Toward a Newer Theory of Sexuality: Terms, Titles, and the Bitter Taste of Bisexuality

Abstract

Beginning with a casual narrative, this work becomes a more complex theoretical journey of sexuality and politics, using personal experience, scrutiny, and analogy as vehicles of social critique. I argue that understanding sexuality as taste might fill in certain gaps that exist in current mainstream political debates over gay rights and that these gaps are created and unexpectedly resolved by the same ‘bisexual problematic.’ Furthermore, I note that sexuality as taste is a theory that provides a basis from which to demand equal rights without straying into dangerous realms of biological determinist absolutism.

Keywords:

• Sexuality
• theory
• feminism
• lesbian
• gay
• queer
• identity
• civil rights

I remember sitting in my mother's house when I read a rare type of article: a paper about bisexuality that was actually written by a bisexual woman. At the time, I was in my early 20s, divorced, and in a very long-distance relationship with a French man, who was also bisexual. I had just transferred from what many might deem a lowly junior college to a state university and—due to nothing more than a convenient accident—enrolled in my first women's studies class, U.S. Women of Color. The article on bisexuality was a required reading for the women's studies course, and I recall tears welling up as I flipped through the pages. This woman was killing me softly, so to speak. Her story profoundly resonated with my own.

At this point in my life, I had been “questioning” my sexuality for several years. But the most serious questioning began immediately after my divorce. Did I want to date women at this stage in life? Could I move away from the sexual rock star that I was with men to become sexually vulnerable to new ventures with women? Although I desired to be romantically and sexually involved with women, a couple of years passed before I made any solid attempt.

I placed quotation marks around questioning above because, at that time, I only internally wondered about sexuality in silence. My family, many of my friends, as well as staff and faculty of schools that my brother and I attended subscribed to a strict fundamentalist religious ideology that not only disapproved of anything outside the rigidity of heterosexuality but also openly rebuked any and all non-dominant sexual lifestyles. ¹ I made a promise to myself that for the sake of my family, I would never date women. Above all else, it would ruin my mother.

This, of course, was a promise I began to resent over time. The longing to date women grew with each passing day, and I wondered whether I was cheating myself out of potential happiness by continuing to date men exclusively. Soon, I was promising myself something altogether different: I would stop dating men entirely. It was the article on bisexuality that I read for my women's studies class that turned mere internal questioning into something more active. In reading, I felt like my desires made sense. More importantly, I felt validated. This validation would not last long, though, as I soon discovered the choppy waters of rejection from straight and gay circles.

While in the long-distance relationship with Mr. France, I had my first sexual experience with a woman. There were no lies, no strings; all was open, free, and safe. After the first night with her, I once again felt validated. I called my best friend to rejoice over discovering that I was not crazy, that I really did like women.

Shortly afterward, I began writing rebuttals to homo- and bi-phobic articles in our campus newspaper. Because my writings openly reflected my sexuality, I decided to come out to my brother. He and I had never kept any aspect of our lives hidden from one another, and I certainly did not want to continue closeting myself from him. We were well acquainted with the oppression of the same fundamentalist religion and had cancelled our membership in it years before in our own ways: Comfortingly, he supported me.

Then came the parent question. “Are you going to tell Mom?” Surely, it had to be done. Although I had not exactly planned on how I would come out to my mother, let alone when to do it, I soon learned that apparently the right time to come out to one's parent(s) is never in the midst of an already heated argument.

“You could walk through that door and tell me anything else, and I'd take it better than this! You could tell me you're a lesbian! You could even tell me you're bisexual—I'd be more disappointed, but you could!”

Now, imagine. Stupid me thought Mom was hinting … that this was her wacky way of informing me that she knew … that she had known all along, so why didn't I just come right out and confess. “Well.”

“Well what?!”

“Well, fine. I'm bisexual.”

[Silence.]

There is a somewhat popular saying that I feel applies to that silence: “When you assume, you make an ass out of you and me.” My assumption of Mom's supposed hinting could not have been further from the mark.

Recalling this moment, I often wonder why it was worse in my mother's eyes for me to be a bisexual woman than a lesbian. As it turns out, I have encountered many individuals (gay, straight, lesbian, and otherwise queer) who similarly feel that bisexuals constitute a more problematic sexuality demographic. Is this because of a disease factor? Is it the stereotypes? The myths … the uncertainty … the distrust … the fabled inability or failure to commit … the malleability … the supposed political softness … the presumed perpetual state of confusion … the ambiguity … the biological challenge…?

