KarMel Scholarship 2008

Personal Story

“Bisexuality and Me”

By Jennifer Davidson

Desciption of Submission: “Essay describing my life as a bisexual” - Jennifer

The first time I marched in a Gay Pride Parade in 2005, it was under a Bisexual London banner. I was proud and pleased to be marching with my friends and my then-husband in a social display of recognition. I was also pleased that the London Police had a banner a little ahead of us and were very well-received. However, I soon found that we (those under and around the London Bisexual banner) were the object of booing and hissing from the supposedly LGBT-friendly crowd. I am still shocked and amazed that people who were marginalized themselves could be so closed-minded about bisexuality. I resolved that day to educate people whenever possible, whether through action or conversation.

I realized that I was bisexual when I was seventeen. My boyfriend at the time forbade me to look over his shoulder at his porn magazines, and when he caught me looking at one without him, he flew into a rage and struck me. I was not previously aware that homosexuality or bisexuality could polarize people to that extent, but I certainly learned it that day at the hand of my homophobic lover.

At the still-tender age of twenty I met and fell in love with a woman. I thought that both of us being women meant that we would understand each other and that communication would be easy. This was my first real encounter with same-gender love, as previously I had only theoretical knowledge. I wrote her poems, I brought her flowers, I obsessed about her and spent my limited student funds on her. We tried to have a polyamorous lifestyle, but the word didn’t exist at that time and neither of us understood how to go about creating boundaries and negotiating each other’s needs for both male and female sexual and emotional interaction. We broke up in a hail of anger and disillusionment. I tentatively dated several other women but failed to create as strong an attachment as I had to my first female love.

I enjoyed regular bisexual sex with a bisexual male partner at twenty-three. I thought both of us desiring bisexual sex meant that we would understand each other and communication would be easy. Instead I needed to enforce my boundary about honesty on discovering that I was being deceived and manipulated after two years together. It took another two years to recover from the breakup, although we got back in touch and are long-distance friends to this day. He says that he still fantasizes about me and how open I was sexually with him.

I married a British bisexual man at the age of thirty. I thought that both of us being bisexual and wanting a commitment meant that we would understand each other and that communication would be easy. Instead I filed for divorce after four years, realizing that his idea of commitment was that I would tolerate disrespectful behavior because of a piece of paper, while my idea of commitment was that both partners would grow and learn alongside each other, independent but cooperative and intertwined in common goals and lifestyles. Again, polyamory played a role in the deterioration of the relationship: he used the term as a free pass to ignore agreements and move boundaries against my will.

While we were married, I supported my husband’s student activities. As a member of the UK’s Brunel University LGBT society, I often attended social functions and informative meetings, both on campus and off-campus. I was not a student, but my then-husband was and he was also the Bi Men's Representative for the LGBT society, which meant that we were both involved with organizing and producing meetings and social gatherings. I frequently entered into discussions about why and how one could be both bisexual and married. Even though I still firmly believe this is possible, it was not for the partnership I tried to create with my husband.

Since discovering BiCon (the annual UK convention for bisexuals and their friends, partners and supporters) in 2003, I attended yearly until 2007. I found it a warm and inviting place to meet and get to know bisexuals better. I attended many workshops; some of the topics were activism, BDSM, polyamory, transgenderism, and relationships. I lead two workshops myself that were positively received. In fact, every single ongoing sexual partner I had while residing in the UK was someone that I met either at or through BiCon.

What I have learned about bisexuality over the years is that experiences and preferences vary as widely as the general population. Just because someone is bisexual does not mean that you instantly have something in common with them, but it does mean there’s a good chance you can approach them positively and find out. Communication is never easy, but it’s worthwhile. When the combination of elements is right, the connections you make can last a lifetime or a single night, and be equally as powerful and transformative in either case. What is crucial is the internal mechanism of the person, what makes them, them. After all, we’re all human, and finding ways to celebrate that is the joy of everyday life.

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