Expecting everyone to conform to the same sexual mores: Still futile. In other news Pope is Catholic

[nanila]

There are a few people I see regularly on my commute whom I consider my "train buddies". These aren't necessarily people I know terribly well, but I enjoy conversing with them because they're cheerful. I ran into two of them last week on my way home and we all sat together around one of those four-seat tables. We chatted for a short while and then one of them opened the Evening Standard she was holding and said, "Look at this. I don't understand this."

"What's that?" I said.

"This Chris Huhne, did you read about the woman he's dating now?"

I had, but I shook my head. "She's been married twice before, to women."

I blinked. "And?" I said, failing entirely to see what she was driving at, other than being slightly scornful.

"So, she's bisexual. Don't you think he's worried she might leave him for another woman?"

I blinked some more. "Um, probably not any more than he would be that she might leave him for another man?"

She stared at me. "I just don't understand that at all."

I shrugged despairingly, and changed the subject.

In another reality, a braver, bolder me made the following speech so compellingly and humourously that she would have understood. "Sexual orientation and faithfulness are not dependent characteristics. Being bisexual doesn't make a person more or less likely to be unfaithful in a monogamous relationship. I'd be willing to bet there is at least one heterosexual person on this train who is in a monogamous relationships who has cheated on their partner. I'd also be willing to bet there is a bisexual person who has never cheated on anyone at all, and a heterosexual polyamorous person who has two husbands, and an aromantic asexual person who has never slept with anyone (and, incidentally, is perfectly content), and a gay person who has only ever had one partner and has been with them for fifty years. I'd even be willing to bet there is a person on this train who enjoys sex the most while wearing a Batgirl costume and is impatiently waiting to get home to her - or his - Stormtrooper. That isn't me, by the way, so you can't win the bet by guessing that."

I'm not that braver, bolder me. But I would like to be.

Comments

[oursin]

Given how relatively recently same-sex marriage has been possible, my worry about someone who'd been married and divorced twice within that period would be about their general relationship staying power, not the gender of their partners. (Wot, me, cynical?)

[nanila]

Yes, that certainly factors into this case as well! (Also your response is punchy and I wish I'd said that too.)

[pbristow]

"Expecting everyone to conform to the same sexual mores: Still futile. In other news Pope is Catholic"

Yeah, but have you heard about that weird al fresco scatology fetish that's caught on amongst the bears? =8o\

[nanila]

Those bears. Such hipsters. I can't keep up with them.

[lark_ascends]

People. *shakes head in disgust*

[nanila]

It's moments like these that remind me why I value my carefully selected online community.

[telegramsam]

Because, you know, all non-heterosexual people think about is promiscuous sex and there's absolutely no other factors to their personalities at all. *rolls eyes*

[miss_s_b]

Sometimes I get embarrassed that all non-cis-het-etc people are judged by my standards ;)

Srsly, though, when people react like that I tend to burst out laughing. Then explain. Then laugh more at their faces. But yeah, the sex life of the average Lib Dem is pretty far from the mainstream - and we range across all the categories nanila mentions above and more. Generally this is because most Lib Dems don't bat an eyelid whatever you decide to do. F'r'instance, the band at last conference's glee club was $MP and his several girlfriends, and they were very good.

[telegramsam]

I've never understood the common obsession so many people have with the sex lives of other people. If it doesn't involve you, why should you even give a fuck? Provided everybody's an adult and consenting, it's nobody else's business. And I say this as someone who is functionally asexual.

At the end of the day, it's all just the pettiest gossip...

[nanila]

It might be because they suspect those people are having more fun than they are, and being outraged is good cover for envy.

The sad thing is that unless getting outraged is your kink, those people probably are having more fun.

[telegramsam]

...I really don't get that either. Something that would be lots of fun to one person might be a nightmare to another. I would never go skydiving, for example, because I'd probably need to change my pants afterwards, but I don't think that means other people should not go skydiving if they want to.

The world would be a much nicer place, I think, if people learned to mind their own business and stop trying to control other people. It's a futile effort anyway, because in my experience people are going to do what they want to sooner or later no matter who says what...

[nanila]

I KNEW IT. They really are all sexbots designed to convert the heterosexuals to their wicked, wicked ways. Run! Run for the Hills of Heteronormativity, to the Sanctuary of Safe Stereotypes!

[ironed_orchid]

Oh yeah, I've had the bisexuality and fidelity are different creatures conversation with a few well meaning but clueless friends. But taking the time to talk to a stranger with any hope of convincing them, well, that's different.

[ankaret]

Me too. A friend of mine once stared at me and said 'But not practising?' when I told him I was bisexual once. I wish I'd thought at the time to tell him that the more I practice, the better it gets.

[ironed_orchid]

Once upon a time, I used to say that I was practicing monogamy, but hadn't quite perfected it yet.

[nanila]

That's true. Disagreement often engenders discomfort, so unless you already have established enough comfort to overcome that, or you're really good at being verbally witty, it's hard to have a conversation like that with an almost-stranger.

[sfred]

It's useful to be reminded sometimes that there are still lots of reasons for doing bisexual activism... but gaaaaah.
On not being that braver, bolder oneself - several times recently I've considered interrupting the people on the train on whom I've been eavesdropping to say, for example, "No, allowing puberty-delaying hormones to transgender teens isn't twisted, for these reasons...", and I've chickened out. You made a start by questioning her response at all!

[nanila]

Sometimes I forget that my online and work communities are so not representative of the population at large. :/

I guess it helped that I'm familiar with this person and could therefore say something because I was already involved in the conversation. It would be pretty difficult with complete strangers!

[springheel_jack]

He's a Lib Dem; of course he's going to get left.

[nanila]

You win Pun of the Week! Here is your reward: