Bisexuality: Not as Simple as Having “Multiple Options”

Sexuality is a spectrum. Navigating where you may land on that spectrum can be overwhelming. With new terminology constantly emerging it can become difficult to label yourself and pinpoint your preferences in romantic relationships.

Source: Grand Rapids Pride Center

Bisexuality is one of the many labels people use to identify their sexual orientation. According to the American Psychological Association, “The term ‘bisexual’ is used to describe a person who experiences emotional, romantic and/or sexual attractions to, or engages in romantic or sexual relationships with more than one sex or gender.”

Although bisexuality falls under the LGBTQIA+ umbrella, it is not as prevalent in mainstream media and is not talked about as much as other identities including lesbian, gay, queer, and transgender.

Due to the lack of representation, society tends not to accept or is confused when peers come out as bisexual. With ignorance playing a significant role in societal mindsets, people tend to make comments including, “This is a stepping stone to coming out as gay,” or “You just want to have multiple options.”

That is often not the case.

According to Health, bi-erasure occurs when a person begins to question or deny the legitimacy of their bisexuality. This is very prevalent in the bi community because the identity is often seen as a phase.

Other examples of bi-erasure include assuming two women in a relationship must be lesbians. Assuming a man and a woman in a relationship are both straight or asking the partner who identifies as bi to label their sexuality in a way that “reflects” their current relationship.

Dani Brand, a 24-year-old bisexual woman from North Carolina, shares her experiences with bi-erasure. “I’ve felt bi-erasure plenty of times. Never in a way that truly hurt or discouraged me from who I know I am,” she says.

“But I’ve had a couple of ex-boyfriends who would say that I was no longer bi because I was dating them [men], or say that if I cheated with a girl, it didn’t really count. Not that I ever did that, but that was always weird to me,” Brand goes on to explain.

Brand’s experience is very similar to others in the community. A 22-year-old Fordham University alumni football player, Jaden Vazquez, shared his coming out story and his experiences with bi-erasure.

“Bi-erasure is real and it's living,” Vazquez states.

“I would say in some spaces people look at you as a gay man or as a straight man. The close ones to you look at you as a bisexual person because they truly know you, but I would say I felt some erasure on the football team,” he says.

Vazquez explains his coming out was different from most being a division one athlete. The environment was never discriminatory or disrespectful as his teammates and coaches were very accepting, however, at times they would forget about his sexual orientation.

“If I brought something up and it was a little taboo, I would get a look or they [my teammates] were quiet. It was nothing disrespectful, no discrimination, just something that they might not be the most comfortable with,” he explains.

The best way for Vazquez to come out was through Instagram. Reaching a mass audience was easier for him than having a personal conversation with each friend or family member.  

“I got really good feedback from my teammates. The small ‘I accept you’ comments even meant a lot. My head coach had said, ‘You’re the same person you were yesterday; nothing has changed. I just know something new about you now,’” Vazquez shares.

Labels are a large source of self-understanding and living in a society where the binary is straight, finding words to define oneself is empowering. However, this is not the case for all.

Although labels can be liberating for some, they can be restrictive for others.

“I didn’t want to be the bisexual athlete. I struggled with that idea for a while and that's why I decided to come out my sophomore year not freshman year or before freshman year,” Vazquez shares.

He didn’t want his rhetoric to be the ‘bisexual athlete’, because that is not the label he choice for himself.

“I am Jaden,” Vazquez states.

Marissa Fuhrmann, a 22-year-old bisexual woman, shares she never officially came out. For her coming out and labeling herself was not particularly important to her.

“I never officially came out. Once I came to terms with the fact, I’m bisexual I told my close friends, and I would share if it came up in conversation,” she says.

“I’ve told my sister but not the rest of my family, not because I think they’d react poorly, but it’s not something I think is important for them to know. Unless I were to be in a relationship with a woman,” Fuhrmann explains.

In recent years, the number of people who identify as bisexual have risen in the United States.

According to a Gallup poll, “People who have identified as bisexual has increased from about 1% of adults in 2008 to about 3% of them in 2021; with more than half of the adult LGBTQ population identifying as bisexual.”

In a 2016 publication, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported, “1.3 percent of women and 1.9 percent of men said they were homosexual, gay, or lesbian, and that 5.5 percent of women and 2 percent of men said they were bisexual.”

The rise of bisexual men and women also comes with the rise of mental health struggles. Mental health struggles can come in all forms but the prominent ones we often see are anxiety and depression.

According to The New York Times, a study conducted in 2019 suggest, “A big form of discrimination is “identity invalidation”—or the idea that your sexuality is not valid or is ignored.”

“Much of this discrimination often comes from gay and lesbian people, followed by family members and straight people; and can directly impact bisexual people’s mental health, including contributing to depression, stress and exacerbated or triggered anxiety (including panic attacks and post-traumatic stress disorder),” the study explains.

