Review on a cultural text
In
this essay I will be looking at the psychology behind biphobia and why there is
so much of it within the gay community. Whilst searching the internet I came
across a certain video named 'What Lesbians Think About Bisexuals' by Arielle
Scarcella, after being unbelievably shock at the views of some (not all)
lesbians have on bisexuals I took it upon myself to look into this as this
turned out to be quite a popular problem. I will cover the views that gays have
on bisexuals, why they might have this view and how people can overcome this
problem.
I want to clarify that I don’t believe just this video as well as the follow up video I will be talking about ‘What Gay Men Think About Bisexuals’ by GayGod is a good representation of the gay community as a whole. Even though the in-group that are discriminating is a small one, it is still a misconception that should be looked at. Also the questions being asked within the interviews are designed to get emotional responses as it becomes more shocking. And the more shocking a text, the more it takes effect on you. So what was said about bisexuals?
The common view of these women are that bisexuals are promiscuous, they stated that it would be a 'shame' if a girl they liked was a bisexual and also bisexuals were referred to as unicorns as they are non-existent .This is also a view that made in the ‘What Gay Men Think About Bisexuals’. All these comments and opinions are effective components and are all made from emotional responses more than thought out, logical ones.
Before looking at why these individual women think in this way, I would like to talk about prejudice and biphobia. Biphobia, which stems from the word homophobia while using the prefix ‘bi’ meaning two, is more common than you might think. The common views, that you can see for yourself in the videos I have mentioned, are that bisexuals are promiscuous, can’t be faithful in a relationship, they don’t exist e.c.t. While most of this is not true, but it does depend on the person rather than their sexuality, these are all what make the stereotype of a 'bi' person. But why are these problems related more to bisexuals than other sexualities?
Well I think a problem that doesn’t help is that the label bisexual is quite an stern view that a bisexual will 'be attracted too' two genders equally. But, in reality, it doesn’t quite work out that way. A bisexual can be sexually attracted to each gender in any ratio as well as having a romantic attraction to each gender in the same or different ratio. It’s perfectly common to find a bisexual man that has a stronger sexual attraction to women than men, but then have a greater romantic attraction to men than women (Lisa Fosbender, 2013). Not having this 50/50 rule it’s sometimes hard to see where you might stand in someone else’s eyes as a potential sexual partner. So it is understandable when a person gets a tad annoyed and jumps to the ‘that man is a closeted homo’ or ‘that women is just experimenting’ conclusion.
Going into the prejudice views being more personal than rational I notice one important thing. In the video where lesbians talk about bisexuals you can clearly see that the lesbians automatically describe a bisexual woman. And in the gays react to bisexuals you can see that they are describing bisexual men. None of the first questions within each interview specify what gender the bisexual is, but both groups automatically think about the person that would be a possibility or a sexual relationship. This is because either they are talking from past personal experiences or they are thinking about a situation that they fear might happen because they see it/ heard of it happen elsewhere. The latter of those options is down to a thing called illusory correlation, where you will see what you want to see and this is quite common. People keep an eye or an ear out for specific types of situations, e.g. any of the views that were stated in the reaction video and this will then reinforce the stereotype (Lisa Fosbender, 2013)
In ‘What Lesbians Think About Bisexuals’ when asked “You’re at a lesbian party, you look across the room and you see the hottest girl in the party. You walk up to her and it turns out she’s bisexual what’s the first thought that pops up into your head?” the women respond with “that’s so unfortunate”, “I, honestly, might go for somebody else” and “If she can make me laugh then I might get past the fact that she had a dick in her mouth last week”. Even though not all of the statements that these women made sounded prejudice, there’s a definite change in their behavioral component, which means they will act differently around bisexuals than another person. These ties in with the illusory correlation. Because they are avoiding bisexuals, they rule out the chance to find a bisexual that doesn’t fit in with the stereotype. So how are they going to become more open minded and more accepting toward bisexuals?
During the end of the same video Arielle says “Do you know how I know it’s usually a self confidence thing with lesbians? Because I very, very rarely have ever heard of a guy being worried dating a bisexual woman, that she’s going to fully turn lesbian” to which all of the women being interviewed seem to take time thinking about that and then agree. Just this simple statement made the women think about what they were saying, think about all of the effective component, emotional thinking and instead think about it logically. “What if the love of your life turned out to be bisexual? Wouldn’t you give it a chance?” After these questions the women start to think about actually dating a bisexual who the individual person and not their stereotype.
