Why Bi The Way Really Doesn’t Get It (Or, Why This Blog Exists)

Almost a year ago, sitting in a bar with Sarah and a few other friends and rehashing a ridiculous conversation she’d had with a man who insisted that male bisexuals don’t exist, Aviva decided that she wanted to become a bisexual superhero. Not in any sort of flashy, large-scale activism way, which she wasn’t sure was suited to her personality, but by talking to people, engaging everyone she encountered who said something deeply stupid about bisexuality and seeing if she could get them to think about it a little bit more. There’s value, after all, in having someone say “Actually, I do exist;” in knowing that someone you like and respect claims an identity you denigrate. She started reading all of the books she could find on the subject (and there aren’t many), but she was soon sidetracked by a pressing need for trans activism elsewhere in her life.

A little while later, both of us went with friends to see Bi The Way (directed by Brittany Blockman and Josephine Decker) as part of NewFest, New York’s LGBT film festival. And we were so irritated with so many aspects of the film, and there were so many things we wanted to say to the directors (and everyone else in the theater with us), that it reminded us of Aviva’s original vow to become a superhero. In the Q&A, Aviva asked the only political question, and the directors avoided answering it meaningfully. Sometime during the long dinner that followed, while we criticized and analyzed the film, Sarah turned to Aviva and said, “We should start a blog!” And now, several weeks and other writing projects and a lot of procrastination later, here we are sitting down to finally do it.

So, let’s start with the thing spurred us to get off our butts and actually start something, shall we? That will have the added bonus of introducing in brief things that we’re sure to blog about at length later, since an analysis of this film touches on so many of our pet peeves in its perceptions and treatments of bisexuality.