The many myths of female bisexuality

While bisexual men battle biphobia, women deal with being sexually fetishised, constant talk about ‘threesomes’ and the usual ‘it’s just a phase’

- Urmi Bhattacheryya

When a woman announces she’s bisexual at a dinner table, a social gathering or in bed, usually one out of two things will happen:

She is sized up amorously by diners, social gatherers, or her current paramour, and thought to be “easy” and/or “loose”.

She is sized up dubiously by diners/ social gatherers/current paramour and thought to be inclined to cheat on her partner.

Both of those two things can be chalked down to the simple truth: she likes men and women, and she cannot lie.

And then, of course, there’s the entire archaic malarkey about threesomes

25–year-old Suryatapa, a journalist from Delhi, says, “Biphobia can be terrible against bisexual men – I have seen it. For them, it’s almost worse than that against gay men. For us, it’s the opposite. It’s fetishised and sexualised.”

Parthavee, a 28-year-old media professional, laughs off the idea of a threesome when it is thrown at her. “It inevitably is. Particularly at parties, where couples will ask me to come along with them to their houses, without even asking me if I’m okay with it. I actually hate the idea of a threesome and never want to do it.”

She continues, “What’s problematic is that this assumption doesn’t just come from straight people, but from within the queer community as well.”

According to Human Rights Campaign, a bisexual “is someone who can be attracted to more than one gender; but adults and youth who identify as bisexual sometimes describe themselves differently... it includes people who identify as pansexual, queer, fluid and other labels that suggest potential attraction to more than one gender.”