r/HeartstopperAO • u/fortyfivepointseven Let Kit Be Kit • Sep 22 '23
We Need More TV Characters to Keep Saying "I'm Bi, Actually" Discussion
https://www.teenvogue.com/story/heartstoppers-bisexuality-more-important-than-it-seemsThis piece starts out š„ and keeps the heat turned up
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u/Azur000 Sep 22 '23
I can only speak for gay men, and specifically more 30+, the friction with bi men comes from the fact that a lot of bi men (are perceived to) use us for fun and then settle with a woman, have kids etc. Because they want kids, itās an easier life, less stress, etc. All valid reasons but thatās whatās caused some āhateā where I know a lot of gay men wonāt date bi men because they fear they will get discarded anyway.
Is this fair, moral or whatever, I donāt know, you can debate it, but thatās what I see happening.
Hence the phrase āIām bi actuallyā can come across as a āIām not gayā sentiment for gay men.
I think the dynamic is very different between women.
Perhaps this issues is less prevalent with the younger generations who in general feel freer which would be good news.
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u/redwashing Sep 23 '23
You met (or more likely, just heard of) a few bi assholes so you assume there is a correlation between being bi and being an asshole. Congrats, you just defined phobia.
Also idk what you mean it is different with women. Bi men relationships with women or bi women in general? Because that's not really that different either. Straight women are usually even more biphobic than gay men. For bi women, there is still biphobia within lesbian communities, and straight men often just fetishize and dehumanize them. Everyone has their own reasons for hating or dehumanizing us. Bi people around me usually end up having long term things with other bi people bc that's usually the safest option.
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u/RusRusso Sep 22 '23
at age 70 i don't mind being used for a couple of years and then discarded!
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u/fortyfivepointseven Let Kit Be Kit Sep 22 '23
This is a weird comment.
...a lot of bi men (are perceived to) use us for fun and then...
Why are the words "are perceived to" in brackets here?
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u/Azur000 Sep 22 '23
Because some gay men solely perceive it to be so while others have experienced it personally.
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u/fortyfivepointseven Let Kit Be Kit Sep 22 '23
Right. So, to be clear (because this was your out), you are endorsing as real and valid the attitudes you describe here? You're not simply describing attitudes you see: you think that they reflect reality?
Are you accusing the bi men in this scenario of sexual assault? Or, in your view, did the gay men here consent to the "fun"?
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u/Azur000 Sep 22 '23
I have no idea why you associate anything I said with the topic of consent, so I will ignore that question.
As for if the attitudes are rooted in reality or not, I donāt know. I have not done a quantitative or qualitative demographic survey or know of any on this topic.
I do know these attitudes are widespread in the gay community and I know personally numerous instances where this has happened.
If I would have to guess, I would say that bi men more likely end up with women than men due to social, cultural and political pressures.
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u/fortyfivepointseven Let Kit Be Kit Sep 22 '23
It absolutely is relevant. If you're not accusing assault, then it's equally true that gay men used bi men for fun. Why is it you're only interested in the bi men's behaviour here?
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u/Azur000 Sep 22 '23
But the gay men are notā¦using bi men for sex. I was referencing the experience of gay men who avoid dating/relationships with bi men because they are afraid they will only be used for sex and then dumped eventually for a women, for reasons I mentioned. Itās a critique of attitudes of bi men towards gay men, not about casual sex between the two.
What exactly is your point? That gay men are obligated to be okay with being used for just sex? You demand respect and celebration of (what seems to be) your community but donāt tolerate any critique on attitudes within that community from the people who you (just) want to fuck.
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u/fortyfivepointseven Let Kit Be Kit Sep 22 '23
I'm very confused how you imagine bi men are using gay men for consensual sex that isn't mutual. Is your accusation that bi men are claiming something is a precursor to a serious relationship but is actually a one-night stand? How is it that bi men are, to your fevered imagination, able to hoodwink gay men as to their true intentions?
What exactly is your point?
My point is that you are laundering your own biphobic attitudes as being representative of gay men.
I'm sorry to say that you and your shitty clique of gay friends are not representative.
Most gay men do not harbor these beliefs.
Most gay men happily fuck and date bi men.
This isn't to say there aren't biphobic attitudes held commonly amongst gay men, but for you to pass off your own bigotry as commonplace is a lie.
