Home | Media | Press | More Than 900 Gathered With Partners And Friends At Harvard To Promote And Enjoy Acceptance.
Bisexuals Meet To Find Their Place In The Sun More Than 900 Gathered With Partners And Friends At Harvard To Promote And Enjoy Acceptance.
By Julia M. Klein, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
Posted: April 12, 1998
Article Link
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — From as far away as Australia, India and Argentina, hundreds of bisexuals, along with their partners, relatives and friends, gathered here last weekend in majestic Harvard Yard to celebrate their sexual identity.
The Fifth International Conference on Bisexuality - whose theme was ``One World, Many Faces: Unity and Diversity in Bi Communities, Queer Communities, and the World'' - often attained the boisterousness of a pep rally.
But the more than 900 participants also engaged in serious discussions of everything from transsexualism and S/M to the fundamentals of lobbying and the persistence of discrimination.
``In our lives, usually we are a hidden minority,'' said Marcella Bucknam, a national coordinator for the movement's political arm, BiNet USA, who lives in Omaha, Neb. ``It's fairly rare to be in a place where you can truly be around people who have similar emotions and values . . . There's a certain level of acceptance . . . in this room that we rarely find.''
Arguably, though, acceptance is increasing, at least in this country. While millions of Americans - reliable statistics are unavailable - have had sex with both men and women, relatively few identify as bisexual.
But with celebrities such as Madonna leading the way, bisexuality is once again at risk of becoming ``chic,'' especially among young people. One conference workshop even bore the title, ``'70s `Bisexual Chic' Revisited: A Theoretical Social Science of Bi-wannabe-ism in the '90s.''
Still, much about bisexuality remains threatening, to both the gay and straight communities. ``Bisexuals are basically hated on both sides of the fence,'' Bucknam says, ``because we break the rules. We don't fit comfortably in people's boxes.''
Bisexuals as a group challenge the so-called essentialist view of sexuality, which sees sexual orientation as innate and unchanging: Too many bisexuals have seen their own attractions, behavior and identity fluctuate over time. Bisexual activists also dispute the privileging of monogamy over other kinds of relationships. Workshops on polyamory - a recent coinage denoting a variety of nonmonogamous sexual arrangements - were among the conference's most popular.
Also on display at the conference were the movement's recent political gains, including new allies from across the political and sexual spectrum.
The conference's keynoters included Elias Farajaje-Jones, a Howard University Divinity School professor who calls himself a ``queer-identified bisexual man,'' and Kerry Lobel, executive director of the Washington-based National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Washington-based transgender activist Jessica Xavier shared the podium with such bi luminaries as Lani Ka'ahumanu and Loraine Hutchins, editors of the 1991 classic Bi Any Other Name.
While its participants were diverse, the conference generally signaled the ascendancy of liberationist over assimilationist models of how bisexuals should conduct themselves in the world.
Lobel, who last year won the inclusion of bisexuals and transgendered people in the task force's mission statement, called on the assemblage not to regard conformity as the price of acceptance. ``I believe that we must be a transformational movement'' that ``challenges conventional thinking,'' she said. ``The true test of democracy is how it embraces those who look, act and think differently . . .
``Here's the reality: Not all of us want to be like everyone else,'' she said. ``Not everyone can be like everyone else. And we make a serious mistake when we try to create a dress code for civil rights.''
An examination of the gathering revealed just what Lobel meant. The mostly ordinary-looking, jeans-clad crowd included at least one woman growing a beard and several men wearing stockings and skirts, as well as others whose gender identities were impossible to determine.
Just as bisexuals have challenged prevailing sexual ideologies, transgender activists have begun questioning traditional notions about gender. Conference workshops such as ``The Transgender Community: Myth and Reality'' and ``Components of Sexual Orientation and Gender'' sought to dispel the confusion - or, in the best tradition of postmodernist inquiry, to multiply it.
At one point, T. Aaron Hans, an FTM (female-to-male) transgender activist from Boulder, Colo., asked workshop leader Nancy Nangeroni, an MTF, ``What is it when the two of us have sex?''
``Call that fun,'' quipped Nangeroni.
``Let's talk later,'' Hans shot back.