Prominent scholar on bisexuality and psychiatrist Klein (1993) tackled the issue of bisexuals being seen as “worse than” gays and lesbians in the first chapter of his book, The Bisexual Option. Gays view bisexuals as spies and traitors (Klein, p. 7). Shame and judgment attached to coming out as bisexual, as opposed to gay or lesbian, are not things that I alone dealt with but hold true for many, individuals and couples alike.

Disappointingly, some lesbians in my very own women's studies program turned out to condemn bisexuality as equally as my mother had and as Klein described. For instance, when I went on a date with a queer-identified woman (I'll call her Tina) from my department (which is generally a bad idea), she ridiculed my sexuality. Although queer identified, she made it a point never to date men, which led me to wonder why she did not simply choose to identify as a lesbian. That night, after a couple of drinks, she looked me directly in the eyes and declared, “As my roommate always says, just say ‘bye-bye’ to bi girls.” I was devastated, even mildly traumatized. I did not understand how a supposed feminist could be so dreadfully judgmental, insensitive, and spiteful. First came hurt. Then came anger, which provided excellent motivation for research. So that's precisely what I did. For my up-and-coming undergraduate research paper, I wrote about straight and gay women's stereotyping of bisexual women.

On one hand, most of what I read I had already experienced. Lesbians view bisexual women as “sirens” because they lure the apparently helpless lesbian into an abode of lust and illusions of love until—poof!—they vanish into the arms of the next available Joe, who they bring home to their families and with whom they procure boundless heterosexual social privileges. Tina humorously confirmed this particular stereotype. “Yes! That's you! you're a siren!”

On the other hand, many bisexual scholars pushed for the term bisexual to be counted and treated as a completely separate sexuality category/demographic. These scholars argued that bi-s are neither gay nor straight, and because of this, bisexuals need to consider themselves as something altogether different. I wonder, however, how wise of a strategy is this? Should bisexuals not band with members of lesbian and gay communities for political purposes? After all, it seems that the more people on the bandwagon for equal rights, the better that would be for all of us.

When lesbians and gays acquire rights that they are presently denied, it will automatically ensure bisexuals’ access to those same rights, a notion with which Klein (1993) would likely agree (p. 167). In this sense, in a political sense, I will explore ways in which the title bisexual works as a benefit and a detriment to the individual as well as to the lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender (LGBT) community.

DISCUSSION

The Pseudobisexual Porn Star

I must admit that the term itself—bisexual—and labeling myself as such always made me feel uncomfortable. I did not care for the way it sounded and had a particular distaste for the way it felt. For whatever reason, I felt somehow untrue to my very being when I told people I was bisexual, yet I was not lying. I lacked adequate words to explain my experiences and, moreover, my sexuality, so for simplicity's sake, in conversation, I referred to myself as bisexual. It was all I knew.

Such linguistic limitations did not arise from my family and community as much as they did from the very limited choices presented in society. Perhaps the media, with all of its sexual schizophrenia, added to my angst. Girls Gone Wild videos and pornography that depicts apparently straight young women making out and/or having sex with other women, work to create and perpetuate stereotypical misconceptions about bisexual women. This is especially frustrating because the overwhelming majority of such visuals are produced and orchestrated by straight men, for straight men. Indeed, the sex displayed is straight sex, even if performed by two women. With voyeuristic positioning and scenarios, and with the directed glance into the eye of the camera, these are straight men's fantasies … straight men's ideas of how women do or should have sex with other women; it must be for their (straight male) pleasure.

Berger's work (1972) reflected similar contentions in Ways of Seeing, which concerned the male/phallocentric gaze in post-Renaissance European art. In his book, Berger (1972) discusses the gaze, in that women see ourselves as being watched by men and as men see us. ²

Orkin's photograph, American Girl in Italy (1951), which depicts a sidewalk full of gawking men, visually capture's Berger's gaze theory well. Men's eyes fixate on a white American woman as she briskly walks across a street, away from them. Her own stare does not make contact with any man's eyes. Rather, she concentrates downward on the space directly in front of her. And although, due to an absence of actual physical eye contact, she does not literally see the surrounding men watching her, she nevertheless sees what is occurring. The woman knows how those men are looking; through their gaze, jeers, and apparent whistling, the American girl sees herself as the men see her. She is acutely aware of their view at that time, in that space.

