Greedy: Notes from a Bisexual Who Wants Too Much

by Jen Winston

You know you should be living your fabulous queer truth—not going on more mediocre dates with guys who will inevitably disappear. Sure, 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).

These low-maintenance convos keep you coming back, an addictive combination of familiar and disappointing. You act unfazed, like they’re all beneath you, but you know men are the romantic equivalent of shishito peppers—one out of every twelve will fuck you up.

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.

Back then you thought of yourself as straight plus gay—an identity made of old ingredients rather than something all its own.

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

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.

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.

Cuffed jeans are bi culture. But that’s not all: Finger guns? Bi culture. Bob haircuts? Bi culture. Lemon bars? Bi culture. Sitting in chairs wrong? Some say it’s gay culture, but according to Reddit (and my lower back), it’s bi culture.

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.

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.

I wanted to become an encyclopedia of cultural references, as if these could camouflage my femininity and let me tiptoe through patriarchy unnoticed.

They chased a version of masculinity defined by the ability to keep emotions hidden; to never show pain, weakness, or—god forbid—tears. A practiced insouciance had become their behavioral gold standard—sure, it stunted their emotional growth, but at least it upped the odds that other high schoolers might describe them as “chill.”

Like it or not, this conversation constitutes one of Jen’s earliest exposures to bisexuality, suggesting that a woman’s queer behavior matters only if it has an audience.)

Mingus pointed out that marginalizing people based on their appearance was ultimately “a way to create and reinforce normative identities.”

My fear of ugly inflated the value of beauty, thus reinforcing them as opposite poles in a hierarchy. I’d been doing the exact thing I thought I was fighting against.

I finally realized what it meant to masturbate wrong: to masturbate with something other than my own pleasure in mind.

Though I sensed my own queerness, it remained a shark’s shadow beneath the surface—a threat I’d never acted on, far from dictating my life or probability of staying alive.

Most onscreen threesomes positioned women as objects for male consumption, implying that female queerness could only exist in reference to the male gaze.

I have to know that these men are just vessels for the emotions they leave me with, and that I’m more addicted to the feeling of longing than any one person I think I long

The more I think about it, the more sucking dick strikes me as poetry—an elegant, erotic art form when done right.

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.

Injustice felt like dull, constant back pain: Unless our sciatic nerve was acting up, we simply learned to live with it.

Prisons conflated accountability with vengeance, but these alternatives promised something more: rehabilitation, redemption, and a future beyond social death.

I didn’t understand that even on a personal level, queerness is not an end point but a practice—a process of self-interrogation to hold us accountable for growth and push us toward a better world.

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

In the film, Dr. Caroline Heldman explains, “Masculinity is not organic. It’s reactive. It’s not something that just happens. It’s a rejection of everything that is feminine.” I can hardly wrap my mind around the implications of this: If society teaches men that the worst thing to be is a woman, Heldman probes, is it really a surprise when men treat women like shit?