Authors Jen Winston & Rachel Krantz Talk Bisexuality, Imposter Syndrome, and Being “Greedy”
This October 10 was World Mental Health Day, and today, Oct 11, is Coming Out Day. Considering bisexual women suffer higher rates of mental illnesses, sexual assault, and addiction than gay or straight populations, it’s a great time to have some very public conversations about the nuances of bisexual identity.
Personally, I’m about to “come out” in all kinds of extremely revealing ways. My forthcoming memoir, Open: An Uncensored Memoir of Love, Liberation, and Non-Monogamy, will leave little about my proclivities and inner world private. And yet I still sometimes feel afraid of owning a label when it comes to my sexual orientation. Bi? Pan? Queer? Fluid? I Just Know It When I See Them? Inexplicitly Still Self-Erasing?
I spoke with Jen Winston, author of the new book Greedy: Notes From a Bisexual Who Wants Too Much, about everything from queer imposter syndrome to coming out to overlaps between non-monogamy and bisexuality.
Rachel Krantz: I was wondering how you think the word “greedy” is weaponized against bisexuals, and also can be reclaimed. Because honestly, I kind of am the stereotype. I like lots of different people, and I don’t want to choose just one gender or person, and part of the reason I’m non-monogamous is my bisexuality.
Jen Winston: That’s why I love Shiri Eisner’s book Bi: Notes For a Bisexual Revolution. Their work basically pushes back on the idea that being greedy or confused is a bad thing. What I’m trying to do with the title of my book is reclaim the idea of “greedy,” and all the bisexual stereotypes. Eisner says that confusion can actually be a destabilizing agent for social change. And so much of owning the label bisexual, for me, was using it as a lens to just get past all those binaries.
Rachel: I’m curious what made you decide on the label bisexual versus pansexual, or any other option.
Jen: One day I googled, “Is bisexual binary?” I found a bunch of quotes from bi activists, several of whom are non-binary and/or trans or genderqueer, who all said that bisexuality was not binary and talked about what the term meant to them. And I learned about the word “monosexism,” which bisexuality is often the opposite of, essentially. Monosexuality being the assumption that you should only be attracted to one gender, and that’s the one you’re with, which is essentially another binary. And once I found out that there’s this really rich history of bisexuality welcoming all genders, I was just so relieved that the word I felt in my heart was one I could use.
Since then, I’ve had some people come for me and be like, “Why don’t you identify as pansexual?” My partner and I are both non-binary. In researching pansexuality, I found the term was kind of created in opposition to bisexuality to be gender-inclusive, but the reason that was necessary is that there was so much biphobia that the actual mission of the bi movement was not seen. So no one’s listening to bi activists when they were saying, for decades, that they welcome all genders.
Rachel: And then what about “queer” as a term? You write in Greedy about “queer love.” What does queer love mean to you?
Jen: Queer’s basic definition is “different than the norm.” But I think in the context of queer sex specifically, and specifically for people with vaginas, it is like, “rewrite this whole script of what you’ve been told.” I am personally trying to work toward embracing that broader definition of queer because I think the gatekeeping that happens is really problematic for people with fluid sexualities. There are all these stats about bi women having higher rates of mental health issues, substance abuse; experiencing sexual assault at higher rates. It’s very serious.
Rachel: Yes, the imposter syndrome has real mental health consequences. A lot of my twenties were spent seeing my queer friends be frustrated with women who they said were “just experimenting” on them and leaving when they wanted to go back to a cis man. And so I worried, “Oh god, what if that’s how I would be? I don’t want to hurt someone the way these people are hurting my best friends.” I’d hear the queer complaint that, “every straight girl who’s adventurous is putting that she’s queer or bi on her dating profile, and that’s how I know to skip her because she’s just trying to signal to men that she’s down for a threesome.” And I would just be like, “Well, fuck. I do also want a threesome, so guess I should take queer off my profile…” I didn’t want to appropriate any label. But then I definitely knew I’m not straight, and couldn’t say I was straight, either.
One thing your book talks about that’s so relatable is how the suppression of that side of you starts so early. Like if you’re really into cis men also, it’s a lot more normative to just go along that way. Or to be like, “Well, maybe my attraction to women is not as strong.” For me, my crushes on women were easier to compartmentalize, and that made me feel like they must not be as important.
Jen: Same.
Rachel: It’s hard to distinguish between wherever I am on the Kinsey scale, and what I was indoctrinated with — what I watched in Disney movies over and over, and therefore imagined for myself. Even though I know the label bisexual is not actually binary, the word itself still sounds like it is. And I’ve often felt this discomfort of like, “What if I’m not perfectly even?”
Jen: I know for me so much of writing Greedy involved overcoming my own internalized biphobia. When I found out that bi women had higher rates of sexual assault than gay women or straight women, I was shocked. But for me, I found that statistic weirdly validating. I was like, ‘oh, well I have a lot of terrible sexual experiences, so maybe I am bi!’ It helped affirm my identity in a way, which is gross and sad. I put myself in a lot of really risky sexual scenarios, especially ones where I was fetishized as a queer woman, because I thought that it would help me understand something.