Berger's theory of the phallocentric gaze (1972) also applies to the use of women's bodies and sexualities in relation to pseudobisexuality generated in pornography. Men are the owners of the gaze as they produce the material in which women are gazed upon. Men posture bisexual women as open to titillating lesbian fun, available to voyeurs who desire to partake in the action, and accessible for this taking. Berger (1972) wrote, “the image of the woman is designed to flatter him [man]” (p. 64). Pornographers exploit the image of bisexual women for men's heterosexual fantasy actualization. Men expect the supposed bisexual women to be just lesbian enough for straight sex without the threat of pure lesbianism, which excludes men entirely. Hence, the imagery of bisexual women in pornography is quite literally designed to flatter straight male desires.

Not so conversely, when women watch, we also see through phallocentric eyes; we come to understand ourselves through the manners in which we are presented and perceived. MacKinnon (1997) questioned these perceptions and the assumptions behind what is considered “real” sex. She argued that pornography itself is sex because it is a medium, the medium, through which sex is defined (MacKinnon, 1997). Pornography identifies heterosexuality, homosexuality, and bisexuality in our society. More significantly, pornography naturalizes and normalizes violence against women as real sex (MacKinnon, 1997), which is disconcerting, to say the very least, because pornographers’ utilization of seemingly bisexual women as ever-accessible not only misleads, but also invites, absolves and approves of rape against these women under the guise of sexiness and sex. Furthermore, pornographers present pseudobisexual women in pornography as wanting the straight male invasion.

When I used to tell men I was bisexual, most smirked with a gleaming look of hope for a threesome. Some even solicited such sexual performances from me. I felt that my experiences with women were diminished to straight male sexual/pornographic frenzies. Slapped with pop-culture slurs such as ‘bi-curious’ and ‘hetero-flexible’ from men and lesbians alike, I felt cheated and misunderstood. Although men took me for a toy, women would not take me at all simply because I labeled myself as bisexual, not lesbian. When I dated men, my lesbian friends called me ‘fraud’ and ‘wannabe.’ When I dated women, my mother would exclaim in frustration, “What are you? First you're bisexual. Then you're a lesbian! Will the real Jessica please stand up?” How unfair that the “real Jessica” rests upon who she dates or with whom she sleeps, as if those individuals make up who I am. What a sad and reducing notion.

After all, what (if anything) is it to be lesbian or bisexual? In casual conversations, some declare that if a lesbian has ever had sex with a man or if a straight woman has ever been intimate with another woman, she is bisexual. Some assert that sexuality has everything to do with where one's emotions lie (e.g., if a woman falls in love with women, she is a lesbian), whereas others swear that sexuality relies on physical attraction or the ability to become sexually aroused by a person of a particular sex/gender. ³ On a safer note, some insist that each person has the right to label herself or himself however she or he sees fit.

These issues are complex, multilayered, and thus, difficult to confront. To observe the fluidity of sexuality, all one needs to do is to ask a handful of people to define bisexuality. The variety of responses will likely lead one to realize that labels, terms, and titles—not only concerning bisexuality but also sexuality in general—are limiting and, at times, downright fictitious.

Sexuality, whether as a lesbian, gay man, bisexual, queer, or straight has multiple meanings and is fluid. Many theorists, medical practitioners, politicians, people of faith, mainstream commentators, and lay individuals maintain rigorously opposing views on the topic of sexuality. In conventional academic literature, however, these discussions predominantly tend to focus on gay versus straight—falsely dichotomist—discourse. Yet it is the complicated and often dismissed issue of bisexuality that causes biologically-based arguments regarding sexual orientation to plummet.

Freud (1905), as many know, believed that all individuals are born bisexual. However, in “proper” process of our Oedipus complexes, we evolve into straight boys and girls. Realizing that this is a crude synopsis of Freud's work, and though much of psychoanalysis is founded on phallocentrism, Freud's idea that each of us is born with the capacity to either love or be attracted to individuals regardless of sex/gender provides us with a line of scrutiny from which we can move forward. For, we should understand this capacity as a tabula rasa of sexuality. ⁴ Although, perhaps initially, this might seem like a theoretically dangerous place to head, the implications here are not necessarily as concretely sociological as one may guess.

