GC: If two bisexual people are in a "relationship", are they in a "bisexual relationship" because they are bisexual? Would the terms "gay relationship" and "straight relationship" invalidate their bisexuality and be bierasure?

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[–]loveSloaneDebate King 13 insightful - 8 fun13 insightful - 7 fun14 insightful - 8 fun -  (0 children)

Lmao what’s a bisexual relationship?

[–]Britishbulldog 16 insightful - 1 fun16 insightful - 0 fun17 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

This is merely my opinion here. I am a bisexual woman. Personally don’t think there’s such thing as a ‘bisexual relationship’. If I’m with a man I’m in a straight relationship (regardless of whether he’s straight or bi), if I’m with a woman I’m in a gay relationship (regardless of whether she’s gay or bi). Wouldn’t be offended by somebody calling the relationship bi though, it’s just not the language I would use.

TLDR: Bisexual is a description of a person’s sexuality, not the relationship.

[–]peakingatthemomentTranssexual (natal male), HSTS 11 insightful - 1 fun11 insightful - 0 fun12 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It seems like nonsense. The type of relationship is totally separate from the identities of the people who are in it. I don’t think that necessarily means you can’t be part of a community. It’s not for me to say, but if people of the opposite sex are in a relationship, it’s straight by definition. The OP says a bunch about same-gender/opposite-gender, which generally isn’t what that is about so I feel like GC would have lots of problems with this.

[–]MarkTwainiac 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I have always called two bisexuals in a relationship "straight" if it's a man and a woman together, and "gay" if it's two women or two men together.

But is it the relationship you are labelling or the the people in it?

I always thought "bisexual" described people who are attracted to persons of both sexes, and who therefore have the possibility of being in same-sex (homosexual) and/or opposite-sex (heterosexual) relationships.

Persons who are bisexual - attracted to persons of both sexes - do not alter/lose their sexual orientation once they enter a sexual relationship with another person. Being in a same-sex relationship does not means a bisexual person becomes homosexual for however long her or his same-sex relationship(s) last. Just as being in an opposite-sex relationship doesn't mean a bisexual becomes heterosexual for the duration of his/her opposite-sex relationship(s).

Also, I get the impression you and the other persons you're discussing this with are all assuming that sexual relationships or liaisons whether same-sex or opposite-sex are always one-on-one. And that people regardless of their sexual orientation are capable of having, and usually do have, only one single one-on-one sexual relationship at any given time. In other words, that everyone is monogamous.

When, in fact, lots of people have group relationships or encounters that involve three, four or more persons. And many individuals have one-on-one relationships with a number of different persons at the same time.

When I was young in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, it was common to be dating or sleeping with multiple individuals at the same time. You had a BF/GF who was wild and dangerous, another who was safe and acceptable to your parents, another who was really smart or funny, another who was a jock, another who always had drugs...

Some people also had three-ways, four-ways and huge pile-ons. And many people dated/had sex with multiple different individuals in the course of a week - sometimes in the course of a single day. Which is one of the reasons we ended up with the HIV-AIDS crisis.

My principal college BF - with whom I was madly in love yet still used to cheat on all the time, as he did on me (though to be fair to him, he did it less often), used to say to me, "hun, you keep forgetting to to keep 'em in different ports." His words were a play on the idea that in the olden days of sea travel, most sailors had a different lover in each port.

Also, in my experience, lots of people get caught up in triangular relationships - and triangles often lead to some interesting and complicated interactions. For example, two women who consider themselves straight who are dating, or have dated, the same guy get to know one another and end up having an affair. Or two guys who are in a same-sex couple and consider themselves to be gay have a close friend/housemate who is female and either straight or not sure what her sexuality is yet, and after spending a lot of time together living in close quarters (and partaking of various mind-altering substances as well) they all end up in bed together doing lord knows what, and they all sorta fall in love with one another too.

Another issue that comes into play is that being bisexual doesn't necessarily mean being equally attracted to members of each sex throughout life or even during portions of it. Nor does it necessarily mean being equally interested in and willing to pursue/engage in relationships with members of both sexes.

A lot of people who are bisexual have relationships throughout their lives that are mainly heterosexual or homosexual. Then again, some bisexual people have one type of relationship exclusively early in life, then later in life prefer to have the other type of relationship. I know many women who exclusively or mainly had het relationships with men early in their lives and especially during their "childbearing years," but who later in life only have been interested in pursuing relationships with other women - or in being celibate.

Another complicating factor here is that not all intimate romantic relationships, life and domestic partnerships and marriages involve or are driven by sexual desire and sexual interactions at any given time. Some relationships that began with lots of sex and passion end up pretty non-sexual and passionless after the passage of time. Lots of couples in het and homosexual relationships who've been together a long time don't have sex with each other any more.

[–]FlanJam 6 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Sounds kinda nitpicky tbh. When someone says "straight relationship" I take it to mean a relationship between a man and woman, not that they are necessarily straight. But hey, if they wanna call it a bi relationship or whatever, more power to them.

[–]BiologyIsReal 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I think it's odd to call a relationship bisexual unless, maybe, it involves more than two people. If there are only two people, how is a bisexual relationship between a man and woman different from a straight relationship? How is a bisexual relaptionship between two women different from a lesbian relationship? How is a bisexual relationship between two men different from a gay relationship? Anyway, regardless of how they call them, sexual orientation is based on sex, not gender identity.

