Opinion: It Is Embarrassing To Have a Boyfriend…So Don’t!
Written by Leah (Bunny) Overstreet
Bisexuals! You can choose to be gay. Well, you were (hopefully) born queer but—if you want to—you are allowed to prioritize that queerness.
A lesbian telling you to just stop dating men is nothing novel, but I promise I’m going somewhere with this. So often I hear, specifically, bisexual girls lament that they want to date girls but that it just never happens and they keep ending up (regretfully) in happy relationships with“ fruity” men. They say that dating girls is too hard, asking them out is too scary, and finding a girl that they really click with is too rare. Once upon a time, I was one of those girls. Shocking, I know. I wasn’t always the dyke that I am today. I too was once GASP! the infamous bisexual girl with her endless catalogue of boyfriends. Alas, dating boys was entirely too easy. Men are everywhere! There are swarms of them infesting dating apps and bars and clubs and grocery stores. Every time you leave your house they are inflicting their attraction onto you: on the streets and on the subway and at your job and in your DMs. There will always be some guy ready and waiting and liking your Instagram story in the meantime. And, if you’re actually interested in men, you might have a hard time wading through the sea of suitors unscathed (i.e. without the embarrassment and inconvenience of contracting a boyfriend). So, if you really want to explore your queerness, you might have to consider eliminating the cis-male competition.
TO CLARIFY: I don’t think that there is anything wrong with being bisexual and acting on it. If you are happy dating any gender and don’t feel a strong urge to court one particular part of your sexuality, then you need not concern yourself with this. All I am saying is that you do not need to be a lesbian to prioritize dating non-men. Just because cisgender men are an option for you does not mean you have to date them. I am not telling you that you need to“ pick a side” either, just that you are allowed to weigh your options and choose whatever life you want to live and if you want to give the queer side of you a fighting chance, you might benefit from removing men from your dating life, even just temporarily. I am also by no means encouraging bisexuals to take over the lesbian label (we have suffered enough already) nor am I recommending that they vacation to Lesbo-land for shits and giggles. This is only applicable if you are committed to and yearning for a truly queer life. In the same way that some bisexuals accidentally end up living more heteronormative lives— whether by happenstance or because they aren’t necessarily super queer but simply attracted to women— you can intentionally choose to lead a more queer life. Just because you have options, it doesn’t mean that you have to leave your life up to chance.
When I identified as bisexual I felt an undeniable need to nurture my queerness, but kept ending up with white he/they bisexuals with mesh tops and painted nails who I’d fuck on the first date and giggle about how we were actually soooo subversive and queer when you really think about it. Then, one day I woke up and realized that the only way I’d actually get to start dyking (the verb) for real was if I committed to the bit. I realized that if men, however queer, were still a part of my dating rolodex, I would never get around to the part of my sexuality that I’d been accidentally procrastinating.
“I realized that if men, however queer, were still a part of my dating rolodex, I would never get around to the part of my sexuality that I’d been accidentally procrastinating.”
I decided that, technical bisexuality be damned, I was going to start“ practicing lesbianism.” Before you start getting Betty Who flashbacks, I promise I was not claiming the lesbian label at this time; I was simply choosing to build a life centered around sapphic activity. Workshopping a previously underdeveloped part of my sexuality was admittedly daunting. I was a confident sexual being when it came to men. I felt sensual and alluring and downright irresistible. But to these impossibly beautiful girls at the dyke bar, I was just a loser virgin! I didn’t understand what made me sexy to a lesbian or how to wield that sexuality to my advantage. I felt like a bumbling idiot.