* In keeping with the bent of its organizers, the conference offered a profusion of choices: more than 140 workshops in 21 areas, including activism, bisexual history, spirituality and personal growth. A film workshop called ``Reel Bisexuals'' supplied bisexual readings of such classics as The Wizard of Oz and Casablanca, while another on recent organizing efforts brought a tearful account by one woman of the isolation of rural bisexuals.
Several workshops explored the issues of non-bi partners and families, and Pepper Greene, a Boston-based artist and former Philadelphian, led one of them, called ``Bi Spice.''
A slim, silver-haired woman with gentle blue eyes, Greene, 55, is straight and monogamous. But she has been married for 14 years to Alan Hamilton, who told her he was bisexual when they first met.
It didn't matter, she believed. He was ``a kindred spirit, with bright blue eyes and a billy-goat laugh,'' she says. ``What was important was that the marriage was the primary relationship, and we would meet each other's needs.
``It has been a challenge,'' she adds.
Hamilton, 44, a computer specialist, promised Greene that he wouldn't see other women. But he is currently involved with two other bisexual men, Woody Glenn and, more recently, Pete Chvany, who are also involved with each other. ``Sometimes the three of us are together, and sometimes we're together as couples,'' Hamilton says. To avoid confusion, they usually stick to a prearranged schedule.
It was Greene who introduced Hamilton to Glenn, a social worker, about 12 years ago. But she says she had no idea how close they would become.
After moving into the apartment upstairs, Glenn, 48, ``was more and more there, and I was feeling more and more crowded,'' she says. ``There were occasional blowings-up,'' even though she and Glenn had initially been friends. ``And at one point, Woody said, `Pepper, I can't have you in my life anymore.' ''
Since then, even as Chvany, 34, entered the picture, Greene has begun spending more time with her husband - six nights of the week instead of three. The change was no accident. Thanks to therapy, she says, ``I learned how to negotiate and put my foot down, and say, `This is the only way it's going to work.' ''
And, Hamilton reports, ``It worked out well.''
Meanwhile, Greene and Glenn are working to repair their friendship, and she and Chvany have become friends. ``All four of us,'' says Chvany, ``remain committed to building a future for ourselves which honors and celebrates the best in all of us.''
Greene puts it this way: ``It's a livable situation. It's still not ideal.'' But she makes clear that she has no regrets about her marriage to Hamilton. ``Not a day,'' she says with a smile.
* Polyamorous relationships are by definition complex. Safer sex practices are usually a given. But scheduling can be a problem; so, obviously, can sexual jealousy. Ken Perna, who is straight, says he'd prefer that his wife, Emily, who is bisexual, not date other men. So far, she hasn't complied.
The Pernas, who live in Norristown, met in the gifted program at Wissahickon High School in Ambler. Both polyamorous, they have even been known to date the same woman. ``It can be interesting,'' says Emily, 33.
A designer-drafter for an engineering firm, she has pale skin and long, flowing dark hair, and is the more verbal of the two. At the moment, she is ``extremely heart-broken'' about the recent demise of an off-and-on 15-year romance with another man, but excited to be dating a new woman.
``I'm excited for her,'' interjects Ken over a vegetarian Indian lunch in Harvard Square. At 34, he is a stocky, bearded systems analyst with an easy laugh and a self-deprecating manner.
In fact, he says, ``I prefer that she not see other men because of jealousy, the ego thing. Women - I know I can't be a woman for her, so I get my head around it that way.''
Says Emily: ``I don't view it in terms of gender. I view it in terms of who you love. For me, he [Ken] fills a particular role in my life that only he can fill.''
Like many polyamorous couples, they say communication is key. Says Ken: ``We listen to each other. We're respectful to each other. That also breeds trust because I know she can be honest with me.
``I feel like our open relationship has always caused me to appreciate her more,'' he says. ``Knowing that she could go somewhere else . . . I wanted to be the best for her. It made me tell her I loved her every day.''
Still, he admits, if Emily were willing to be monogamous, ``I would stop seeing other women instantly.''
But he hasn't yet asked.
``If he did ask me to be monogamous - I really love him and put him first in my life - . . . I think I could do it for him,'' Emily reveals. ``I have a plan. If he asks me. . . .''
Ken starts with surprise. ``Like she was waiting for it! I didn't even know she was doing all this.''
