From: dbshapco@undergrad.math.waterloo.edu (Brad Shapcott)
Subject: Re: The War Between Us (Long)
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 04:52:57 GMT

In article <1992Jul27.004004.19031@news.acns.nwu.edu> Albert-Lunde@nwu.edu (Albert Lunde) writes:
>(Long post on feelings re bi and homo communities not quoted)
>
>It seems important to remember that for all we talk of communities,
>gays, lesbian and bi men and women are not monolithic.  I've seen
>both biphobia and support from gays, lesbians (and heterosexuals).
>The gay/lesbian communities were built by bisexuals as well as others
>and we have a right to continue to participate in it.

Neither is the hate that comes from the heterosexual community uniform, but
we tend to view it as such as a convenience for combatting it.  I tend to think
that we are quicker to overlook or forgive a slight from a homosexual and
see it as something that is sporadic rather than characteristic of the
community.  At times I think that inclination to forgive can be damaging
to us as bisexuals and a community apart (or maybe not to forgive, but to
overlook).

>Steve D. in particular seems to be so focused on his own anger
>and oppression that he has very little empathy for anyone else.  
>(I conclude this from things like his continuing to argue for the
>term "breeder" in the face of very well-reasoned arguments that
>it insults gay, lesbian and bisexual parents, whether he means it to 
>or not.)

The odd part is that I used the very same term in the remote Northern town
of Ontario where I spent my high school years to describe some over-painted
tarts who expected to trap some guy by getting pregnant, and then would ride
the gravy train of either the poor sap so trapped, or welfare, or whoever
would contribute to their meaningless existence.  Of course, I was a teenager
then so don't flame me for it now (I realize that this flies in the face of
many peoples' politics, but I was a bitter teenager).

Another un-PC thing I do is use 'queer' or 'gay' as an epithet when I'm
angry.  It comes from years of growing up with three brothers where the
most common insult was a slight on another's sexuality.  Back then I
didn't identify as queer (and the nomenclature is shaky now) so it comes
out as a reflex.  Of course now I catch myself doing it.

It's like people who slip in to their mother tongue when they are angry.
When I'm angry, the words have completely different meanings in my mind.

The point is, how much of it all is real anger, how much habit and training,
and how much just blowing off steam?  Breeder might just be too good an
insult for deserving hets to stop sometimes and think about other people
who are being injured by it, and perhaps injured more than the people being
aimed at.

Much as people will never be able to understand the isolation of that small
town or cruel siblings taunts, I won't be able to understand perhaps the
anger that drives the homosexual community at times to hurt and exlude us.

>In my position, I am prone to ask the question how can I help build a
>bi community that is allied with the gay and lesbian communities 
>and with feminism at the same time is open to the experience of all 
>bisexuals regardless of whether they have experience with or identify
>with the gay or lesbian community?

I like this.  I had always assumed that I'd have to merge in with the GL
community, but as I think about it more, I think some bisexual pioneering
is in order.

>We may need to do more to provide ways for bisexuals to come out as bi
>directly, without being restricted by models of coming-out that were
>developed with gay men or lesbians in mind.

And this I like too.  We need to worry about young bisexuals as much as
GL community worry about their youth, without merely jumping on the
same platform and saying 'Ditto'.  The problem is ameliorated somewhat
by the fact that bi's can hide in the straight world in high school more
readily than a homosexual (this is just social dynamics).  But at some point
there is this ironic pressure to be one or the other.

Personally, I thought I might be gay at one point in my youth, and worried
that feelings I had for MOTOS were just a way of covering this up.  Then
I found that these feelings were for real, and forget about the queer part
of me.  Then, bingo, there is choice three.  The reason I never thought of
being bisexual until rather late in the game was that I didn't fit the
stereotypes -- which were the only views I was seeing until relatively
(last two years?) recently.  I always was bi, I just didn't know it.
Or I knew it, and I just didn't know that the word 'bisexual' described
me.

A role model or even a damn pamphlet would have really helped, instead of
the stupid and distorted view I got as a young man by taking liberties
with my father's pornography collection.

>I want to make it clear that while I am allied to the gay community and
>lesbian-feminism in their better forms, I am also in favor of a bisexual
>community which reaches out to all bisexuals and has a world-view
>broad enough to encompass us all. 

I like this too, but I still want to emphasize that this necessarily means
accepting our differences, rather than covering them up or fighting over them.

>-- 
> Albert Lunde         | Interfaith  |     *Y*Y*      "A branch on the
> Albert-Lunde@nwu.edu |  Bisexual   |      *Y*        tree of life"
> alunde@nuacvm.bitnet |  Feminist   |.......|.........................


Brad
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