sistahslife

Why do bisexual women get a bad rap?

I know I might get some groans right about now,
but just read on.

Take for instance, Eric Jerome Dickey’s popular novel,
Between Lovers, which chronicled an anonymous
character whose girlfriend Nicole couldn’t decide
between him or her female lover. The picture Dickey
painted of Nicole was a woman who was self-
indulgent, selfish, and desperate for attention from
both sexes.

Is that really the true story about bisexuals – or is that what we choose to believe?

With my friends of both persuasions, we’ve have had plenty of discussions about this. One straight
friend thinks there’s no such thing as bisexuality and that people who chose this lifestyle are just
“greedy.” Some of my lesbian friends won’t even get involved, much less have sex, with someone
who “double-dips,” for fear that one day they’ll up and leave them for a man.

In an episode of Sex and the City, one of my favorite shows, the girls chat about bisexuality in all its
glory. The women talk about how sexuality is so fluid that bisexuality is inevitable. The discussion was a
rapid-fire web of comments, but I remember Charlotte saying, "I'm very into labels; gay, straight, pick
a side and stay there."

Despite the negative beliefs about bisexual women, there are many who stay in loving, committed
relationships with one sex at a time. If a woman enters a relationship with a woman, she’s with that
woman; however if they break up and she is attracted to another man, then she would enter into a
relationship with him. What’s greedy or selfish about that? She’s not hurting anyone, and it’s really no
one’s business whom she’s sleeping with anyway.

Don't get it twisted. I'm not bisexual, and I don’t pretend to completely understand it, but I do know
some get a bum rap. Yes, some do bed hop. Yes, some don't make their partners aware of their
willingness to sleep with Tom, Dick and Sarah. Yet, it’s no more scandalous than a lesbian or straight
man who hops from woman to woman. As long you’re being safe and disclosing who you are, whose
hang-up is it?

So what do you think?

Reactions to this column? Send them to rena@sistahsontheshelf.com

Reverend Delores P. Berry is a U.S. musician and
Christian minister.

Entering ministry within the Christian Methodist
Episcopal Church she subsequently transferred her
credentials to the LGBT affirming Metropolitan
Community Church when she came out as a lesbian.

Berry has been involved in the struggle for LGBT
equality. In 1978, she was one of the co-founders
of the national Coalition of Black Lesbians and Gays.
She assisted in organizing the first gay and lesbian

"March on Washington" in Washington DC. and assisted in organizing the first People of Color Gay
and Lesbian White House Conference.

Berry has pastored Metropolitan Community Church congregations in Baltimore, Maryland, Portland,
Oregon and Norfolk, Virginia, and since 1987 has concentrated on musical evangelism. She has
recorded several CDs.

Read more about Berry, who describes herself as "an out of the closet Christian evangelist who
preaches, prays, and sings," at her website http://www.revdeloresberry.com.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delores_P_Berry