Something in me really wants to explain all the background that goes with this joke. On some level I think either you’ll have had the correct set of experiences, or not, and that will be the dividing line.

Functionally it’s just a different way of saying “How do you know if someone is vegan? Don’t worry, they’ll tell you.”

When I was in college if a man told you he was Bi that meant he was gay and just hadn’t accepted it, or was trying to hedge his bets because it was Kansas in the 90s, where that was still maybe not a thing you wanted to just cop to in mixed company. If a girl said she was Bi it was because she realized that deep down she was fundamentally uninteresting, and told everyone she was Bi in an attempt to substitute sexuality for personality.

Every bisexual man I ever met in those years is now just gay, and every bisexual woman married a man and never showed any interest in another woman, even after their divorces. This is not to say that bisexuals don’t exist, just that people sometimes just say things that are not exactly as true as they might be. That’s also not to say that some of those people weren’t legitimately bisexual. It’s just that the outcomes don’t obviously support the claims. None of this stuff is as simple as we want to make it.

You can just say whatever shit you want about your sexuality and no reasonable person is going to force you to prove it. Nor should anyone be expected to. At the same time, performative actions are a real thing humans like to do for myriad reasons. At the end of the day, fuck it all. Who cares? It’s just a stupid comic written by some dipshit. Feel however you want. I’m not the arbiter of your feelings.

But if I was… You’d better watch out! :D

Anyway, I thought it was funny, and that’s the most important thing.

The weather is making my sense of time feel even more untethered than usual, which is really a trick considering what it’s like normally. I’ve spent most of today thinking it was Thursday or maybe Sunday and kept having to ground myself back in the reality of my chronologic placement. Still, I got it sorted and have the page ready for viewing. Everything has worked out. I hope you enjoy it and that it will spur your return here on Friday, after a pleasant time between. Until then, remember the support links above the post, and don’t hold your supers until after you’re in too deep.

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Ed I think you may have made a slight mistake.

I think that was more of a “Hey wait a mi- no, no, he’s got a point” move.

That’s what I was thinking.

Or she was about to point out that she’s bi and hasn’t said anything about it but, by making that point, he’d probably see her as “never shut[ting] up about it”.

I’d have to go back and binge, but I thought she had mentioned to Ed at least once that she has dated girls.

That still makes Ed’s comment a mistake, because he’s either bating her (to see if she will prove his point), or he forgot that she said she’s bi. Either way, he’ll need to think fast to talk his way out of the doghouse.

In fairness, as far as he understands she’s already divulged her orientation/a>. He’s not one for shades of grey, even with what she said about gal parts a little before that.

In fairness, as far as he understands she’s already divulged her orientation. He’s not one for shades of grey, even with what she said about gal parts a little before that.

my first reception of her reaction was “reflexive response to counter a broad brush stroke statement, faced by the reality of what she has seen, which confirms his assertion”

Keep in mind she also knows Ed to a fair degree, she knows he’s not bigoted or close minded.
And i appreciate that she checks herself (i’ve known people who would have gotten up on a soap box over that and ripped Ed apart, regardless of the real experiences widely supporting his statement.)

my trailing reception was: “im gonna tell him im bi.. wait should i?”

i hold to the first because it made me laugh, and after i read your explanation i feel it confirms. I have always admired your depth in writing. The realness and honesty while still making me laugh, of Between Failures is why this comic is the one i have always returned to.

My experiences with sexual orientation and gender, both my own and with people that I know, has lead me to believe that one’s labels are a journey. What they tell you about themselves is true right now, and may become different later. Trying to hold onto one label is futile, trying to figure out why someone wears a label is pointless, and treating people like their labels won’t change is doing them a disservice.

Take their gender/orientation/whatever as it comes, as they tell you, and just let it be as it is and as it will be.

Yes, exactly. The worst thing you can do when someone decides to tell you about a label they’ve discovered or decided on for themselves, is to tell them that they’re wrong. They may later discover that they are wrong! But it’s not your place to tell them, because you cannot know the intricacies that go into how a person identifies. All you’ve done is proven yourself to be someone who cannot be trusted with that kind of vulnerability.

As a bi man in a long term hetero realtionship, being straight passing doesnt mean Im not bi. I love your comic and am a long time reader but I have to disagree with your anecdotal perception that the people who said they were bi said it for a “myriad of reasons” other than the truth. We put ourselves at risk to our health, safety and security by openly making those claims and imo you should believe them regardless. Sure theres always the small percentage of people who abuse the system, but thats no reason to discount the very real majority of people who are taking a stance

Came here to say this

Makes me think of that video where an interviewer was badgering David Bowie about his bisexuality.

