confidence

On this last day of Bi Health Awareness Month, please take one last look at the information provided by the Bisexual Resource Center on mental health for bis. Learn how we’re vulnerable and what we can do to help ourselves. Our health matters, too! Here’s a letter to Tiggy on the topic…

Dear Tiggy,

I was sexually/physically/verbally abused as a kid. As I got older, I came to the conclusion that I was bisexual. However, my therapist and others have all told me that my bisexuality was a result of trauma and that I’m not actually bisexual.

I had a really hard time coming to terms with my sexuality, but when I’m in an accepting environment, I’m okay with it. Has anyone else been told this too? Most people will not even talk to me about this. I just wanted to know whether there are others like me at all.

-Maggie

Other queer people who have experienced abuse have been subject to inaccurate and ignorant theories connecting the two attributes. You are not alone, and I’m sorry that you have to put up with that treatment.

“Good for her for knowing who she is! Rock on!” That’s Peter Ruggiero’s reaction to the tenor of your letter. Peter serves/d on the board of the Bisexual Resource Center and BiNet, the two largest bi organizations in the States. He also works on behalf of male sexual assault survivors, and is a survivor himself. Although your signature indicates that you are female, much of Peter’s knowledge of the psychology and sociology surrounding sexual abuse is relevant to survivors of any gender.

This is his take on why people are reacting to your sexual identity as they have: “When a survivor comes out with confidence, it knocks people off their pins. In this case, it’s the biphobia combined with people who are not sure of their own sexuality and related issues. Trauma plus religion can sometimes prompt this reaction as well. Maggie is coming at this with so much confidence that it’s jarring the people she’s talking to.”

I can only think of two reasons for why some people believe that your bisexuality is prompted by the abuse you faced…

HYPOTHESIS #1: Sexual trauma can shift someone’s sexual orientation.

This is such utter nonsense that I cannot take it seriously as a legitimate proposal. Pandora’s Project, a website for sexual assault and abuse survivors, addresses the matter aptly here.

It’s virtually impossible to prove a negative — i.e. “No environmental stimuli can shift your sexual orientation” — but there has been absolutely no indication, much less evidence, that it is possible or has ever happened. In my opinion, any counselor who actually believes this hypothesis should be barred from conducting a therapeutic practice.

Peter concurs: “There are old wives’ (and husbands’? Spouses’?) tales that abuse will make you this or that. There’s not a lot of precision to these accusations. I assure you, there is nothing scientific on which to base any presumption that sexual trauma will make you straight, gay, bi, or anything else.”

HYPOTHESIS #2: Having sex with people of different genders may be part of “acting out” subsequent to experiencing sexual trauma.

This could be what your therapist is claiming. Let’s take a look at common reasons behind post-trauma sexual acting out:

You assert your sexual behavior in a manner that allows you to be in control, counteracting the feeling of helplessness from your trauma. Sexual orientation has no bearing on this.

You’re a straight male who was sexually abused by a male and you’re afraid that it means you’re gay. You have sex with women to prove to yourself that you are straight. This does not translate to other genders or sexualities because our society only values hetero masculinity. In other words, you have no reason to want to prove that you are bisexual.

You search for a high to distract from the pain caused by trauma. The dopamine hit or distraction you might gain from sex is irrespective of the gender of your partner.

You engage in reckless sex because the trauma has made you feel worthless. You can have risky or safe sex with any gender.

You don’t understand that the abuse you suffered is not normal or healthy. Clearly, this is not your problem but even if it were, it has nothing to do with sexual orientation.

You’re trying to recreate what happened on some level but “correct” the ending. The idea that this would prompt bisexuality for you presupposes that your abuser was female. (So if he wasn’t, this is moot.)

That last possibility was the only one whose invalidity I wasn’t 100% sure about. Luckily, Peter set me straight. “If you’re acting out, you’re acting out, period,” he says. “The gender of the person with whom you’re acting is not particularly germane; it’s the act of acting out.”

Notice, too, that these theories only operate off of sexual abuse (not otherwise physical or verbal) and assume active sexual behavior (when perhaps you haven’t done that yet). The logic behind the suppositions others are making on your sexuality just doesn’t check out.