I do have more views and more materials to review on the matter, however I’m going to conclude this essay here so for more information please visit my blog shadered.weebly.com. In conclusion I think the solution to this misconception is to educate people more about bisexuality. Now is the time for a step forward for the prejudice towards bisexuals being more understood and resolved. This is for some (not all) homosexual people, who maybe have a sour past experience or others that can’t see past the stereotype. In this day and age we should want to already have a place where things as simple as loving someone to be understood and accepted.
Bibliography
Arielle Scarcella. 2013. What Lesbians Think About Bisexuals. (online) (accessed December 2013) Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUozcqlhX3w
GayGod. 2013. What Gay Men Think About Bisexuals. (online) (accessed December 2013) Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUXzNowXVwo Lisa Fosbender. 2013. Psychology 101: Sexual Orientation. (online) (accessed December 2013) Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzAQL4oTWUU
Lisa Fosbender. 2013. Psychology 101: Prejudice. (online) (accessed December 2013) Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=To0f4E5BZ_w
I want to clarify that I don’t believe just this video as well as the follow up video I will be talking about ‘What Gay Men Think About Bisexuals’ by GayGod is a good representation of the gay community as a whole. Even though the in-group that are discriminating is a small one, it is still a misconception that should be looked at. Also the questions being asked within the interviews are designed to get emotional responses as it becomes more shocking. And the more shocking a text, the more it takes effect on you. So what was said about bisexuals?
The common view of these women are that bisexuals are promiscuous, they stated that it would be a 'shame' if a girl they liked was a bisexual and also bisexuals were referred to as unicorns as they are non-existent .This is also a view that made in the ‘What Gay Men Think About Bisexuals’. All these comments and opinions are effective components and are all made from emotional responses more than thought out, logical ones.
Before looking at why these individual women think in this way, I would like to talk about prejudice and biphobia. Biphobia, which stems from the word homophobia while using the prefix ‘bi’ meaning two, is more common than you might think. The common views, that you can see for yourself in the videos I have mentioned, are that bisexuals are promiscuous, can’t be faithful in a relationship, they don’t exist e.c.t. While most of this is not true, but it does depend on the person rather than their sexuality, these are all what make the stereotype of a 'bi' person. But why are these problems related more to bisexuals than other sexualities?
Well I think a problem that doesn’t help is that the label bisexual is quite an stern view that a bisexual will 'be attracted too' two genders equally. But, in reality, it doesn’t quite work out that way. A bisexual can be sexually attracted to each gender in any ratio as well as having a romantic attraction to each gender in the same or different ratio. It’s perfectly common to find a bisexual man that has a stronger sexual attraction to women than men, but then have a greater romantic attraction to men than women (Lisa Fosbender, 2013). Not having this 50/50 rule it’s sometimes hard to see where you might stand in someone else’s eyes as a potential sexual partner. So it is understandable when a person gets a tad annoyed and jumps to the ‘that man is a closeted homo’ or ‘that women is just experimenting’ conclusion.
Going into the prejudice views being more personal than rational I notice one important thing. In the video where lesbians talk about bisexuals you can clearly see that the lesbians automatically describe a bisexual woman. And in the gays react to bisexuals you can see that they are describing bisexual men. None of the first questions within each interview specify what gender the bisexual is, but both groups automatically think about the person that would be a possibility or a sexual relationship. This is because either they are talking from past personal experiences or they are thinking about a situation that they fear might happen because they see it/ heard of it happen elsewhere. The latter of those options is down to a thing called illusory correlation, where you will see what you want to see and this is quite common. People keep an eye or an ear out for specific types of situations, e.g. any of the views that were stated in the reaction video and this will then reinforce the stereotype (Lisa Fosbender, 2013)
In ‘What Lesbians Think About Bisexuals’ when asked “You’re at a lesbian party, you look across the room and you see the hottest girl in the party. You walk up to her and it turns out she’s bisexual what’s the first thought that pops up into your head?” the women respond with “that’s so unfortunate”, “I, honestly, might go for somebody else” and “If she can make me laugh then I might get past the fact that she had a dick in her mouth last week”. Even though not all of the statements that these women made sounded prejudice, there’s a definite change in their behavioral component, which means they will act differently around bisexuals than another person. These ties in with the illusory correlation. Because they are avoiding bisexuals, they rule out the chance to find a bisexual that doesn’t fit in with the stereotype. So how are they going to become more open minded and more accepting toward bisexuals?
