As you sit there, pondering life, a thought comes to mind. “What is bisexual erasure?” I hear you ask. Well, I’m so glad you randomly join words together to make terms. Bisexual erasure is the tendency to disbelieve, remove, or deny bisexuality as a legitimate sexual orientation. Think about it. How many times have you encountered people who proclaim their bisexuality, and then swiftly dismissed them as people “on the path to real gayness”? I’ve done it; I don’t deny it. And in some cases, that turned out to be true. In more cases, it turned out that the person was legitimately bisexual.

Unfortunately, as I’ve previously lamented, bisexuality is just not respected. It is a constant threat. We’re neither “straight” nor “gay” enough for everybody else. We’re either experimenting or denying our true homosexuality. By refusing to submit to the concept of binary sexualities, we appear as a threat to the system. Seriously, it’s the 21st century and people have been living as bisexuals for a long, long time. You’d have thought that people would have accepted it by now.

Bisexuality is therefore a difficult state to assume. The queer community is somewhat hesitant about bisexuals. “You’ll see the light one day,” they say. “You’re just getting started.” I have honestly heard that before. I get it: sometimes people transition with bisexuality. However, not every single bisexual girl walking into the party is simply groping (pardon the pun) her way to lesbianism. With the push for civil rights, are bisexuals really included? Or do you just think of lesbians? Or just gay men? Things are getting better though. Bisexuality is slowly integrating into queer groups. It is a gradual and hesitant process, but it is coming.

Though, in all honesty, some of the negative stereotypes of bisexuality are true. I mean, it hasn’t been a good semester unless I’ve slept with at least nine people. I don’t care who they are or what kind of junk they’ve got – it’s just about the sex. And it hasn’t been a good day unless I’ve had sex at least twice. However, I’ve been thinking lately; although my sexual appetite is insatiable, maybe I’m straight? Or gay? I mean, I definitely like one more than the other; it’s just that over all the loud sex I’m having, I can’t remember which one it is.

Oh wait. Those are just the ways society thinks I work. Bisexuality is over-sexualized in popular culture; bisexuals are perceived as being entirely indecisive and confused whilst retaining something of a nymphomaniac sexual appetite. Caught in between two worlds, bisexuality is constantly misinterpreted and discriminated against.

It’s not just in our daily lives that bisexual erasure occurs. It happens with celebrities too. For example, Alexander the Great is often represented as gay, when he was, in fact, bisexual. Marlon Brando? Straight as a pole, right? Wrong. He was bisexual too. Whoodathunkit? Celebrities are often assigned sexualities based on society’s attempt to normalize, rationalize, and understand them. As such, Ancient Greek society is often proclaimed as being entirely open to homosexuality. Not quite; the larger portion of the population was bisexual, not homosexual. Historical bisexual erasure is a common problem; the bohemian artists are often assigned a binary orientation, when in fact, many were bisexual.

Bisexuality also becomes somewhat problematic on the dating scene. Not everyone is comfortable dating bisexuals. “What if he leaves me for a man? He probably prefers men anyway – I mean he’s bisexual, right? That’s just a step away from gay.” I’ve had friends tell me that they would never date a bisexual due to the possibility of him or her leaving them for the opposite gender. Bisexuality, due to the diversity of its objects of attraction, is not trusted. Once, following a tumultuous ending to a relationship, a girl surmised that I was hooking up with a guy. This accusation made me furious. Not only did it suggest that I was comfortable cheating on her, it also delegitimized my sexuality, suggesting that she had just been an exploratory fling before I returned to straightness. These assumptions mirror the popular stereotypes of bisexuality. The world just expects you to fuck up.

Ultimately, it’s a hard-knock life for bisexuals. It’s worse for men – I can’t speak from that perspective, but whereas women are sexualized in visages of esostrogen-pumped threesomes, men are dismissed as being both effeminate and indecisive. Bisexuality is essentially more negative for the male population. And so, next time someone tells you they’re bisexual, accept it. Don’t call them “greedy”, “indecisive”, or “sexually deviant”. Just accept it.