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Season Finale! Bisexuality in Media, Asexuality, & More
1.8k Plays6 years ago
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Music by Ross Mintzer
Graphic Design by Kaitlin Weinman
Sound Engineering by Shuhan Lei
Edited by Moxie Peng
Produced by Moxie Peng, Matt Loomis, Alex Boyd, and Rob Cohen
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Transcript
Podcast Evolution and Audio Quality
00:00:00
Speaker
Hi, I'm Rob, and thanks for discovering Season 1 of Two Bye Guys. We hope you enjoy it. So in Season 1, we recorded everything in person. It was pre-pandemic, and we used professional sound booths. And as you'll hear, the audio quality is pretty great. But it was also very complicated and expensive. And when the pandemic hit, those booths became impossible.
Challenges of Remote Recording
00:00:23
Speaker
So in season two, we tried recording interviews locally while chatting on Zoom, which kind of worked. But the audio quality was spotty. Sometimes people made manual mistakes with the recording. It was a huge hassle for me to receive the files, convert the formats, compile the audio, edit by hand.
Zencaster's Impact on Podcast Quality
00:00:42
Speaker
I knew I needed a better solution if I was going to continue the podcast.
00:00:46
Speaker
And Zencaster was that solution. The thing that was most important to me, knowing how the process works, is that the audio gets recorded locally, not over the internet like Zoom does. When you get up to seasons three and four, you'll hear how good the audio quality is. It rivals what you're about to hear from season one, which was recorded in professional sound booths. And it's so much easier and cheaper. Everyone can record from home with whatever equipment they have, even just a laptop's built-in mic.
Benefits of Zencaster for Podcasters
00:01:15
Speaker
And then there's the editing and post-production. I used to have to go through every track manually, reducing background noise, mixing volumes and levels, making sure my guest and I were synced. Now Zencaster post-production takes care of all of that and delivers ready to upload files. So if you're thinking about starting your own podcast, I highly recommend Zencaster. It's easy, it's affordable, and it's very reliable, and the sound quality
Final Episode Introduction and Future Topics
00:01:40
Speaker
is great.
00:01:40
Speaker
And now if you go to zencaster.com slash pricing and enter promo code 2BUYGUYS, you'll get 30% off your first three months. That's z-e-n-c-a-s-t-r dot com slash pricing promo code 2BUYGUYS for 30% off your first three months. It's time to share your story with Zencaster.
00:02:07
Speaker
Welcome to Two Bye Guys. I'm Alex. And I'm Rob. Welcome to our final episode of season one. Yes. Season finale. Episode 10 of thousands, don't worry. Hopefully. We hope. Oh God, that scares me. Thousands. Oh my God. But yeah, there are thousands of things we could talk about, right? Yes, that is my point.
00:02:28
Speaker
And, you know, today we'll just hit on a few topics I think that both Rob and I wanted to hit on this season and we're gonna cram them in while we've
Discussion on Bisexuality and Representation
00:02:37
Speaker
got time here. And hopefully elaborate more in the future. Yeah, totally. The more you dig into fluid sexuality and masculinity and gender and intimacy and all these other things, the more you uncover and the more layers you peel back and it's very interesting and complicated stuff.
00:02:53
Speaker
It never ends. And it won't ever. In 10 years, there will be a whole nother field of conversations to be having, I'm sure. Oh my god, I wonder what we'll be talking about in 10 years. I don't know. We'll be 100% by at that point, right? The whole world will be? Yeah, totally. So we will be having it. This conversation will definitely be different. We'll have to teach our kids what straightness was. That will be nice.
00:03:15
Speaker
So like we said, we're going to do three topics. We're going to bring in a guest, actually, Eric Levin, to talk a little bit about bi men or men exploring sex with men while being in marriages and some challenges with that.
Exploration of the Asexual Spectrum
00:03:30
Speaker
We're also going to talk about some bi representation in the media. My very topic. That we've seen, yes, that Rob is very prepared for. I wouldn't say that. I'm just excited. Well, very qualified for anything. Qualified, excited.
00:03:41
Speaker
But yeah, I want to talk about some TV shows and maybe some other kinds of media that are exploring bisexuality and, you know, when that works and why and when that doesn't work so well. But for right now, we're going to touch on one of my favorite topics that I think has been a little overlooked in nine episodes so far. And it hits close to home as somebody who does identify with us. But we're going to talk about the asexuality spectrum as it compares and engages with the bi spectrum.
00:04:09
Speaker
And as somebody who I don't identify as ace, but I identify as demisexual and at times gray A, gray asexual. Cool. You know, this isn't really an area that I knew much about. I really only learned that asexuality is a thing and is a spectrum as I started entering the queer community and learning about my bisexuality.