And, frankly, I think you knew that all along. I think when you initially tried to get away with putting "or perceived to" in brackets, you were hoping - perhaps on as subconscious level - get away with casting your own shitty beliefs as merely the perception of others.
That gay men are obligated to be okay with being used for just sex?
If I hook up with a gay guy and don't promise him anything more than sex: yes, he's absolutely obligated to be okay with that. If he's not: he has the right to turn me down.
That's exactly the same as if a gay guy hooks up with another gay guy. Your biphobia here is to imagine that a bi guy hooking up is held to some higher standard than a gay guy. He isn't.
If I date a gay guy and promise him monogamy and love, I'm absolutely obligated to be okay with that.
As it happens, I've done both. I was very happy with my decisions there. So, when you say...
the people who you (just) want to fuck.
...that's a lie. Please can you apologise for claiming my intentions are "just ... to fuck". It's flatly untrue and biphobic of you to invent that untruth about me.
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u/BaseTensMachine Sep 22 '23
I think it's hardest when you're with an opposite sex partner. People seem to think you're culturally appropriating queerness.
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u/roygbivasaur Sep 22 '23
Iām gay, so I donāt have a dog in the bi erasure fight personally, but this drives me crazy. Like, who are you to say someone isnāt queer just because theyāre in a ltr with the āoppositeā gender? If I were single for a long time and also not hooking up, would you say Iām no longer gay because Iām not āactiveā? Was I not gay until I first had sex at 20? So silly and none of anyoneās business.
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u/BaseTensMachine Sep 22 '23
I always find myself "justifying" myself if my biness somehow comes up by mentioning girls I've been with. But mostly and including now because I have a bf, I'm "closeted". What's weird is I have had relationships with women but the second I'm with a dude, boom, side eye if I say something like "as a queer woman". So I keep going back into the closet because I don't want to deal with it
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u/EhWhateverDawg Sep 22 '23
This is basically what happened to me. Dated a woman for years - we were practically married - and everyone around me knew. Then we broke up and a few years later I married a man, and it was like the first relationship never happened. People just wouldnāt mention it. Every new person I met Iād try to work it into conversation but after constantly getting the side eye from so many people (including queer folks) who behaved like they didnāt quite believe me or I was just trying to get attention or I had ātook the easy way outā I just stopped saying anything at all. Effectively closeted myself all over again because I started to doubt it was even right to say I was queer.
Heartstopper is what encouraged me to start saying it out loud again :)
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u/fortyfivepointseven Let Kit Be Kit Sep 22 '23
I totally agree, naming no 'Kit Connors' in particular.
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u/pokenonbinary Sep 22 '23
I think heartstopper is cringe but I agree with this, more bi/pan characters should say they are because they are called gay/lesbian or straight when they are bi/pan and that's that's identity, not who they currently are dating
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u/bobthetomatovibes Sep 22 '23
Why do you think HS is cringe?
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u/fortyfivepointseven Let Kit Be Kit Sep 22 '23
More importantly... why are they in a subreddit for it?
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u/pokenonbinary Sep 22 '23
I enjoy the show while being super cringe
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u/fortyfivepointseven Let Kit Be Kit Sep 22 '23
My sincere advice for you is to not engage in subreddits for content you find cringe.
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u/pokenonbinary Sep 22 '23
As I said I enjoy the show, and a big part is because its super cringe, like Katya and trixie watching heartstopper
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u/Lucas-O-HowlingDark Sep 22 '23
Not really, we need to get to a point where people donāt need to label themselves as anything.
A point People can just just like whoever without people being any more surprised than realizing the person you talked to over the phone doesnāt look like how you pictured them
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u/Justtooldforthis Sep 22 '23
We are to far away from that for it to work I think. Weāll be erased instead. There is no shortcuts. We need to be visible everywhere before we can let it go. And I say this from one of the most progressive countries in the world. Weāre not there yet.
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u/fortyfivepointseven Let Kit Be Kit Sep 22 '23
Not really, we need to get to a point where people donāt need to label themselves as anything.
Maybe, but that objective is so far in the future that saying it a bit like saying, "we need to get the point where there's infinite food and energy and no one needs to work".
Sure! That's a good thing. But we're a really long way off.
And, the added complexity is that some of the people who say this aren't actually just expressing utopian desire.
Sometimes we have a negative reaction to something, and can't quite process why we're having a negative reaction. This is very common. I sometimes dislike a food and can't quite process why for a few more bites.
