#tw bisexual erasure

[davycoquette]

🍵 Tell us something juicy about a character.

Thank you so much for the ask! I'm gonna pour several cups of juice for two different characters because I like this one.

!!! CONTENT WARNING !!! pls see tags before clicking through; I don't wanna give anyone the bad feels.

Here's the askbox meme for anyone who would like to play!

Shiloh

has a son he doesn't know about (yet) out there!

loves dead poets more than almost anything

has had hepatitis (all good now)

is addicted to hydros

Ruck

has a weird obsession with the size of people's feet and often compares them with his own

is not okay™ with his bisexuality and identifies as a straight

snorts adderall

tried to hang himself in a motel closet; failed

[aveline-amelia]

Jim Moriarty and bi erasure in The Sherlock Fandom

So I saw someone making fun of Moriarty/Eurus by claiming Moriarty is the gayest character in the show and that Jim even asked Mycroft how he wanted him in TFP, all, of course, in obligatory OUTRAGE CAPS LOCK.

Which is why I feel the need to make the distinction between saying "he's gay" in a "he's so into men" vs "he's so not into women" way. That requires acknowledging both asexual and bisexual erasure. No matter how flamboyant Moriarty is and how many sex references to men he makes, none of that is proof of homosexuality until:

Moriarty makes a definitive statement on his sexuality we are supposed to believe. (I'm gay)

Someone else makes a definitive statement on Moriarty's sexuality that we are supposed to take at face value and believe. (He's gay)

The Powers That Be make a definitive statement on Moriarty's sexuality and the way he was written and portrayed (Moriarty is gay and was written and portrayed as such).

Not all statements on sexuality are clear and definitive, such as Irene saying she's gay but admitting to attraction to a man in the exact same statement and having bisexual coding (both parties separately, male and female clients).

Or John saying that he's not gay but then never clarifying he's straight or not attracted to men.

And we all bring our assumptions when observing potential clues or statements regarding someone's sexual identity.

For example, Harry Watson could be bi but we assume she is a lesbian and we are mostly likely meant to assume that and at that she is probably a butch lesbian or somewhat GNC due to a usage of a masculine version of a name (Harriet -> Harry).

This could be wrong. She could be a feminine bisexual woman who prefers to be called Harry and just happened to fall for and marry a woman.

We don't know the sexuality of the innkeepers in THoB but we assume they are gay men. We assume Raul and Kenny Prince are gay men.

Moriarty refers to his role as Jim from IT as "playing gay" yet he gets flirty with Sherlock in the next sentence. This could all be part of an act, but I do believe reading Moriarty as a straight guy who just likes to mess with people is inherently heteronormative.

Some see Moriarty as a queercoded villain, and some see him as a genuine example of LGBT representation. Maybe not necessarily good representation, but that is subjective. But I do wish people would consider all options before they claim such regressive and potentially harmful opinions as fact.

Headcanons are fine! Claiming something is canon when it is not is different. I am still not over the "confirmed heterosexuality" comments regarding Mycroft and the whole bunch of "straight/het Mycroft" jokes.

And that is coming from someone who believes the Lady Smallwood scene was indeed heteronormative, albeit for different reasons than most people, I believe. But that's a topic for another day. No, seriously, I'll get there.

It's one thing to claim you do not believe a character is bisexual if you don't. It's another to deny bisexuality as an option when it is oftentimes the only option that takes all the evidence into account and does not require stretching the truth or ignoring tells.

Also Moriarty could have had Mycroft on that desk right there until he begged for mercy twice and that still wouldn't have been proof of either of them being homosexual men.

[lgbtqtext]

[meggie-moo]

one of my biggest fic pet peeves is when they make a canon bi character gay, like?? there’s no need, they are already attracted to the same gender? literally what is the point of erasing their bisexuality, when it literally does not change the possibility of your ship happening? 😭 idk, it just does not sit well with me, lol

[bi-dykes]

When bisexual girls are in relationships with men, we’re assumed to be heterosexual. That being interested in women never mattered, that if we’re in a straight-passing relationship, we’re straight now.

The thing that a lot of ppl don’t realize, is that when we’re with a girl, it doesn’t magically undo the bi-erasure. Now, bisexual girls are assumed to be lesbians. Now, being interested in men never mattered, a bisexual girl in a lesbian-passing relationship is lesbian now.