Bowie: “I’m bisexual.”

Interviewer: “But are you really?”

Loop that about 6 times and that was the video.

My guess is there a lot of bisexual men who ended up in a gay relationship and just started saying they were gay because of biphobia. Probably got real exhausting telling people that “Yes I do like men and women. No I’m not secretly gay. No I don’t want a threesome with you and your boyfriend.” Or comforting a partner who thinks your going to leave them for a member of the opposite sex. There’s a lot of hate for bisexual men in the gay community.

And they are so fucking catty about it.

I’ve gotten a lot of shit in my life because of the kind of thinking Ed and some others have. Now, I’ll cop in a heartbeat to the fact that it’s not NEARLY as much as bisexual men get, but it’s still pretty annoying to have people I barely know CORRECT me on my own damn sexuality. As a result, I have gotten a little vocal about it just so that I stop getting an awkward interrogation about what particular arrangement of genitals I like because my ex comes up in passing and people realize my current partner is a different gender.

And if that sounds like exaggerating, I truly wish it was but I’ve had at least half a dozen encounters in my PROFESSIONAL life over the year because something came up in passing.

I guess the point I’m getting at here is bisexuals are often loud and annoying about it for a reason, and that reason is, well, we have to be louder than the people deciding for us.

I love her reaction lol. I’ve not had many experiences with bi people, but the few I have ended up being gay or straight later on. Like an uncollapsed quantum wavelength, they couldn’t decide until they were observed directly lol

“Ended up gay or straight” or “wound up in a steady monogamous relationship?” Because those are not the same thing, and I’ve known quite a few of the latter.

Precisely what I was going to say. Bisexual just means that you can feel attraction to both men and women, not necessarily that you’re constantly pursuing both. It’s kinda silly, since no one thinks someone is asexual just because they’re not dating anyone or actively seeking a partner right now. No one thinks married (or otherwise monogamous) people magically stop feeling attraction to others just because they choose not to act on those attractions.

Now see, I read the joke as ‘Nina neatly refutes Ed’s assertion by shutting up about being bi’.

This is why as a Bi man I don’t mention it to anyone outside my inner circle, tired of being shoehorned into being gay. There’s a reason we’re known as the most hated orientation. God forbid someone understands the appeal of either sex. I think a lot of misconceptions about being bi is related to the fact that the majority of people are monogamous so they’re going to end up batting for one team or the other if you see what I mean.

You’ve commented before. I can see your IP address.

As I was told in college: “whether you’re gay or straight, either way you’re automatically eliminating half of the human race as a potential partner.”

“Bisexuality immediately doubles your chances for a date on Saturday night.”
? Woody Allen

— Woody Allen

He definitely said that.

Sounded funny the first time I heard it, fut it kinda fell apart once I thought about it a little more. That assumes that the number of same-sex and opposite sex partners available is the same, so I doubt if it’s true for most people. (Apologies for the nitpicking, I have been known to over-think things.)

“Ha ha, bi people don’t actually exist, am I right fellas?”

Not cool, man.

Man some people got half way through that second paragraph and started typing.

The fucking irony of it all is pretty amusing, since I know where the story is going. Not to mention all the things about me people think they know. Someone who flies off the handle in the middle of a story isn’t worth the time to argue with. I’m going to tell my stories my way, or not at all. If people choose to assign beliefs to me I don’t have I just don’t care anymore.

This is a bit of a tangent, but I’ve always felt a better system for identifying/labelling sexual orientation would be relative to the sex(es) you are attracted to rather than relative to your own gender (and honestly, I feel like bringing gender into it only muddies things further for no reason). Like, there are two sets of anatomy, and you are either attracted to one, the other, or both, and yeah, some people will have some features from both sets and how firmly a person needs to fit one or the other to be attractive to an individual will vary on some kind of spectrum just like how there’s variance in what features an individual finds attractive in general (like fat, tall, skinny, short, long hair, short hair, etc), but broadly speaking that’s how it is, you’re attracted to one, the other, or both. So having a term for “attracted to male anatomy”, like masc-sexual or something, a term for “attracted to female anatomy”, like femme-sexual or something, and a term for “attracted to both male and female anatomies”, like bisexual or something, would make the most sense, IMO, rather than the current heterosexual, homosexual, and bisexual system of nomencalture.

