No wait I have more to say about Bi Tumblr Ideas I’ve decided
For the longest time, I did believe that the request for bi folks to “pick a side” was a part of biphobic rhetoric that didn’t have a direct parallel in homophobic rhetoric.
Over time, though, I’ve come to understand something: the adage “pick a side” does not come from a desire for everyone in the world to be either straight or gay, but to remove the possibility of same-gender attraction existing alongside “opposite”-gender attraction.
The existence of a bi person who continues to identify as bi for the remainder of their life threatens straight people because it indicates that “opposite”-gender attraction, the “superior” one, can exist concurrently with same-gender attraction. This ruins a lot of the filters through which liberal straight people are able to accept same-gender attraction (i.e. they can’t help it, they wouldn’t choose this if they had the option to be straight, it could never have been me because I like the “opposite” gender).
So when a straight person is telling you to “pick a side,” they are telling you that their acceptance of gay people rests on the grounds that they can be definitively defined as “other;” they are not telling you that they feel comfortable with gay sexuality.
I’ve always suspected that straight people feel threatened by the existence of bisexuality because they feel too comfy in a world where everyone is assumed straight until proven gay. You’ll hear them say things like “obviously I’m not gay, I’m married to Jane!”
They really enjoy how easy it is to say “no homo” and the existence of bisexuality threatens that. In a world where bisexuality is viewed as more legitimate, Tom being married to Jane is no longer evidence that Tom is a 100% heterosexual manly man.
(via ulibeanz)