We get erased from all sides. Poison Ivy gets the same treatment irl bisexuals do, and it’s aggravating to see even a beloved fictional character get her identity erased.

[forsapphics]

Lani Kaʻahumanu being interviewed by Mason Funk (The OUTWORDS Archive) in Cazadero, CA, USA (July 25, 2016)

[werewolf-cuddles]

if u are seriously upset over a character being confirmed a lesbian because "bi erasure" please just kiII yourself. like im not even kidding

Imagine if I said this to a lesbian who was upset about a lesbian character being retconned as bisexual.

I don't imagine it would go over so well.

[thetrinitytest]

doing my part 🫡 🫡

[t-o-r-t-u-r-e-d-p-o-e-t]

After I posted my last post, one of my best friends that lives in my building gave me this shirt. She happened to be out shopping and she saw it. Coincidence? Nah. No coincidences. My friend who bought the shirt was there when I was subjected to the shit from last night I was talking about in my last post, so the fact that this happened is even more special. I will always stick up for the existence of LGBTQ Christians. They exist.

EDIT: have beliefs derived from Buddhism, Christianity, and even LaVeyan Satanism, all jumbled together. So I personally don't identify as a Christian, but last night I had to hear psychobabble hate speech erasing the existence of LGBTQ Christians, and I won't tolerate it.

EDIT 2: had to do the heart hands to throw some Swiftie shit in there too 🫶🏼

EDIT 3: yes, I realize I went overboard with the tags. I even reached character limit. I have no shame. And one last thing, yes, I do understand that I am talking to myself and my ONE(1) follower due to being a Nobody on this site, however I am 1000% going to continue rambling and that's that.

EDIT 4: okay for real one last thing, I ran a 3k follower, highly active D-R-U-G blog in 2019-2021 (maybe it was only 2019-2020 IDK my brain is permafried from all the D-R-U-G-S) so yeah, just know that I was important at one point in this lifetime 😬🙃

[just-positivity-stuff]

[aveline-amelia]

On sexuality assumptions in Sherlock (part 1)

So there's one thing I never quite... understood about TJLC analysis. It's reading into lines in a way that hints at Johnlock or the sexuality of a character but with a caveat that the person saying the line is a massive bigot if you take that reading to be the writers' intention.

An example in ASIB with Sherlock is "here to see the Queen?" "apparently yes". Now even casuals (why does that feel like a dirty word in regards to bbc Sherlock) see this as a hint that Mycroft is gay. Now you can see this as a subtextual hint that he is gay, or that he's gay but Sherlock doesn't know and is calling him gay in a 12 year old humor way but Sherlock is not the type of person to do that? Neither is John "It's All Fine" Watson, who has a wlw sister.

Some even think that it's about Mark Gatiss being gay and not Mycroft, but that's it's a "cheap gay joke" nevertheless.

Now TJLCrs do believe Sherlock and Mycroft are gay (some believe Mycroft is aroace, but it depends) and that John is bi, homoromantic bi or repressed bi. But even with all of that in mind, why would John feel so safe laughing along if the joke is homosexuality of another's sibling?

It's a rule that someone else making fun of your sibling is different than you doing it. And even if John isn't straight, he is presumed to be by all of the people who don't think he is dating Sherlock, and if he's closeted, then, to other people, he is a straight guy making fun of his flatmate's gay brother.

One bizarre example, from HLV, is the reading that Mycroft telling Sherlock "how very uncle Rudi. Perhaps crossdressing would have been a wiser path for you." is Mycroft teasing Sherlock about his (Sherlock, not Mycroft lol) romantic love towards John, who is presumably straight and that he could have tried to attract John by dressing up as a woman. And if that were true, that would be unbelievable levels of homophobic cruelty towards his little brother. How come Sherlock didn't physically assault him there and did for calling his actions "unwise", if that's really what Mycroft meant?

Or that Mycroft telling John to "choose a side" in ASIP is a hint towards John's bisexuality, but in the worst possible and most regressive way. Mycroft just felt like being being extremely biphobic atm I guess? Maybe I am sensitive because I do see him as bisexual simply because there was no option left, and I like the headcanon itself. But even if he is gay or straight or something else, there's no way he doesn't know bisexuality is a thing and this a hurtful thing to say to a bi person. Why would he do that? Felt cute, might do an erasure?