00:04:28
Speaker
So, interestingly, they're tied in some ways, but I don't really understand the ways that they're tied. I don't fully understand the spectrum, so I'm curious to hear from you. And maybe let's start with, like, I know we discussed this briefly in our second episode, giving a sort of definition of asexuality, but let's sort of go back to that and start there, and then I'm curious, you know, where do you fall on this spectrum, and how is your identity connected to asexuality?
00:04:57
Speaker
I'm not at that extreme end of the spectrum, in other words. I'm not at that end of the spectrum, but I'm definitely in there, and it's a fluid nature to that spectrum, too. But yeah, to kind of quickly define what asexuality is, generally speaking, it's been understood to be a lack of sexual attraction to people. It has opened up to a much more nuanced understanding as time goes on, where we now can incorporate folks who
00:05:23
Speaker
experience demisexuality, for example, as I mentioned, and as I very much so identify with, where you need some kind of emotional attraction, romantic attraction, in order to kind of see that sexual attraction develop in
Personal Journeys with Asexuality
00:05:36
Speaker
yourself. There's also gray A, as I mentioned before. Gray A is really just, you're sort of asexual, but you're on the spectrum. You're kind of in there where you have less sexual attraction than is average than you are expected to in this world. But you still have some. Like, it's still a factor in your life.
00:05:53
Speaker
I don't know where I identify on this spectrum. I like sex and I feel pretty sexual in a lot of situations. But what's the difference between just feeling sexual in certain situations and not others versus actually identifying on this asexual spectrum?
00:06:12
Speaker
Well, and I think there's so much nuance and individuality to this conversation. I can really only speak for myself when I say that I enter spaces where there are objectively fit and conventionally attractive people, and I will not be attracted to any of them. It takes engagement. For me, demisexuality is the reason I identify as on the ace spectrum.
00:06:35
Speaker
You know, other folks, you know, maybe they've just found one or two individuals in their life that they find sexually attractive. And for them, it feels worth qualifying that as asexual. So to the latter part of your question, you were asking kind of about how this ace identity is related to my bi identity. And I think inherent in both actually is a lot of common struggle. And I think both are defying the binary.
00:07:01
Speaker
essentially. But in this day and age, we have a monosexual assumption of people, and it's that monosexual assumption that is being defied by both. Because implicit in monosexuality is that you're having sex with people and that you're experiencing sex in kind of a stereotypical way, a traditional way.
00:07:19
Speaker
people assume everyone to be sexual. So not even on both ends of that spectrum, but on everyone is assumed to be on one end of that spectrum. Yeah, completely. Kinsey came along and created a spectrum of sexuality that is now commonly understood, where being gay, homosexuality is not defying that anymore. And what's not understood yet is that sexuality spectrum, that asexuality spectrum from hypersexual to asexual, if you want to define it that way.
00:07:47
Speaker
is very erased. And I have identified myself as asexual for a brief amount of time, for about a year of my life I identified that way. Did you have to come out as asexual? Yeah, I mean, to some people, I never did a full coming out of that because I didn't know how. Nobody told me how you come out as asexual, basically. There's not many examples of that. No, not at all. And also, like, I think to some extent, because the extreme of asexuality is not as common as the spectrum that kind of leads up to it.
00:08:15
Speaker
Right. It's almost like if you came out as somewhere in that gray area in the middle, like relating that to coming out as bisexual, I would imagine people might have the reaction I sort of had at the beginning of this, or it's like, okay, like, so you're not very sexual, you're a little less, like, why is that important?
00:08:35
Speaker
Well, and I think, for example, most of my relationships are with men. So why did I need to come out as bi, right? If I was just going to go sleep with men. And easy answer there, because I will still sleep with women continuously. And because it's a part of who you are that you don't want to be erased and invisible. Exactly.
00:08:52
Speaker
But I also think that it's much more easily overlooked to this asexual spectrum because it's about something that isn't happening as much. By no means do I walk into a bar, walk into a date even necessarily coming out as that. I do make sure that's a core part of the conversation when I'm engaging in anything with
Societal Perceptions of Asexuality
00:09:12
Speaker
somebody. But I can also hook up and not ever mention that to somebody, for example. I say hook up because yes, I'm on the asexual spectrum. But I will still hook up.
00:09:21
Speaker
like it's not about an inability for anything, it's not about like an incapacity for it's just about a different experience that for example this leads to me going to it was like a jockstrap party technically but it was basically like a sex party the other day and
00:09:40
Speaker
Was so not into anything I was seeing like not one person except for the person I was with Was I into in the entire space? Like nothing was changing that that wasn't just like anxiety taking away from that that was just like this is not Like there's with only the physical there was just like nothing to grasp on to because nobody was talking Nobody was like there was no other connection happening other than the sexual and which is just based on how people look essentially, right? Yeah
00:10:10
Speaker
Well, and that's, yeah. Asexuality spectrum actually sort of highlights how reductive we look at relationships in many ways and how it's all about sex in terms of how it's discussed often. Exactly. Is asexuality like specifically about sexual intercourse or being turned on or like, cause you mentioned hooking up.
