#11: Hating on Katy Perry

Not since Tila Tequila (#3) has a celebrity been worthy of such scorn. Katy Perry is the hot new pop tart who croons that godawful mess, “I Kissed a Girl”. Bisexuals everywhere remember Jill Sobule’s 1995 ballad of the same name, which included the sweet lyrics, “And we laughed at the world” and the refreshing, “I kissed a girl / Won’t change the world / But I’m so glad”. It was a song about a foray into bisexuality that we could sing along to and be proud of.

And then came Katy Perry. Taking her fashion cue from 1960s soul throwback Amy Winehouse (guilty pleasure of bisexuals everywhere), Katy Perry purrs about kissing girls and a boyfriend so metrosexual it hurts on her new album. Countless blogs have been written about this song. Is it a demeaning exploitation of Girls Gone Wild gay-for-pay catered toward masculine fantasies of lesbians? With lyrics like “No I don’t even know your name / It doesn’t matter / You’re my experimental game”, Katy Perry is in the same league as tax-evading Joe Francis. She uses and dismisses an unknown cherry-Chapsticked woman in her quest for the social capital of a bisexual encounter. (”I hope my boyfriend doesn’t mind it”? Are you fucking kidding me?) Is it a fun romp exploring society increasing acceptance of non-hegemonic gender expressions? “Just human nature / It’s not what / Good girls do / Not how they should behave”. Possibly. But a better song would be “I Kissed a Girl (Fuck the Hierarchical Gender Binary)”. Now that I would listen to!

And let’s not talk about the music video. Katy Perry surrounded by lingerie-clad girls having a pillow fight. Did Joe Francis direct this video? Just to assure the straight folk everywhere, she wakes up safely in bed beside a dude, presumably the possibly slighted boyfriend (in Perryspeak, “bf”). Is this really want adventures in bisexuality looks like because damn, have I apparently been missing out. (In this blogger’s opinion, a far more enticing video is Dragonette’s “I Get Around”.)

There’s really nothing new that can be said her about her, other than the painfully obvious: bisexuals love to hate on this pop tart. Her pseudo-crooning pop drivel makes us want to go straight. (Shudder!) She reconfirms all those truly ridiculous bisexual stereotypes and embodies everything we’re sick of hearing about bisexuals. And this is spoken as a bisexual woman. Her anti-femme-boy dis “UR So Gay” would piss me off if I were a bisexual or gay man.

So, do us a favor, Katy Perry, and study up on Peaches’ “I U She”. Now there’s a song bisexuals can be proud of! (”I don’t have to make the choice / I like girls and I like boys”.) In the mean time, at least we can get our kicks hating the hell out of this British invasion wannabe. “I got so brave, drink in hand”? I think she just discovered the entire basis of the GLBTQQKIM movement. Hell, Stonewall started at a bar!

#10: Asses

Nipples, yawn. Thighs, so last year. We as a culture have grown tired of the same body parts airbrushed and repackaged back to us magazine after countless magazine. America is in need of a new body part to fetishize, and the mainstream is finally hopping on the right caboose, to unveil the wonders of a body part that bisexuals have been adoring for years: The Ass.

“The qualities that make the ass ‘beautiful’ and ‘well-formed’ are not fixed, as sexual aesthetics of the buttocks vary considerably from culture to culture, from one period of fashion to another” says Wikipedia. And as Salon.com and Gisele Bundchen have taught us – The Ass is the new Crack (#1).

It’s no great secret that bisexuals love them some ass. Let’s take a look at the obvious, shall we? While other erogenous parts are hopelessly gendered, the ass remains neutral, and the qualities that make it arousing can be applied to anyone with hind quarters. And, aside from having the second highest concentration of nerve endings (the first being the genitals, obvs.), the asshole is also the equal opportunity orifice; it evens the playing field of sexual conquest and exploits the heteronormative dichotomy of penetrator/penetratee.

“The derriere isn’t a body part as much as an embodiment of personality,” claims the June issue of Elle magazine in its six-page spread devoted to the visible posterior. Of course, they were trying to hock their new butt-hottening regimen, which includes creams, waxing, tanning and massages that “facilitate lymphatic drainage, causing the skin to plump, making dimpling less noticeable.” Nothing turns me on like talk of lymphatic drainage.