The Bisexual Problematic

While my tattoo artist, Brian, was in the midst of etching my latest design into my shoulder blade, he asked me a typical, yet sincere, so-you're-gay question. “I know it's none of my business [he was right], but if you don't mind me asking [which I didn't], when did you know you were gay?”

I struggled with this for a long time.

Brian's question threw me off-guard for a moment, and I could not help but think, “Goodness. If I enjoy being with women, does that mean I'm gay? If I ever enjoyed being with men, does that mean I'm bi? If I am either, then why haven't I known this within my intrinsic self throughout my life?” I secretly envied many lesbian and gay friends who claimed to know from early ages and stages. I speculated about my own authenticity as a woman who loved being with women.

To say that I am anything, especially sexually, is certainly to follow the mainstream gay rights framework, which is to say that I am born one way or another. This approach, however, limits as well as debilitates. Ignoring choice not only marginalizes bisexuals but also preemptively dismisses a fabulous opportunity to shift the mainstream argument so that lesbians and gays may demand rights on our own terms, rather than on the argumentation tactics, language, and style of homophobic straight politics.

Illustrating the homophobia of heterosexist politics is the fruitless search for nonexistent gay gene. ⁵ For, are there any biologists equally as fervent in the hunt for the straight gene? Of course not, but this relies on heterosexist assumptions. This society generally presumes that people are born straight because of the assumed naturalness of heterosexuality. To be born gay, then, is to be genetically mutated, ⁶ according to heterosexist biological suppositions. To complicate this issue, there exists no search for the “bi gene.”

When politics and biology become muddled, as is the case in sexuality gene searching, perhaps a discussion on the politics of self-labeling is appropriate to flesh out why the search—the biological or genetic certainty of a social label—matters to so many on gay and straight sides of the sexuality coin. Butler (1997) addressed concerns vis-à-vis the politics of labeling oneself “lesbian” or “gay” in her well-known article, “Imitation and Gender Insubordination.” Maintaining that each of us performs all aspects of gender and sexuality, within and under rigid definitions, Butler (1997) expresses that the mere idea of an individual performing a particular role does not necessarily mean that the relative role is fake per se. Rather, she inferred that playing and performing are mechanisms by which we carry out our roles or identities. In this sense, we are all in drag and doing drag continuously, and Butler (1997) expressly emphasizes the drag, and hence unnaturalness, of heterosexuality. Yes, straight people do drag, too; they perform every bit as much if not more so than gays, especially if they desire to separate themselves visually from the gay community out of homophobia. From the clothes we all wear to the words we speak, from our gestures to countless identity signifiers, we choose and perform so that the world around us will have an idea of who we are … or will they?

Butler (1997) expanded her theory from performance to identity. Terms that identify our sexuality entail both flaws and usefulness. Although terms are highly limiting and insufficient—often too simple for the complex nature of “the I” (Butler, 1997), we nevertheless need to identify ourselves, particularly for political purposes, if we wish to achieve gender and sexuality equality.

This specific point helped me understand why I felt so uncomfortable with “bisexual” as a title for myself. To me, I am me, a pseudoautonomous human being attached with various demographics because in this time, space and location, social constructs of abstractions carry with them concrete consequences. In other words, it is through sanctions, limitations, love, hate, acceptance, discrimination, rejection, rights (or a lack thereof), etc. that abstractions of certain social constructions (such as race, gender, and sexual preference) develop into social realities. I was too complex of an individual to blurb out “I'm bisexual” contently. Not only did I feel reduced to my sexual preferences, but I never sensed that I was born queer. Sadly, though, from my honest reflections arose harsh ramifications of judgment, especially, I feel, from the gay community.

Bisexuality, due to its seemingly overt unnaturalness, poses biological and, thus, political problems for gay communities. Because heterosexual culture is dominant and, therefore, holds the political power of U.S. society, it also controls access to granting and denying rights. In turn, the gay community has often campaigned for equal rights via heterosexist premises, which not only maintain heterosexual dominance by declaring straight rights as real rights—the goals to be obtained ⁷ —but also by accepting the heterosexist premise that straight = normal = natural = born as such = under God = the way things are supposed to be. To gain rights, the gay community has argued from the same widely-accepted heterosexist premise of naturalness for the naturalness of gayness, in that we are inherently gay: gay = normal = natural = born as such (at this juncture, some will assert that they have been created/born gay under God, whereas others stop here).