During the end of the same video Arielle says “Do you know how I know it’s usually a self confidence thing with lesbians? Because I very, very rarely have ever heard of a guy being worried dating a bisexual woman, that she’s going to fully turn lesbian” to which all of the women being interviewed seem to take time thinking about that and then agree. Just this simple statement made the women think about what they were saying, think about all of the effective component, emotional thinking and instead think about it logically. “What if the love of your life turned out to be bisexual? Wouldn’t you give it a chance?” After these questions the women start to think about actually dating a bisexual who the individual person and not their stereotype.
I do have more views and more materials to review on the matter, however I’m going to conclude this essay here so for more information please visit my blog shadered.weebly.com. In conclusion I think the solution to this misconception is to educate people more about bisexuality. Now is the time for a step forward for the prejudice towards bisexuals being more understood and resolved. This is for some (not all) homosexual people, who maybe have a sour past experience or others that can’t see past the stereotype. In this day and age we should want to already have a place where things as simple as loving someone to be understood and accepted.
Bibliography
Arielle Scarcella. 2013. What Lesbians Think About Bisexuals. (online) (accessed December 2013) Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUozcqlhX3w
GayGod. 2013. What Gay Men Think About Bisexuals. (online) (accessed December 2013) Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUXzNowXVwo Lisa Fosbender. 2013. Psychology 101: Sexual Orientation. (online) (accessed December 2013) Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzAQL4oTWUU
Lisa Fosbender. 2013. Psychology 101: Prejudice. (online) (accessed December 2013) Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=To0f4E5BZ_w
Planning for the essay
These are some note I wrote down for the planning of my essay. I didn't get to talk about all the points that I wanted to make due to the low word count, but hopefully you can see some of these points here.
Poster
For the poster for my essay I didn't want anything flashy and in your face. The stereotype for anything to do with homosexuality or bisexuality e.c.t is it have it covered in colour with flags and celebration. But because my essay is about the bipohbia within the gay community I wanted to put across that the reality inst all colourful and happy.
More research
Relating texts
below are two videos that I want to include in the discussion of my essay. The first is another take on what lesbians think about bisexuals, this time its with gay men. I think its quite funny how even though the gender of a bisexual is never mentioned each gender of homosexual automatically chooses to think about their gender. I.e. male homosexual automatically thought about and talked about a bisexual man. I think this jump straight towards their own emotional feeling towards bisexuals because they discuss how it affects them when someone else is a bisexual.
The second video is a 'pillow talk' by two homosexual women. They discuss the pros and cons between straight women and bisexuals. I think their views are quite bi phobic and ignorant. They say how are you bisexual when you are married to a man? This stems form the view of bisexuals being either experimental or none existent. I'm sure if that women turned out to be married to a woman they would just say shes 'turned' lesbian. I don't think the concept of a bisexual who is dating a man or woman but still has feelings for the other gender is fully understood by some people.
The second video is a 'pillow talk' by two homosexual women. They discuss the pros and cons between straight women and bisexuals. I think their views are quite bi phobic and ignorant. They say how are you bisexual when you are married to a man? This stems form the view of bisexuals being either experimental or none existent. I'm sure if that women turned out to be married to a woman they would just say shes 'turned' lesbian. I don't think the concept of a bisexual who is dating a man or woman but still has feelings for the other gender is fully understood by some people.
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Below is a response video where bisexual watch the What Lesbians Think About Bisexuals. I was quite surprised with how calm and forgiven the bisexual women where, but I guess they have got this from plenty people to now know how to deal with things like this.
Below is a video I found from again Arielle. In this video she addresses some of the cliche remarks bisexuals encounter.
The video below is something that I wanted to include to clear up some of the misconceptions of a bisexual from a bisexual. But I also wanted to put in something that shows that bisexuals do get prejudice from other people, I wanted to show that this is a common problem and not just one within the 'What lesbians think about bisexuals'
The text I have chosen
Looking through the internet I stumbled across this video. When I first watched this video I was really taken back.
Is this how gays see bisexuals ?
I obviously take into account that to make this video more interesting they probably will only interview lesbians who all think the same way. But to even think that some gay people think this way about bisexuals at all. I hope to look into the views of the women and see why people think this way.
Is this how gays see bisexuals ?
I obviously take into account that to make this video more interesting they probably will only interview lesbians who all think the same way. But to even think that some gay people think this way about bisexuals at all. I hope to look into the views of the women and see why people think this way.