Despite Elle’s general ass-hattery, they do have a point. The term “ass” can be applied to many situations and characteristics of someone’s personality. A short list: a “tight ass” (stingy) “pain in the ass” (annoying), “hard ass” (difficult), “haul ass” (urgency), “kick one’s ass” or “open a can of whoop ass” (to beat to a pulp), “get some ass” (sex) or “asshole” (jerk). If you extend the slang terms of ass more broadly, you can create a whole lexical stew of meaning and association – caboose, rump, tail, booty, backside, anal, tush, and my favorite, bottom, which connotes everything from Shakespeare to sexual proclivities.

Let’s explore this tunnel a little further (zing!). The verb to spank is the only one specifically meant for physical discipline of a specific part of the body. The ass is THE target for punishment, as a child’s reprimand yes, but more widely as a form of sexual pleasure. To be spanked adds a psychological component to pleasure and few masochists are wont to turn down a good paddling, as it provides some much needed humiliation, and also sexual healing.

Lastly, you didn’t think you’d get away without a reference to the bis (or should I say bi-peds?) of the animal kingdom (#5), did you? In addition to allowing primates the ability to sit upright without difficulty, the ass plays a necessary role for female baboons in attracting their mates. They have red buttocks that “blush” in order to signal their scandalous intentions, which brings new meaning to the term booty call.

#9: Meeting People Online

Since the dawn of the internet, since a complex of integrated computer systems sprung from the skull of Al Gore, people have been using this mysterious force for the purpose of what people do best: fuck, I mean, meet. Many groups of people enjoy the wonders of the internet (also known as teh intarwebz if you read too many macros) for various purposes. It is hardly the sole domain of bisexuals. Some groups also use the internet to network, but none do it with the flair and moxie of bisexuals.

Back in the day, this form of social networking was seen as dangerous, antisocial, or just plain weird, but bisexuals everywhere laughed in the face of social convention (what’s new?) and set forth into this brave new world. In the early days of meeting people online, I remember Oprah doing a show on a woman who met someone she thought was a man online and proceeded to marry him, only to discover he was actually a woman. This put the fear of the internet into the hearts of many straight folk everywhere, but not bisexuals. Hell, bisexuals failed to see the negative in this situation. Gender-bending spouse? Sign us up!

Bisexuals are all over networking sites like MySpace and Facebook, but we can also be found looking for friends and sex partners (”gender unimportant”) on Craig’s List. The first two allow us to change our orientation and what we’re looking for with a click of a drop-down menu. The latter is a sea of endless possibilities involving combinations of M and W.  Whether looking for a new friend or the love of our lives, we can easily surf the ‘net without interrupting our search for unintentional porn (#7) or stories about gay sea urchins (#5), thus maximizing our multitasking (#8) super powers. When looking for that light of our lives, we turn to True and eHarmony. Heh, just kidding about that last one.

No discussion of bisexuals and meeting people online can be complete without mentioning the Mecca of all bisexualitydom: OKCupid. This is one place where straight people are in the minority. Such a networking website couldn’t be more bi-friendly. With the option to search for guys and girls who like our gender, we could spend months combing this site for new friends. (Er, next up on SBL: when everyone knows everyone on OKC and the hilarious, triumphant, tragic outcomes.)  Practically everyone on this site is bisexual, kinky, polyamorous, and trolling for new acquaintances. But the kinksters, poly folk, and trolls need to get their own damn Stuff ______ Like blogs. With all the quizzes, questions, and tests on OKC, we bisexuals can thoroughly stalk our soon-to-be new friends before we even message them. Are you an Outrageous Polydactyl Madonna? Great! I’m a Simpering Hedgehog!

We love to gchat and text our new friends. We love to meet them for a game of Scrabble or perhaps some nachos and a whiskey at some shitty Irish theme bar. We love to discuss our new friends with our old friends, who we probably also met online. We love exchanging emails and discussing each other’s profiles and profile pictures. We just love meeting people online.