[–]MarkTwainiac 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Coming from a generation that wasn't into all this "identity" stuff, I gotta say I definitely see downsides to the current trendy pastime of labelling, pigeonholing and ascribing entire "identities" to everyone based on what, after all, are just aspects of our personalities.

For political reasons, and to bring about social change and greater tolerance, it's been necessary over time for individuals with characteristics that led to discrimination and disadvantage to come together collectively and form groups based on certain aspects of ourselves - such as class, race/ethnicity, sex, age, disability, sexual orientation, pregnancy/maternity, religion, genetic anomalies - in order to work and campaign towards common goals to benefit everyone who share particular characteristics and circumstances. Hence, movements promoting women's liberation, civil rights for racial and ethnic minorities, BLM, provisions for people with various disabilities, programs and financial supports for people who grew up or now are in economic dire straits, an end to age-based discrimination in society and at work against the elderly and employees over 50... and so on.

But I think it can become unhealthy when people, especially young people, are encouraged and expected to construct their entire self-concepts around one particular aspect (or a few aspects) of their personalities or life circumstances. And when, to make matters worse, everyone is further expected to adopt a public persona or "identity" that's centered on one or a couple of their personal characteristics - or on desired characteristics (such as being of the opposite sex, or having no sex, or being "gender fluid") - and then to spend time constantly announcing and drawing attention to their narrow "identities" and trying to get the rest of the world to "validate" them. This is a very limiting way to live, not a liberating one. And IMO, it's a recipe for surefire unhappiness and mental health problems.

I've been involved in working for various types of rights for many decades. But in my experience, even people who've done activism for women's rights, disability rights, gay and lesbian rights, civil rights for racial and ethnic minorities and so on their entire lives do not usually in their everyday experience conceptualize themselves as persons who are solely or even mainly defined by such factors as their sex, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability status and so on. Rather, they see themselves as whole human beings with rich, complex, multifaceted personalities made up of a plethora of traits and characteristics - many of which might strike other people as being seemingly contradictory (such as being black or gay and conservative, black and Jewish, physically disabled and extremely athletic, a feminist who's a SAHM by choice, a lesbian who's chosen to have child with a male friend they co-parent together, a health food purist who only eats organic but happens to smoke cigs and drink a lot of alcohol, a Latina lesbian separatist socialist who watches reruns of "Hart to Hart" religiously coz she thinks Robert Wagner is hot and finds media about how rich people supposedly live entertaining.) But even amongst the most ardent activists I know, none who are adults define themselves solely or even mainly by the few characteristics and circumstances that have caused them/us to suffer discrimination and disadvantage over the course of our lives.

[–]FlippyKingSadly this sub welcomes rape apologists and victim blaming. Bye! 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Are people the embodiment of the relationship they are in? No. Nor is a single, or the sum total of many, relationships the embodiment of a person.

"Bierasure" might be when someone who is known to be Bi is called straight or gay by someone who knows better, and thus is doing it intentionally. "Bierasure" can not be when someone is describing a same-sexed romantic or sexual relationship as gay or describing a romantic or sexual relationship between a man and a women (as defined by sex, not gender which is fluid and uwu and can not be known unless the measurement is taken at the time the relationship is being described like Schrodinger's social construct) as straight or hetero because the description is of a realtionship and not the individuals in it.

For your concept to make sense, a bi person would have to only engage in threesomes with one of each sex as the other two participants.

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

it is said that if two bisexuals are in a relationship, calling their relationship "straight" or "gay" erases and invalidates the identity of the bisexual individuals in the relationship (because they are not straight or gay) and is bierasure:

How did we get to the point where people are so needy and narcissistic that they need constant external validation of their identity?

[–]grixitperson 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Sexual relationships are described by the sexes that are involved not the orientation of the participants. 2 different sexes is straight, 2 same sexes is gay.

[–]MarkTwainiac 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

But during and since the AIDS crisis a lot of men, particularly black men and men of other non-white ethnic groups, who were and have been very much affected by HIV-AIDS said they did not agree with this POV. They did not/do not want to have the same-sex sexual relations they engaged and/or continue to engage in as gay or homosexual.

Which is why public health, epidemiological and AIDS prevention literature adopted such terms as "MSM" (shorthand for men who have sex with men) and "MLM" (men who love men).

[–]grixitperson 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Changing the words doesn't change the reality.

[–]MarkTwainiac 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Yes, I agree that changing the words doesn't change the reality!

But already in the 80s during the AIDS crisis, private and public health authorities were bending over backwards to accommodate men who didn't want to be "identified" in ways that reflected reality but contradicted with the image they had of themselves and the lies they were telling themselves.

BTW, my view is that to describe sexual relationships in the most straightforward way - which is, as you say, "by the sexes that are involved" - it's best to use such plain and factual descriptors as same-sex, opposite-sex, homosexual and heterosexual - and to eschew slang terms as straight and gay.

Which reminds me, I often wonder when and how it came to be that it's still OK to use the term "straight" for heterosexual relations but it's not OK to use "bent" for homosexual relationships.

[–]grixitperson 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Perhaps since the brits started saying "get bent!".

[–]worried19 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

A relationship between two people can't be bisexual. It can either be same-sex or opposite-sex.