Often, I have heard self-defined lesbians and gay men express, “Believe me, if I could choose not to be gay, I would,” in an attempt to convince dominant heterosexual forces of the innateness of their situation. These remarks, however, always sadden and disappoint me. I cannot help but think of white filmmaker, John Stahl, in his film, Imitation of Life (1934), wherein he makes the gross assumption that Black women, if given a choice, would prefer whiteness. Critics mistakenly hallowed this film for its racial progressiveness, as it invited viewers to feel sorry for Black women; after all, they are born Black and cannot help it. Such a skewed and chauvinistic viewpoint discounts the more realistic option that Black women would choose Blackness. They would likely opt to change society's racism, not Blackness. A history of slavery and discrimination, not Blackness. Ignorance, rape and murder, not Blackness. Similarly, why does the gay community fight for rights from lines of weakness depicted in Stahl's film, as if to say, “Don't blame us! We can't help it! We wouldn't choose to be born gay.”? Should queer persons, if given a choice, choose straightness? If so, why? Sure, it might make our political and social lives easier, but should we not preferably elect to change societies’ views to gain political equality as opposed to changing ourselves? Discrimination, not gayness. Ignorance, hate, and irrational fear, not gayness. Legislation, not gayness. ⁸

The bisexual community is typically embedded within the larger gay community. I, personally, am not familiar with any strictly bisexual community, and Klein (1993) noted that bisexuals have no solid need for purely bisexual communities because bisexuals may flow freely between gay and straight communities (pp. 107–133). Klein's assertion, of course, is arguable. However, in my experience, Klein's observations seem practically accurate. Typically, in a group of ten or twenty queers, I would know maybe one—tops, two—bisexual individuals. To say the very least, in such an environment, it is difficult to engage in a “we're born this way” political debate with members of gay communities.

Bisexuality, subtly as well as overtly, is a demographic of sexual choice since bi-s can ‘swing either way’ or ‘go both ways,’ (which might clarify why much of the barely existent literature on bisexuality by bisexuals calls for the formulation of a separate entity—an exclusive group with altogether different political agendas; most bisexuals would probably resist fence-sitting characterizations like those aforementioned). Bisexuals are neither straight nor gay. This frustrates members of the gay community (in a very general sense; not all lesbians/gays feel this way) because they feel that bisexuals have neither taken a stance nor accepted their true selves as either gay or straight. Bisexuals are then seen as privileged swingers, traitors, and/or self-loathing persons (Klein, 1993), which may create internalized homo- or biphobia (Horney, 1932).

If lesbians and gays are fighting for rights based on unproven biological phenomena—that we are born gay, we are cornering ourselves into having to wait for the discovery of a nonexistent gay gene before we can demand equal rights. Because no such gene has been discovered, right-wing ultraconservative groups have declared victory on the blogosphere in that gays simply do not deserve equal rights. The argument goes something like this: “Since there is no proof that the gay gene exists, gays were not really born gay as they have claimed, and therefore, we may justifiably deny those deviants of equal civil rights.” However, we do not have to continue on the debilitating road of argumentation of homophobic persons by pushing the notion that we are born one way or the other. Indeed, influential homophobic members of society have exposed the fatal flaw of the born-this-way stance that the gay community has clung to for decades all over the Internet, ⁹ especially after California's disappointing passage of Proposition 8 in the 2008 election—an official ban on same-sex marriage via state constitution amendment. There exists a far more empowering, healthier, and nonheterosexist way to fight for gay rights through a theoretical mechanism that I have coined the bisexual problematic.

Bisexuals’ biological ambiguity creates politically problematic unrest for LGBT rights. Bisexuality distresses the gay community because it brings with it a controversial notion that one can and does choose the gender of one's sexual partners. Such a notion seems politically dangerous because, if one chooses to be with a member of the same sex, he or she consequently chooses his or her own oppression (according to dominant heterosexist thought). Those who choose their own oppression do not deserve equal rights because they have purposefully rejected a social and biological norm. ¹⁰ However, it is precisely this trend—the bisexual biological/political schism—that unlocks possibilities for foundational theoretical bases of rights for members of all sexualities.

