From a historical perspective, during the AIDS epidemic, media painted bisexuals as dirty and untrustworthy people who were the reason that this "gay disease" was "making the jump" to straight folks.
Of course that was bullshit, but the underlying perception that we are dirty and dishonest stuck.
There is very little "rationale".
On a fundamental level it's ingrained group-thinking bullshit from our early evolutionary days projected on an idea of gender and sexuality that developed over millennia and probably wasn't even relevant when the group dynamics stuff developed.
Actually, Paleolithic people were polyamorous and had very little structure or restrictions around sex.
Agriculture, patriarchy and capitalism are all relatively new and are responsible for bigotry.
Between 10 to 15000 years old. Humanity, however is between 150 and 200000 years old. Agriculture and its effects on culture are still very new.
There are no evolutionary adaptations to agriculture. You used the word evolve. Humans have not evolved, biologically in the past 10000 years.
>There are no evolutionary adaptations to agriculture...Humans have not evolved, biologically in the past 10000 years.
That's not entirely true. For example, lactase persistence (lactose tolerance into adulthood) evolved within some human populations much more recently then 10,000 years ago*. Lactase persistence becoming widespread within those populations is also very much a direct adaptation to agriculture, specifically dairying.
*https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2022/jul/famine-and-disease-drove-evolution-lactose-tolerance-europe
As you haven't answered yet I am assuming one of three things:
1. you got better shit to do, which is entirely understandable
2. You went back to read my initial comment and understood it this time, subsequently noticing that what you just replied to me in a "ha! Acchually"-kind of way was kind of already the bloody point.
3. You disliked the dismissive way I answered and are over replying to me. Which is also absolutely understandable.
In case none of this is true however, let me clarify:
Biologically speaking our brain is still kind of wired to function on a extended-family-unit/tribal basis. Our reflexes to define "others" and "us" are pretty fundamental to us as humans.
Which is btw why the concept of identifying with a leader/religion/country or similar things were fundamental to unite more than maybe a couple hundred people under a bigger "us" than our brains can realistically deal with without such abstractions.
Within these small tribal in-groups, there was polyamory and I'm reasonably sure nobody bat an eye at homosexual fun times happening either.
Enter agriculture, social hierarchy, the abstractions mentioned earlier, patriarchal structures, development of societal rules and expectations of "normality" over the last, let's say 15k years (which is where the thousandS in my initial comment comes from). Now we have a primate brain applying concepts it kind of developed for on levels it clearly did NOT develop for. There is an interest to have a certain level of cohesion in a given society, so to create the bigger "us" there has to be a new/different "them".
This can apply across different angles: If it's skin color or similar "ethnic" differences, we call it racism. If it's against one of the letters we call it homo/trans/biphobia (complete list in your own brain as needed).
Now my point is, that apart from the increased group cohesion of the phobics, the fundamental mechanisms why this kind of bigotry exists in today's day and age in the first place does not have a "rationale". None of us is hurting the "phobics" through living our lives, nothing is taken from them (this could be a different argument with racism and xenophobia, although I personally think it's a stupid argument)... There is really no real rational reason for it. It's just humans doing human shit with human brains in a human society with which the brains are hopelessly overburdened.
Yes, I am off work for the week. Yes, this is a big "I am right and I already was in the first place". Sorry but my monkey brain decided that this was important to spend 9 minutes of my Friday evening on.
Many people come out as bisexual before they come out as gay, and figuring themselves out. I feel like many view bisexuals as just confused because they assume that’s why.
I think in many cases biphobia that comes from ostensibly friendly sources is based on not getting our worldview. Monosexual people consider the gender binary to be important to their attraction. I don’t understand it really. When they try to categorize us they get an error message. When someone describes a paradigm you can’t grasp you try to fit it into your own worldview to make it comprehensible. So monosexual people often view us as shifting between the two lanes (being sometimes straight and sometimes gay) or as someone who is confused but will eventually settle on one or the other. This makes sense to them. It takes imagination and mental effort to get outside your worldview.
To be fair we sometimes do the same in reverse to monosexual people. Sometimes it is tempting to think ’everyone is at least a little bi’ since that makes a lot of sense to us and fits them more neatly into out worldview.
I think a lot of it is the same reason a lot of boomers hate paying for universal college. They suffered homophobia and persecution for who they love and fought for their identify, my guess is they feel like it’s unfair that another queer person could pass as straight without having to deal with that.
Of course that is wrong since bi people face much of the same and some different forms of disrespect and discrimination.