Rachel: It’s so hard to talk about because you don’t want to get into a place of victim-blaming, or saying, “bisexuals are more likely to engage in risky behavior so that’s why they are more frequently sexually assaulted.” I remember very clearly thinking after I myself was violated, what did you expect, you greedy slut? I had internalized that message so deeply.
Even though in my memoir you simultaneously see me coming into my queerness in great detail. Before non-monogamy, I was always trying to go on dates with women, and saying I was bisexual on my profile. But mostly I was trying and failing. But then, with non-monogamy, I was able to gain confidence with women at sex parties and eventually met someone who I dated and lost my queer virginity to and really appreciated being with. And I later went on to have other, more casual sexual experiences with other women.
But even writing out that whole journey in explicit detail, I still have taken “queer” or “bi” or “pan” out of my Twitter bio and put it back in probably like 10 times. The queer imposter syndrome won’t quit!
Jen: With fluid identities, there’s this assumption that you have to hit this like, I don’t know, “setpoint” in order to claim the identity. And not only does that gatekeep people from the queer community, but it also gatekeeps ourselves from ourselves.
My partner and I will often debate what qualifies as good bisexual representation on TV. And for me, it doesn’t count unless they say the word. When you’re showing bisexuality onscreen, if you don’t say it, then you have to show it as an act, and that perpetuates the idea that bisexuality is a behavior and not an identity.
Rachel: Wow, I never thought of that, but now I think I always will.
So, something happened the other day I wanted to talk to you about. I got high and went down a Doja Cat rabbit hole on YouTube. And I was getting so horny watching her, but also in my head already reflexively invalidating myself being like, yeah, but if you had to choose between fucking her and looking like her, you would choose to look like her in a heartbeat.
Jen: Oh yeah, I know that impulse. But a lot of it is also about the fact that women are trained to view themselves as in competition with other women, and so we don’t expect we want women sexually, but we expect we should envy them.
Rachel: And I think that maybe wanting to be someone else, on a certain level, is always an element of attraction. It’s just more obvious when it’s the same sex. So let’s say I’m attracted to a very dominant, strong, big man. I’m maybe not actually as obviously wanting to look like him, but I’m wanting to in some way access what it must feel like to be like him — or to fill in what I perceive to be a “missing” part of me as a small woman.
Jen: Again, it goes back to gender. We’re not really “allowed” to look like men. And the same is true for men to women. It’s like, men are told that the worst thing they can be is a woman. So we shut that aspect of desire down for opposite-sex attractions, maybe.
Rachel: When I went down that Doja Cat rabbit hole, that is one example of when I feel extremely bisexual. It’s like when I’m having both those feelings at once. Or it’s like, I’m watching Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams in The Notebook, and I just want to be in a threesome with the both of them. Or, lingerie shopping and I’m looking online at the pictures, and I’m like, I want to buy this to look pretty for a guy I’m seeing, but also this woman is so turning me on. Are there certain things for you where you’re like, oh, this is when I feel most bi?
Jen: I mean, yeah. My partner has this fake nose ring that I put in sometimes. And they’re always like, ‘oh, you look very bisexual today.’ Somehow it makes me feel very seen. But yeah, the whole idea is that if bi culture is everything, which it is allegedly, then it’s also nothing. So it sort of just exists online as a joke because it’s everything and nothing at the same time.
A lot of bi women talk about feeling excluded by lesbian culture. And I have come to realize that a lot of the reasons for that are because they are referring to white lesbian culture. That’s not to say there’s not any biphobia in other spaces, but the majority of white queer communities perpetuate binaries like straight white culture does — because that’s what white supremacy culture does.
Rachel: Homonormativity. That’s funny that you said the nose ring thing though because I definitely spent most of my twenties with a nose ring, beanie, flannel shirt, skinny jeans, and Doc Martens, which apparently is also a bisexual thing. According to some people.
Jen: I actually thought that everything you just described is a lesbian thing.
Rachel: Or a Brooklyn girl in 2015 thing. It does feel nice to imagine though, even if it means nothing. Oh, maybe my dressing like a sexy boy is actually a bisexual thing.
Jen: I mean, maybe it was working.
Rachel: It was not working with women. I shared your experience of a lot of rejection early on — until I was non-monogamous. I guess maybe I was more confident then because I already had someone at home. So then it was easier to kind of take on the risk of being rejected again.
Jen: Yes. That’s how I always envisioned that I’d feel in a non-monogamous relationship.
Rachel: That’s on a good day.
So anyway, what do you think I should call myself?
Jen: It definitely seems like you have all the aspects of a bisexual person. One of them being, asking the question of, ‘Am I bisexual?’ — which is literally almost the exact name of a chapter in your book. But I’m not here to tell you the label will serve you the way it did for me. But for me, it’s fun to tell people that I’m bi now because it means I’m intentionally having a conversation about queerness. And I think that’s a good exercise for queer people who have more passing privileges to go through. Because it requires you to consciously think about whether spaces that you’re in are safe for queer and trans people.
But I’m not going to diagnose you. I know that’s what you want. But I think you can diagnose yourself.
