I recently came across a zine about bisexuality called Anything That Moves. Ha! I love it. The stereotype that bisexuals will pursue “anything that moves” is prevalent and, I think, the cause of a fair bit of anxiety from within the community. The zine isn’t publishing anymore, probably because the staff was too busy trying to bed everything in sight.

I’m not crazy about the word itself. In everyday speech, heterosexuals and homosexuals go by “straight” and “gay,” but we are always stuck with the word sexual in our name. Why? Because we were too busy propositioning anything that moves to come up with a good nickname, of course….
I gave in to the term wearily when I realized I was resisting it mainly out of embarrassment. My hope is that, as bisexuality becomes legitimized, more and more people will identify as such, revealing just how plenty of of us there are and perhaps inching our collective understanding of sexuality towards a more fluid model.*

When I came out to my grandmother (if you want to know whether that is a good idea, email me; we’ll talk), revealing that I was in a same-sex relationship, she was puzzled – puzzled that a smart, sweet, pretty girl couldn’t find a male beau; puzzled because, as she told my brother, she’d thought “everything was fine with” my high school boyfriend, by that she meant that we seemed sexually interested in each other. A year later, when I was contemplating spending the summer with a lesbian couple and their baby in Oakland, close family friends, Grandmom confided her fears to my brother. “I don’t want Anna to see how happy they are!” What if this was my final, irrevocable push into lesbianism?
After I returned, with no noticeable change in my sexual orientation, I initiated a conversation with her about my being bisexual. I thought that that’s what was confusing her. She was, actually, glad I brought it up, because it gave her hope that I’d be with an man yet. “Definitely,” I said, “that could happen. Even if it does, though, I’ll be glad I went through this part [dating women]. Otherwise I’d still feel like I was keeping a secret or even like I didn’t know something basic about myself.” I don’t know if that was clarifying for her or not, but it made me realize that being bisexual was bothering me. I thought of my aunt Gladys, whose mom gave her a hard time her whole life for being overweight. I think she felt shamed by her mom – like a glutton, and like she was making things hard for herself. Talking to my grandmother, I also feel greedy and like I’m bringing unnecessary complications upon myself.

Jewish biblical and rabbinical law, halakha, unfortunately validates those feelings. Halakhically speaking, a person who is capable of having an emotionally, spiritually and physically fulfilling partnership with someone of the opposite gender, should do so. Choosing instead an fulfilling relationship with someone of the same gender is not right. Rabbi Steven Greenberg, who is featured in the documentary Trembling Before G-d about gay Orthodox Jews, discusses this in his great book Wrestling with God and Men. In the documentary, another rabbi distinguishes between those who have a choice (like me) and those who are “wall-to-wall” gay. I love that phrase – I recommend it for a zine name – but I don’t believe that, in Gladys’ case or mine, trying to disappear a part of ourselves is the right way to go.

All this has got me thinking about how useful a book for family and friends of bisexuals would be, an Everything You Always Wanted to Know But Couldn’t Ask sort of thing, with questions like: Do you know whether you’re more gay or more straight? Do you feel that you belong more one community or the other? You seem to date girly girls and effeminate guys – does that mean you’re mainly into women? Are male and female partners different? What about transpeople? Which gender do you think you’ll end up marrying? Are you hoping for one?

I was surprised not to find anything like this already out there. What questions would you ask? Especially parents? We don’t want to mystify you, we promise.

* There are problems with the word – it reinforces the gender binary and even confirms, in a backwards way, a sexuality-binary – but I have trouble embracing alternative terms like pansexual or omnisexual because I don’t believe they’d have the same “legs.” I find that slower, less radical changes go farther; they seem less satisfying to start with, but are more satisfying at the end of the day.

–Anna Schnur-Fishman

Source: Anything That Moves