She continues calmly: ``We could be on a desert island together and be totally happy. . . . But if he demanded monogamy from me, I think I would . . . develop a new network of friends. I can't hang out with people who are polyamorous bisexual - I need to get away from it if I'm going to pursue monogamy.''
* Polyamory was only one of the conference's hot-button topics.
Another interesting discussion concerned the bisexual label itself. Naomi Tucker, editor of Bisexual Politics: Theories, Queries, & Visions, remarked on the shift from a 1980s ``politics of visibility'' to a '90s postmodern ``moving-beyond-identity politics.'' Timothy D. Turner, 24, an activist from Orlando, Fla., observed that many campus queer organizations were rejecting specific labels in favor of a ``pansexual view'' based in the androgynous pop culture of the 1980s.
``I do see a certain dissolving of labels,'' said Robyn Ochs, who has taught courses on bisexual culture at Tufts University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. ``But it's not a simple dissolution. . . . I think what is changing . . . is the notion that people have to have a fixed identity that they need to claim by the time they're in college and . . . hold onto for the rest of their life.''
Also changing, she added, is ``the idea that if you have one label, you can't work with people who have a different label.''
Nevertheless, a session on ``What's a Nice Dyke Like Me Doing in a Relationship With a Man?'' suggested the persistence of prejudice against bisexuals within the lesbian community, Lobel's supportive presence notwithstanding. One mixed couple - she's bi, he's straight - spoke angrily about their cold reception from her lesbian coworkers.
If some lesbians are threatened by bisexual women, Bucknam - who moderated a workshop called ``We Are the People Your Parents Warned You About!'' - argues that straight men may be more worried by bisexual men.
``We have a patriarchal society . . . that elevates male sexual desires and perceptions. And therefore the fact that two women having sex is considered to be sexy to heterosexual males makes it OK,'' she says.
On the other hand, ``gay men threaten heterosexual men, and so do bisexual men - especially bisexual men, because there seems to be some transition that might really apply to their own lives.''
The slippery slope of gender and sexual identities was the subject of the workshop led by Nangeroni. ``If I'm not exactly a man or a woman,'' Nangeroni said she used to wonder, ``Who's going to be attracted to me?'' Now, she says, she has women, men and other transgendered people as lovers.
``I want to be a whole person,'' she said. ``I want to have the opportunity to experience as much as I can in this life.''
By Julia M. Klein, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
Posted: April 12, 1998
Article Link
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — From as far away as Australia, India and Argentina, hundreds of bisexuals, along with their partners, relatives and friends, gathered here last weekend in majestic Harvard Yard to celebrate their sexual identity.
The Fifth International Conference on Bisexuality - whose theme was ``One World, Many Faces: Unity and Diversity in Bi Communities, Queer Communities, and the World'' - often attained the boisterousness of a pep rally.
But the more than 900 participants also engaged in serious discussions of everything from transsexualism and S/M to the fundamentals of lobbying and the persistence of discrimination.
``In our lives, usually we are a hidden minority,'' said Marcella Bucknam, a national coordinator for the movement's political arm, BiNet USA, who lives in Omaha, Neb. ``It's fairly rare to be in a place where you can truly be around people who have similar emotions and values . . . There's a certain level of acceptance . . . in this room that we rarely find.''
Arguably, though, acceptance is increasing, at least in this country. While millions of Americans - reliable statistics are unavailable - have had sex with both men and women, relatively few identify as bisexual.
But with celebrities such as Madonna leading the way, bisexuality is once again at risk of becoming ``chic,'' especially among young people. One conference workshop even bore the title, ``'70s `Bisexual Chic' Revisited: A Theoretical Social Science of Bi-wannabe-ism in the '90s.''
Still, much about bisexuality remains threatening, to both the gay and straight communities. ``Bisexuals are basically hated on both sides of the fence,'' Bucknam says, ``because we break the rules. We don't fit comfortably in people's boxes.''
Bisexuals as a group challenge the so-called essentialist view of sexuality, which sees sexual orientation as innate and unchanging: Too many bisexuals have seen their own attractions, behavior and identity fluctuate over time. Bisexual activists also dispute the privileging of monogamy over other kinds of relationships. Workshops on polyamory - a recent coinage denoting a variety of nonmonogamous sexual arrangements - were among the conference's most popular.
