From: pmm7@ellis.uchicago.edu (peggy boucher murphy (you had to ask?))
Newsgroups: soc.bi
Subject: Re: Out/Look Articles
Date: 7 Apr 92 11:05:44 GMT
Reply-To: pmm7@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations

In article <1992Apr1.021412.7655@casbah.acns.nwu.edu> Albert-Lunde@nwu.edu (Albert Lunde) writes:
>Out/Look (issue 16/spring 1992) is featuring a group of articles about
>bisexuality as its cover story.

YAY!!!  visibility, folks?  

>The introduction and the cover say "What Do Bisexuals Want?" - subtitled
>"An Out/Look Debate" / "Searching for a bisexual politic"

what do we want (100 words or less!)  and remember, we have a
need to differentiate ourselves from les/gays here...

>There is another article raising questions about the bi movement by
>Ara Wilson: "Just Add Water: Searching for the Bisexual politic".
>
>The introduction says they are focusing on women because this is where
>the most pointed debate has taken place.
>
>- "... what kind of 'movement' is this? It doesn't seem to be about
>civil rights (especially since gay and lesbian reforms have fought
>discrimination based on 'sexual preference'); nor is it revolutionary
>in the classical sense of the that term."

but we want to be recognized in that movement, and as the movement 
gains rights, be included *and*named* as recipients of those newly
granted (long deserved!) rights.  

>- The bi emphasis on visibility is like identity politics in recent gay/lesbian
>activism - i.e. Queer Nation. 

one of the first things the gay movement did was to identify it's 
own, point out famous (usually, but not always) dead les/gays.  this
is where we learned this.  and it's to say "we are not new freaks of 
nature, we have always been here, and some of us have been (are, and
will continue to be) great in all walks of life!  

>- She says that the bi movement is saying that hiding and repression of 
>people's erotic engagments with both women and men is oppressive even
>if that repression comes from gays and lesbians (I would agree.)

me too.  i guess we've been making this point.  people are at least
hearing us.  ;)  

>- She quotes some bi writers and says "I am intrigued by the incensed
>demand for recognition."; admits there are some myths about bis; and says:
>"I just don't think, though, that the preponderance of annoying (and in
>the case of bisexual AIDS carriers, dangerous) representations is what
>the bisexual movement's concern with silence and oppression is all about."

well, an awful lot of les/gays get mighty upset over les/gay 
stereotypes and myths, especially when those stereotypes and myths
are used as a basis for discrimination.  a lot of the folx out there
protesting _basic_instinct_ are upset over misrepresentations.  why 
is this so unbelievable for bis?  (i think that so far, we can just 
go back in time a tad and replace bisexuals with homosexuals and see
how unbelievable she is being here.)  

>- She goes on to say that the bi movement is responding to what she
>implies is their imagined view of "1970s-vintage" lesbian separatist
>stance on bisexuality. 

read sonja's post about nelgsa.  if this is something form the '70's,
then why are we still running into it *hard* in the '90's?  just pick
up any queer paper/mag's personals, and count out how many lesbians 
*say* "no bisexuals".  if it had gone away in the seventies, we would
hav quit bitching about it in the '80's at least.  ;)  

>- "Bisexual activists seem not only uniterested in the actual lesbian-
>feminist stance, but dismissive of underlying worries that a rush of
>bisexuals will clamor into the queer world, possibly with heterosexual
>lovers, like straight men in tow. The lack of curiosity about lesbian-
>feminist anxitity is in part a result of the dismissal of lesbians as
>sterotypically humorless, PC terrors, with no sense of style. It also
>shows a complete amnesia about feminist critiques of male dominance..."

most bisexual women i have known have *been* very strong feminists, 
and have shut out the lesbian feminist (she should remember to put
"lesbian" before feminist when that's what she means.  i know some
*very* ardent heterosexual femeinists!) rhetoric because of my 
previous point.  personal attacks, and attacks on your lifestyle,
who you love, etc, tend to turn you off quite a bit.  if the only 
way we can feel safe within the feminist movement is to only be with
women, then they're asking us to go back into the closet.  NO WAY!!	