[eddiemunsonsdick]

why y'all so obsessed with pansexual erasure in tw?? jack is pansexual NOT bisexual. make it make sense...oh, wait. you can't because it doesn't.

y'all are so obsessed with labelling yourselves. yet can't get it right for your fictional blorbo? not sure what that says...but it's something.

[bi-dykes]

“Really don’t feel like starting shit with bisexuals” = “I don’t want to be corrected on bisexual erasure” and “annoying” = “standing up for ourselves”

[jakowskis]

@buffetpallascat doing a good ol' days reply because i had enough thoughts on this to warrant some meta, in my typical rambling fashion. hope you don't regret engaging by the time im done dfhkdsf

for starters, you're very welcome, i'm glad you enjoy the post :D

as for your question - i meant moreso that it was typical of the fandom, although it was also very much influenced by societal trends of the time, too. fandom's always had a rocky history with women, especially women who supposedly 'get in the way of "slash" couples', but the way fandom misogyny is performed has changed; i see more willful erasure of female characters these days than flat out blatant misogyny. in tw fan content from the 00s, i've seen gwen hatefully AND casually called some pretty horrible things that i rarely see fictional or real women called nowadays, simply because standards have changed. hell, one of the comms i linked, the twgenre finders one, there was several entries requesting fic where gwen experiences, like, bodily harm? not in a whump-y way, they actually wanted to recreationally read fic about her getting physically injured and suffering, out of some bizarre sense of malice towards her. simply because she 'gets in the way of janto'. and i can't even fathom that existing nowadays. pretty much everyone outside of weird little 12 year olds knows that's not acceptable. not to mention it's just weird.

interestingly i've also noticed a lottttt of change in how the fandom... reacted to and treated janto as a couple back in the day, versus now. people in 2006 were not normal about gay people. we know fandom's history with fetishizing gay men, and it was even worse in 2006 with an exceptionally rare canon gay couple being received by a jarringly hetero-but-'slash'-obsessed fanbase.

i mean, i don't wanna generalize. i saw a poll recently about how fandom is not mainly composed of straight women, contrary to popular belief, at least anymore, and i guess the question is, was it ever? i have seen a lot of the people involved in fandom in the 00s identify themselves as straight, but was that partially because of the culture of that era? have any of those people since come out as some type of queer? maybe, for some of them, that was them exploring their queerness in a safe environment, when the culture around being gay in real life was a lot different.... the same way modern fandom culture continues to be for those of us who aren't in accepting homes. if they were 20smth year olds in the 2010s/2020s, rather than the 2000s, would they still identify as straight?

not sure. but i've made a habit of going on the profiles of old lj accounts, and i'll sometimes wind up going through the journals and the personal posts of authors i respect, etc etc. a significant amount of mid 00s fic writers were straight women in their 30s - 40s, many married, some with kids. very different demographic to modern fandom. very different climate they lived in vs the one we're in.

(although, bonus note, i also once found a thread of bisexuals in 2006 praising torchwood's depiction of bisexuality, and that made me exceptionally happy. but also maybe a little sad, because torchwood's my personal fav bi rep, too, in 2023, and the fact that we've had nothing better in seventeen years is a bit of a bummer. but i digress.)

anyway, this is all to say, i've seen some insanely fetishy shit about jack and ianto that rubbed me exceptionally wrong. that gross dehumanizing, severely homophobic place where it's like... ahh, ok, so you don't see them as people, you see them as sexy dolls you can mash together. but, ofc, that's how i view it as a bisexual person in 2023 who's been on tumblr far too long. they didn't see any problem with it. they might've even seen it as progressive. how can you be homophobic when you're obsessed with the little gay people on ur screen? but it's the opposite end of the 'homophobes reducing gay ppl down to what they do in their beds' trope, and it comes across as dated and icky now.

