© Sauce*Box, Summer 1996.
All rights revert to author.
The New Bi-standers
by Anita Wohl
Gay or not gay is no longer a question more scandalous
than nipple or tongue-pierced, as the brothers of a different kind have
long since legalised the presence of their dark room bases in the public
mind. Lesbian revolution is no big news, either. The word of 95 is bi chic,
but it is difficult to tell if the existence of the advertised social phenomenon
is natural as the media are quick to credit the episode with the promotion
of the open-minded mass-slogan: freedom of choice.
Is it really the naturally lurking bisexuality in humans that is coming
out in the open these days so overwhelmingly that you can't open a magazine
without reading a glossy special on it, or is the healthy process of finally
learning to accept yet another subculture turning into a trend? By now,
acceptation of the different seems to have turned into fetish and stirred
up more than just deep waters as the hip generation is catching on to the
credo-potential of swinging both ways. Being able to choose your partners
from either sexes -and note that it means any sexes- equals taking a stand:
that of not taking a stand, but insisting on having the freedom of choice.
Bisexuality as it is presented today seems to mean 'Look Ma'! I can do what
I want!
As usual, celebrities were the ones to first leave the mucus, which is
not at all surprising if we bear in mind that they are the targets of nosey
reporters' privacy-usurping curiosity. The public wants to know everything:
who they are, what they eat, who they sleep with, when, why and how. 'OK
boys, there you have it,' thought the first fed up famous freak and took
the plunge, probably unaware of getting a decade-characterising movement
going. Sales rocketing up or bombastic contract offers virtually handing
themselves on a silver plate was convincing enough that some additional
consumer sympathy had been won, thus the bi label, true or not, proved to
be an excellent marketing device that no media-savvy type could afford to
miss.
Celebrities are making revelations every day, and by now the fuss is so
sizeable that one can't help but think what Majorie Garber, bi-cult author
queen, has aptly pointed out: "Either bisexuality makes you a celebrity,
or a remarkable number of celebrities are bisexual." Starlets such
as rock star-wife Amanda de Cadenet and Curt Cobain's widow Courtney Love,
well aware that all it takes to get the klieg lights on these days is a
little girl-girl action, have perfected the ambiguous behaviour to such
an extent that, without anything else to their credit, star status glues
to their $1 tiara-essence partner look.
Ad whizzes got the message too: ambiguity sells. Icon-like corporation giants
and lebensgefuhl-experts, led a mile-long by Versace and Dolce Gabbana,
run campaigns with hinting images, designers cultivate gender plays on the
catwalk, and the hottest campus flicker of the moment is rompy Threesome,
the jingle of which probably sums up the idea behind the new way of viewing
life best: "One girl, two boys, three possibilities." Joining
the club of instinctive geniuses of philosophy equals illustrating progressive
thinking by putting the simple theory into practice that the next object
of your admiration could just as well be a male as a female. Accepting the
new love relativity thesis is a must for everyone interested in the sign
of the times, and according to the well- informedness of cultic insider
magazines, hardly any resistance is put up by the socially ambitious. Doing
it or not doing it is not really the question here - agreeing to the possibility
of the affair ever occurring is. The trend is flowering, celebrating the
final awakening, but we have yet to decide whether the media are descriptive
or rather activating their cogent prescriptive function.
American research shows that more and more women experiment within their
sultry world these days, and an increasing number of members of university
gay clubs are correcting their standpoints to be playing it bothways. Campuses
seem to be the hot-bed of the trend, and branded in our brains we get newly
established terms such as BUG (Bisexual Until Graduation), suggesting that
the bi trip is as much a part of the campus experience as fetishizing Monty
Python. Presented scientific evidence is always a winner due to the human
psyche's longing for belonging, in fact it may even leave a debilitating
'Everybody's doing it, so I cannot be normal if I don't' aftertaste in the
reader, only multiplying with every further news round-up reporting on the
social stand.
A subcultural liberation turning into a trend may do its real fighters
good by winning them an enormous bonus of sympathisers, but in this case
the discussion over the bi-spirit entangles simply everybody from the shabby
milkman to the Saturday night queenie as their congenital interest in their
fellow underwear-shoppers is being scrutinised under a magnifying glass.
The media- symposium on the new sexual norm even reaches philosophical heights
as last month saw the invention of the term 'bi virgin', "a bisexual
who has never had a homosexual experience." It is not easy to judge
whether this term is a bliss, and if yes, to whom. It may imply, and this
interpretation is the most logically deductive, the psychological slant
that we all have the same-side-stray inclination buried somewhere deep down,
thus the buzz-word symbolises an almost persuasive hint to release the spirit
from the bottle.
"The symposium reaches philosophical heights as last month saw the
invention of the term 'bi virgin'."
Some do, some don't, and some will try anything once. Promoted to overkill,
the bi experience can get chic to the point that no one can feel complete
without having had one. Psycho fumbling aside, hardly any serious harm goes
with following this trend, but seeing an entire generation dancing to the
two- chord tune of bored media whizzes is like catching Dad in the act of
gluing on the fake beard on Christmas Eve at the age of four.
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