Can we talk about bisexuality?

In my opinion she was attracted to masculinity and society told her, then and now, that the only masculine people are men. She however made an effort and found masculine women, butch lesbians, enjoyed sex with them and was looking for a full time partner.

I prefer her to the bisexuals, who always usually did wind up with men because it was easier and make family relationships 'comfortable' just like @JoyousGreyOrca said.

Yes, it's true many lesbians despise bisexuals. Many lesbians won't date them. I thought about it with 2 girls, but the fact that they'd been recently with men totally put me off. Men disgust me sexually.
I've known I was a lesbian from a young age and have never been with a man. I was proud to have resisted the weight of cultural enforced heterosexuality.
.Straight women and Bi women know nothing of that awful pressure.
Bi-specific groups are the answer.

I see what you're saying and appreciate it's hard to articulate.

I have always been bisexual but only involved myself actively in LGB communities during my decade long relationship with a woman. I lost a lot of friends from that sphere which was hurtful when I started dating my ex (who is a man) and had all sorts of nasty comments about being straight now even though I am still bisexual. I distanced myself because of the hurtful comments to be honest, I'm dating a woman again now but just don't feel it's welcoming to bi women which is fine- could start my own community i suppose hah.

Thanks for replying @JoyousGreyOrca - i'm not actually sure it is that unusual in my age group (50s) - I know quite a lot of women who wanted to come out as bisexual but were told bisexuals didn't exist, or because we were feminist and women-centred we didn't fit well with the bisexual groups of the time. So we ended up just in same sex relationships for years until either we just got older and more likely to do our own thing, and/or at the same time what used to be lesbian and gay became LGB and things became more relaxed. My life though has certainly been fragmented as one thing or another, maybe if I was in a big city it would be different, but in a small market town there's not much LGB socialising to be had anyway!

@BreatheAndFocus that was unlucky. The butch and femme thing has been a tiny niche subset for decades now. There are lots of groups with mainly older lesbians, many who came out at a later age.

Okay that is uncommon. Every bisexual women I have met, apart from a handful, have been primarily in relationships with men and have either had no relationships with women, or extremely short ones.

No, I don’t think it’s internalised lesbophobia@JoyousGreyOrca The whole Lesbian Soc at uni was very, very much ‘femme with butch’. I was told if I didn’t fancy butch lesbians that I wasn’t a real lesbian by one girl. I was going through a difficult time personally unrelated to my sexuality, and that comment cut me and added to the stress. I started to think she was right (because I was young and lacked confidence) and because every girl I approached wasn’t interested in me, and every girl who approached me wasn’t attractive to me. I felt rejected/outside the whole scene there. I mainly hung out with gay men.

That was years ago and I know it’s different now for many reasons, me being that much older as a main one, but that early feeling of being outside everything and everyone is still in me.

I accept you are bi. But I do not think you have anything more in common with lesbians than a straight woman does

I'm not in a relationship with anyone but I have been in a reasonably long-term relationship with a man. But I have a longer experience in relationships with women, I came out when I was in my late teens, I was the first out lesbian at my university and got lots of shit for it, I set up lesbian and gay groups at university and workplaces, I socialised almost exclusively with lesbians for 10 years, I read lesbian writers, I know about lesbian history. That's massively different from straight women. How can you know anything about anyone's past just from knowing who they're in a relationship with right now?

I mostly mean not being instantly snubbed as soon as the B word leaves my mouth.

I agree that discussing men in a lesbian or LesBi women's space is not appropriate. My Bechdel Test pillow talk comment applies also to these spaces.

Depends what you mean by acceptance?
If you go along to a small social womens group and every other woman has a female partner, they are going to find it strange if you start talking about your husband and children.

Exactly. And the wording that has been used occasionally on this thread 'Bi people in hetero relationships' is similarly inaccurate.

@BreatheAndFocus I understand where you are coming from. If you wanted to revisit the lesbian community you would find a lot of varied groups and women.
It also sounds like you have some internalised lesbophobia, which is very common amongst women. But it might be worth thinking about?
Its never too late to come out.

There's access on paper and then there's acceptance in practice. Not the same thing.

You do realise that 'there's a group in London' isn't representative of the experience of most people outside London? A google of groups near me only returned 'LGBT (+ in some cases) groups, which takes us back to the issue of L/G people not necessarily being welcoming (whether with good reason or not is irrelevant) of Bi people, especially those in opposite sex relationships.

London is a fantastically diverse city and there's probably a group for pretty much everyone, however niche, but that's no use if you're 300 miles away.