We interrupt SBL to bring you…

…this video. Which bisexuals will LOVE.

#8: Multitasking

Popular belief has bisexuals running around dating anyone and everything: a bondage party with Sven on Monday, an L Word marathon with Alice on Tuesday. Lather, rinse, repeat. But honestly, what with our busy David Bowie-movie-watching schedule (#4), who has the time? This is why bisexuals are the best multitaskers you’ll ever meet. Not only can we combine our dates with Sven and Alice into one (#6), but we can Google (#2) directions to The Love Dungeon while on the phone with Chris, lining up our dates for next weekend.

This ability to multitask is not limited to dating life, however. G-Chat with a bisexual and you’ll never know that she’s having simultaneous G-versations with her boss, her mom, and her ex, all while making guacamole and watching Alias.

For this reason, bisexuals are unsurprisingly drawn to objects that represent multitasking at its finest. The skort?

While no self-respecting, Go Fug Yourself-reading bisexual would actually wear one, it’s pretty much the epitome of bi-purpose. Casual, but dressy! You can ride a bike in it, and then go to church! Or, whatever. There are many examples of items that allow you to maximize your efficiency: the spork, the belt that doubles as restraints, the TV/VCR combo. Bisexuals totally drool over the iPhone: you can email! Call people! Write novels! Look at YouPorn! What we really need, then, is a device that stops and rewinds time, thereby allowing us to be in two places at once, and, well, have our cock and eat it too. (Sorry.) Apple, get on it.

#7: Unintentional Porn

The pictorial equivalent of a Freudian slip, unintentional porn is a much lauded internet sensation and has been known to show up anywhere from children’s toys to sports outtakes to rock formations.

Bisexuals especially appreciate unintentional porn, not only for its double entendre and heteroflexibility (see Puns), but because it allows us the rare opportunity to express the dirty thoughts/blog comments/casserole recipes that we are thinking about anyway, often without the provocation of something as blatant as this:

The bisexual mind is always apt to exploit and call attention to sexual misunderstandings, whether they involve Hulk Hogan

or HO-HOs

This is partially because we like to poke fun at either/or politics, wherebi sexuality is treated as a conclusion rather than a narrative and where bisexuals only exist when wasted in bars or as Republican senators.  (I’m looking at you Larry Craig!)

Another reason we like unintentional porn is because bis are often accused of not having clear intentions, i.e. being indecisive (see Sandwiches). A fag I met at a bar once told me that bisexuals “just can’t make up their minds” and I said, “I don’t have a problem making up my mind. For instance, I think you’re an asshole.”

Besides, there’s a difference between having desire for multiple people and not wanting to eat Jimmy Johns everyday for the rest of your life. (At least I think there is). Whatever “confusion” bisexuals may have toward trivial things like whether to eat the apple danish or the Danish Apple Store salesclerk, I assure you it has nothing to do with lack of intentionality. Unlike this, for example:

#6: Sandwiches

Within a one mile radius of my apartment, there are at least three national chain stores and a handful of independent shops selling sandwiches. Any given day, I ask: do I want toasted (Quizno’s), fresh and crunchy (Subway), or soft and filled with avocado (Jimmy John’s)? There’s just something about the endless variety of what can happen between two slices of bread that bisexuals adore. You never have to munch on the same thing in the same way twice. Not to mention the religious epiphanies possible in your grilled cheese!

But lest this be derailed by exploring the merits of sprouts versus lettuce, multi-grain versus wheat, (to which the seasoned bisexual will reply, Don’t make me choose! I’ll have both!), there’s another kind of sandwich we like: the threesome. Given the possibilities for sandwiches, the sandwich satisfies the bisexual’s need to have the best of both worlds, have one’s Quizno’s and eat it, too.

Rare is the bisexual who has not been involved in a sandwich. The standard fare is one of one’s own gender, one of the opposite gender, but more exotic bisexuals also enjoy same-gender sandwiches and being the odd one out in the sandwich. For newly curious bisexuals, sandwiches are a safe way to explore bisexuality without making the commitment to be a card-carrying fan of Stuff Bisexuals Like. Sandwiches offer the possibility to try out new sex skills on someone of a gender you haven’t fucked yet, and the comfort of the guiding presence of someone already experienced in that. Think of it as a sex apprenticeship.

