Bisexual Awareness Month, Welcome Author Cat Grant!

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

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/cat.grant?ref=profile

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1912055.Cat_Grant

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.