00:10:32
Speaker
Yeah, I think experiences can be different. For me personally, it does come down to literal, that attraction, that moment of attraction, where I can still have sex with somebody if I'm not that attracted to them. There can be other things that can turn me on in order to make that work, just logistically. But what I've found is I, in short, had situations where I'm very much having sex with somebody and entirely somewhere else mentally.
00:10:57
Speaker
which sounds like damaging to some folks and it sounds like you're dissociating because something is, but it's not necessarily that either for me personally. It's not on the bad, harmful side of the spectrum. It's just like a neutral attitude about it. You mentioned that some of the challenges between being bi and being on the A spectrum are similar. Is there overlap among those spectrums, like among the people that are involved or among the feelings or causes behind those identities? What's the overlap?
00:11:27
Speaker
because I'm bi, I'm just assumed to be hypersexual, like because that is the bi assumption. When I come out as bisexual, right, then somebody says like, oh, like how many women have you slept with or something or like threesome, right? Like all of those questions that we get, like they're so separated from my reality that
00:11:45
Speaker
It overwrites the fact that there are so many bi people who are on that ace spectrum too. Early on when I was kind of getting familiar with this part of myself, I was really confused if maybe I wasn't actually bi at all. Because what's the difference really between being attracted to any and all genders and don't genders? It was hazy in the moment.
00:12:08
Speaker
because all I knew is that my relationships with all genders were the same. I couldn't actually, in the moment, necessarily decide what quality of attraction was happening. Right, or quantifying it. Yeah, exactly. And that's why it became increasingly important for me to identify as a gray ape. Because of that confusion and the fact that sex wasn't the predominant focus, but also I wasn't a heavily romantic person either, I just knew that there was something holding me back from having relationships like everybody else.
00:12:38
Speaker
Is the romantic spectrum different than sexuality? Like, I know there's aromantic people, too. I mean, not to generalize, but do asexual people still want relationships and just not sex? Or do some just want to be alone?
00:12:52
Speaker
Yeah, well, and I think all of the above exists, right? Like I know a lot of ace folks who are looking for relationships purely romantic or which maybe they have like more minimal amount of sex in, right? Like whatever is comfortable for those folks. But there are ace folks who have romantic relationships and therefore are not aromantic at all. They're also asexual and aromantic folks, like people who just don't have relationships in that way with anybody.
00:13:17
Speaker
And then there are folks who are aromantic, but not asexual, which I think actually we're the most used to. People who don't want romance and just want sex. And you see that a lot with people looking for anonymous sex, which is out there, which is a known thing in the world and more visible. Yeah, you're right. Yeah. Do you watch BoJack Horseman? I don't.
00:13:38
Speaker
Oh my goodness. Well, we'll get to the bisexuality in media section in a moment, but one of the characters, Todd, voiced by Aaron Paul, identifies as asexual in the show. It's the only show that I have seen where somebody explicitly identifies as asexual. I think I'm asexual.
00:14:01
Speaker
Asexual, what? Dynamo? Deviant? Harassment lawsuit waiting to happen? No, asexual, not sexual. Oh. I'm sure you think that's weird. Are you kidding? That's amazing. Sometimes I wish I was asexual. Maybe then I wouldn't have a strain of herpes. You have multiple strains. Yeah, I know I have multiple strains, but the joke only works with the A. It actually feels nice to finally say it out loud. I am an asexual person. I am asexual. That's great.
00:14:29
Speaker
And it's not just a one-off thing. It's actually built into the storylines. And there's a whole storyline about him creating an asexual dating app.
Need for Asexual Visibility
00:14:39
Speaker
And what was interesting about that, and instructive, I think, was that people assume asexual people don't want to have relationships and don't want to date.
00:14:48
Speaker
And this show pushed back against that and showed that this character wanted connections and wanted romantic connections and emotional connections, but just was not interested in sex with that person.
00:15:00
Speaker
Yeah. What you're capturing is a very similar struggle to the bi struggle. We're both getting so little coverage that we're getting pushed into boxes that are extreme. Yeah. We do need more visibility for all this stuff, bisexuality, but asexuality even more so because it is incredibly invisible.
Eric Levin on Bisexuality in Marriages
00:15:18
Speaker
Yeah. And also harder to understand right now. Well, hopefully you have aided people's understanding in this moment, and we will continue this discussion hopefully next season. Yeah.
00:15:37
Speaker
We're going to talk about another topic now, which is married guys who may be exploring bisexuality. And we are joined by Eric Levin. He is a GLAAD award-winning documentary filmmaker, formerly of video producer at Vice. He produced a documentary about Truvada and its impact on gay men called Truvada Revolution for Vice Media.
