You’re Punishing Bi Women For… Not Having Enough Game?

Aren’t there more useful activities than belittling bi women who date men?

Kayla Vokolek
Prism & Pen

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Photo by Aiden Craver on Unsplash

I’m lucky enough to sometimes forget how pervasive biphobia can be. I’ve had many bi friends, inclusive queer friends of different sexualities, and straight friends who I’d consider allies.

And besides a couple thoughtless, yet relatively harmless comments, my romantic partners have been supportive. Or at least in regards to being bi… they’re past partners for a reason.

Another thing they have in common? They’ve all been men. But recently, I’ve been feeling more self-conscious of my dating history.

This spring, Devon Price wrote a great piece about how hurtful and useless it is to criticize queer people for being “cringey” or not fitting into a prescribed ideal of what a queer person “should” look like or act like. A perspective refined by his own “messy self-discovery” as a queer (not bisexual) person. I appreciated the article, but also deflated while reading the section valiantly defending bi women dating men — against charges by columnist Kat Rosenfield, who claimed that “identifying as bisexual became a political bumper sticker for Gen Z.”

Rosenfield’s baseless assumptions were frustrating to hear, even through Price’s…

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Kayla Vokolek
Prism & Pen

Pursuing MFA in Nonfiction Writing at Portland State