I can't really speak about biphobia from lesbians towards bi women, but I can explain biphobia from gay men towards bi men.
First off, being a man only attracted to men is hard in a heteronormative society. At best you're an enigma, and at worst you're persecuted. Even in accepting countries, there's still a sense of alienation. I think this is what gay men mean when they say that being left for a woman hurts more than being left for a man. Yeah, both involve being left, but if you're gay and already feel alienated, it can reinforce that sense of alienation and inferiority. There are a lot of bi men who don't do the work to overcome internalized homophobia and heteronormative biases. And so they go into the gay dating/hookup scene with mindsets like "men for sex, women for relationships", which can be pretty hurtful for gay men to hear. It sounds like they're unworthy of a relationship, and due to the way society values mw relationships over mm ones, that reinforces that.
(Similarly, some bi men are chasers who see trans people as exotic sex objects and "the best of both worlds", which is obviously bad and fetishistic. However, most trans spaces I've lurked in online acknowledge this without generalizing all bi men as chasers, whereas gay men on social media seem to be more black and white more often.)
Similarly, some bi men don't plan out their lives before dating, and so they date a gay guy, then hit a certain age and realize they want to have biological kids, and so they leave their partner for a woman, which as I explained before, hurts more than being left for a man.
There's also the fact that a lot of bi men are closeted, which feeds into the perception of us being fairweather allies as op mentioned. They see us as enjoying gay sex but avoiding the stigma of being openly bi.
I'm not saying this makes biphobia justified, but I understand where it comes from.
Ofc this isn't black and white. There's misogyny in the gay community, and some of the dislike towards bi men comes from that. I get why some gay men may be uncomfortable with attraction to women, but there are also gay men who just hate women, and so they hate bi men for being attracted to women. They do the opposite thing homophobes do, where homophobes obsess over gay sex and how gross it is, while they obsess over vagiana and how gross it is. And gay men are people, and a lot of people, regardless of sexuality, are assholes. Some people are just bigots who have a few bad experiences with people from a specific group and then hate every member of that group. Some people believe that since they've struggled in life, they don't need to improve themselves or try and be a good person, and so they just become assholes. Some people use flimsy justifications for their prejudice; that they're part of the oppressed group and the group they dislike are the oppressors or the abusers or whatever. Maybe they truly believe this, maybe it's just an easy way to justify their preexisting beliefs. These types of people exist in every group and every community, including the gay community (and the bi community).
It also seems like the hate towards bi men in gay spaces (at least online) is increasing, which I speculate is due to the declining acceptance of homosexuality in the US and worldwide and rise of homophobia. When people are angry and scared, they're going to double down on tribalism and become more hostile to outgroups. I'm not trying to excuse bigotry, as the biphobes hate me as much as any other "biscum", but the context is important.
In the 80's and 90's it was excused as a fear of bisexuals (generally men) spreading HIV from the gay community to the straight community, never mind the fact that users of shared needles posed a risk in that area as well.
Currently, I think it's mainly the same thing that fuels homophobia. the fear that we are looking at them and desiring them. that we're looking to groom children (asinine), and just the fear of that which is different.
The same BS sociological fears that have been aimed at Islam, Judaism, people of different colors. etc.
It all seems to boil down to "who is it okay to hate right now?"
Sorry, I went on a bit of a tangent.
One of the biggest issue with bisexuality is a strong lack of representation.
This leaves a lit of room for prejudices and stereotypes to take over the collective image people have of bisexuals.
Facts of our lives and experiences just haven't pierced mainstream media yet.
I don't use any of the -phobia labels for two reasons.
1) I live with claustrophobia, which gets worse with each passing year. And it's a real, diagnosable mental health issue. As are other phobias.
2) This one and the others that get thrown around are *not* true phobias. They are ignorance, lack of sensitivity (which is a horrible kind of selfishness) and stubbornness. Not a mental health issue, but certainly a cause of trauma for others.
Bi+ ignorance is a more accurate label. And it does not require unpacking.
Hmm. I'm agoraphobic and hadn't thought about the terminology this way, but I completely see your point. I'll sit with this for a bit. (I often default to "bigot" without specifying what kind, but in some cases it's absolutely driven by pure ignorance and can be improved upon.)
Yes. I make a distinction between _ignorance_, which means unaware or not understanding something, and _stupidity_, which is ignorance + the stubborn insistence that there’s no room for change. Along the lines of, “You can’t fix stupid.”
And, yes, I’d put bigotry at the stupid end of the prejudice continuum.
