actions. The person that I counted on most became the person I then had to make very strong boundaries of time/space around because I felt so disrespected and messed up whenever I spent time with him. I hardly saw much of him in the final two years of his life because I refused to be around him when he drank, which was daily. I guess I was in denial that his cancer was terminal. When my dad passed away in April 2015, there were many unresolved issues between us. The queer thing was a big one. Another was his irrational dislike of Bear. Another was his alcoholism and how much it affected our relationship. It's really hard to find closure with these issues now that he's gone...

When I married Bear last month, I gained a new dad - a father-in-law. He's just lovely, and he's very sweet, kind, and well everything you would want in a father-in-law. But here's the thing... he doesn't know about my poly queerness. I wonder how he might feel if he knew the entire "me" and if he would still be supportive of my marriage to Bear. I wonder if he would be able to accept both my orientation and my desire/need for multiple relationships. I wonder if I should share more of myself with him, bring him into my inner circle, so to speak. For now, Bear and I have decided not to share this part of our life with his parents. Still, I do wonder how his dad might react and whether he could come to find compersion for us and how we have elected to live our lives.

My new father-in-law definitely deserves this card that I picked out for him:

The perfect Father's Day card for my new father-in-law

I look forward to getting to know him better, and hope that he can know me better too. I hope one day that being queer and poly will elicit the same response from older folks that telling them you filed your taxes on time does. Until then, I feel the need to be vigilant about whom I share my full story with to stay safe. 

Finally, I want to wish a Happy Father's Day out there to all you dads, want-to-be dads, soon-to-be dads, step-dads, uncles, and cousins who help raise kidlets to be awesome humans.

Digging Deeper - Marriage and Poly

It's been just over three weeks since I married Bear and things are going pretty well despite us both being injured and still looking for a den to cohabitate in. I've been processing some thoughts around marriage lately, especially when seen through a queer, poly lens.

This post does a pretty good job of describing what it's like to be a bi woman married to a straight man. I can relate to it in many ways except that I'm femme, which in some ways is more difficult as my "straight passing" privilege is high. That is, I'm seen as straight in 90%+ of my life unless I happen to be seen holding hands with either Bird or Yak in public. It's something that sometimes bothers me (cue: bi-invisibility and feeling non-existent and depressed), and other times allows me to hide in plain sight when I feel threatened. 100 mile queers (folks who look queer from a distance) don't have this luxury. I'm aware of how this privilege plays into my interactions with the world.

A selfie from today. You can see how I would pass as straight in most circumstances. Sometimes this causes me some mental/emotional distress, other times I use this privilege to fly under the wire if I don't want to be targeted for hate etc.

As it's wedding season, there are more and more articles being circulated online to readers. I'm a part of a number of Bisexual groups on Facebook. These groups are a fantastic source of community, support, outreach/info sharing, and also funny memes to help you laugh through your day. This week, an article entitled Why you shouldn't be Scared to Marry Someone Who's Bisexual came across the Facebook group Bisexual.org. I read the article (published by Brides.com) and it was ok, as far as articles on mostly straight/monogamous websites go. It addresses the key fear that monosexual people face when they are in relationship with a bisexual/queer person and then goes on to mention a number of "upsides" to marrying a bisexual person (groan).

Once again, the # 1 fear of monosexuals is that their bisexual partner will be unable to be monogamous in the relationship. Straight spouses are terrified that their bi/queer partners will either leave them for a person of the same sex or that they will have sex with everyone they meet.

What's going on here? Let's unpack this fear and try to understand it a bit better.

I believe that the source of this fear is threefold. 1) It comes from a place of entitled ownership that has been perpetuated through monogamous heteronormative capitalist narratives in media and cultural stories. You are my spouse. You belong to me. 2) Sex and relationships between two individuals is the accepted standard in our culture today. Having multiple partners seems to upset this accepted social norm and people (especially women) are labelled as sluts or worse. 3) Insecurity - it's clear that someone who is grasping and fearful is insecure about their own state of being/ability to stay healthy in a relationship. These folks project their insecurity onto others and it makes for some heinous emotional shitstorms in relationships.

Are Bisexuals Really Less Monogamous than monosexuals? Well, according to one study (link here, definitely worth a read!), not really:

78 percent of he bisexual men, and 67 percent of the bisexual women in this sample were either seriously dating one person, engaged, or married; the respective percentages for the full sample were 87 and 76.

Granted, bisexuals are more likely to be in committed non-monogamous relationships but that doesn't mean they are incapable of living and loving monogamously. I was monogamous with various previous partners for many years (both men and women).

So how do we get past this fear without the negative stereotypes and statements like "not all bisexuals are..." and without writing out a laundry list about why you should consider a bisexual (and queer, poly) person human, and therefore decent and marriageable?

The only way that I have managed thus far is by living (and writing) my truth. I am confronted in my daily life by folks who openly share their lives and relationships experiences with me/the world. I research and think critically about my worldview and consider how certain thoughts or beliefs limit me. I converse with folks I know and don't know to challenge my assumptions and to understand more of humanity. I then change my behaviours to align with these new ways of understanding. And then, if the mood strikes me, I write.

Here's my response to the Brides article:

Why you Shouldn't be Scared to Marry a Bisexual/Queer Poly Person

Because they are human like you.
Because you love each other and have shared future plans.
Because the connection is what matters, not fear based on insecurity.
Because poly people are often more committed, not less (as poly people may commit to more than just one person). See the Kimchi Cuddles cartoon below.
Because poly people understand and value the importance of communication, negotiation, and agreements.
Because poly people understand that human nature isn't necessarily monogamous. (i.e. that monogamous folks have high incidences of cheating).
Because poly isn't just about sex, it's about connections.
Because having ethical, open romantic relationships with other people can strengthen the bond you have with your primary partner.
Because having ethical, consensual sex with multiple people can actually enhance your relationship to your primary partner (i.e. less pressure to be someone's "everything").
Because marriage is defined by the people within the partnership - and it matters not if the partnership is between two or ten people.
Because monogamy and monosexuality don't guarantee security in relationships.

Kimchi 361 - a poly look at commitment