For more seasoned bisexuals, sandwiches are the perfect way to experiment. More than we already do. A Google (#2) search for threesome sex positions yields a wealth of possibilities for fun. (Once you turn your Safe Search off.) Three guys, three girls, two guys one girl, two girls one guy, basically three of anyone, and you get to access the depths of your creativity. Throw in some toys (strap-on, anyone?) and you’ll never get bored.

As much as we like sandwiches, we don’t like any and every sandwich. The internet is rife with straight couples trying to find their guest star. Any bisexual who openly identifies as such is target to their advances. Just because bisexuals like sandwiches does not mean we want you to ask us to be in yours. It’s considered in poor form to cold-proposition a bisexual for a sandwich. (Unless you see me on the street and want to buy me some Subway. To that I might just be open!) However, if we know you, find you attractive, and haven’t had our fill of your specific combination recently, we might just suggest it ourselves. We just ask you put on your favorite David Bowie (#4) album.

#5: Talking about bisexuality in animals to validate our identities

You’ve probably heard about Roy and Silo, the two male penguins from the Central Park Zoo in New York, whose gay canoodling caused quite a stir, a book deal (that was soon to be black listed), and an uproar on Fox News, who instituted a Code Orange: Terrorist Armageddon alert on the evening news. A few years later, however, Roy and Silo became Ex-Gays. They, thankfully, underwent Heterosexual Reconditioning at the Church of Latter-Day Penguins. At least that’s the reason noted on the press release. Word on the street is that Roy left Silo because he never replaced the toilet paper, and even when he did, he let the dangling square unroll from the bottom, which is definitely on our list of “Reasons to Stop Fucking Someone.”

In reality, Roy and Silo were not gay, but part of the 1,500 species of wild and captive animals that have been observed engaging in bisexual activity. As Scientific American Mind recently noted, “Many species seem to have ingrained homosexual tendencies that are a regular part of their society. That is, there are probably no strictly gay critters, just bisexual ones.”

“Animals don’t do sexual identity. They just do sex,” says sociologist Eric Anderson of the University of Bath in England. But you know who does do sexual identity, Eric? The writers of this blog! Since bisexuality is so often invalidated as a legitimate sexual identity, one of the ways we counter this silly argument is with the help of Mother Nature, who makes an incredible spinach quiche, by the way. You’ll often be able to spot the bisexual at dinner parties as the one cornering someone at the dip table with a lecture on the bonobo chimp or the mating habits of black swans.

“Did you know that bisexuality in animals serves as a peace keeping strategy? I was reading Bonobo: The Forgotten Ape at the gym recently and it is just amazing what bisexuality can do to ease social tensions…much like this awkward exchange we’re having now!”

Playing the bisexuality-in-animals card allows us the indulgence of using scientific evidence to sanction our self-esteem. It also makes us seem nerdy-smart, which we think will score us points with the strapping young lad or lady in the argyle sweater-vest. Plus, bisexuality is so common in the animal kingdom, we think talking about it frequently will confer the evolutionary advantages to people who think bisexuality doesn’t exist or that it’s a cop-out. Though, we’re not sure if comparing our sexuality to fruit flies or whiptail lizards is really going to spark the intellectual discussion we so desperately seek. But until it does, we will continue the important crusade of outing animals like Roy and Silo, who, while championed as gay heroes, were actually just a couple of sluts. I mean, bisexuals.

#4 David Bowie

A Googling (#2) for “David Bowie discography” helps us begin our quest for the undiscovered truth about why bisexuals love David “The Thin White Duke” Bowie. On the covers of his albums Mr. Bowie flaunts, juts, thrusts, glams, wigs, lounges and loafs in all his androgynous glory from 1965 to present (feel free to skip th mid-90s). Half of the 7,630,000 image results depict him as either Ziggy Stardust or The Man Who Sold the World. He obviously sold it so he’d have enough money to buy frocks, boots and lip gloss.