Also on display at the conference were the movement's recent political gains, including new allies from across the political and sexual spectrum.
The conference's keynoters included Elias Farajaje-Jones, a Howard University Divinity School professor who calls himself a ``queer-identified bisexual man,'' and Kerry Lobel, executive director of the Washington-based National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Washington-based transgender activist Jessica Xavier shared the podium with such bi luminaries as Lani Ka'ahumanu and Loraine Hutchins, editors of the 1991 classic Bi Any Other Name.
While its participants were diverse, the conference generally signaled the ascendancy of liberationist over assimilationist models of how bisexuals should conduct themselves in the world.
Lobel, who last year won the inclusion of bisexuals and transgendered people in the task force's mission statement, called on the assemblage not to regard conformity as the price of acceptance. ``I believe that we must be a transformational movement'' that ``challenges conventional thinking,'' she said. ``The true test of democracy is how it embraces those who look, act and think differently . . .
``Here's the reality: Not all of us want to be like everyone else,'' she said. ``Not everyone can be like everyone else. And we make a serious mistake when we try to create a dress code for civil rights.''
An examination of the gathering revealed just what Lobel meant. The mostly ordinary-looking, jeans-clad crowd included at least one woman growing a beard and several men wearing stockings and skirts, as well as others whose gender identities were impossible to determine.
Just as bisexuals have challenged prevailing sexual ideologies, transgender activists have begun questioning traditional notions about gender. Conference workshops such as ``The Transgender Community: Myth and Reality'' and ``Components of Sexual Orientation and Gender'' sought to dispel the confusion - or, in the best tradition of postmodernist inquiry, to multiply it.
At one point, T. Aaron Hans, an FTM (female-to-male) transgender activist from Boulder, Colo., asked workshop leader Nancy Nangeroni, an MTF, ``What is it when the two of us have sex?''
``Call that fun,'' quipped Nangeroni.
``Let's talk later,'' Hans shot back.
* In keeping with the bent of its organizers, the conference offered a profusion of choices: more than 140 workshops in 21 areas, including activism, bisexual history, spirituality and personal growth. A film workshop called ``Reel Bisexuals'' supplied bisexual readings of such classics as The Wizard of Oz and Casablanca, while another on recent organizing efforts brought a tearful account by one woman of the isolation of rural bisexuals.
Several workshops explored the issues of non-bi partners and families, and Pepper Greene, a Boston-based artist and former Philadelphian, led one of them, called ``Bi Spice.''
A slim, silver-haired woman with gentle blue eyes, Greene, 55, is straight and monogamous. But she has been married for 14 years to Alan Hamilton, who told her he was bisexual when they first met.
It didn't matter, she believed. He was ``a kindred spirit, with bright blue eyes and a billy-goat laugh,'' she says. ``What was important was that the marriage was the primary relationship, and we would meet each other's needs.
``It has been a challenge,'' she adds.
Hamilton, 44, a computer specialist, promised Greene that he wouldn't see other women. But he is currently involved with two other bisexual men, Woody Glenn and, more recently, Pete Chvany, who are also involved with each other. ``Sometimes the three of us are together, and sometimes we're together as couples,'' Hamilton says. To avoid confusion, they usually stick to a prearranged schedule.
It was Greene who introduced Hamilton to Glenn, a social worker, about 12 years ago. But she says she had no idea how close they would become.
After moving into the apartment upstairs, Glenn, 48, ``was more and more there, and I was feeling more and more crowded,'' she says. ``There were occasional blowings-up,'' even though she and Glenn had initially been friends. ``And at one point, Woody said, `Pepper, I can't have you in my life anymore.' ''
Since then, even as Chvany, 34, entered the picture, Greene has begun spending more time with her husband - six nights of the week instead of three. The change was no accident. Thanks to therapy, she says, ``I learned how to negotiate and put my foot down, and say, `This is the only way it's going to work.' ''
And, Hamilton reports, ``It worked out well.''
Meanwhile, Greene and Glenn are working to repair their friendship, and she and Chvany have become friends. ``All four of us,'' says Chvany, ``remain committed to building a future for ourselves which honors and celebrates the best in all of us.''
Greene puts it this way: ``It's a livable situation. It's still not ideal.'' But she makes clear that she has no regrets about her marriage to Hamilton. ``Not a day,'' she says with a smile.