Like, yeah it makes sense on some level to describe *relationships* as heterosexual or homosexual, but it just seems weird to me that a man who likes men and a woman who likes men have different terms for describing which sex they like, while a man who likes men and a woman who likes woman are both homosexual. This gets muddied further when you consider transgender people, particularly before they have the epiphany (or whatever the term for when they realize they are trans is), so like, someone is born in a male body and they are only attracted to male anatomy so for a long time they identify as homosexual, but then they realize they are actually a woman and not a man, but they are still only attracted to male anatomy, so are they actually heterosexual? Were they wrong before they realized their gender identity when they identified as homosexual, or did it change when they realized they were a woman, or are they still homosexual until they transition (I assume probably not the last one, it just felt incomplete not to list it as a technical option even if it’s probably wrong)? And this gender identity stuff is also why there’s somehow both pansexual and bisexual when both are attracted to both sets of anatomy, but the pansexual was (so I’ve been told by pan people) coined to include non-binary gender identities, but I still fail to see what gender identity has to do with it, since I assume there isn’t an actual distinction along the lines of a bisexual person is somehow not attracted to trans or nonbinary people, especially if they don’t know someone is trans or nonbinary, but it’s not like they suddenly have a third set of anatomy that’s neither male nor female, even mid-transition when they have some features of male anatomy and some features of female anatomy (like post hormone replacement but pre-operation), that’s not neither, that’s both, which I feel the prefix “bi-” includes by default.

Honestly, I feel a significant chunk of these issues are a result of initially categorizing homosexual people based on the relationship rather than personal attraction and it just sort of grew from there as more was learned and thus more labels coined, because I doubt the term heterosexual existed back when society didn’t acknowledge an alternative existed other than to criminalize/demonize it, as there would be no need for such a term in the first place of alternatives didn’t exist. I just kinda wish that as LGBT stuff became more commonly accepted in our society, an entirely new, better nomenclature would have arisen instead of just continuing to expand on the existing one, I can’t help but feel like at least some of the struggle for acceptance might have gone easier, but that might just be because the current system of nomenclature makes my brain itch for how illsuited it is and that actually has no impact on how society at large views anybody.

Ok at the risk of replying to ragebait this is transphobic nonsense
(maybe not intentionally but still)
Straight trans women and gay men do not act the same or look the same. Straight trans men and sapphic women do not act the same or look the same. People are, by and large, not actually attracted to genitalia. You can’t see peoples crotch most of the time, how would anybody hook up with people at bars if that were the case?
Your proposed scheme is directly claiming that trans people are not man/women enough for people to date them as a man/woman. Or that they aren’t until they have bottom surgery, which is still not great . While I don’t disagree that the terms we have break down when talking about non-binary people, I would argue that by the time that you realize that non-binary you would start describing your relationships as “queer” and leave it at that.
If we were to update our terms, we would need to do it in such a way that was inclusive of trans people, not this. Or preferably just not need terms for this stuff, have whoever fucking or dating whoever be implied.
(and while I’m in a nitpicking mood, sometimes there are ace people who are attracted to neither)
I appreciate the enthusiasm, just, maybe don’t throw your fellow queers under the bus next time, please?

I agree that genitals aren’t the be-all and end-all, but they certainly play a role. We’ve all heard tragic stories of transwomen or just effeminate men who were assaulted or killed when a partner found out about their plumbing.
But beyond there, there are many aspects of gender expression that have little to do with anatomy. I’m talking about things such as the way people dress, how they cut their hair, what kind of jewelry and cosmetics (if any) they choose to wear or even how they interact with others. This can get complicated really quick, since the signals and their association with masculinity or femininity have varied so much in different times and places, as has how much deviation from the norm is acceptable. Some people may prefer partners who adhere strongly to gender norms, while others may be actively attracted to those who challenge them.

I believe Tailsteak (the bi dude behind the concluded comic Leftover Soup) used the terms ‘androsexual’ and ‘gynosexual’ in just such a manner. It does make quite a lot of sense.

I can think of several bi people I’ve known, who have had multi-month (often multi-year) relationships with both men and women. They’ve all been really low-key about it, like I knew them for weeks or months before it came up in relevant conversation.

Yes, it turns out that on a planet with 8 billion some odd people there’s a remarkable potential for diverse experiences, with diverse people.

I disagree with the premise that bisexuality is performative, but I can’t deny that this is funny.

That isn’t the premise. It’s not even the premise of the blog. People are coming down here to tell on their lack of reading comprehension.

