Greedy: Notes from a Bisexual Who Wants Too Much

by Jen Winston

bisexuality means said queer truth can still encompass men, but let’s be real: If you keep hooking up with dudes, no one will believe you’re queer (least of all yourself).

But in your heart, you can’t deny that bisexuality has never felt queer enough. It’s never felt queer enough to talk about. It’s never felt queer enough to take up space. It’s never felt queer enough to lead you to community, or to show you who you are.

in hindsight, maybe your response said it all: Maybe confusion is as queer as it gets.

I can’t promise I’ll deliver anything meaningful, but to quote former CSI guest star Taylor Swift, “this is me trying.”

While normalization has many upsides, it can also have a silencing effect, perpetuating the assumption that being bi is “not a big deal.” Bisexuality tends to feel ubiquitous and thus irrelevant, as if the subject isn’t worth our time.

I hope that someday, this book becomes obsolete. I hope we progress past the need for these conversations. I hope we dismantle not just systems of oppression, but also binaries and binary thinking. I hope fluidity becomes so ingrained within culture that it becomes “edgy” and “subversive” to be straight. Consumers will praise brands like Expedia and Cheerios for commercials that bravely depict straight life. Straight people will host warehouse parties on the east side of every major urban area, doing lines in the bathrooms, projecting the walls with straight porn and King of Queens.

The reason people think bi women are “just experimenting” and bi men are “actually gay” is because patriarchy has manipulated us into thinking that everyone must be attracted to men.

If we’re saying, ‘No, we’re not confused; no, we’re not promiscuous; no, we’re not greedy,’ then we accept that it’s wrong to be confused, it’s wrong to be greedy, it’s wrong to be promiscuous. And I want to ask, why do we have to work by their rules?

The problem isn’t promiscuity—it’s patriarchy, which vilifies sex and dismisses non-monogamy. The problem isn’t confusion—it’s binaries, which encourage us to make finite decisions (usually between two constructs that we never got to choose in the first place). The problem isn’t being greedy—it’s that systems function better when we don’t demand what we deserve.

Bi culture is everything. Which means bi culture is nothing. As annoying as this logic loop might be, it reflects exactly what it’s like to be bisexual: to be told simultaneously that you are asking for too much and that you don’t exist.

Characters rarely identified themselves as bisexual out loud—instead they behaved their bisexuality, usually through an illicit queer hookup (followed by a breakdown because they’re so “confused”). This taught me that bisexuality was something you do, rather than something you are. And since I hadn’t “done it” yet, I figured I was straight.

Flirting with other genders took effort, and so dealing with my queerness became just another item on my perpetual to-do list, sandwiched between other things I’d never accomplish: meditate, dust, fix printer, come out, pay that one bill that won’t let you do it online.

Maybe early aughts fictional characters could get results while being delicate, but not me. My clit requires significant pressure, thus my masturbation style involves trading aesthetics for thrash—it’s the bedroom equivalent of a monster truck rally. Though I own plenty of sex toys (another brag?), I have little patience for charging them, so a typical mastur-date with my hand goes like this: Step One: Flip onto stomach. Step Two: Tuck arms under body. Step Three: Smoosh face into pillow. Step Four: Attack. If that doesn’t paint the picture, search “Undulating Monk Seal” on YouTube—you’ll get the idea.

I read the blogger Erin McKean’s quote: “You don’t owe prettiness to anyone… pretty is not a rent you pay for occupying a space marked ‘female.’ ” As a budding feminist (*listens to BEYONCÉ (self-titled) once*), I understood this, at least intellectually: Women and femmes were not obligated to look attractive to please men. Yes, adhering to specific beauty ideals would probably make our lives easier, but no one could force us to comply.

It took only a few months for New York to turn me into a cynic, and before I knew it I’d become a study on self-sabotage: I fantasized about meeting someone on the subway but also refused to make eye contact on the train.

Today, Jamie is the rare breed of white leftist I actually respectII—she divested from Bank of America, organizes for reproductive rights, and composts without bragging about it (you can only tell from the smell). Back then, though, I knew her as my friend who liked politics but loved to party.

In case this wasn’t clear by now: I’m a white leftist and absolutely do not respect myself. I’m far too much of a hypocrite—in the words of a Bratz-themed meme I once saw, “I’m a communist with a shopping addiction.” Avoid trusting me at all costs.

She also told me that in her memory of the night, she’d been the uncertain one—apparently I’d seemed in control, as if I’d done this kind of thing before. Consider this your reminder: Memoir consists of recounted experiences, but by its nature, memory is unreliable. That means maybe—in someone else’s story—you actually know what you’re doing.)

I now know that no sexuality requires proof, and that you don’t have to hook up with anyone of any gender for your identity to be legit. I also know that bad hookups don’t always have a deeper meaning or implication about your sexuality—they can even happen with someone you love. Many factors can influence your level of enjoyment (e.g., the person you’re hooking up with, whether that person puts on music, the extent to which that music is Dave Matthews Band because it “reminds them of their first kiss”).

one cis woman and two cis men.I (This arrangement is sometimes called the “devil’s threesome,” though I’m pretty sure that term now exclusively refers to Satan, Lil Nas X, and the pole.)