i mean, i consume a lot of older media, i know how to turn off my 21st century sensibilities and remind myself things used to be different, but it's honestly an impressive difference. there's some fantastic fics from that era of the fandom, in fact most of my favorite fics are from that era, but i often get quite a bit of culture shock reading things. particularly, i'm always impressed by people in the 2000s, an extremely biphobic era, applying their impressive period-typical 'bisexuals aren't real' beliefs to The Bisexual Show. torchwood's rep's not perfect (again, a product of its era), but i've seen a fantastic amount of gay!ianto and straight!owen, because bisexual men don't exist, obviously, and jack's not bisexual, he's the amazing slutty space man, except he's mostly gay because all that matters is janto. and i don't even really see explorations of gwen or tosh's bisexuality at all, because, again, women who?

i found a comm a while back, i didn't include it on my list because it wasn't torchwood-exclusive and didn't have much content in the tw tag, but it was a lgbtfest, and contained fics about the team and their relationships with their bisexuality, and it was really intriguing to me to see queerness as understood by regular people in 2007/2008, y'know, not by gay writers or activists or films. i have no way of knowing if any of them were speaking from any personal place, but it was just interesting, because none of the fics i read in that comm had that same brand of tone-deaf sex-focused homophobia to them, they were progressive for the time, but it was still apparent to me that they were written by people with a mid to late 00s understanding of being gay, and i do think it's interesting, that substantial difference.

got a bit off topic, but now that i mentioned the initial fandom being overwhelmingly composed of women, i can also add that i think internalized misogyny factored hugely into the fandom's disdain for gwen. the 'strong female' trope doesn't just annoy straight men, it also annoys a lot of women (though not consciously) - not because they're opposed to well-written women, but because society tells us certain things that'd be admirable and complex and sympathetic out of a male hero are unacceptable out of a female one. it's the double standard. jack does some awful shit, but i rarely see him criticized. i've straight up seen fans go "jack's kind of a bastard, but it's ok because he's hot", which is fine in jest, i've joked about shit like that with characters, but it's not so cute when those same people turn around and condemn gwen for her actions. hell, or owen. i've literally seen someone say they'd like owen more if he was more conventionally attractive. like, ok, you're clearly just here for the janto eye candy. you haven't brought any substantial critical thinking skills. pls take ur shallow ass and leave. but back to gwen - she was held to a standard none of the other characters are held to. they picked on her for the stupidest shit. and her worse sin, the infidelity, it's bad, sure, but i've seen countless male characters who cheat on their partners who are beloved by their fandoms. it's just fucking gross. i fucking hate hypocrites.

dude, yknow what?? i've even seen fucking tosh bashing. WHO THE FUCK HATES TOSH????

ok im done. sorry for my babbling. but yeah, i think it's a fascinating thing. i love how humans change and develop with the times and how we can map the changes and how they affect media, and it's fun to observe in fandom because it's there, too, but no one's looking so i get to feel like a little scientist fdskjfds. ok i will cease with the excessive babbling now

[lewdmememonarch]

You’re not actually telling that anon her incest kink is okay are you? That’s disgusting and she should hate herself. I don’t know how you could condone that. Also if she’s thinking about men when she gets off then she’s obviously attracted to them and not a lesbian and is at least bisexual. Saying otherwise is bi erasure and very damaging to the bi community .

TW: HATE

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So for my regular followers if I'm doing particularly narly questions I do get the odd hate on the anon and I normally don't address them for protection of the anon as this is a safe place of understanding if I'm asked a question I'm not gonna hoard what I've learned in the kink community.

I don't know if your an actual follower or a passaby, know this is a place under my rule and I protect it from hate don't you dare talk talk to me on bierasure I can near about quote the "Bisexual Manifesto" from heart but to attack a person already going through so much self loathing declare them a new sexuality make assumption that have not been plainly written you are certain to make an ass out of you and me. Fool that you are to have also misread certain areas of the previous text and written on, cowardly behind anon; as you should cower in fear of my wrath.

[jaitropdonglets]

The Asexual-Bisexual Mirror

Ace and Bi people are marginalized in many of the same ways.

8min read

TW: Sexual assault, sexual coercion

From 2004 to about 2008, I identified as asexual. I was out to friends and people I dated, and in many cases I was the first asexual person they had ever met. I experienced a lot of erasure, hostility, and ignorance when I wore that identity, yet most of it was un-nameable and therefore impossible to do much about. Since I didn’t know any other ace people, I didn’t realize how common my experiences were, and could not see them as part of a larger tapestry of aphobia.