I can only talk about my own experience, but there are people who are aggressively straight until a moment forces them to realise that they’re not.
From what Ed’s said, it seems like Steph believed she was straight until Jess did something that made her realise “Hold on a moment, that’s hot.”

But once someone realises they’re Bi, they will not shut up about it.

I feel like I’ve lost the thread with the last installment of the comic. Previous strip:

Ed: I always thought Jess liked Steph.
Nina: Apparently she did if you caught her making out with her.

This one:

Nina: Ed, did you ever think Steph liked Jess?
Ed: No, Steph wasn’t into girls, even though I caught her making out with Jess.

???

(It’s not like Jess jumped her or something. That flashback pic is plainly showing the interruption of a mutual action, and Steph doesn’t even look guilty about it. “Ooh, you caught me, I’m so baaad.”)

You’ve never heard of gay chicken? Plus that one image doesn’t read that way to me, so maybe you’re read is wrong.
Nina clarified the like like thing the way even a third grader would understand. Maybe you need to take a run at this a few times.

I always tell people “i don’t give a fuck about who or how you want to fuck. Everyone on Earth is trying to catch a nut, and that’s the least interesting thing about you. Who’s your favorite Smurf? What’s your favorite dinosaur? That’s the interesting shit. That tells me who you are.”

Job over. See yall on the chats.

Hmm
I’m trying to decide to what degree this is in poor taste
Between failures is not a stranger to sexuality. Hell, *Carol* has described herself as bi before. So the comic itself isn’t going to go in a “those wacky bisexuals, what weirdos” direction. It’s obviously exploring the subject, and this page is part of it. This is what Ed thinks, not what Nina necessarily thinks and definitely not what the author necessarily thinks
and at the same time this joke was in poor taste when it was about veganism, and is in even poorer taste when made about a sexual minority among sexual minorities. One which this comic in many other respects seems to cater to (Given that you’ve drawn full pinup pages of both Jess and Thomas)
Not to mention the blog, which makes all too common mistake that straight or gay passing Bi folk aren’t bi, before saying “maybe some of them aren’t lieing” which like. Come on. You obviously get it given the rest of the post so this is kinda rude
I’ll take it, I think, given that next page is obviously going to be continuing to talk about what Steph’s deal is, but this is exactly why we have the word microagression and I kind of wish the intended joke wasn’t that the person who knows better secretly agrees

… whoops I forgot I was replying to a comment I’m so sorry

To make up for it, my vote is for Dopey and those fake dinosaurs from Jurrasic park respectively. Because I feel not being aware of your surroundings and am a fan of making shit up

Love the Nathan Fillion “about to say something” meme at the end there. That’s a personal favorite of mine.

Bi erasure has become a thing because of attitudes like this. They’re not always welcome in the gay community for complex reasons. It ends up being much easier to just keep it to yourself unless it becomes relevant/comfortable to share. Especially when the surrounding community with all your family isn’t receptive to anything but straight relationships.

Not knocking the comic, I can see why Ed thinks that. And I think Nina does too, even if she doesn’t agree, given her reaction.

I’m in a similar sexuality spot with Nina, other girls seem amazing, and experimented, but it just doesn’t do it for me. At least I tried and can say that with certainty. Experience and fantasy are not the same, lol

‘The squeeky wheel gets the grease’ but man those were some epic squeeks.

By which I mean not every bi person is vocal about it, but those who are vocal tend to be VERY vocal.
Same with being vegan, wiccan, poly, and a great many other things which have a very vocal minority.

They do live in Kansas xD as open minded as anyone may be, it’s hard to really understand a community you don’t often interact with.

Blah blah blah, bisexuality blah blah Hey Jackie, since I don’t know what the hell you look like, you just look like an Older Reggie in my head since that’s your current avatar. And I just think that’s cute. Have a nice night! Can’t wait to see the next page!

I look like an angry potato with male pattern baldness. Reggie is just a representation of the endless hatred I have in my heart.

Maybe I go for unconventional women, or ones more likely to keep their personal lives somewhat private, but of, let’s say 20 I’ve dated where we had that discussion, about 15% had 0 interest in women, and the rest were split fairly evenly between already messed around with other girls, or were fine with adding a girl if the occasion arises, and they had sometimes had 1 or 2 in mind.
Someone saying outright that they were bi on a first date might be a red flag for oversharing, and I wouldn’t want my business told around town, but I suppose that depends on context, and how you feel about monogamy.
That seems to be the main concern, whether monogamy means anything to a bi person, and the answer is usually yes.

2775 Bi The Way.

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