Biphobia: Fear of the Space Between Categories

“Biphobia is fear of the other and fear of the space between our categories.”
Ochs & Deihl
If our cultural ideology states that our individuality is manifested by our accessories, then it follows that attributes of the people we love confer entire identities upon us. Given the incredible social pressure to signify monolithically -especially during an election year- (‘if you aren’t for us you are against God/the family/apple pie…), Och’s definition of biphobia makes sense. Bisexuality can be the lightning rod for anxiety from both heterosexually identifying and homosexually identifying populations, because not only does it signal the potential for a complete change of (perceived) identity, ‘bisexuality’ becomes most visible during moments of conflict, such as when an individual leaves their partner for someone of a different sex/gender then the partner. Otherwise, bisexuality looks neatly homo- or heterosexual, depending on whom they are holding hands with.

At first blush, biphobia might not seem like the pressing issue that homophobia is. After all, when a bisexually identified man or woman is discriminated against, they are discriminated based on their attraction towards same-sex partners, not contra-sex partners. Their ‘heterosexual side’ will not be demoted to a part time position because they look homosexual part of the time. However, I believe that in addition to negatively complicating the lives of self/socially-identified bisexually functioning individuals, the presence of ‘biphobia’ is also litmus test of the cultural comfort level with sexuality in general.
I’m willing to go way out on a limb here by saying that, culturally, the US comfort level with sex is pretty low. If the general consensus was that sex *wasn’t* threatening and *didn’t* need to be codified, then other people’s sex lives would be the pivot upon which daytime television spins, to say nothing of the political uses of sexuality.
Though bisexuals receive negative attention from homosexual populations, I think the stigma attached to them from the dominant heterosexually-identifying community is most problematic. I don’t mean to downplay the impact of biphobia from the homosexual community or the pain it can cause individuals, but ‘b’-for-bisexual increasingly crops up in the alphabet soup of queer interest groups, and by phonetic luck or intention, it’s always been included in the Esperanto of “lesbigay”. I feel that when the New York Times publishes an article titled ‘Gay, Straight, or Lying? Bisexuality Revisited.,’ has a further reaching effect, and is indicative of a much more pervasive discomfort with sexuality and sexual preference, which is also pointed to by the histrionics over issues such as abstinence-only sexual education and Janet Jackson’s nipple.
Because I believe that biphobia is also a signifier of discomfort with sexual desire, I feel steps could be taken to combat all sexual orientation-based phobias that are not directly related to homosexual issues. For example, as reasonable, medically accurate, holistic, GLBT inclusive and respectful sexual education is increasingly available and disseminated throughout the educational system we will see more positive changes. To an extent, we are seeing them already. If high school-hookup bisexuality ala “I Kissed a Girl and I Liked It” is the MTV trend of the season, well, when was the last time anybody but Focus on the Family saw MTV as edgy?
In any case, I feel that if individuals were introduced to the existence of their desire in an age appropriate and non-pejorative manner, ‘sexuality’ would lose some of its scandalous fission and people would be more comfortable acknowledging it in themselves and in other people. I think this would generally decrease discrimination due to sexual orientation.
I’m generally hopeful when I look towards the future, for a variety of reasons. For one thing, I think it’s inevitable that people will eventually catch on that the entire thrust of human evolution/sexual reproduction/pleasure isn’t going to change now to suit anybodies theocratic preferences, no matter how many
‘purity balls’ are thrown in its way.
More importantly progress for every civil rights movement has been incremental, but it has been progressive as well as progressively viable. This is shown by the willingness of companies such as IBM and American Airlines to extend benefits to same sex partners (because they aren’t doing this to be nice), and illustrated decreasing age that individuals ‘come out’ and the increasing belief, especially amongst young people, that ‘gay rights’ are civil, and human, rights.
“People had a habit of looking at me as if I were some kind of mirror instead of a person. They didn’t see me, they saw their own lewd thoughts, then they white-masked themselves by calling me the lewd one…”
-Marilyn Monroe