I accept you are bi. But I do not think you have anything more in common with lesbians than a straight woman does

Knew we’d be next after you threw out trans people.

• Trans people have different political aims and different life challenges to same-sex attracted people.
• Same-sex attracted men have different life challenges from same-sex attracted women.
• Bisexual women have different life challenges from lesbians. Ditto bi men from gays.
• Lesbians have different life challenges from gays.

It's actually not in the least unreasonable to have separate spaces for all three of L, G, and B.

What is unreasonable is for a space to be for L and B or G and B or LGB and then for bis to get the side eye in that space.

We have a local walking group for lesbians. It's advertised as for lesbians, not lesbians and bisexual women. I don't go to it because I'm not a lesbian. There's a bar near me that has a male-only floor. I don't go there because I'm not male. But when a bar says it's for LGB, I expect to be able to go there without getting the side-eye from lesbians or anyone else.

Not in a relationship with anyone at the moment @JoyousGreyOrca No, I don’t pretend to be straight. I just stay quiet in social situations. Obviously I tell potential partners.

Your questions have inadvertently started a bit of a self-examination here. The brief version is I initially said I was lesbian as a teen, felt I didn’t fit in because the small number of lesbians I knew were nothing like me (all butch) which caused me to question myself.I then went to uni where I kind of gave up trying because every girl I found attractive was straight. I started to think then that I wasn’t a proper lesbian as I didn’t fancy any of the other lesbians I knew. But I still liked women so I settled on being bi because that felt psychologically better because it was a different group: I didn’t fit in socially or visually with the lesbians but I was attracted to women and that’s a massive part of who I am. I’d never say I’m straight.

Basically I felt different in my teens and at uni - which was soul-destroying when I thought I’d found people like me who found girls/women attractive. Possibly in another location (I lived very rurally) and a different situation, I’d always have labelled myself as lesbian. Who knows? I just leave the mental gymnastics now. ‘Bisexual’ covers things ok when I need or want to say.

@Pluvia Groups have never gone away. They just are not that public. There are lots of lesbian and bi womens groups, a small number of lesbian only groups. Most are older women, but there are some younger women now setting up these groups.

The key is simply to do it. You will not get funding. But you just start something up, advertise it word of mouth or through meet up, and have the group. If it is lesbian only, you will get more complaints than if it is LB and exclude trans people.

It’s more the offensive reasoning which is stating that bi people in committed with relationships with straight people aren’t bi but are straight. We’re not. We’re bi.

Surely it depends which spaces?
And as I have consistently said, virtually every group includes bisexual people. So we are talking about a tiny number of lesbian groups. Access to 99% of groups is obviously not good enough

Knew we’d be next after you threw out trans people. So what happens next when you get rid of all the bi people from your spaces? Is it like in The L Word where you have to be a ‘gold star’ lesbian to ‘count’.
I’m bi sexual. Always have been, always will be. I’m also a big fan of monogamy so I’m in a relationship with a man. I would remember my privilege at being ‘straight passing’ in relevant conversations but also appreciate deeply all the many people who have welcomed me in to their community.
It feels like bi people can’t win. If we’re faithful people insist we have changed orientation. If not you feed into the stereotype about not being ‘satisfied’.

Are gays and lesbians in straight sham marriages excluded from LG spaces? Logically, they should be.

"For me, as a lesbian and a feminist, it's particularly about escaping the straight male gaze"

Then why have LGB events, why not women only (regardless of sexuality)?

I go to women only events/ some times discos.

I feel the male gaze as the male gaze regardless of their identity/declared sexuality.

I agree with you, op about not bringing straight men to LGB events.

But I wouldnt feel comfortable dancing in front of gay men either.

Bisexual discrimination is rife in the lesbian community. I've experienced it. I've never experienced it from any straight people. People who know me know about my preferences for 25+ years. But yes some people who meet me do make the straight assumption because I have long hair, wear more shapely /colourful clothing than jeans & T shirts. I dont see this as any kind of 'bi privilege'. It's stereotyping.

If I go on a night out I could end up pulling a man or a woman 2 vs 2 on my last 4 nights out. It's only ever lesbians who scorn me for this. Why?

I don't feel welcome at LGB events or lesbian only events even though I know they've invited other bisexual women that just haven't pulled for a while.

@BreatheAndFocus but you said you are mainly in relationships with women? So what does being in the closet mean? Do you just pretend to be straight?

Bisexual women have met with a whole lot of crap here. I’m not in the closet from fear, but because I no longer have the patience to deal with it and the questions/assumptions from both straight and gay people. When I get close (friendship-wise, that is) or if it comes up in conversation, I do sometimes tell people.