Sometimes I draw a flawed comparison between ghosting and BDSM’s dominant/submissive dynamic. Despite the fact that BDSM relies on positive things like aftercare, boundaries, and consent, the analogy arises for an obvious reason: Ghosting treats you like shit and leaves you wanting more. I’m never sure whether or not I enjoy it, but I must, because I keep coming

The barista boy squeezes my stomach during sex, and it makes me fall in love with him. Though I’m in love, I’m also devastated—having my imperfect body worshipped forces me to confront that this isn’t how it’s always been. When the boy’s name disappears from my recent texts, I vow to beg all future lovers to knead my belly like dough, but I never do—I am too self-conscious, both about liking it and about having fat to grab. If anything, I swing back toward the opposite: If hands even come close to my stomach, I immediately shove them away.

When I was in my mid-twenties, my interest in men constantly made me wonder if I was gay enough to come out. (Should I call this an insequeerity?

I learned a catchy word to describe this phenomenon: homonormativity. (At least it’s slightly catchier than, say, “neoliberal hegemony of the queer community at large.”) Professor Lisa Duggan popularized the term, writing, “We have been administered a kind of political sedative—we get marriage and the military, then we go home and cook dinner forever.” Her point was that if we only focus on equality, we’ll only end up achieving assimilation. While that’s still a form of progress,V there’s a blatant cognitive dissonance in associating “queer liberation” with access to straight white institutions.

It goes without saying that the revolution shouldn’t revolve around comforting a bisexual white girl at a Williamsburg lesbian bar. But if, to paraphrase Audre Lorde, none of us is free until all of us are, then a revolution that centers Black trans power might wind up freeing me—and all of us—just the same.

I liken coming out to using The Secret—naming your sexuality becomes a way of stating your goal, which brings you closer to the things you want. I’m not qualified to educate anyone about the law of attraction (that’s what WitchTok is for). But I can say that when I told people about my sexuality they gave me resources, guest list spots, and the phone numbers of their single friends.

The Bisexual Girl knew that most fairy tales included an enemy, and she wondered who her enemy was. Was it the amulet she’d used to post thirst traps? The prince she’d let herself pursue? The fairy-tale literary device that she’d gone all in on for some reason? And then it hit her—the enemy had been right in front of her the whole time. It had duped her into suppressing her desires. It had convinced her that winding up with someone—anyone—was more important than listening to her own needs. The enemy had always been fairy tales themselves. And for the Bisexual Girl, perhaps just realizing this was happy ending enough.

After I understood basic feminism (which I credit entirely to a rousing listen of P!nk’s M!ssundaztood),IV I realized how deeply the idea of True Love had manipulated me. For women, the indoctrination starts early and never lets up—one minute we’re watching Sleeping Beauty, the next we’ve finished nineteen seasons of Say Yes to the Dress. The True Love industrial complex feeds us grandiose dreams to occupy our dainty brains, hopeful that wedding planning will distract from thoughts of uprising and masturbation.

the concept of True Love has always been heteronormative. That said, it’s important to note this flawed ideology isn’t just reserved for straight people—it’s equal opportunity bullshit, happy to ruin your life no matter how you identify. Anyone of any gender can blame True Love if they care more about being in “a relationship” than they care about the person they’re in said relationship with. While the myth of True Love hurts everyone, it’s patriarchal in nature, meaning it comes for women and femmes especially hard. On top of all the other nonsense we’re supposed to live up to, we’re also supposed to become “the perfect wife.”

In hindsight, all my love stories with men had only been performances—one-woman shows furthering the True Love agenda, perpetuating the harmful idea that a woman’s sole purpose is to provide sex and free therapy to her husband until one of them dies. Sure, a feminist can still “fall in love,” but she should do it only if it’s what she wants. But where’s the line? There’s things we want, and then there’s things the world tells us to want. But how can we determine where one ends and the other begins? If I’d “fallen in love” with a cis man, I’d probably still be out there squashing myself. This book’s ending would consist of sugarcoated essays that spoke to his strengths, concluding with a chapter called “Actually, Not All Men! Who Knew?” A close reading would indicate severe gaslighting on both the guy’s part and the patriarchy’s, but since I’d failed to “hold myself accountable” and call this out, Empowerment Instagram would deplatform me immediately (rightfully so). This isn’t to say that healthy relationships with cis men cannot exist—just that it seems like they cannot exist for me. Thanks to heaps of internalized misogyny, I tend to make myself smaller—I abide by traditional gender roles until a hip queer person on the internet tells me it’s time to stop.

When I say Queer Love, I mean love that makes its own rules. Love that exists without borders and thrives without clean lines. Love that creates more space than it takes up.X