Spinach and Chocolate

Imagine for a moment that sexuality is like food. We have many tastes for many things, and these tastes/preferences/pallets differ from individual to individual. Although nobody can fully express all of the intricacies behind the matrix of taste, surely much of our tastes are rooted in our cultures—the foods and types of preparations with which we have been raised. Nevertheless, not all of us who have been raised on walnuts or oranges enjoy these foods. One cannot explain why one despises the taste of walnuts; he or she simply does.

Remaining on this analogous journey, let us say that of the multitudes of food as sexuality, of the many combinations and possibilities, that heterosexuality is spinach. Now, I like spinach. In fact, I rather enjoy spinach, but there are those who do not feel as I do, who might even hold a harsh aversion toward spinach. Still, let us suppose that from the time of our infancies, we were overwhelming subjected to spinach cartoons, clothing, advertisements, bedtime stories, songs, etc. Eating spinach is recognized as the only way to truly eat; it is the only “real” food. Additionally, let us say that this spinach-o′-heterosexuality is deemed good and authentic if and only if prepared in one limiting fashion: steamed. To spice things up, one may switch leaf brands or steam for longer or shorter periods of time—there is some flexibility within the narrow confines of steamed spinach-defined sexuality.

Step into this world for a moment and suppose furthermore that lesbianism or gayness is chocolate and that you were consistently informed throughout your lifetime not only that spinach is the way to go but also that chocolate is bad. Now, perhaps you have always had a fondness for chocolate with or without disgust of spinach. Maybe it is the aroma you tend toward. After smelling and curiosity win out, you try your first bite of chocolate, and before you know it, you are a “chocolate eater.” If you enjoy it, you are a “chocolate lover!” Scandalous. You now have a decision on your hands: hide from your family and friends about your chocolate eating, or come out to them. Once out, people burden you with inquisitions. “So, when did you first realize you were a chocolate-eater?” You might reply, “Well, that's easy. One day, I tried it, and I liked it,” or “You know, ever since I was X-years old, I was always drawn to chocolate …”

This figurative dialogue could spin off in many directions, but if sexuality was framed as a matter of taste, some thoughts should jump to mind relative to spinach and chocolate. First, it would not be absurd for one to enjoy both (though probably mostly on separate occasions … but, then again, maybe not; who knows?). Second, there are many approaches to preparing spinach (besides steamed!) and chocolate (besides plain chocolate bark!). Third, countless foods exist in the world besides spinach and chocolate! You and I should not be limited to one or the other simply because those are the only two options available.

The point here is that because there exist myriad sexualities and ways to experience sexuality—just as there are seemingly limitless types and combinations of foods—a theory of sexuality as taste provides an analogy that clearly acknowledges, and in fact encourages, tastes, choices, and preferences without failing those who feel that their tastes have been predetermined. Just as we cannot explain why John Doe has never cared for apples even though raised on an orchard, we similarly cannot explain why Jane Doe has never cared for men. And she should not have to. Drawing from the search for the gay gene, it is equally absurd to imagine geneticists embarking on a biological hunt for the “hates-apples gene.” ¹¹

Sexuality as taste includes many factors that other theories ignore. One of these factors is the acknowledgment of uncertainty. Instead of socially and politically dangerous blanket statements that purport that sexuality is always innate or always choice, sexuality as taste admits that though many of us may choose (though we may not know it, or are unwilling to admit it to ourselves) who we prefer to date, be intimate with, marry, and so on (as Butler, 1997, would remind us, this choice, of course, refers also to straight individuals), and though many of our tastes and desires are connected to our culture or socialization, some of our tastes can be explained neither socially nor biologically.

Sexuality as taste holds political significance because we all must have legal and social rights to choose our partners according to our tastes (bisexual, lesbian, gay, straight, or otherwise) as long as our choices (1) do not inflict harm, ¹² (2) do not impose upon others’ choices, and (3) do not rely on another's inability to choose (e.g., in cases of incapacitated individuals or children). After all, one may have a taste for human flesh, but murder is axiomatically regarded as wrong as cannibalism is taboo, so one would have to go about enjoying other foods. The same can be said for sex with children or incapacitated persons. However, there are many ways in which one can enjoy sexuality apart from the above conditions, which many of us do without inflicting harm, imposing upon others’ choices, or relying on others’ inability to choose.

