By Faith Cheltenham
2) Hey Angelina Jolie/ Evan Rachel Wood/Alan Cummings have said they’re bisexual? What is this word bisexual? How do I split myself in half and like each equally? Do I do it at the same time? Shall I be gay and then be straight or vice versa? How long do I get to make up my mind?
In between the pages of Marie Claire, I found a lovely review of “A Year Straight: Confessions of a Boy-Crazy Lesbian Beauty Queen”. From the very beginning it seemed like a bisexual story, but the word bisexual was nowhere to be found. I emailed the agent and the author to request an interview as I just had to know, is this a bisexual person hidden by society or by themselves?
“It was Shark Week. We watched episode after episode until sundown, at which point I dragged myself to the subway and made my back to my brother’s house.
The odds of being attacked by a shark are one in eight million. What are the odds of meeting that special single someone in a city of eight million?” – A Year Straight
The HuffingtonPost.com excerpt of A Year Straight has nearly 400 comments. It’s in the “Women” section of the website, not the cheery rainbow oriented “Gay Voices” area of HuffPo. Comments from include readers saying “this is a lot like me” as well “this is just another bisexual”. There’s also a good amount of “she doesn’t have to use a label if she doesn’t want to”.
In contrast, over at afterellen.com, a Lesbian reviewer is outraged at the book and its lack of the word bisexual. AfterEllen.com Managing Editor Trish Bendix remarks that “the first problem with this memoir is…that author Elena Azzoni ‘goes straight’.” The second problem according to Bendix is that “Bisexuality is not once mentioned. The idea of either being a lesbian or being straight is the perpetuation of a terrible stereotype.” As a bisexual activist I can’t argue with that sentiment, but I find it curious that Bendix goes onto say that “Elena doesn't even consider the fact that her attraction to men could mean she's interested in exploring her sexual fluidity instead of a quarter-life crisis indicating she's meant to be with a guy. “
Is it just the lack of key terms like bisexual, pansexual, fluid and/or sexual fluidity that leads Bendix to assume the heart of Elena’s matter? In short, are you bisexual if you don’t use the word bisexual to self-identify? In my opinion, Bendix incorrectly summarizes the earliest content of the book as it’s overarching theme when she says, "In fact, the whole reason she starts dating guys is because she felt a connection with her yoga instructor. And when she shares her crush with a coworker and gets a Brazilian wax, she decides to keep trying to date men because she didn't want to let all that go to waste."
First of all, Brazilian waxes shouldn’t be so lightly discounted! It’s a huge investment charmingly well described by Azzoni when she says , “I did not recall feeling that exposed during my last wax job, or during any pap smear for that matter”. All joking aside, it seems to me that Bendix is indeed well meaning in her assessment of A Year Straight; but her assumptions of bi people get in the way of her intended defense of the fluid community.
“I didn't want to want men. I didn’t want to end up like those women I overheard in restaurants and bars, catching wind of phrases like ‘He always’ and ‘He never,’ their martinis teetering on active fault lines. Many of my friends had nothing but horrible luck with men, and there was no reason to assume I'd be spared. – A Year Straight
In my experience the bisexual process of coming out and accepting yourself goes through several stages. If I had to distill it down to six steps said to a bisexual self at least once, it would go a little like this:
1) Oooh he’s hot! Wow, she’s so cute. Wait? What is this? Am I lesbian? Am I gay? Am I Straight? What the heck is going on?!2) Hey Angelina Jolie/ Evan Rachel Wood/Alan Cummings have said they’re bisexual? What is this word bisexual? How do I split myself in half and like each equally? Do I do it at the same time? Shall I be gay and then be straight or vice versa? How long do I get to make up my mind?