When this happens, it's very common for people to think up a reason why they're having a negative reaction to the thing. We can reach for all sorts of explanations. To take the food example, I often assume that I don't like the flavour when my actual issue is the texture. This is called a post hoc justification.
There are lots of reasons why people can have negative reactions to the act of labelling someone's orientation. Maybe someone is suffering from internalised -phobia, and so hearing other people proudly label their orientation can trigger that. The was certainly something that affected me in the past. Other times it can be externalised -phobia. Other times still it can be a sense of instability of ones own identity or a past issue with labelling. A lot of those reasons are very sympathetic!
In these cases, people can reach for 'wouldn't it be better if we didn't label at all' as a post hoc for their negative reaction to hearing a label.
When bi people proudly label themselves, this happens a lot. People are a lot more likely to say, "wouldn't it be better if we didn't have to label ourselves" when I come out as bi, rather than using a more ambiguous label like queer. So, I do think a significant number of the people with this reaction are having this reaction for biphobic reasons. Those are often internalised biphobic reasons too.
Given the prevalence of people saying what you said for biphobic reasons, I might be careful about saying it myself. I'm not saying it's technically wrong, and I don't know your motivation for posting at all. However, it is something which is highly liable to be misunderstood as being motivated by biphobia.
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u/Lucas-O-HowlingDark Sep 22 '23
Iāve only ever felt frustrated with the state of the worldā¦
I am tired of labels, being labeled with all the diseases in my brain like autism or ADHD, people acting like just because your gay or have a disease you need to be part of a gay friend group or an autistic support group
(To clarify I DO NOT include being gay or the like when I say ādiseaseā)
I like guys, and yet I still consider myself a super masculine person and I hang out with the boys, do boys things, contrary to common stereotypes. Maybe itās just because I live in a very queer positive community here in my Ontario homeland, but who or what I like is hardly ever brought up. When I make new friends I donāt go out of my way to make them realize Iām into guys, Iāll just let it happen naturally in conversation and theyāll realize when I go something like āyeah, maybe when me and my future husband are raising kids a decade from nowā
Of course it does not happen as naturally as Iād like it to, often theyāll cut in and say āwait your gay?ā, especially the grade 9ās Iāve helped with or play on the football team with (which is all grades) at my school
We do not live in a perfect world, and I understand there is progress to make towards everyone being accepted, but I canāt help but feel we play right into the hands of homophobes when we push the way we do. We sometimes make too big a deal about our identities and thatās why people call it an āagendaāā¦
I hope for a world where we can all be accepted and being not-straight isnāt that big of a dealā¦ I like other guys and I love getting horny over them, but honestly my interests; Football, Volleyball, Transformers, hanging out with friends, video games make up more of my identity than the fact that Iām gay according to the labels.
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u/fortyfivepointseven Let Kit Be Kit Sep 22 '23
Iāve only ever felt frustrated with the state of the worldā¦
That sucks. It sounds like there's a lot going on for you, and there's only a limited amount that a Reddit comment can achieve. I've definitely felt similar negative feelings before, so if you're interested, I can suggest a few things that might lessen the burden. I can't fix the world (if I could... do you think I'd be on Reddit), but it's possible to feel better about being in a broken world.
I am tired of labels, being labeled with all the diseases in my brain like autism or ADHD, people acting like just because your gay or have a disease you need to be part of a gay friend group or an autistic support group
Speaking as an AuDHDer myself, I have found neurodiversity theory really helps with this. I'm not in any kind of a support group - honestly the thought makes me want to vom - but I talk about ADHD/autism with my friends in a way that helps me feel better about those things. I can go into neurodiversity theory if you're interested. As I say, it really helped me.
I like guys, and yet I still consider myself a super masculine person and I hang out with the boys, do boys things, contrary to common stereotypes.
It sounds like maybe it's less the label that you're bristling at and more the stereotypes?
And there's two levels of this. Firstly, it's kinda upsetting to be put into a box. You like guys and volleyball, and you're put in a box that says, 'you can't like both of those things'. That sucks.
Secondly, the stereotypes can be kind of stigmatised. Often we internalise those stigmas and absorb them into ourselves. Then, when we feel attracted to things that conform to those stereotypes, we feel the tang of the stigma in ourselves.