>(This seems on a second reading to be the central theme of the article.)
>
>- "...In the current 'queer' landscape it is lesbians who are hardest
>to see." - and who have the most to lose from bis claiming more space
>and resources.

nope.  i think bis have more myths about them, and greater invisibility.  
if we are more visible, it is because of all the straight men who 
are interested in bi babes for their own pleasure.  i, personally, 
would rather be ignored.  

>- She describes some bi guerilla theater - and says: "This image of 
>the ... lesbian feminist soupuss is not new: what is new is the notion
>that these small pockets of women hold real power, power enough to
>oppress, police and censor the behaviors of young people who
>have barely encountered this subculture in person."

but they do!  there are women's bookstores, women's coffeehouses,
a whole women's (read lesbian) subculture that bi women feel drawn
to.  and this is where we are stomped on.  how many of us have hid
the fact that we are bi in women-only groups/settings?  (peg
raises a hand)  otherwise, you aren't trusted, get funny looks, 
disparaging comments.  sigh.  

>- She denies on the basis of power differences the what she sees as the 
>bi movement equating oppression from lesbian-feminists with oppression 
>from society at large.

in a way it's worse.  we *expect* oppression from the (male, hetero-
sexual) societal norm.  we expect the repression as queers, and 
we expect the oppression as women.  so we turn to the women's community
fo rsupport, for succor, and they slap us down if we admit what we 
*really* are.  or we hide it, back into another closet.  sigh.  

>- She says "the bisexual movement *sounds* like other progressive
>projects." ...but... "Can activists really think that lesbian feminists
>*oppress* them?" (she says maybe in isolated enclaves - but this is an
>illusion.)

oh, yeah, sure.  we're all having mass hallucinations!  give me a 
fucking break!  i just *hate* it when someone tells me my 
experiences aren't real, aren't valid!  how many bi women did she 
talk to for this article, i wonder.  any?  

>- "Our ghettoized identity has been a central component of our struggles,
>and dangeous borders have defined a real or imagined gay and lesbian
>community. Over the hundred years of shouldering stigmas, homosexuals
>learned to wield them, reform them, refine them, transforming the sickness
>into strength. The new bisexual movement yearns for recognition and
>community but thankfully it has not emerged out of such an involentary/
>volentary process of identity formation."

except a lot of those people defining borders, shouldering stigmas, 
wielding, reforming, refining, and transforming were and are bis, 
who see that they are not getting recognition for what they have been 
a part of all along!  she makes this sound like all bi (women) are 
college students (17, 18, 19), just out to have more sexual fun and
undo all the hard work done by older wiser les/gays.  how old is she?
how long has she been out?  i wonder, longer than me?  

>- She concludes that the bi movement may be about broadening the scope
>of the gay/lesbian movement rather than a movement in it's own right,
>but questions the costs: "While the movement for bisexual recognition
>undoubtedly offers a liberating framework for some men and women,
>some lesbians and gay men remain unmoved by heterosexual transgressions
>into our entrenced, yet fun, little world".

gack.  we're already in it, dammit.  

>I have mixed reactions to this. 

not me.  i get angry.  (can y'all tell?)

>I am concerned by bi politics if we
>do not listen to feminism or we have pointless hostility to the gay or
>lesbian communities.

i agree.  the key word there is *pointless*. and remember, we 
didn't start angry and hostile.  

{much deleted because we essentially agree!}

>I guess what I want to advocate is shifting away from the essentialism 
>of extreme seperatism towards a more "polymormously perverse" ;-)
>queer sexual liberation/social deconstruction movement.

also, as the movement succeeds, bisexuals are the natural and 
logical bridge between gays and straights in many ways.  the idea 
is *not* to be "the other" forever, but to become just another 
facet in a multi-faceted society.  

>I'm a little frustrated by the puzzlement about exactly what the ideological
>basis of bi politics is. I doubt I'm the only bi who could write a
>very ideological "Bi Manefesto".  I'm not sure this is as important as
>listening to the experiences of bis who are diverse and not all equally
>"political". 

any volunteers?  

><winks>
>*hugs*
><cuddles>

numerous e-flirts...
peg