If you wish, feel free to play this song while you read the rest of the post:
The coming out of Blue singer Duncan James as bisexual in a News of the World interview has spread far and wide internationally. It's heartening to read the refreshing candor of his interview. Also, sprinkled amongst the stunned disbelief of fans and homophobic response, men and women opened up in unaffected comments about their own coming out struggles:
"I'm 27 bisexual and i've just told a couple of friends and my brother and sister. So duncan i think you have given hope to us all i only hope people can stop being so homophobic as doesn't everyone deserve the right to live there own life there way it would be a dull world if everyone was the same . . ."
"I'm a 48 year old man who only came out to family and friends within the last two years . . ."
"Well done duncan!! im a bi male and it is difficult . .hopefully you will have inspired people to do the same as you :)"
"It is frightening that there are people out there calling him a 'disgusting human being' - vicious dictators are disgusting human beings, not someone who happens to be bisexual. What's wrong with the world?"
But it couldn't happen without also generating some biphobia in its wake. It wasn't unusual to see derogatory and stereotypical comments from some in the gay community, such as these at pink.co.uk:
"Yet another fence-sitting queen frightened he might alienate his female fans, thus sending his record sales and quasi-celebrity status into a flat spin. Admit you're a faggot maybe what you lose on the girls you'll make on the boys."
"A lot of so called "bi's" are in denial. It's safer to say you enjoy WOMEN and that they're more emotional than men which is definitely NOT true. . . I've met some pretty screwed up so called bi men, married and single, who claim that romance is reserved for women only, go figure. . . I'm very leery of people who call themselves "bi" for the most part."
"there's no such thing as bi-sexual, its just greediness"
"'Biphobia?' Where did that come from? *hurries away to check the OED* I'm not biphobic, just a good observer of human nature. I'll give him a year or two before he finally owns up to being a complete cocksucker. It is the homophobes of this world that exacerbate this situation where people have to pretend to being 50/50. It's all about testing the water. ('If it goes well, I'll admit to being gay, if it doesn't, I can retreat back to girlfriends, no harm done.'). . . I guarantee if there was no homophobia in this world, there would be no bisexuals either.
Thank goodness it wasn't all bad--there was healthy response from bi-positive commenters. What has really impressed me, though, was the rapid response of UK's Bisexual Index, a British bisexual activist organization, who responded with a column from member Marcus Morgan:
"I am a bisexual man, and I use that word because I want to be honest. So if people want me to come out as 'gay' then I'd need the word 'homosexual' to mean 'sexually attracted to both the same sex and the opposite sex.' . . . I have met hundred of bisexuals and when the question of being out as bi on the gay scene comes up, everyone agrees: being denied a voice is bad enough but being denied our existence is appalling."
Kudos Bisexual Index! Most bi activism in the US to any denial of our existence online has focussed on alerting bisexuals to bombard biphobic columnists in the comments sections of their derogatory posts. What we should also be doing is demanding space online from those same publications to express our point of view, especially when that publication has a LGBTQ readership. Visibility has to be fought for.
I hardly think that biphobia is the "last bastion of prejudice," but that doesn't make me any less impressed by gay Brit Gary Nunn's attack on bi stereotyping in the Guardian. Michael Musto, Andrew Sullivan, Ted Casablanca, are you paying attention? Here is a fellow gay man not succumbing to the same old willful blindness to fluid sexuality--in men or in women. No, it's not treason to gayness.
Blue has reunited for another tour. Hmmm. Their promo photo shoot is certainly interesting.
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old new lefty
1_Irritated_Mother
LadyMiko
Amanda Gulledge
Natalie Not Pedantic
Robert Crook
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*sighs*
*singing* "Money, money, money/money, money, money/Money makes za vorld go around/za vorld go around/ za vorld **/ a franc, a yen, a buck, or a pound/ it makes za vorld go rou-ou-ound."
Damn--Israel's getting its theocratic hard-on--yah?
BSN