But dating is, in many ways, a skill that can be developed. Dating men can sometimes feel intuitive, but we’ve actually been training for this role all of our lives, maybe without even realizing it (cough compulsive heterosexuality cough). It’s been subliminally tutorialized in our media and it’s something we’ve been able to passively gather data on since birth. I’d spent 17 years consuming rom-coms and crushing on boys and deciphering exactly which kinds of boys were into me and why. I subconsciously and consciously sorted out how to be desirable to the type of boys I wanted attention from. Truthfully, this was a strategy born from the interracial dating scene in Atlanta. I’ll be vulnerable and admit that I tend to find myself on #TeamSwirl (not exclusively but quite infamously) which is not entirely my fault — I cannot help that I’m catnip for quirky Caucasians! As my friend Dylan would say, seeing a light skin fem dating a white masc is like seeing a dog piss on a fire hydrant: entirely predictable to the point of absurdity. I developed a keen eye for which types of white men would never even look at me and which couldn’t resist me — Dungeons and Dragons players, Kanye West fans, soft spoken bisexuals, long-haired leather bracelet types, wannabe Daddy Doms, slavs, pretty fashion boys, 40-year-old eccentrics etc. It’s for this reason that, when I was a practicing bisexual, meeting“ my type” in men felt way more intuitive than with women with women. We learn what works for us through trial and error and, for me, sapphic dating is something that became intuitive as I gained more queer dating experience.
I’ve always considered my queerness to be a muscle I needed to exercise. When I was first discovering my homosexual urges, it started out gradually where I was only attracted to a very specific type of woman. But, as I met more dykes, my preferences have evolved and blossomed. It was from doing that boots on the ground research of actually being out meeting, flirting, kissing, fucking, and falling in love with dykes that I learned what I wanted. For me specifically, my“ straight” muscles grew weak from lack of use and eventually atrophied. This is part of how I discovered that I was actually a lesbian. For an actual bisexual, however, this would probably look more like evening out the muscles and getting the left“ arm” (the sapphic arm) as strong as the right“ arm” (the arm that is attracted to men). If you grew up right handed, it makes sense that you might need to put in some extra effort to help the left side catch up.
“I’ve always considered my queerness to be a muscle I needed to exercise. When I was first discovering my homosexual urges, it started out gradually where I was only attracted to a very specific type of woman. But, as I met more dykes, my preferences have evolved and blossomed. It was from doing that boots on the ground research of actually being out meeting, flirting, kissing, fucking, and falling in love with dykes that I learned what I wanted.”
Bisexual dating is, more often than we’d like to admit, a numbers game and there are just simply more men barking up the bisexual girl tree. Anyone who’s ever played for both teams knows that men drastically outnumber women and nonbinary people on dating apps. When my dating preferences were set to “everyone” I would have to swipe through like 50-100 men before seeing one woman and about half of those girls were actually just looking for a third. Even in real life, the chances of meeting a queer woman is already at a disadvantage unless you move to a queer area and intentionally seek out queer events and activities. Because of these disadvantages, I think it’s okay to cheat the system a little bit.
Exercising this part of your sexuality merely evens out the playing field and gives you a chance to get to know yourself as a queer person. From actively and exclusively seeking community with other dykes, going to dyke bars and making more dyke friends and downloading dyke dating apps and swiping until — on more than a few occasions — each app told me that I’d simply “run out” of queer gals near me, I got to know my queer self outside of the theoretical. I was dyking in a way that was tangible. My dykesona was gaining sentience. Now, I have a much better idea of which kinds of dykes want me baaaaaad — alternative white mascs, transgender polyamorites (redundant I know), Black baddies, white sanrio femmes, genderfuck latinx, asian“ studs”, old school butches, other femme lightskins who could be my twin, etc.
Troubleshooting how to date other dykes was necessary in order to eventually end up hitting classic sapphic milestones like mutual lovebombing before the first date, situationship Valentines, and accidentally becoming the third in a lesbian marriage. You know, the usual run-of-the-mill stuff. After a year of“ practicing lesbianism,” I even snagged my very first age-inappropriate girlfriend. Mission accomplished! High five! I win I win I win! And then we broke up… and had to grapple with what dating would look like for me post girl-on-girl relationship.
