You don’t have to look too far on social media, especially the platform X, to find the bisexual community getting attacked.
Bierasure and biphobia are rampant on those platforms, perpetuating myths around bi+ people.
And bisexuality isn’t some fringe identity that only a handful of people experience.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, an estimated 337,100 Australians aged 16 and over identify as bisexual, representing 1.7 per cent of the population. Bisexuality is actually the most commonly reported LGB+ sexual orientation in Australia.
For Australians aged 16–24, that figure rises to 5.7 per cent.
So, when I came across a post about bi girls and boyfriends celebrating Bisexual Visibility Month, it had me thinking.
Not because there is anything wrong with bisexual women celebrating their sexuality alongside their partners.
It’s the comments and assumptions that often follow.
The idea that a woman dating a man is only saying they are bisexual for attention.
Where they only do it for the male gaze.
That women who are attracted to the same gender, are somehow putting on a performance to make themselves more desirable to men.
Which is why I started asking the question: why, when it comes to women, is bisexuality so often treated like something that exists for somebody else?
When bisexuality becomes a performance
One of the longest standing stereotypes is that bisexual women aren’t really bisexual.
Instead, it is an experimenting phase they are going through.
Someone who is looking for attention.
Trying to impress men.
Or saying they are bisexual because they think it is attractive.
Which reduces a woman’s sexuality to a performance.
Where the attraction to women isn’t allowed to simply exist for herself. Instead, it is something that people assume is being put on display for an audience.
And that audience is often men.
Which is where this aspect of male gaze becomes particularly damaging.
There doesn’t need to be a performance, explanation or justification for a bisexual woman’s attraction to women and men.
A bisexual woman doesn’t need to be kissing another woman in front of a man to make her sexuality legitimised.
Proving her attraction to woman is real doesn’t need to come from dating them.
And most importantly, she doesn’t need to be attracted to women because a man finds it attractive.
Her sexuality belongs to her.
When men become the audience
It is highlighted by one clear example, the perception around bisexual women when they have a boyfriend.
Suddenly, there is a question around their bisexuality.
She’s straight. Doing it for attention. She will grow out of it. Or she is just experimenting.
It’s where the relationship becomes the marker and evidence that people use to dismiss the identity.
However, having a boyfriend doesn’t make a bisexual woman straight.
Just like having girlfriend doesn’t make her gay.
Someone’s sexuality isn’t rewritten depending on the partner they have, something I’ve explored previously when looking at why bisexual visibility is important.
Yet, we often see bisexual women put into an impossible position.
When a bisexual woman is with a man, people question whether their attraction to women was real.
Then when they are with a woman, the opposite comes into effect and whether they were ever attracted to men.
And if they openly talk about their sexuality and attraction to both? They find themselves being accused of performing for attention.
It is a losing situation for bisexual women when people have already decided their sexuality and what it should look like.
Why the bisexual stereotype matters
Dismissing the comments of someone on social media as harmless might be easy.
But they contribute to something much bigger.
If bisexual women continually get told that their sexuality is a performance, it tells them that don’t they get to define their own identity.
It says that their attraction to women is something that needs and explanation.
Where an ulterior motive is the reason for it.
That bisexuality needs to look a certain way for it to be a legitimate identity.
Which makes it harder for bisexual women to open up about their sexuality and feel comfortable with who they are.
How can we expect women to confidently say “I’m bisexual” when society is constantly telling them that they don’t really mean it?
Let bisexual women define their own sexuality
A bisexual woman being attracted to women is not inherently performative.
And there is nothing inherently performative about being attracted to men either.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with a bisexual woman embracing and celebrating her sexuality while standing beside her boyfriend.
When the assumption is that she is doing it for him, says a lot more about the person making the assumption than it does her.
A bisexual woman doesn’t exist for someone else’s entertainment or to make her desirable to anyone else.
There isn’t a performance owed to men.
They don’t need to prove themselves to women.
And an explanation isn’t owed to anyone else.
For bisexuality to be real it doesn’t need to look a certain way.
A particular relationship doesn’t need to be displayed a particular way.
And it doesn’t require the attraction of someone else to make it valid.
Sometimes, it’s about knowing you who are and being able to same “I’m bisexual”.
Maybe that is the part we need to remember.
That bisexual women aren’t performing their sexuality for you.
She’s telling you exactly who she is.
