Bisexuality and the Challenge to Lesbian Politics. Paula C Rust
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response to Dwinell was even more vehement than the response to Paz had been. Lesbian Contradiction printed three letters from readers who denounced Dwinell for calling herself a lesbian, denying heterosexual privilege, trivializing the importance lesbians attach to the genders of women’s sexual partners, and comparing lesbians’ criticism of heterosexuality to society’s condemnation of lesbianism.30 The editors expressed their gratitude for a fourth letter, an “anonymous response from a woman whose way of relating to men and to lesbians reminds us how many more variations there are in these matters than we might think.” The gratitude of the editors suggests that this was the only letter sympathetic to Dwinell received; this fact, and the anonymity of the letter’s author, say as much as her letter itself does. Whereas the readers of The Advocate applauded humanism and characterized lesbian feminist objections to bisexuality as intolerant and outdated, the letter-writing readers of Lesbian Contradiction were almost universally antagonistic toward bisexuality. As much as the editors of Lesbian Contradiction wanted to present the other side of the debate, they could not because their readers apparently did not share the liberal humanist attitudes that dominated the pages of other lesbian and gay publications.
Although Lesbian Contradiction’s readers continued to debate “lesbians who sleep with men” through 1989, they also began discussing “bisexuality” in 1987, sooner than the more mainstream lesbian and gay publications. In “Thinking about Bisexuality” Marilyn Murphy and Irene Weiss argued that “non-lesbian” is a more appropriate term than “heterosexual” for women who live heterosexual lives, because “heterosexual” cannot be considered a sexual preference in a heterosexist society.31 Lesbians are lesbians because they have chosen to live lesbian lives and identify as lesbians; most women who live heterosexual lives never chose to be heterosexual. The argument has interesting implications for bisexuals. The authors rejected the concept of bisexuality as a sexual/affectional preference. They argued that when a bisexual is with a man, she is heterosexual because she enjoys heterosexual privileges. But when she is with a woman, she is not lesbian because heterosexual privilege remains an option for her. She is, in fact, the only woman who consciously chooses heterosexuality because she is the only woman who ever lives a heterosexual life with full knowledge of the other option; the bisexual woman is, therefore, the only true “heterosexual.”
The next issue of Lesbian Contradiction carried two letters from readers. One thanked Murphy and Weiss for giving her a good laugh by exemplifying the absurdity of the identity debates.32 The other documented her own journey from political lesbian feminist dykedom, through her politically correct dismay as she realized she was attracted to men, to her current opinion that “[b]eing attracted to one sex or the other is not good or bad, it just is what it is. Political integrity is not based on whether we sleep with men or with women, but on how we live our lives.” Again, the fact that this reader chose to remain anonymous says as much as her letter does.33 Although these two letters were critical of lesbian feminist antagonism toward bisexuals, neither letter conveyed a strong bisexual voice. The former dismissed the debate as trivial; the latter was a plea for tolerance.
But a self-conscious and political bisexual voice did begin appearing in Lesbian Contradiction in 1990, after Murphy’s views were aired once again in “The Gay-Straight Split Revisited.” Dajenya deplored the tendency of oppressed groups to argue over who’s more oppressed, rejected the accusation that as a bisexual she was “consorting with the enemy,” and presented her bisexuality as a source of political awareness and action.34 In the same issue, Jane Litwoman wrote that “gender is just not what I care about,” and analyzed the sources of her privilege and oppression as a person who, in this “gender-fetishic culture,” is usually labeled “bisexual.”35 Three years later, Alena Smith wrote about her ability to enjoy making love with both genders, and rejected the stereotypes that as a bisexual woman she was “going through a phase” or avoiding serious relationships.36 Although self-consciously bisexual voices appeared in Lesbian Contradiction two years earlier than they did in Out/Look, they were individual voices that spoke of the personal, sometimes in political terms but largely in reaction to lesbians’ criticisms of bisexuality; there was little evidence of the growing bisexual community with issues and interests of its own. In Lesbian Contradiction, the “bisexual issue” is still a “lesbian controversy.”
In summary, different lesbian and/or gay publications present the issue of bisexuality differently, and some, like 10 Percent, don’t present it as an issue at all. In the mainstream and traditionally male-dominated pages of The Advocate, bisexuality is merely a topic for conversation. Bisexuals came into existence when The Advocate wasn’t looking and when bisexuals wrote to The Advocate to announce themselves, The Advocate duly reported their existence and then went on with business as usual. Insofar as bisexuality is an issue, the issue is bisexual inclusion and the predominant liberal humanist opinion favors inclusion. In contrast, in the Lesbian and Gay Community represented by Out/Look, bisexuality is a controversial issue. Lesbian feminist concerns about bisexuality were serious, but they belonged to an earlier era and their merit is fading as the lesbian and gay mainstream returns to its humanist origins. The bisexual movement is the wave of the future. Bisexuals not only exist and belong in the lesbian and gay movement, but they have interests, issues, and a voice of their own. Bisexuals are no longer asking to be included in the lesbian and gay movement; they are in the lesbian and gay movement and they are also forming a separate community and movement. Finally, if one reads about The Lesbian Community in Lesbian Contradiction, one finds that lesbian feminist concerns about bisexuality are alive and well, and that they drown out the few anonymous humanists who dare dissent. There are a few political lesbians who ask not to be condemned for their heterosexual feelings, and a few bisexuals who reject lesbians’ negative stereotypes about bisexuality and describe bisexuality in political terms, but there is little evidence of a collective bisexual voice or of a bisexual movement with issues defined by bisexuals.
Lesbians who read these different publications receive very different images of what The Lesbian Community thinks about bisexuality. Which image is accurate? Is bisexuality an issue, or not? If it is, what is the issue? Are objections to bisexuality limited to a few extremists whose politics are stuck in the 1970s as Out/Look suggested, or are they alive and well and dominating lesbians’ opinions about bisexuality, as shown in Lesbian Contradiction? Are bisexuals visible, vocal, and independent political activists, or apologetic hangers-on? The truth is that none of these images are entirely accurate, because each reflects the opinions of only a segment of the Community. More importantly, however, articles and letters to the editor reflect only the opinions of those individuals who bother to express their opinions in writing and have the means to get them published. The vast majority of lesbians—and bisexual women—lack either the time or the inclination to write articles or letters to the editor. They might not even read the articles and letters written by others. What do they think?
To find out what lesbians and bisexual women think, we have to find the voices that are not represented in The Lesbian and Gay Press. This book represents those voices and demonstrates that both lesbians and bisexual women have strong and varied opinions on the subject. Most of this book focuses on the opinions of lesbians, among whom the issue of bisexuality is alive and well and very controversial. The intensity of lesbians’ opinions about bisexuality suggests that the issue has very deep political implications. It is the argument of this book that these implications cut right to the heart of the meaning of lesbianism itself. As lesbians, we have fought long and hard for our lesbian identities and communities, and bisexuality constitutes a psychological, social, and political threat to these hard-won victories. It forces us to confront our own differences of opinion over what lesbianism is and what its political implications are; that is, who we are and what we stand for. In the early 1970s, we debated these issues openly as we laid the groundwork for the lesbian movement. Since then, the