CONCLUSION

There are problems with proposing a sexuality-as-taste theory. For instance, realistically, nobody is going to be offended if I eat chocolate or spinach (though some might with meat). Sexuality is deeper and more complex than l'appétit. Overall, however, the inclusion of sexuality as taste may help us embrace choices, ambiguities, preferences, and tendencies, and it might aid in fairer politics as far as social and civil liberties are concerned.

Human beings (among nearly limitless other species) are sexual. To be born human is to eventually develop into a sexual adult with a variety of sexual tastes, which is precisely what bisexuals reflect. We are selling ourselves short by insisting that we are born “gay,” “bi,” or even “straight” for that matter. We are doing ourselves an alarming disservice by appropriating dominant heterosexist rhetoric to explain our sexualities within the limitations of naturalness or innateness. ¹³ The important point to take away is that we are all sexual, ergo human, beings.

Still, bisexuals are distinct from straights because, like lesbians and gays, they deviate from dominant heterosexist norms and mores. Unfortunately, deviation is seen as deviance, and the gay movement resists bisexuality due to its potentially threatening political implications. Hence, bisexuals do not fit in, not only because of their potential for enjoying heterosexual privileges but also because of choice. Bisexuals put choice and preference (as opposed to orientation) out in the open as a real probability. Bisexuality leaves a bitter cultural and political taste in the proverbial mouths of gays as well as straights because mainstream society and politics have been duped into believing and arguing in a dangerously downward-spiral fervor that one is undoubtedly born a certain way, in either/or—straight/gay—dichotomist frameworks. This has been ass-u-me-d by straight culture and adopted and perpetuated by gay culture. ¹⁴

The bisexual problematic can be used as an analytical tool with which all nonstraights can approach equality politics in a different, far less hindering fashion. Straight adults are socially, politically, and legally permitted to act on their tastes with other consenting, willing, and wanting adults with similar tastes. If we argue from this line, understanding it as a basis for the rights of heterosexual individuals, then lesbians, bisexuals, gays, and queers can demand rights on the same grounds—of sexuality as taste—without resorting to the limitations (and sometimes falsities) of extreme and absolutist stances.

The author wishes to acknowledge Drs. Monica Lange and Eve Oishi, as well as Becky Bailey.

Notes

1. In fairness, my mother and father did not openly discuss homosexuality as much as other members of my family (e.g., aunts, grandparents, etc.), friends, and the congregation of our church did. Nevertheless, our lives were inundated with homophobic speech and doctrine, particularly because we attended religious schools.

2. Feminists have addressed the gaze since Berger (1972), expanding on heterosexist, white, privileged, and elitist gazes, among others. See bell hooks, for example, in her works on the oppositional gaze in film.

3. I use sex/gender here because of the variance in contemporary discussions concerning topics of both sex-as-biology and gender-as-social-construct. I acknowledge that sex-as-biology needs to include intersexes, whereas subcategories of gender-as-social-construct can overlap, intersect or remain mutually exclusive depending on history, interpretation, culture and location, among other factors (see Intersex Society of North America [2008]. Our Mission, Retrieved March 31, 2009, from www.isna.org).

4. Horney (1932), who was arguably the first prominent psychoanalytic feminist, would probably agree with Freud that sexuality is, at first, a clean slate. However, she, like Freud, would also move to discuss how women and men resolve their Oedipus complexes in terms that seem at once homophobic and ignorant of bisexuality. Many scholars hold Horney's work dear in queer theory, but I reject psychoanalysis almost entirely for its misogyny and homophobic roots. At any rate, psychoanalysis has no bearing on political strategy for the LGBT community in the United States. Accordingly, I have chosen to relegate anything beyond mere mention of the topic to a footnote.

5. For elaborate, yet homophobic and hateful, treatment of the nonexistence of the gay gene, see Harrub, Thompson, and Miller (2003). Articles like the one at TrueOrgin.org are precisely why we should argue for equal rights under a new, stronger and more comprehensive theory, and wholly reject our decades-long use of the heterosexist lines of argumentation (described in detail below) for equal rights.

6. Technically, mutations occur at around 1%, not 10%—the approximate percentage of gay people. However, I use the term mutation here as a metaphor that might work at a subconscious, if not blatant, level.