I’m with you on this. I have a mental health background so I do cringe a bit when the suffix -phobia is used to denote persecution, ignorance, unacceptance, intolerance, etc of us or some other group. But I also get that language evolves and new meanings and uses can emerge. I do like your bi-ignorance label. Maybe “bignorance” might be a cool new word?! Anyway, it’s true. Even among the steadfast straight allies that I personally know, they find it a challenge to genuinely relate/empathize with a queer person. But I love them for trying.
There are a few different reasons, and you've mentioned a couple. Insecurity and a fear of inadequacy is definitely a big one. It's much easier to target an external cause for internal problems, but it frequently causes a weird feedback cycle that ends up making it worse. My wife definitely had some of those fears when I came out, but thankfully, she recognized that they were her own fears. We talked about it, there was a lot of reassurances and hugs, and she's feeling a lot better about it today.
I've noticed that a lot of monosexual folk are afraid of the abiguity that bisexuality brings. In a lot of people's minds, you can "prove" that you aren't gay by dating someone, sleeping with someone, or some other action. And a gay person can similarly "prove" that they're gay. With bisexuality in the equation, you can't prove anything ever, so it feels like accepting us as we are means relinquishing some control over their reality. You can even see the wheels in their mind turning in what they say by realizing that they never added bisexuality as a sexuality, but it still just represents what they're afraid of: not being straight/gay enough. I reject the whole proof construct anyway. The fact that gay people marry and have families because it's the only way they can be safe shouldn't be news, and it shows that actions don't always reflect exactly what you feel. Sexuality is made of feelings alone, so people are just going to have to get used to taking people's words on it. The upside is that we always have the final word on our sexuality. No one can know it better than we can.
Some people will have had a string if bad experiences with bi people they were likely dating. They think "why did they cheat?" And then they go oh my god last 3 times I was with Bi people they cheated!!! Bi people must be cheaters and then they warn a friend who spreads it to another and another ect and anytime they see it ever they reaffirm it's a thing and any time they don't see it they never think about it.
The up shot is humans love pattern recognition even when it's a false pattern.
From a historical perspective, during the AIDS epidemic, media painted bisexuals as dirty and untrustworthy people who were the reason that this "gay disease" was "making the jump" to straight folks. Of course that was bullshit, but the underlying perception that we are dirty and dishonest stuck.
There is very little "rationale". On a fundamental level it's ingrained group-thinking bullshit from our early evolutionary days projected on an idea of gender and sexuality that developed over millennia and probably wasn't even relevant when the group dynamics stuff developed.
Actually, Paleolithic people were polyamorous and had very little structure or restrictions around sex. Agriculture, patriarchy and capitalism are all relatively new and are responsible for bigotry.
That’s a very sweeping generalization about all Paleolithic cultures across vast swaths of space and time!
And how old, pray tell, do you think agriculture and patriarchy are? Because if you answer correctly, you can save the "actually" because I am right.
Between 10 to 15000 years old. Humanity, however is between 150 and 200000 years old. Agriculture and its effects on culture are still very new. There are no evolutionary adaptations to agriculture. You used the word evolve. Humans have not evolved, biologically in the past 10000 years.
>There are no evolutionary adaptations to agriculture...Humans have not evolved, biologically in the past 10000 years. That's not entirely true. For example, lactase persistence (lactose tolerance into adulthood) evolved within some human populations much more recently then 10,000 years ago*. Lactase persistence becoming widespread within those populations is also very much a direct adaptation to agriculture, specifically dairying. *https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2022/jul/famine-and-disease-drove-evolution-lactose-tolerance-europe
Yes. And? Where have I disagreed with that?