My sexuality had, arguably, been explored. Did I want to bring men back into my dating life? There were a few unanswered DMs from guys that, a year or so prior, I would have happily entertained. Yet still, I hesitated. How would a cisgender man even fit into my life? Did I even want to find out? And then there was the question that weighed heavily in the pit of my stomach: was I bisexual at all, or really just a lesbian?
I was conflicted and terrified of“ getting it wrong.” I didn’t want to claim the lesbian label if it didn’t belong to me. I was scared I’d have to take it back. But as I was going back and forth about it, I realized that regardless of if I turned out to technically maintain some of my attraction to men, I wanted to live a queer life. My entire life revolved around dykes — everything that made my life my life was its queerness. And I know many bisexual girls who felt a similar protectiveness over their queer lives. A cisgender man would not fit into this world I’d built for myself, and I couldn’t fathom a man being worth sacrificing even an inch of it. I would almost consider it a lifestyle compatibility issue. A cisgender man was antithetical to my dyke lifestyle and just as much of a dealbreaker as someone wanting kids (I do not) or wanting to live in the burbs (I’m a city girl through and through).
“A cisgender man would not fit into this world I’d built for myself, and I couldn’t fathom a man being worth sacrificing even an inch of it. I would almost consider it a lifestyle compatibility issue. A cisgender man was antithetical to my dyke lifestyle and just as much of a dealbreaker as someone wanting kids (I do not) or wanting to live in the burbs (I’m a city girl through and through).”
I decided that being frozen in indecision about a label was distracting me from the important part: regardless of labels, I wanted to end up lesbianly ever after. The label was besides the point for me and something that I wouldn’t ever have full confidence in until I tried living the lifestyle. This was the first time that I considered that I didn’t need a reason to choose my queerness. Just because I thought—at the time—that I might still be attracted to men, it didn’t mean that I was forced to have them in my life. Men had always felt so default and so inevitable that I’d figured I’d need a really good reason to not consider their applications for partnership. But the reality is, simply not wanting to have cisgender men in my life is a good enough reason not to date them. Hell, I couldn’t even date a trans-man who didn’t identify with dykehood or a bisexual girl (cis or trans) who was more connected to heteronormative social spaces than queer ones.
For me, lesbianism started out as a lifestyle choice. I’m sure it’s obvious by now that I am a lesbian both in spirit and action, but I don’t want that to discourage bisexual readers who think this only works as a pipeline to capital L Lesbianism. I can’t deny that the ease of removing men from my life may have obviously been lubed by my secret lesbian inclinations. Maybe for the true, honest-to-God bisexual this would be a much bigger ask than I’m making it out to be. But I know from discussions with the bisexuals in my life that there are plenty who feel a strong enough pull towards that queer part of themselves that, for them, it might be worth prioritizing. I also truly do think that getting comfortable with both parts of your sexuality and tapping into queer community will help you to flirt with and fuck just as many women and enbies as men, if you decide you’re happy with all of the above.
I obviously didn’t invent the concept of living an intentionally queer life. There are political lesbians who see choosing lesbianism as a form of protest and resistance against the patriarchy and—especially recently—people who have a justifiable fear of unwanted pregnancy in this current political climate (although if your dating pool includes trans dykes this isn’t necessarily a cure all). The two cents I would like to add to the discourse is that you don’t actually need a justifiable reason to remove men from your dating pool.
This call to action isn’t really concerned with depriving men of something or two-hand stroking the egos of girls who would rather be with guys but want to feel like they’re cooler than the rest. This isn’t about being man hating (though I am certainly not fond), this is about giving ourselves permission to not even think about them. This is for dykes choosing dykes above all else and not questioning it. This is about doing what feels good and deciding that enjoying some of the finer things in life is easier without distractions and more than worth the“ sacrifice.” It’s a hard pill to swallow but, if your priority is queerness you might have to drop the dead weight of men.