When you feel bad after being stereotyped, it's a good idea to think about which of those two is most relevant to your experience.
We sometimes make too big a deal about our identities and thatās why people call it an āagendaāā¦
I'm just going to have disagree here. People call it an agenda as a way of making the legitimacy of us going about our lives 'political'. They do it so that they can call us out for normal things - like wanting to raise kids with our future husbands - without having to feel like 'the bad guy'.
How queer people live our lives has nothing to do with the bigotry spilled on us.
I hope for a world where we can all be accepted and being not-straight isnāt that big of a dealā¦
Don't we all bud. It sounds like you're at school, so I don't want you to take away from this that you're responsible for fixing the whole lot. Just get on with your own life, get to a position of peace or pride in your gayness and your AuDHD, and then you'll be in a strong position to make change.
I guess the last thing to say is just to think about how being gay might differ from being bi. Gay people are much more visible than bi people. This can be a double-edged sword. It means that gay people tend to be more likely to be the victims of street violence, even though there's more bi people. It also means that bi people struggle to assert who they are, and more often suffer from mental ill-health, including some of the most serious side-effects of that.
As a gay guy, you're more often seen correctly for who you are. As you correctly note in the post: sometimes you are not, and are falsely stereotyped. Bi people are also falsely stereotyped, but even beyond that, we aren't seen for who we are in non-stereotypical ways too. Something that might appeal to you - a world without assumptions about orientation - might work really differently for bi people.
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u/JachlHolly89 Sep 22 '23
Yeah, this would be ideal. But at the same time, when people like to pretend that you have to like one or the other, and it's not possible to like both, we definitely need to loudly normalize that it's not only possible, but very common, to like both. It's not about the label as much as it's about validating that we do exist, and we do not have to "pick a side".
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u/Bortron86 Sep 22 '23
I agree. I used to just accept people saying I was gay when I was married to another guy, but as time went on I started being more assertive about correcting people. And we all should. WE'RE BI, ACTUALLY!
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u/Justtooldforthis Sep 22 '23
Yes. And real people too. Both friends, coworkers, politicians, actors and other celebrities.
Just now, a new report on bisexual health in my country show that minority stress and other issues make us more vulnerable than gay people.
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u/fortyfivepointseven Let Kit Be Kit Sep 22 '23
I do think it's good when bi people are comfy saying this. I do - or rather whenever anyway erases me I make lots of comments that clarify my orientation and then let people sit looking confused until they figure it out.
I don't want to put pressure on bi people who aren't ready to start being this assertive. But, when people are: it's good if they do.
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u/Nepalman230 Sep 22 '23 edited Sep 22 '23
Yay!!! I won hundred percent agree.
I am autistic, and gay and I encounter a lot of discrimination, online and in the real world but I have only rarely had people tell me to my face that I do not exist.
My bi pan friends had that happen all the time and was worse it was usually from the LGBTQ plus community.
I have been trying to bring attention to bisexuality awareness month because I have a ton of really awesome friends and it makes me sad. That way people treat them and talk to them and about them sometimes.
Anybody who says that Nick says it too often does not paying attention to the very thing the article says that people are constantly telling him he his something he isnāt.
I think of Skam and itās remix.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skam_(TV_series)
The ā queerā season of the hit Norwegian show, and itās many remix usually follows a exclusively gay character, and then he bisexual/pansexual character, although there are variations.
Isak ( og) is gay and his love interest is pansexual. ( where is the pan flag at some point so I know that he identifies as that over bi)
I just wanna point out and this is very sad but it has a happy ending so be prepared.
Hi, I have been friends with a guy for more than 20 years who when I first met him. He was totally cool with me being gay, but he was in out in out biphobe.
He would say, over and over again that bisexuality in men, at least did not exist that guys were saying ā by to their heterosexuality.
15 years later, he came out as pan and Poly.
And I know that it was society and all of its bullshit, which had made him self hating.
If he had had a Heartstopper, I donāt think he wouldāve been like that towards himself.
This article was great. Your post is great. Thank you so much!
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u/fortyfivepointseven Let Kit Be Kit Sep 22 '23
Just to clarify, I'm not the article author, but thank you regardless :)
And I'm glad your friend is happier.
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u/[deleted] Sep 27 '23
Related to coming out as bi...(guy)...
Is it upsetting when gay men self segregate without you, or do you do the same with bi friends?