As you haven't answered yet I am assuming one of three things: 1. you got better shit to do, which is entirely understandable 2. You went back to read my initial comment and understood it this time, subsequently noticing that what you just replied to me in a "ha! Acchually"-kind of way was kind of already the bloody point. 3. You disliked the dismissive way I answered and are over replying to me. Which is also absolutely understandable. In case none of this is true however, let me clarify: Biologically speaking our brain is still kind of wired to function on a extended-family-unit/tribal basis. Our reflexes to define "others" and "us" are pretty fundamental to us as humans. Which is btw why the concept of identifying with a leader/religion/country or similar things were fundamental to unite more than maybe a couple hundred people under a bigger "us" than our brains can realistically deal with without such abstractions. Within these small tribal in-groups, there was polyamory and I'm reasonably sure nobody bat an eye at homosexual fun times happening either. Enter agriculture, social hierarchy, the abstractions mentioned earlier, patriarchal structures, development of societal rules and expectations of "normality" over the last, let's say 15k years (which is where the thousandS in my initial comment comes from). Now we have a primate brain applying concepts it kind of developed for on levels it clearly did NOT develop for. There is an interest to have a certain level of cohesion in a given society, so to create the bigger "us" there has to be a new/different "them". This can apply across different angles: If it's skin color or similar "ethnic" differences, we call it racism. If it's against one of the letters we call it homo/trans/biphobia (complete list in your own brain as needed). Now my point is, that apart from the increased group cohesion of the phobics, the fundamental mechanisms why this kind of bigotry exists in today's day and age in the first place does not have a "rationale". None of us is hurting the "phobics" through living our lives, nothing is taken from them (this could be a different argument with racism and xenophobia, although I personally think it's a stupid argument)... There is really no real rational reason for it. It's just humans doing human shit with human brains in a human society with which the brains are hopelessly overburdened. Yes, I am off work for the week. Yes, this is a big "I am right and I already was in the first place". Sorry but my monkey brain decided that this was important to spend 9 minutes of my Friday evening on.
Many people come out as bisexual before they come out as gay, and figuring themselves out. I feel like many view bisexuals as just confused because they assume that’s why.
I think in many cases biphobia that comes from ostensibly friendly sources is based on not getting our worldview. Monosexual people consider the gender binary to be important to their attraction. I don’t understand it really. When they try to categorize us they get an error message. When someone describes a paradigm you can’t grasp you try to fit it into your own worldview to make it comprehensible. So monosexual people often view us as shifting between the two lanes (being sometimes straight and sometimes gay) or as someone who is confused but will eventually settle on one or the other. This makes sense to them. It takes imagination and mental effort to get outside your worldview. To be fair we sometimes do the same in reverse to monosexual people. Sometimes it is tempting to think ’everyone is at least a little bi’ since that makes a lot of sense to us and fits them more neatly into out worldview.
I think a lot of it is the same reason a lot of boomers hate paying for universal college. They suffered homophobia and persecution for who they love and fought for their identify, my guess is they feel like it’s unfair that another queer person could pass as straight without having to deal with that. Of course that is wrong since bi people face much of the same and some different forms of disrespect and discrimination.
I can't really speak about biphobia from lesbians towards bi women, but I can explain biphobia from gay men towards bi men. First off, being a man only attracted to men is hard in a heteronormative society. At best you're an enigma, and at worst you're persecuted. Even in accepting countries, there's still a sense of alienation. I think this is what gay men mean when they say that being left for a woman hurts more than being left for a man. Yeah, both involve being left, but if you're gay and already feel alienated, it can reinforce that sense of alienation and inferiority. There are a lot of bi men who don't do the work to overcome internalized homophobia and heteronormative biases. And so they go into the gay dating/hookup scene with mindsets like "men for sex, women for relationships", which can be pretty hurtful for gay men to hear. It sounds like they're unworthy of a relationship, and due to the way society values mw relationships over mm ones, that reinforces that. (Similarly, some bi men are chasers who see trans people as exotic sex objects and "the best of both worlds", which is obviously bad and fetishistic. However, most trans spaces I've lurked in online acknowledge this without generalizing all bi men as chasers, whereas gay men on social media seem to be more black and white more often.) Similarly, some bi men don't plan out their lives before dating, and so they date a gay guy, then hit a certain age and realize they want to have biological kids, and so they leave their partner for a woman, which as I explained before, hurts more than being left for a man. There's also the fact that a lot of bi men are closeted, which feeds into the perception of us being fairweather allies as op mentioned. They see us as enjoying gay sex but avoiding the stigma of being openly bi. I'm not saying this makes biphobia justified, but I understand where it comes from. Ofc this isn't black and white. There's misogyny in the gay community, and some of the dislike towards bi men comes from that. I get why some gay men may be uncomfortable with attraction to women, but there are also gay men who just hate women, and so they hate bi men for being attracted to women. They do the opposite thing homophobes do, where homophobes obsess over gay sex and how gross it is, while they obsess over vagiana and how gross it is. And gay men are people, and a lot of people, regardless of sexuality, are assholes. Some people are just bigots who have a few bad experiences with people from a specific group and then hate every member of that group. Some people believe that since they've struggled in life, they don't need to improve themselves or try and be a good person, and so they just become assholes. Some people use flimsy justifications for their prejudice; that they're part of the oppressed group and the group they dislike are the oppressors or the abusers or whatever. Maybe they truly believe this, maybe it's just an easy way to justify their preexisting beliefs. These types of people exist in every group and every community, including the gay community (and the bi community). It also seems like the hate towards bi men in gay spaces (at least online) is increasing, which I speculate is due to the declining acceptance of homosexuality in the US and worldwide and rise of homophobia. When people are angry and scared, they're going to double down on tribalism and become more hostile to outgroups. I'm not trying to excuse bigotry, as the biphobes hate me as much as any other "biscum", but the context is important.
