" 'Scuse me, can I be excused? I seem to have the plague..."
And later on, when we become more mature, we have that line, where if you're talking to someone, getting on well, you can say that great line, "Do you want a cup of coffee?" And if they go, "Ah… yeah, okay," then sex is on, yeah? That's the unwritten rule. Doesn't always work. If the President of Burundi says, "Would you like a cup of coffee," you're not supposed to go, "Oh, I'm in here!"
"And how do you take it?"
"Anywhere I can find it big boy! Oh, just a cup of coffee? All right... I thought you meant 'Do you want a cup of coffee!' So you're from Burundi, are you? Fantastic! Yeah! No, I know, it's near Zaire, isn't it? Near Tanzania, yeah. Yeah. No, I learned them all when I had chicken pox. I have to go now, ‘cause my grandmother's on fire..."
But normally it does work as long as you keep the chat sexy. "Yes, I like my coffee hot and strong. Like I like my women! Hot and strong... With a spoon in them. Ah, the curve of the spoon, the curve of your breast! I like to run the spoon ( talking with the tongue sticking out ) across my lips..." Then you're pretty close, yeah?
Yeah, so my life has started resembling an Eddie Izzard routine. Which, you know, is amusing, but since I'm not an English transvestite comedian (he looks way better in fishnets and lipstick than I do), is also rather unfortunate.
I hate it when it turns out to really be "just coffee." Or, in this case, "just dinner and a movie."
Right. So. Dyke bars and anonymous sex it is, then!
10 Comments:
That does seem to be the case with women (with some women, "Do you want a cup of coffee?" is understood as "What a dreadful haircut", so you have to be extra careful). With men, it seems to usually mean "Sex. Now. On the carpet". And it doesn't really matter that much if you don't have a carpet.
As a practicing bisexual, I find both situations equally disturbing (couldn't we just walk around with sexual preferences and intentions tatooed on our foreheads? It would be kind of 1984, but life would be so much easier. I can think of a few people who wouldn't speak to me anymore, though).
So, does bisexuality require a strict practicing schedule, then? "10 AM: Yoga. 11:30: Bisexuality. Noon: lunch."
;-)
The thing is, she's bi, and available (well, to the two guys she spent all evening going on about...). I wouldn't even have dared to get my hopes up if I didn't know she was queer. Ironically, when I was joking about my defective gaydar (it only works on males. Amusing, but useless), she made a crack about how we should all wear those rubber bracelets and have them say "gay", "dyke", etc.
Yes, I seem to have the same gaydar, I have no problem knowing when a man is gay but am completely useless when it comes to women (for some stupid reason I always end up pining after the straight ones).
And no, practicing bisexuality is nothing like that. I've never been into yoga. ;) However (and this is definitely too much of a paradox even for me), I am so tired of "theoretical bisexuals"... (they love women, as long as there's no dick around).But I'll try not to get started on that.
I think pining after straight women is an occupational hazard for lesbianism of any kind. It really sucks.
And yeah, I hear you loud and clear about "theoretical bisexuals." They tend to have truly awesome amounts of internalized homophobia. I think this last girl ascribes to the "I Fell for My Best Friend In High School But Only Actively Date Guys, Cause I'm Not, Like, *Gay* or Anything" School of Bisexuality.
It just sucks that there's all this bullshit surrounding it, because you can't really get more egalitarian and genderfucking than bisexuality. Maybe we all just need more practice ;-)
She's from the "I Fell for My Best Friend In High School But Only Actively Date Guys, Cause I'm Not, Like, *Gay* or Anything" School of Bisexuality?
Run for your life! The only worst thing than falling for a straight girl is falling for one of those. It's the whole "Oh I really enjoyed my last night with you but I have to go and find myself a boyfriend" attitude that can seriously damage your self-esteem AND sex life!
My sex life? Wait, I have one of those?
LOL. The thing is, she's a really cool person, and I have fun hanging out with her, so it's great that I have her as a friend and all. I had reason to suspect she might be interested in me, but no. But it's not like I'm gonna be pining away for her, thank god. It's just I've only ever been with bi girls, and this kind of thing keeps happening to me all the fucking time, and I'm getting sick of it. I'm not trying to say "pick a side!" or anything at all; just face up to your own internalized homophobia, for god's sake, quit trying to capitalize on "bisexual chic" (barf) if you're not serious about dating women as well as men. Quit treating me like crap just so you can look all progressive and rebellious and shit.