* Polyamorous relationships are by definition complex. Safer sex practices are usually a given. But scheduling can be a problem; so, obviously, can sexual jealousy. Ken Perna, who is straight, says he'd prefer that his wife, Emily, who is bisexual, not date other men. So far, she hasn't complied.
The Pernas, who live in Norristown, met in the gifted program at Wissahickon High School in Ambler. Both polyamorous, they have even been known to date the same woman. ``It can be interesting,'' says Emily, 33.
A designer-drafter for an engineering firm, she has pale skin and long, flowing dark hair, and is the more verbal of the two. At the moment, she is ``extremely heart-broken'' about the recent demise of an off-and-on 15-year romance with another man, but excited to be dating a new woman.
``I'm excited for her,'' interjects Ken over a vegetarian Indian lunch in Harvard Square. At 34, he is a stocky, bearded systems analyst with an easy laugh and a self-deprecating manner.
In fact, he says, ``I prefer that she not see other men because of jealousy, the ego thing. Women - I know I can't be a woman for her, so I get my head around it that way.''
Says Emily: ``I don't view it in terms of gender. I view it in terms of who you love. For me, he [Ken] fills a particular role in my life that only he can fill.''
Like many polyamorous couples, they say communication is key. Says Ken: ``We listen to each other. We're respectful to each other. That also breeds trust because I know she can be honest with me.
``I feel like our open relationship has always caused me to appreciate her more,'' he says. ``Knowing that she could go somewhere else . . . I wanted to be the best for her. It made me tell her I loved her every day.''
Still, he admits, if Emily were willing to be monogamous, ``I would stop seeing other women instantly.''
But he hasn't yet asked.
``If he did ask me to be monogamous - I really love him and put him first in my life - . . . I think I could do it for him,'' Emily reveals. ``I have a plan. If he asks me. . . .''
Ken starts with surprise. ``Like she was waiting for it! I didn't even know she was doing all this.''
She continues calmly: ``We could be on a desert island together and be totally happy. . . . But if he demanded monogamy from me, I think I would . . . develop a new network of friends. I can't hang out with people who are polyamorous bisexual - I need to get away from it if I'm going to pursue monogamy.''
* Polyamory was only one of the conference's hot-button topics.
Another interesting discussion concerned the bisexual label itself. Naomi Tucker, editor of Bisexual Politics: Theories, Queries, & Visions, remarked on the shift from a 1980s ``politics of visibility'' to a '90s postmodern ``moving-beyond-identity politics.'' Timothy D. Turner, 24, an activist from Orlando, Fla., observed that many campus queer organizations were rejecting specific labels in favor of a ``pansexual view'' based in the androgynous pop culture of the 1980s.
``I do see a certain dissolving of labels,'' said Robyn Ochs, who has taught courses on bisexual culture at Tufts University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. ``But it's not a simple dissolution. . . . I think what is changing . . . is the notion that people have to have a fixed identity that they need to claim by the time they're in college and . . . hold onto for the rest of their life.''
Also changing, she added, is ``the idea that if you have one label, you can't work with people who have a different label.''
Nevertheless, a session on ``What's a Nice Dyke Like Me Doing in a Relationship With a Man?'' suggested the persistence of prejudice against bisexuals within the lesbian community, Lobel's supportive presence notwithstanding. One mixed couple - she's bi, he's straight - spoke angrily about their cold reception from her lesbian coworkers.
If some lesbians are threatened by bisexual women, Bucknam - who moderated a workshop called ``We Are the People Your Parents Warned You About!'' - argues that straight men may be more worried by bisexual men.
``We have a patriarchal society . . . that elevates male sexual desires and perceptions. And therefore the fact that two women having sex is considered to be sexy to heterosexual males makes it OK,'' she says.
On the other hand, ``gay men threaten heterosexual men, and so do bisexual men - especially bisexual men, because there seems to be some transition that might really apply to their own lives.''
The slippery slope of gender and sexual identities was the subject of the workshop led by Nangeroni. ``If I'm not exactly a man or a woman,'' Nangeroni said she used to wonder, ``Who's going to be attracted to me?'' Now, she says, she has women, men and other transgendered people as lovers.
``I want to be a whole person,'' she said. ``I want to have the opportunity to experience as much as I can in this life.''