Please help me give a warm welcome to the incredibly talented Cat Grant, who is posting today as part of Bisexual Awareness Month. Thank you so much for taking part!
In
2005, the New York Times published a controversial article, which stated that
people who claimed to be bi were really “Gay,
Straight or Lying.”
(Interesting
article. Most of it’s pretty laughable now, but it’s a refreshing look at where
we stood on this issue only a few years ago.)
While
I appreciate the scientific quest for answers, I think this study got it all
wrong from the jump. Sure, show a guy a porno and he gets an erection – it’s an
automatic response. But falling in love? Choosing a partner? Building a life
together? You won’t see that happening in a lab.
Growing
up, I remember being horribly confused about my sexuality. I mean, David
Cassidy got me all hot and tingly down
there – and a few years later, so did Joan Jett. I’ve fantasized about
making out with Tori Amos for almost twenty years, but my latest rock star
crushes are both men: Jared Leto (who just won an Oscar for playing a
transgender woman) and Jonas Kaufmann, a rock star in the opera world.
The
upshot (aside from my taste in music improving over the years) – my poor
teenage hormones just couldn’t figure out what they wanted. Plus, I spent
twelve years in Catholic school. ‘Nuff said.
It took
a few years on the therapist’s couch before I realized that, given my
upbringing, being confused about my feelings was perfectly normal. And being
attracted to people of both sexes was perfectly normal too.
What
can we do to raise bisexual awareness? Well, obviously – come out. The tide
didn’t start turning for GLBT rights until straight people realized queers were
all around them. They’d been living and working with us for years. They’d given
birth to us. Raised us.
What
better way to influence hearts and minds than to say the one thing that I –
regrettably – never summoned up the courage to say before they passed: “Mom,
Dad… I’m bi.
“I
know what you must be thinking - and no, bisexual
doesn’t mean sex addict. I don’t want
to jump every person I meet. I’m just a girl who fell in love with another girl
when I was twenty-something, and a guy when I was thirty-something. A guy who
was my husband for twenty years.
“Naturally
you assumed I was straight. I never gave you any reason to think otherwise. But
I’m not straight. I never was. By remaining silent, I let you go on believing something
that wasn’t true, and I’m sorry.
“But
I can’t stay silent anymore. I’m bisexual. And I will not be erased.”
Cat
Grant lives by the sea in beautiful Monterey, California, with one persnickety
feline and way too many books and DVDs. When she’s not writing, you can usually
find her watching movies or TV (Supernatural and The Vampire Diaries are
among her favorite shows), singing along to her favorite band (30 Seconds to Mars), or fantasizing
about kinky sex with Michael Fassbender and/or Jared Leto.
Here’s
Cat’s various hideouts on the Internet:
Website:
http://catgrant.com
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/CatGrant2009
You
can contact her directly at: cat@catgrant.com
Subscribe
to her newsletter here.
For all the Courtland
fans clamoring for the next generation…
Cold and sick, Seth Thompson must
fight through a snowstorm to get home. Seth’s unconventional upbringing taught
him to always reach out to strangers in need, and Iranian engineering student Bilal
al-Mansoori is no exception. Being trapped together leads to an unexpected
mutual attraction—and a feverishly hot night under the covers.
But Bilal needs more than simply a rescue from the weather—he’s trapped
under lifetime of cultural pressures. His strict Muslim father and fellow
Iranian students have no clue about his inner torment. His attraction to
Seth isn’t a welcome discovery—instead he’s trapped between the existence he’s
always known and the prospect of living and loving openly for the first time in
his life.
1 comment:
Great post, I really appreciate and identify with it!!
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