BTW, Charlotte, do you ever get flack from the gay community for being bi? How do you handle that?
I'm not very involved with my local gay community, I'm sorry to say, simply because the fact that I'm bisexual and happen to have a boyfriend isn't very popular among lesbians. It seems that if you're not "on the market" you're just not interesting. Also, I've never had (and still haven't) a conventional sexual lifestyle, and homosexuals can be even more judgemental and prudish than your average hetero church-goer.
Even so, I can understand the discomfort surrounding bisexuality (the whole "I'm a woman, will she leave me for a man?" or viceversa situation). Also, bisexuality is such a misused word nowadays. Anybody who's had a high school kiss with someone of their own sex defines themself as bisexual. Having been through weird experiences such as having a male partner and a female partner at the same time, I couldn't agree less!
Yeah, I hate it when people talk about "Gay community" and "gay culture" like it's some kind of universal monolith, when really what they're talking about are wealthy queers in San Francisco and New York. I live in the suburbs of Jesusland. There is no queer community here. The queer culture depicted in most magazines and movies and tv is not something I've ever experienced. I cherish my queer friends (who are mostly bi)--all three of them, including the girl I just went on the non-date with--because it's breathing space, a chance for me to relax. I have plenty of supportive straight friends, and lord knows they mean well, but sometimes I feel like an animal in the zoo, and I have to keep educating them.
Still, the thing with queer community is that it cuts across class and race and gender lines. Sometimes the only thing we have in common with each other is queerness, and that's not always enough. There's this assimilationist trend (Log Cabin Republicans, anyone?) that wants to just be like straight people with nice monogamous middle-class het style marriages, and to get that you have to sacrifice bisexuals, polyamorous relationships (never been in one myself, but I'm excited by the radical possibilities of it), BDSM culture, transfolk, queer racial minorities. Anybody *too* queer (there's a really fantastic article in the new Bitch issue about this).
Well, as someone who did get dumped for a boy, the issue with that is that it kind of reinforces the notion that lesbian relationships aren't "real" in any sense; they're just play-acting, or a fall back plan, or neurotic compensation for being man-less. The assumption being that it's just a means to keep oneself occupied, and that either girl will naturally jump ship at the first opportunity of landing herself a "real" het relationship. Although, in my case, it would have been worse if she dumped me for a girl, because then I couldn't blame it on her internalized homophobia.
I wonder if part of the reason people are prejudiced against the concept of bisexuality is because it tends to bring issues of internalized homophobia to the front? I don't know; maybe. People seem to think that internalized homophobia is something you only have if you're closeted, and it's not, at all. It's pervasive.
Since I live in a relatively small city (even though it's a University town and has a young and mixed population) I can totally relate to what you're saying. I have a few male gay friends but the few lesbians I have met were people I had nothing in common with (sometimes people expect to be your best friend just because you have a similar sexual tendency). The only dyke bar over here was recently taken over by gay men, and if you do find lesbians, it's hard to find someone who's not dating or isn't, and I'll say it even though it's dreadfully snobbish, boring as Hell (apart from the fact that I've always hated the music in gay bars). My female lovers have always been from other places, mostly from the coastal town where I grew up, a place with a very relaxed sexual atmosphere, or even through the internet.
Personally, I'm afraid I take bisexuality too seriously. Most of my relationships have been polyamorous, which contributes to that image of the "perverted bi" we've come to know and love. I think it's more abouy ethics than anything else, and honesty. Being sincere to your lover and/or partner and agreeing on terms of the relationship from the beginning is extremely important, it's not about just jumping into bed with anyone and then, as we mentioned earlier, going off to find yourself a boyfriend. I just wish people would simply make up their mind and stop playing around with others' feelings. And I'm sure that internalized homphobia, as you say, has a lot to do with that.
By the way, my email's charlotte1981@mixmail.com, just in case we're going too off-topic on the blog.
I'm not sure it's possible to go off topic on a blog with no ostensible topic, but email is probably a good idea. Mine is queendahud@yahoo.com (I gotta remember to put that back in my profile).
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