Repressing My Bisexuality Made Me Vulnerable to Abuse
A sense of belonging is protective — everyone deserves that
[Warning: sexual violence, r*pe, homophobia, biphobia]
Most people have heard the statistic that is a survivor of sexual abuse. But few are aware how much that number skyrockets when you separate out bisexual women.
have experienced sexual violence.
I am a bisexual cis woman with multiple assaults to my name, but when I first heard this statistic I didn’t count myself in it. I repressed my sexuality for much of my life and assumed that meant the abuse was unrelated.
As I’ve grown into my queerness, I’ve learnt more about biphobia and how it shows up in society. Its relevance to my experience is now glaringly obvious. Here are a few key concepts that hit home for me:
BI-ERASURE: the lack of visibility of bisexuality; the denial of bisexuality by a culture that labels people as either straight or gay
Growing up in a small English town, diversity wasn’t part of my day-to-day experience. Homophobia was rampant and the word lesbian was frequently thrown around as an insult. To my relief, it never came my way. My popularity with the boys was a convenient shield, but inside I was confused. I had crushes on girls too.
I wasn’t gay, but I seemingly wasn’t straight either, and I didn’t have a word for that back then. It was the Noughties and the number of bisexual role models discussed in my circle was… you guessed it, NOUGHT*. My conclusion: there must be something very wrong with me. I compulsively sought out male attention in response. Both to cover up the truth and to make me feel better about myself. In real life and online, I was exposed to numerous risks. Instead of ‘lesbian’, the slur snarled at me in the school corridors was ‘slut’.
When you’re hiding a part of yourself on a daily basis, it’s easy to end up being whatever other people want you to be.
Coupled with my Catholic upbringing, this bullying reinforced my feeling of wrongness. My sexual desire seemed unacceptable to everyone around me. There was no one I felt able to talk to about it. Sadly that meant when I was raped by my boyfriend, aged 15, all I could do was pretend it hadn’t happened.
HYPERSEXUALISATION: the assumption that all bisexual people are highly sexual, promiscuous and untrustworthy
Long before I came out, I would speak up about gay rights. My mum lost a beloved cousin to the AIDs crisis in the 80s, so I cited this connection as the source of my solidarity. Somehow my sixth form boyfriend saw through that, repeatedly voicing fears that I would leave him for a woman. My response was to burrow deeper into the closet. Despite my glowing track record for fidelity, I knew I’d lose his trust if I admitted my past girl crushes.
When I eventually gained the knowledge and confidence to label myself bisexual, it was a rather underwhelming soft launch. I quickly discovered female bisexuality was considered a performance for the benefit of men. Reinforced through mainstream culture and pornography, this is a trope I played up to at times. I relished the attention and the reaction of my friends when I relayed my sordid stories. But that didn’t make it hurt any less when men responded by treating me like an object.
Between playing my bisexuality down to be trusted and playing it up to be sexy, this all gave me years of practice putting men’s emotional needs before my own. When you’re hiding a part of yourself on a daily basis, it’s easy to end up being whatever other people want you to be. Is it surprising I was easily manipulated when predators crossed my path?
NOT QUEER ENOUGH: the suggestion that bisexual people are in a position of privilege over gay people because they can more easily pass as straight
Society wanted me to be straight so that is how I acted, even after coming out in my early twenties. I knew what worked to attract cis men, but queer women and trans folk were an unknown quantity. I felt like a visitor in the few queer spaces I entered and was convinced lesbians would reject me for my lack of experience. How could I claim to be bisexual when nothing in my sexual history reflected that?
This internalised biphobia kept me dating cis men and moving in heterosexual circles where sexual violence was normalised. Even after #MeToo, my straight friends and I would brush off uncomfortable sexual experiences as just that, uncomfortable. Of course this can happen in queer spaces too, but power, consent and bodily autonomy are topics you hear discussed much more openly.
At the end of 2020, I moved into my first queer household.
Now with one flatmate (instead of the 10 I’d left), I could finally give my feelings space. That’s when I began to really embrace my bisexuality. Not by running out and sleeping with lots of women, but by engaging with bisexual culture at long last**.
It’s also when the reality of my past traumas began to hit and I’ve been on a healing journey ever since. Through that work, I’ve begun to reflect on how different life could have been if I were able to express my sexuality from the moment I was aware of it. It may not have prevented every instance of abuse, but it would have been a game changer for my sense of self worth. It would have given me community when I felt I had none. I would have been far less vulnerable as a result.
*In hindsight I’ve discovered there were plenty out there, including Green Day’s Billie Joe who was plastered all over my bedroom walls! Check out
- * Check out the work of badass bisexuals , and who first introduced me to the world of bi+ culture, history and politics
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