Editor’s Note: This was submitted in mid-September, but through our oversight, this submission didn’t get published in a timely manner. Our sincerest apologies.
by Mike Wode |
On Sept. 23 it was Celebrate Bisexuality Day, and I wanted to clear up a few things. At its core, bisexuality is the attraction to either sex; that’s it. This is based on the same principle that straight is the attraction to the opposite sex and that gay is the attraction to the same sex. It doesn’t mean that someone who is bisexual wants to sleep with everyone in sight; many people who are bisexual desire a relationship with exactly one other person.
In the very funny movie “Dodgeball,” they make a throwaway joke at the end of the movie after Christine Taylor’s character kisses her girlfriend, who has been absent for the rest of the movie. This is upsetting to Vince Vaughn’s character, who is Taylor’s love interest. Taylor then goes over to Vaughn and says, “Actually, I’m bisexual,” and kisses Vaughn. Taylor’s character may in fact be bisexual, as she is clearly attracted to both sexes, but her actions illustrate a common and false stereotype of bisexual people.
This example in “Dodgeball,” and other jokes in popular culture, assume that bisexuality means promiscuity — in the “Dodgeball” case, kissing someone when you are already dating someone else — when in fact it does not. We often see in media that someone who is bisexual is dating two people at once, sleeps around a lot, or is into sexual acts that aren’t all that chaste.
Sure, there are bisexual people who are into all those things, but there are straight and gay people who are also. My point is that making assumptions about bisexual people based on stereotypes is hurtful and can be damaging to the many bisexual people who do not fit the stereotype. As is the case with most things, it is important to get to know a person first and to take the time to educate yourself.
Mike Wode is the Corrado Hall Director and can be reached at wode@up.edu.
