note: this is an updated version of an earlier piece, Against Crisis, made better.

Not all bisexual people are radicals. But ‘bisexual’ can be a radical identity. Bisexuals operate outside our understandings of sexuality – we are not one or the other, we are not this or that, we are everything and nothing, one and the other, this and that and a slice of cake all at the same time. Our attraction is not fixed to either men or women, but is fluid in our attraction to anyone beyond gender. We are not simple or easily definable, we are complex and difficult to understand. Hell, most bisexuals find the label inadequate for their sexualities. This puts us in a uniquely queer position to really challenge what it means to question authority, liberate ourselves from labels, confront patriarchy, dismantle the family and monogamy, and experience radical love. I’m calling this making a crisis.

But whether or not we use the label, attraction to multiple genders is being coopted. Just as capitalism sinks its claws into anything radical ready to commodify and bastardise and simplify it, bisexuality* risks falling into the same fate. Liberalism tells us that the more we talk about things, the more content we can consume, the more accepting we must be. And bisexuality has recently become a larger part of the mainstream in the UK: more books about bisexuality are being written and mainstream representations of bisexuality are popping up everywhere (not least the Netflix sensation Heartstopper). We talk about bisexuality more, there are more things to read and watch and consume, therefore we must be accepting of bisexuals too. “Look! Bisexuals can come spend money in this supermarket!” or “Hey, you too can be bisexual in this 10-step guide – copyrighted!”

This gives us the false impression that first, we can simply spend our way towards liberation – going to see Disney films where they tease a same-sex kiss or reading books where a character stands up for their bi-ness: “Uhm, actually I’m bisexual!”. And second, that people are even want to understand or ‘tolerate’ us. ‘Tolerance’ has not made LGBTQIA+ lives safer – rising hate crimes, like the gay man left with his nose, eye socket and cheekbone broken outside Bristol’s Seamus O’Donnell’s, shows us that hollow characters preaching their sexuality will not save us. These do not help create desperately needed bisexual safe-spaces – even queer ‘safe-spaces’ suffer with bisexual discrimination. To be bisexual, in the current way we understand sexualities, is to be hidden. Ever worried about appearing not queer enough? Ever been called just straight/just gay by other queer people for being in a straight/gay-presenting relationship? Ever just called yourself gay to not have to deal with a more complex discussion about your sexuality? Unlike the dreamy queer communities that shows like Heartstopper showcase, the reality is that the complexities of our sexualities make it almost impossible to see representation that truly reflects us all. We are purposely difficult to define, and that means any attempt to ‘represent’ us feels hollow and forced. Of course this doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be any representation, but that this will not be our liberation, and searching for representation on how best to be bi will never satisfy us. 

So what does liberation look like? Instead of fitting in to the system, we need to create crisis.

Liberation fights against all forms of imposed, authoritarian regulations on how we can live and love – you must be gay or straight, you must have kids by 40, etc. Early queer and bisexual political movements started with this very goal in mind! They refused gay and lesbian assimilationist politics – fitting into the capitalist patriarchal system, becoming private property owners, becoming CEOs by dominating others, joining armies to drop bombs on other (queer) people and calling it ‘liberation’. Liberation (which means for everyone) is not achieved in stepping on the necks of another person. A boot on one person’s neck is a boot on all our necks. Early queer bisexuals across the world pushed against and parodied what is deemed ‘normal’—subverting what people are ‘supposed’ to wear, forming new kinds of kinships away from the nuclear Family, sticking a middle finger up to monogamy and marriage, and shouting fuck you to colonial powers that export these norms. Liberation means fundamentally changing how we understand property (like owning another person in marriage), patriarchal norms (like gender binaries), and fighting for the liberation of everyone—queer or not—across the world. 

Being a crisis means living that liberation today, here and now.

Bisexuality is at risk of being turned into a commodity and losing its radicality. We bisexuals rarely know how cool being bisexual can be. Following past queer and bisexual liberation movements, we must fight for a radical bisexuality, which doesn’t mean necessarily demanding representation in films and TV shows and books. Our fight comes in building bisexual communities that don’t assimilate, in embracing the awesome power of living in resistance to heteronormativity (the norms that straightness enforces – monogamy, gender, patriarchy, gayness), and in talking about bisexuality with absolutely everyone. I only realised just how many people around me were also bi when I began talking about my sexuality and asking questions. “Why don’t people get my sexuality?”, “why do I struggle to pass as bisexual?”, “where do I learn about what it means to be bi?” Bi communities help us understand ourselves and embrace our complexities. They allow us to fight against the simplification of our sexualities, against the commodification of bi-ness, and turn bisexuality into a crisis.

Liberation is what we make of it. No one else is going to provide it for us, certainly no multi-national corporation. By making bisexual crisis, we say no to unrepresentative representations of bisexuality. By making a crisis, we fuck with the simplified structures enforced by patriarchal capitalism. By making bisexuality a crisis, we deny capitalism getting its grubby little hands on us. 

Bisexuality must be a crisis – that is our power.

*in this instance, I’m using ‘bisexuality’ as an umbrella label to describe anyone attracted to more than one gender. Some people identify as pansexual or demisexual which should not be understated. But for ease, I am referring to attraction to multiple genders under ‘bisexuality’.