Bowie wrote the song, “All the Young Dudes” for Mott the Hoople, which was recently re-upped in fame because of it’s appearance in “Juno”. Allegedly the song is about rock n’ roll suicide, but the lyrics reveal more:

All the young dudes (hey you there with the glasses)
Carry the news (I want you)
Boogaloo dudes (I want you at the front)
Carry the news (now you all his friends)
All the young dudes (now you bring him down cause I want him)
Carry the news
Boogaloo dudes (I want him right here bring him come on)
Carry the news (bring him here you go)
All the young dudes (Ive wanted to do this for years)
Carry the news (there you go)
Boogaloo dudes (how do you feel)

Bowie’s a total Bi!! Don’t believe me? Here’s Mr. Bowie from a 1995 article in US Magazine, not long after a media bonanza was lit up by his first wife “outing him”. She reported finding him naked in bed with Mick Jagger one morning:

About 15 or 16 years ago, I got pretty tired of fending off questions about what I used to do with my [penis] in the early seventies. My suggestion for people with prurient interests is to go through the 30 or 40 bios on me and pick out the rumour of their choice.

See? Neither confirms nor denies! Which implies confirmation, as we all know.

The important part is not just that he is bisexual, hell being bisexual as a man is practically cosmopolitan these days. The point I’m making is that bisexuals love David Bowie unequivocally and not necessarily because of his musical prowess. He is married to Iman, the most outstandingly beautiful and fierce supermodel of the last 20 years, appeared in one of the best pop satires of the early 00’s, and was in the “Labyrinth”. More than all of that though is this:

The quest for the truth about why bis love Bowie will take more time; perhaps a four part series is in order? Hell, I’m going to need a manhattan and more pink eyeshadow for that.

#3: Hating on Tila Tequila

Model cum Actress cum Singer/Songwriter cum Fashion Designer (all terms as loosely defined as Tila Tequila’s asshole), this out and proud bisexual is a girl we love to hate. Not only because her sexuality can be summed up as “gay for pay,” but because she, like the incredibly talented Shaquille O’Neal, thinks that MySpace hits somehow equates to musical talent. A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila, which aired in 2007, was the first bisexual-themed reality dating show, “where sixteen straight men and sixteen lesbians competed for Tequila’s affections, the twist being that the contestants were not aware of her bisexuality until the end of the first episode.” It took the contestants an entire episode to figure it out because they thought they had, in fact, signed up for a foam party.

When she’s not spreading her badonkadonk around MTV and the interwebs, she’s advocating for the rights of the sexually repressed. As she told Us Magazine, Ms. Tequla claims she’s responsible for the legalization of gay marriage in California: “It is because of me — I definitely think [my show] has helped the movement. Before it came out, everyone was still a little apprehensive about [same sex relationships]. Then they realized, ‘Wow, everyone is really into this stuff, and it is fine.’ The next thing you know, [gay marriage] is legal.”

Like any number of the celebrititties that came before her, Tila’s crass self-exploitation for personal gain glorifies everything that’s wrong with the world and makes her a marketing genius. This is why we really hate her. Her self-published single, Fuck Ya Man, has been played 13 million times on MySpace. We recommend you not listen to it, lest your brain spontaneously fill with silicon.

One talent that has not yet been added to Ms. Tequila’s resume is that of Byronic Poet. This gem was lifted from her MySpace page. Can a book deal be far behind?

Thunderfuck my mouth is shut. Been a while, feel like a cunt.
Can’t wait for this drama to pass.
Oh the joy…..fuck you. My ass.
Live a lie.
Tell my mind.
Over soon. I can’t deny.
You will all soon see, the truth in my eyes.

Smile on my face, the loving embrace….but instead I’ll punch you in the face.
For a long time coming….I let you touch me….now that it’s over bitch….You better start running.
Pent up inside….telling these lies….this has gone too far…..the world will soon die.
Only 1 more day. To feel this way. Tomorrow I smile….brings another day!

Back to myself. Nobody else. Fuck all this bullshit. I’m back to myself. Yes. Thank the fuck God.

Thank the fuck God indeed. And thank YOU, Tila Tequila.