Peter says, “There’s a lot of fear out there, and it combines with bi/homophobia in our culture. If your therapist is trying to convince you of your sexuality and you know she’s wrong, then her qualifications come into question. This therapist is not treating bisexuality as a legitimate sexuality; she is treating it as a way to be extra slutty. It’s just some old-fashioned biphobia.”

Agreed, bi brother. From where I stand, Maggie, the most important factor in all this is that you seem perfectly comfortable with your sexuality. Ergo, I can’t see that anyone has the right or reason to pathologize it.

Being bi is not a mental health problem.

Settle in, Wild Deuces, for another two-fer Tuesday with Tiggy!

Dear Tiggy,

Today I was called a “miserable dyke” by someone who doesn’t even know I’m bi. No one but strangers on the Internet do.

Do you have any suggestions on how to cope with such negative energy and finding the courage to come out even if people won’t accept me?

-Bi Girl

To be honest, one thing I’ve learned from being bisexual is that feeling hated is actually rather freeing. When it seems that you can’t please anyone, there’s not a thing stopping you from doing what you know to be right for yourself. Evidently, people are going to call you a dyke whether they know you’re queer or not. Under circumstances like that, you might as well come out on your own terms.

It’s understandable to want to wait until you think the world is ready to accept you before you come out. Unfortunately, depending on your immediate environment and where you set the bar for acceptance, your current wait time is somewhere between exceedingly long and forever. Better, I think, to come out when it’s more comfortable to be out than not.

When you make friends who are queer, socializing with and supporting each other, it starts to feel like more of a hassle to be closeted. When you date someone special and want the world to know — as does ze* — coming out begins to look attractive. As these people become a part of your life, you begin to internalize the good things about being LGBT, and you’re suddenly uncomfortable with the idea of hiding an authentic facet of yourself that isn’t bad at all.

If you feel the comfort scale tip to the other side of the closet door, that’s when it’s time. You have a lot of agency in making that happen. Reach out to the bi community and give us a chance to reach back.

Dear Tiggy,

I have been in a same-sex relationship for three years; my mother does not approve. However, I have been able to keep my love life and my family life separate.

Now that I am 31 years old (i.e. not getting any younger!), it is getting to me that these two parts of my life have almost no interaction. It feels like a juggling act that has been going on for way too long.

My dilemma is, I love my girlfriend but I also love my mother. I have trouble swallowing the usual advice that I get – “It’s your life and you should do what you want” – because I want my mother in my life just as much as my girlfriend.

Should I sacrifice my relationship with my girlfriend? I am attracted to guys as well, and figure I would be able to eventually find someone. But I don’t want to regret my decision later. I know there isn’t a clear cut answer on this one but…HELP!

-KT

Quite a different situation from our friend above, and yet the advice holds. You’ve kept your worlds discrete so far because it’s the least unpleasant choice among your admittedly less-than-ideal options. Or it was. It sounds like your life isn’t very pleasant anymore.

In your position, the partner is typically a main driver in bringing the situation to a head because ze refuses to be treated like a dirty little secret. Many times, the onus is on them to make the closeted one uncomfortable because otherwise nothing will change. It doesn’t sound like your girlfriend has pressured you in that way, though. It makes me sad to see you describing your relationship with her as if it were disposable. I wonder if she senses that you feel that way and that’s why she hasn’t pushed you to intermingle your worlds.

If you do break up with her, I think you might be surprised at how little control you have over falling in love again. You may well fall for another woman; then what will you do? And even if you connect with a man or stay single, that pain of not being able to be your whole self with your mother may always be there.

In the same way that your girlfriend might not have enough faith in your relationship to push you to come out to your family, I think you might not be confident that your mother loves you enough to remain in your life if you’re out. That, too, makes me sad.

I think you need to reframe this in your mind: it isn’t a choice between your girlfriend and your mother. This is much bigger than that. It’s between living your life with integrity vs. having to contort yourself to keep someone’s love. It’s about giving your mother an opportunity to love the real you. I think you need a therapist to help you through these feelings, preferably one who specializes in bi clients and/or family dynamics. They can help you decide how uncomfortable is enough.

*gender-neutral pronoun

It’s OK to say “when”.

Let the Four Tops give it to you like this, Bi Girl.

© 2014 Tiggy Upland. Tiggy Upland reserves the right to use all submitted queries anonymously, in any medium.

March 31, 2015

July 8, 2014