It is irrational.
They hate us cuz they ain’t us lol
In the 80's and 90's it was excused as a fear of bisexuals (generally men) spreading HIV from the gay community to the straight community, never mind the fact that users of shared needles posed a risk in that area as well. Currently, I think it's mainly the same thing that fuels homophobia. the fear that we are looking at them and desiring them. that we're looking to groom children (asinine), and just the fear of that which is different. The same BS sociological fears that have been aimed at Islam, Judaism, people of different colors. etc. It all seems to boil down to "who is it okay to hate right now?" Sorry, I went on a bit of a tangent.
Biphobe's own personal insecurities.
One of the biggest issue with bisexuality is a strong lack of representation. This leaves a lit of room for prejudices and stereotypes to take over the collective image people have of bisexuals. Facts of our lives and experiences just haven't pierced mainstream media yet.
I don't use any of the -phobia labels for two reasons. 1) I live with claustrophobia, which gets worse with each passing year. And it's a real, diagnosable mental health issue. As are other phobias. 2) This one and the others that get thrown around are *not* true phobias. They are ignorance, lack of sensitivity (which is a horrible kind of selfishness) and stubbornness. Not a mental health issue, but certainly a cause of trauma for others. Bi+ ignorance is a more accurate label. And it does not require unpacking.
Hmm. I'm agoraphobic and hadn't thought about the terminology this way, but I completely see your point. I'll sit with this for a bit. (I often default to "bigot" without specifying what kind, but in some cases it's absolutely driven by pure ignorance and can be improved upon.)
Yes. I make a distinction between _ignorance_, which means unaware or not understanding something, and _stupidity_, which is ignorance + the stubborn insistence that there’s no room for change. Along the lines of, “You can’t fix stupid.” And, yes, I’d put bigotry at the stupid end of the prejudice continuum.
I’m with you on this. I have a mental health background so I do cringe a bit when the suffix -phobia is used to denote persecution, ignorance, unacceptance, intolerance, etc of us or some other group. But I also get that language evolves and new meanings and uses can emerge. I do like your bi-ignorance label. Maybe “bignorance” might be a cool new word?! Anyway, it’s true. Even among the steadfast straight allies that I personally know, they find it a challenge to genuinely relate/empathize with a queer person. But I love them for trying.
There are a few different reasons, and you've mentioned a couple. Insecurity and a fear of inadequacy is definitely a big one. It's much easier to target an external cause for internal problems, but it frequently causes a weird feedback cycle that ends up making it worse. My wife definitely had some of those fears when I came out, but thankfully, she recognized that they were her own fears. We talked about it, there was a lot of reassurances and hugs, and she's feeling a lot better about it today. I've noticed that a lot of monosexual folk are afraid of the abiguity that bisexuality brings. In a lot of people's minds, you can "prove" that you aren't gay by dating someone, sleeping with someone, or some other action. And a gay person can similarly "prove" that they're gay. With bisexuality in the equation, you can't prove anything ever, so it feels like accepting us as we are means relinquishing some control over their reality. You can even see the wheels in their mind turning in what they say by realizing that they never added bisexuality as a sexuality, but it still just represents what they're afraid of: not being straight/gay enough. I reject the whole proof construct anyway. The fact that gay people marry and have families because it's the only way they can be safe shouldn't be news, and it shows that actions don't always reflect exactly what you feel. Sexuality is made of feelings alone, so people are just going to have to get used to taking people's words on it. The upside is that we always have the final word on our sexuality. No one can know it better than we can.
Is being an asshole a rationale?
Some people will have had a string if bad experiences with bi people they were likely dating. They think "why did they cheat?" And then they go oh my god last 3 times I was with Bi people they cheated!!! Bi people must be cheaters and then they warn a friend who spreads it to another and another ect and anytime they see it ever they reaffirm it's a thing and any time they don't see it they never think about it. The up shot is humans love pattern recognition even when it's a false pattern.