Exploring “Bisexual People Cannot Be Loyal”
Some background: I am a pansexual woman myself and I want to comment on what life and relationships have meant for me as a person who likes people for who they are, irrespective of gender.
I am not sure where this belief stems from, but I believe it is bi-phobia, along with mixing the idea of our capability to like everyone sexually with the act of pursuing all our sexual desires into a narrative that allows one to openly dislike and slander us.
When I realized I’m pansexual, it was not due to anyone specific, I just figured so because I was hella attracted to women I saw on TV, one’s who I liked as people, the same way I liked men. Simple. And then upon further exploration, I found what labels fit me, what it means to be someone like me, and so much more. During this exploration phase, I was also introduced to the misconception of infidelity among bisexuals because it is popularly believed that they were more likely to cheat than any other because of the endless options. Thoughtlessly, it makes sense, but if you really think about it, it doesn’t. People do not stay loyal due to unavailability of options. They stay loyal despite the options. Same with bisexuals. Yes they might have double the options than a straight or gay person but loyalty isn’t a matter of options. It is a matter of choice. And if a bisexual person cheats, it has nothing to do with sexuality and everything to do with who they are as a person, their relationship and their morals.
We can treat this as a more complex concept when we treat gender as not just a physical or mental division amongst the human race, rather a social and political identity that resides along with the physical and mental barriers. Maybe the insecurity lies there.
Dating a bisexual woman means being chosen over not just those of your gender, but even those of the other genders. You can feel secure knowing you do everything that anyone your gender can do, but there will always lie a voice in your head that worries you because you cannot possibly provide to your woman everything that the other genders could provide. And she is capable of being attracted to everything you provide as well as everything you can’t. This is a worry someone dating a straight or gay person wouldn’t have. But then again, is attraction and loyalty really just limited to the physical aspects of it? Or can there be more layers to it? Because if we start considering that, honestly all genders and all sexualities would be under fire.
Back to the bisexuals and their loyalty, as a pansexual person, I feel I am actually capable of disloyalty. This is a big thing to admit and I don’t know where I’m going with this, but bear with me and if you relate, maybe let me know.
And I don’t think I am polyamorous. I am not comfortable with the idea of dating multiple people and my partners having their own set of partners, it would overstimulate me more than I can handle. I like being my boyfriend’s girlfriend. I like him, like how he likes me, understands me, I admire how his mind works and how he can always fascinate me, how he validates and complements my sexuality and womanhood. I could not possibly love any other man as much as I love him, while being with him.
It is really complicated. The problem isn’t the fact that I am capable of loving any gender, it is the fact that the genders mean more than just a different set of genitalia. It is the fact that our differences in gender makes us fundamentally unique and no one person can ever be the only one I love. It is the fact that our genders are our social and political identities too, which makes me empathise, relate, understand and feel close to the gender I belong to, irrespective of who I date. It is the fact that I can love a man and stay sexually exclusive with him but fall in love with a woman because she’s just so easy to understand and who understands me just by the mention of certain things. I know her struggles being her identity as a woman even without her saying it, and I will never have that with a man. It is the fact that loyalty to me has so many more layers to it than just sexual exclusivity. It is the fact that love to me is so much more than an “I love you”. It is an emotion you live, not just feel.
And being pansexual can really mess with how I see my relationships. The line between friendship and romantic love is so thin yet once it’s crossed you can’t step back. How do people not see how intersectional this thing called love is? How complicated it is. From the diversity of genders, to emotions, to experiences, to personalities, how do we even make sense, leave alone rules, about how all of this, at it’s intersection, should be universally experienced?
So I find myself in messy places unsure of what I feel, how I feel and what it means to feel that way. I just know I love in ways society doesn’t and so these ways aren’t well approved. To some I might even be wrong. But the human experience is so complicated, I just cannot feel it in one said way, even if I try to, least of all, if I am told to.