Sometime around 2010, my identity changed. I experienced physical, sexual attraction to people of a variety of genders. I started wearing the label “bisexual”. In the years that followed, I experienced so much erasure, hostility, and ignorance that I frequently chose to take that label off. I only began to recognize my experiences as biphobia a few years ago, when I befriended other bisexual people and learned about their very similar experiences of being marginalized, doubted, and ignored.

When I take a step back, and look at my accumulated experiences of being marginalized, I can see that aphobia and biphobia are mirror images of one another. The biases I faced as an asexual person, and then a bisexual person, were uncannily similar, even though one group is stereotyped as being frigid and sexless, and the other is seen as wantonly slutty and undeserving of trust.

Asexual people and bisexual people are both binary-breakers. Their identities flout heteronormative expectations, and they often approach their relationships in ways that break existing social scripts. Understanding and respecting asexual and bisexual people requires that you be thoughtful, and that you question your existing assumptions about how desire and relationships are supposed to work. When people express intolerance towards ace or bi people, something in that process has broken down.

And if a person doesn’t want to put forth effort into understanding, they end up viewing both ace and bi people as inauthentic attention-seekers who really are just straight.

Aphobia and biphobia are parallel prejudices, rooted in the exact same heteronormativity and hatred of ambiguity. And as someone who’s identified as both asexual and bisexual, I’m uniquely positioned to illustrate just how similar these identities are. Here are some forms of marginalization I’ve encountered as both an asexual and a bisexual person:

Erasure

When I was asexual-identified, people called me “straight” all the time, and implied I was involved in queer activism only as an “ally”. Even people who knew about my identity called me straight all the time, and presumed I didn’t know what it felt like to be pressured to fix a heteronormative box.

Straight partners devalued my identity and pretended it didn’t exist. Straight friends and peers thought I was just an attention-seeking weirdo, and assured me that one day I would change my mind about my identity. They presumed I just needed to find the right man. There was lots of talk about how I felt asexual “right now”, but that “someday” I’d want something else.

It wasn’t just straight people who erased my identity in this way. Gay, bisexual, and queer-identified people would say flavors of the same thing. They’d talk about my identity being temporary, or mention that sexuality is fluid. They’d refer to me as “straight”, or imply that I was gay but hadn’t come to accept it yet. I’ve written about the experience of horizontal aggression before, and how it can feel like far more of a betrayal than when straight people express ignorance.

All of these things also happened to me once I came out as bisexual. Partners didn’t see my attraction to multiple genders as legitimate; friends and peers viewed me as straight, called me straight, and assumed I had never been oppressed for my orientation. I felt uncomfortable navigating queer spaces, never certain that I would be seen as welcome and valid. I had to vocally fight against the constant default assumption that my desires and my life fit a heteronormative mold.

Worst of all, both identities were spoken about — by straight and queer people — as if everyone knew they didn’t really, legitimately exist.

Demanding “Proof” of Identity

When people learned that I was asexual, they would ask me to “prove” it in all kinds of ignorant ways. One friend spent multiple drunken hours asking me to recount every piece of pornography I had ever viewed, and whether any of them had aroused any sexual feelings in me. Others asked me how I could know that I was asexual, if I hadn’t given sex with other people a shot. Guys who were interested in me asked if there was something wrong with me.

All of these experiences felt deeply violating and invasive. People refused to trust my own mind and body. They believed they knew me better than I knew myself, and they wanted to show me that I was wrong.

When I came out as bisexual, people doubted me, too. A friend interrogated me about all my past sexual experiences, keeping count of the number of men and women I’d been involved with. When it became clear I’d been with more men than women, he rolled his eyes and asked me if I was really bi. Then he started asking specific, persistent questions about what types of women I found attractive. Those answers didn’t satisfy him for some reason, so he declared I was making them up.

Sexual Coercion

When I was asexual, people often implied I had some kind problem that needed fixing. People would speculate about there being some underlying medical or trauma-based issue that I needed to address, so I could become sexually available. Others posited that I had not emotionally and sexually matured enough to be ready for a relationship.

