Greedy: Notes from a Bisexual Who Wants Too Much

by Jen Winston

Coming out as bi was intimidating, but coming out as lonely? Terrifying.

Your gut insists that you should go home, so you go to his apartment.

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?

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.

Announcing myself as bi seemed like oversharing,

When anyone thinks of bi women, they think of threesomes—that means your colleagues who once respected you will now see you as a slut. Not that you’re not a slut—just that you don’t want your coworkers to know it.

Coming out never seemed worth it. I was attracted to men, so why ruffle feathers when I could just… not?

Why would a community accept lemon bars as iconography unless they were desperate for symbols, representation, or acknowledgment of any kind?

I didn’t realize yet that I was seeking a cool girl ideal created by patriarchy, the media, and underwear-clad men posting on 4chan—built by everyone except for women themselves. Even then, my vision of womanhood was hardly mine at all.

Malignant Girl Crush (MGC): Earth-shattering. Life-altering. Will devastate you—as in “cry in the bathroom during third period because you hate her boyfriend and what the fuck is wrong with you, you’re not supposed to think about girls like this you fucking CREEP.”

pretty is not a rent you pay for occupying a space marked ‘female.’ ”

wild how you could have a near-death experience for someone one day, then feel too dehydrated to see them the next.

We became nightlife snobs (far and away the worst kind of snob—self-righteousness and ketamine make for a lethal combination),

Queer people who knew better than anyone that, when it comes to gender, the same things that brought you pleasure could make you hurt.

saudade—feeling melancholy and nostalgic for something you love, but also feeling grateful for having experienced that love at all.

That hackneyed comparison between nightclubs and churches stems from truth—in terms of worship, safety, and refuge, gay dance floors had given me more than any cathedral ever could. These bars proved that having glory holes didn’t disqualify you from being a holy space—on the contrary: they were temples and then some, offering forgiveness, providing confessionals, and granting everyone permission to show up exactly as they were.

This was a dark era for my self-respect—a time when I used the MyFitnessPal app on a daily basis and still thought music festivals were fun—so it checks out that I conflated being fetishized with being adored.

All we know is that there’s something we don’t understand about ourselves just yet, and we have a hunch that growing up fast might help us figure it out.

In our late twenties, we manage to confront our own histories and find our rage, but soon realize our anger exists less because of the horrors themselves and more because of their mundanity. By

to know if we’re attracted to women because of the male gaze or in spite of it; to determine whether our impulses stem from lust, objectification, a feeling of sisterhood, or all three.

The piece argued that we need to reframe the entire way we think about sexual violence—as long as we see it through a binary lens (e.g., consensual/not consensual, legal/illegal, okay/not okay), the burden will still fall on survivors to definitively say “no.” Shim pointed out that even the affirmative consent model was far from survivor-centric: “Why is it that in so many purportedly ‘feminist’ opinions and re-writings, Ansari’s actions remain unchanged, while Grace is the one who must be stronger, better, smarter, faster?” “Damn,” I said, but Eden didn’t look up. Instead she read a different line out loud—a quote Shim had included from Indigenous writer Kelly Hayes: “We exceptionalize both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ people to spare ourselves the labor of interrogating normalcy—the very space in which most harm occurs.” I squinted. “So… what are we supposed to do, exactly?” “Everything.” Eden smiled. “We have to fix it all.”

Despite being emotionally tormented, I didn’t want to seem “crazy” (perish the thought!), so I engineered the most casual confrontation I could.

I couldn’t tell whether I was strong for attempting my own version of alternative justice, or weak for being unable to cut my abuser out of my life. (In reality, I was neither—just a survivor, trying to cope as best she could.)

Accountability? Psssh. That was just an apology, and an apology without change is just manipulation. True accountability requires action.

Ian described our relationship as “easy” and “low-maintenance,” which seemed like the highest compliments a girl could

Consent isn’t just mandatory—it’s integral to pleasure, providing a bungee cord so both of us can fully let go.III

The hype around legalizing same-sex marriage even kept most LGBTQ+ people from looking at any underlying issues—it distracted us from questioning marriage as an institution or unpacking social reliance on monogamy itself.

there’s a blatant cognitive dissonance in associating “queer liberation” with access to straight white institutions.

I thought a friends-turned-lovers arrangement was GUARANTEED to be a success. But I felt neglected. You felt stifled. I lost myself. You realized we didn’t want the same things, and you were right.

The longer I stayed in hetero land, the longer I could overlook the internalized homophobia I’d stuffed deep down and ignored.

I’d never really thought about what my “type” of woman was, but I realized it probably wasn’t my mirror image (surprising tbh, considering the number of selfies on my camera roll).

eating pussy without a cis man around somehow meant no turning back.

occurs to me that smooth skin must be standard among this gender. How is it possible, I wonder, that all women can be so supple and soft? Does this mean I’m supple and soft? I doubt it, but a girl can dream.

She’d always been terrible at boundaries and now she knew why: because setting them came with the risk that someone might actually observe them.