7. This is not to say that those in LGBT communities intentionally uphold or cherish straightness. For instance, instead of criticizing governmental support and sanction of straight marriage, mainstream gay communities have been advocating for gay marriage. Yet, to be equal to any dominant group is to validate their ways and goals, perpetuating their ideologies as true, right and real. Realizing the unpopularity of this, I strongly acknowledge that if straight marriage is legal, backed, and sanctioned by the government, then by any and all means, so must gay marriage. Simultaneously, though, we must analyze, critique, and challenge the connections between marriage and the state, paying particularly close attention to language, rhetoric, and jargon. For example, former President George W. Bush, along with many other politicians, has expressed on numerous occasions that “marriage is a sacred union between a man and a woman.” Rather than taking a reactionary position by claiming how gay marriage is or could be “sacred,” we must analyze and challenge the meanings of that term. What is it to be sacred? Does sacred mean under God? If this is so, we must insist on the separation of church and state by proclaiming the irrelevance of sacredness in any government-backed institution.

8. Although Black history is chalked with hate and murder to the degree that white gays will never understand, I posit that the type of hate and ignorance in racism and homophobia is the same in that it comes from the same place of the dominant dominating those in the out-group to maintain in-group power.

9. For an example of such reasoning, as flawed as it may be, see Carr, F. W. (2008). Why Blacks Don't Like Gays. Retrieved March 31, 2009, from http://www.lasentinel.net/Why-Blacks-Don-t-Like-Gays.html.

10. Such are rights found in straight marriages, including tax benefits, spousal hospital visitations, automatic power of attorney, and automatic inheritances as next-of-kin, among others. Of course, gay persons may indeed acquire these privileges if they choose to marry someone of the opposite sex, as homophobic persons all-too-readily point out. So, although one may argue that marriage rights are not withheld from gays, they most certainly are if one desires to marry another of the same sex. The right to marry is meaningless if we cannot marry the adult of our choosing. Recall antimiscegenation laws—the ban on interracial marriages between whites and non-whites. Before the Supreme Court found that the ban was unconstitutional in 1967, some similarly argued that individuals’ rights to marry were not restricted, so long as whites married whites and non-whites married non-whites. However, marriage rights obviously were limited because the existence of the condition necessarily limits. See Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967) for the Supreme Court's landmark case holding antimiscegenation laws unconstitutional.

11. One of my former professor's brothers is a gay biologist, who has been searching for the gay gene for years. Members of the gay community find his research threatening because once the gay gene is discovered, they fear that the government will use the information to perform genetic genocide against gay persons. Conversely, he responds that finding the gay gene will guarantee civil rights for the LGBT community because that would undeniably prove that gay people are born gay, so they cannot help but be gay; somehow immutability is supposed to safeguard homosexuality just like race and sex. Although interesting, such assertions are very problematic. Queerness could be treated as a mutation. Unless a straight gene is found, society will still assume that straightness is normal and natural; any deviation will continue to be viewed as abnormal and unnatural. Even if scientists successfully discover a straight gene, society would probably nevertheless continue to consider straightness normal and gayness as some sort of genetic mutation. Further, as the overarching argument in this article points out, bisexuality all but destroys pure biologically-grounded arguments that would explain sexuality. Although some may feel that they are born bisexual, others clearly choose bisexuality. That choice, as an option, smacks biological innateness in its face.

12. I am referring mostly to physical, sexual, social and psychological harm as opposed to moral harm, realizing the possible Pandora's Box here, which requires an entirely separate work.

13. Even so, what is naturalness? If we consider observations in the animal kingdom as evidence of “nature,” we find gay and bisexual activity in many species. Take bonobos, for instance. These primates, cousins of the chimpanzee, settle disputes with sex. Bonobos rub their genitals with the genitals of other bonobos, irrespective of the recipient's sex. Females have sex with females and males, and males have sex with males and females.

14. I would like to make very clear that I, personally, do not necessarily think that the majority of dominant straight culture believes that gay people are born gay. In fact, I feel that the opposite is more likely true. When heterosexuals allege that homosexuality is a choice, they solidify their rights in the ass-u-me-d naturalness of their own sexual tastes and choices because they can denounce gay persons’ choices as deviant and, hence, deserving of unequal treatment. I am critiquing, rather, popular LGBT responses to such assertions and arguing that instead of adopting the “born-this-way” rights framework, we must challenge the tastes and choices of straight individuals as a less limiting way of demanding rights.