Fuhrmann shares that her anxiety stemmed from figuring out her sexual identity. Often while being in a heterosexual relationship, it can be difficult to truly identify and come to terms with having an attraction to the same gender.

“Between the ages of 15-19, I was in a relationship with a man, so I did not consider my attraction to women much. It was not until after that I began to realize I could see myself being in a relationship with a woman. I also feared that I wasn’t attracted to women and was just sexualizing them,” Fuhrmann shares.

This is a prevalent issue where many bi women question their attraction towards women. It is a fear that the attraction may not be genuine because of the rhetoric that ‘woman loving woman’ is for the male gaze.

The Bisexual Resource Center is a nonprofit that connects bisexual organizations and people worldwide. They maintain a list of online and in-person support groups for bisexual people. They also host a Bisexual Health Awareness Month online campaign every March to disseminate information about health discrepancies in the bisexual community.

Brand also experienced mental health struggles regarding her sexuality, specifically in her first relationship with a woman.

“I experienced some mental health struggles. The first relationship I had with a girl, I wasn’t fully out, and it was super confusing for me and for her,” Brand states.

“Inevitably, it [the relationship] didn’t work because I wasn’t fully able to accept who I was. There is a lot of confusion in navigating sexuality in this generation. Sometimes, it can feel overwhelming and impossible. The one thing I can keep straight is I like who I like, regardless of their gender,” Brand explains.

Many people in the community find it hard to accept themselves and as Brand mentions, that is largely to do with the lack of bisexual representation in media. Often, we see lesbian or gay characters in film and television series.

Many assume a character is gay or lesbian because of the partner they currently have in the show. A challenging factor of bisexual representation is unless the character is outwardly expressed as bisexual, the viewers often assume the character is gay.

Dr. Nora Madison, a media professor at Chestnut Hill College, shares with NBC the lack of media representation and how that negatively portrays us.

“The most common stereotype is that bisexuals cannot be fully satisfied with only one partner because half of their desires must then obviously be denied,” Dr. Madison states.

This is problematic because the definition of bisexual means to be attracted to both men and women, but the stereotype provides the assumption that bisexuals are always equally attracted to men and women at the same time.

According to NBC, “Bisexual characters make up less than 26% of all LGBTQ+ characters, but there has been a steady decrease in representation since 2016.”

“According to the Annenberg Report from USC, there were eight bisexual characters in the top 1,200 films of 2018 and only three in the top films of 2019, far less than what appears on television screens,” per NBC.

Fuhrmann and Brand both shared their views on the lack of bisexual representation and the stigmas portrayed in the media.

Brand states, “I feel as though media tends to put bisexuality on the back burner and inaccurately portrays it as “experimenting.”

Fuhrmann shares she’s only seen one bisexual character on television. “A character that I feel portrays my experience correctly is Rosa from Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Her bisexuality is not something that defines her character, but it is still important to her, and she shared it with the people she cares about,” she says.

While on the other hand, Brand has never felt represented on screen. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a character play a bisexual character successfully or at all.”

Brand feels that if she’d had representation growing up her experience with self-acceptance and sexuality may have been easier.

A large way to combat the lack of representation in media is to have more advocacy in our communities.

Throughout Vazquez’s years at Fordham University, he and a few friends began an LGBTQ mental health group called, Connect during the COVID-19 pandemic. Its first initiative was to provide a space for athletes struggling with the idea of not being an athlete anymore.

As Connect began to gain more traction, subgroups began to form including a BIPOC and an LGBTQ group. This form of advocacy allowed like-minded people to come together biweekly and openly express their stressors of sexual identity/orientation during a very rough time of the pandemic.

Vazquez found himself becoming an advocate for the community. He shares that the most rewarding part of his coming out journey was being the role model for others that he did not have growing up.

“Being a division one athlete and bisexual, I realize I have an impact on the larger community,” Vazquez states.

“If bisexual athletes are accepted more, maybe the regular person coming out is going to be more accepted. For example, I have people that are in their forties and fifties direct messaging me on Instagram saying, ‘Thank you so much for coming out, it gave me the courage to come out too,” or being a role model to high school athletes. That is the biggest reward,” Vazquez says.

Diverse representation in the media, workplace, and in everyday life is important for everyone. The more people are exposed to bisexuality in a positive and affirming manner, the more opportunities people can have to navigate their identities.

The stigmas many bisexual people have heard and experienced throughout their lives are not okay. Creating a society that is asking, demanding, and celebrating bisexuality and all sexual orientations is key.

A significant stereotype bisexual women face is that they are attracted to women to gain attention from men. This ideology goes back to the male gaze, in which women are no longer living to please men.

Fuhrmann shares that this stigma made her question her sexuality because she did not want to be viewed as a woman who is pinning for attention.

The bi experience is far more than having multiple options and it is time to acknowledge bisexuality as a legitimate identity rather than a phase.

What are your thoughts? Leave a comment below.