Everyone from close friends to adult mentors and teachers told me things like that. It all made me feel a constant, low-intensity dread. The world was telling me that my body needed to be a sexual outlet for other people. And it seemed inevitable that eventually I’d be used in that way, whether I liked it or not.

In college, my boyfriend put tons of pressure on me to go to a doctor and a psychiatrist, to try and “fix” my lack of physical attraction to him. He saw my asexuality as a threat, and an emergency. During the three years that we were together, the pressure continued to mount, until eventually I spent every single night warding off his advances, coercion, and pressure. I felt completely unsafe in my own home. I couldn’t spend any time alone with him without being touched, cajoled, harassed, whispered at, and begged for sex. Often I would give in to his demands, just to make the pressure stop.

As a bisexual, terrifyingly similar things happened. A friend invited me over to his house and tried to convince me to spend the night; it quickly became clear he and his girlfriend expected me to have sex with them. I had to slip away from colleagues and rebuff internet friends who felt similarly entitled.

In graduate school, a man I was dating took photos of me and put them on Craigslist without my consent. He advertised us as a couple seeking a female partner for a threesome. The photos ended up on pic-collector sites and Ok Cupid as well. He’d email me the replies of interested parties, asking me to evaluate attractiveness of the women, pressuring me to assent to sex with them. In bars and at parties, he’d push me toward women, often unrelentingly, until I’d break down crying and have to run home.

Mistrust

Asexual people are often presumed to be liars. When I was asexual, people would sometimes imply I was a straight person attempting to insert myself into queer spaces for attention or resources. People would write online about asexuals being attention-seekers who had taken on a meaningless identity in order to feel “special”. Unfortunately, this problem has only gotten worse in recent years.

Within relationships, asexual people are often seen as deceitful. Many writers, including sex advice columnist Dan Savage, have suggested that asexuals should refrain from dating non-asexual people, because they are destined to leave those partners feeling disappointed and deceived. If an asexual person doesn’t immediately share their ace identity with someone they are dating, they are accused of being misleading.

Bisexuals end up on the receiving end of similar mistrust. People often think that bi-identified folks are using the identity in order to seem unique and interesting, or to invade LGBTQ spaces. The trope of the “girl who says she’s bisexual in order to titillate men” plagues our culture. Some queer people still believe that bisexuals don’t experience oppression except when they are dating same-sex partners.

Within relationships, bisexuals are stereotyped as promiscuous, impossible to satisfy, and destined to cheat. Straight people often berate their bisexual partners for having non-straight desires, and will slut-shame them and attempt to police their feelings. Some gay and lesbian people view their bisexual partners with suspicion or slut-shaming.

Within both communities, talk of refusing to date bisexual people will sometimes come up. Straight women are particularly unwilling to date bisexual men, for example. And while the vast majority of the LGBTQ community now affirms bisexual people, there are still some gay men and lesbians who see bisexual identity as a deal-breaker in a partner.

Bi Men Are Not Considered Attractive, New Study Says

After three incredible dates with a straight-identified woman, she ghosted me. I felt blindsided. Everything had been��

bisexual.org

I wish people would believe me when I say I experienced marginalization as an asexual person. People often find it hard to understand. They assume that a life without sexual attraction is a “neutral”, unsullied life, somehow, as if we are not all pressured to be heterosexual and interested in sex and relationships. Many have a hard time envisioning the onslaught of harassment, sexual coercion, and shame that I faced.

When I started IDing as bisexual, I didn’t stop facing those things. The public doubt, the pressure to be sexually available, the suspicion that my identity was not real, the sense that I was a special snowflake faker — it all remained. And while the world has come a long way, in terms of bisexual acceptance and representation, few seem to notice that the vitriol lobbed at one group strongly resembles the hatred lobbed at the other.

Asexual and bisexual people are natural allies to one another. Their feelings and experiences run parallel much of the time. My hope is that more bisexual-identified people get to realizing this, and speaking about it, because bisexuality has started to be repaired in the public’s eyes. It’s time that both groups receive full-throated acceptance as legitimate, oppressed queer identities.

Aphobia and biphobia may not completely resemble the equally reprehensible prejudices of homophobia and lesbophobia. And it needs to be acknowledged that asexual and bisexual people are capable of homophobia themselves. But they are queer people, and they suffer under heteronormativity just as all queer people do.