That’s an exorbitantly higher percentage. I was really blown away by the statistics about issues that impact bi people specifically, like nearly half of bisexual women are sexual assault survivors compared to 17 percent of straight women and 13 percent of lesbians. Why was it important for you to include those stories? You also get really raw and honest about childhood trauma and sexual assault. When you start to explore your queerness, you feel awkward and fumbly and you feel a little bit too old to be doing that if you come out later in life. That was the entirety of my sexual experience, and I think a lot of queer people, regardless of how you identify, feel this way.
The lack of sexual confidence I had in a queer sex scenario was a huge part of my inability to come out because it just meant I felt so much more comfortable having sex with men-cis men specifically. There’s not that much good sex in the book. It was harder to write good sex without being cheesy. Was it difficult to be so honest about your sex life? One essay explores your first time having sex with a woman, which didn’t go that well. One of my favourite quotes of Shiri’s that is not in the book is the idea that bisexual confusion can be thought of as a destabilizing act of social change, which I think is just so empowering. With that I credit the work of Shiri Eisner, who wrote a book called Bi: Notes for a Bisexual Revolution, which is quoted throughout the book. It was really understanding bisexuality as a political identity. So that made me be like, “Oh, I could definitely write a book that combines everything I want to say through this lens.” What made it the right time to write this book? What sort of understanding had you gained about yourself that you felt you could now share with readers? I didn’t ever realize that bisexuality was something I aligned with politically as well as in terms of my personhood. So often bisexuality is used as the scapegoat for a lot of these systems I found that to be really empowering.
“Greedy” implies that promiscuity is a bad thing, which is a different issue than being bisexual.
After I came out, I started reading a lot about bi theory and it talks about stuff like this and also how a lot of bi stereotypes-even being greedy-play into these other systems like patriarchy. That’s part of the reason that so many bi people stay in the closet.
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