00:16:00
Speaker
Most recently, he made an LGBTQ history documentary called Stanley Stellar Here for This Reason, which premiered at Tribeca and is currently live on Huffington Post. He's working on a project that's about this topic we're going to discuss, so welcome, Eric.
00:16:32
Speaker
Sure. I identify as a 38-year-old gay male, he, him, and been living in New York City for 15 years. And yeah, I'm embarking on my next biggest project. I found your podcast and reached out, and I thought that we might make for a great conversation.
00:16:39
Speaker
Thank you for having me. It's really good to be here.
00:16:51
Speaker
Cool. Awesome. So the project is in like early development, I guess, right? That's right. I'm just assembling all the pieces to get certain things in order for this to become hopefully a full scale documentary about the topic of men who are married to women who are having sex with men and how the culture and stigma of homosexuality and bisexuality promote an inflexibility within male sexuality.
00:17:15
Speaker
Very cool. It's like, I mean, none of us here are married, but it is a hot topic that I've met a bunch of guys who are married and exploring their sexuality in by request and in other places. And I think it's like uniquely challenging. Yeah, it's that ever looming question of, is a bi man even still bi if he's married? And talking about how that sexuality is more difficult for a married person.
00:17:39
Speaker
And how do you explore it? Like, what if you didn't realize it till you got married? And how do you explore? I also feel as though gay men have a certain access and a kind of a shorthand knowledge into how many men are actually having sex with men that are
00:17:57
Speaker
in heterosexual marriages that the rest of the world isn't necessarily privy to, either online or within their sexual experiences, we kind of have this backdoor entry point to all this information. And it's through that information that it's inspired me to make this documentary.
00:18:14
Speaker
cool. Yeah, I know a little bit of what you mean already, because like when I started getting on Grindr, I found straight guys on there, married guys on there, like more than you would think. And I started talking to these guys where like, in my life before that, who would have known? How would you know? So can you tell us a little more about that, like your experiences actually meeting and talking to these people?
00:18:36
Speaker
Sure. So, you know, just to say upfront, the intent of making this documentary is not to expose that there is a world of men who are cheating or being unfaithful to their spouses, but more so to shine a light on how our dealings and stigma of sexuality encourage this kind of anonymous closeted behavior, which for all intents and purposes is healthy just as long as you feel it's healthy, but it's going on to what I would consider a rampant level.
00:19:04
Speaker
So it's really to shine a light on how we treat bisexuality and homosexuality or same-sex attraction within men that I feel like is a true preventative to actual self-expression. The way that I've come upon this is that I came out publicly at 19 years old, but I had America online ever since I was 14, 15
Male Same-Sex Interaction Perceptions
00:19:26
Speaker
years old. And I think that that's how a lot of people within my age came out or became to know themselves through the gay world.
00:19:33
Speaker
chat rooms, all of these things. And I would see online that people would post themselves as married or as bi or MWM or MBM and facilitate sex that way. The way that I came into personal contact, I would say, is that I've always predominantly been interested in older men. And through that and through kind of being more associated with the bear community, there's a lot of
00:19:58
Speaker
opportunity to run into men who are married to women who are having sex with men that I either identify as gay and kind of trapped in their marriage or admittedly bisexual yet have no desire to break up their marriage. Right. Once you cross gender lines it seems to create this whole new dynamic. But why is that?
00:20:20
Speaker
I mean, I think there are so many things that I've experienced in my life from both the gay side and the heterosexual side that keep these men who are having sex with men that might be in heterosexual relationships right in their position. And I remember being in high school, we had a friend who got drunk at a party and made out with another guy.
00:20:39
Speaker
That story followed him for years, and it didn't necessarily dictate his sexuality, but men doing anything with another guy immediately connotates into our society as gay. Whether you kissed a guy or you had full-blown sex, the opportunity that you have to walk back to the middle point of heterosexuality from that experience is incredibly different and also deeply unfair.
00:21:03
Speaker
Right. And it makes people so scared to explore anything. I mean, that was that was exactly how I felt and why I just didn't even let myself think about these things, let alone have that single first experience.
00:21:16
Speaker
And I think that that kind of stigma or shame is placed on these men from both the gay community who express things like, oh, he hooks up with men or he likes to suck dick. Like, he's gay. He should just come out of the closet. And then the straight community being saying the same exact thing. So there really is no middle ground, which I can't imagine having been knocked around by both sides of the coin. And I can only imagine that it's a pretty isolating experience.
00:21:42
Speaker
Yeah, because what you're kind of capturing here is the idea that everybody's assumed to be in that first category, right? In that day trapped in a marriage. So, you know, I'm intrigued. How does that other category of men who are very clearly still devoted to their wives, but trying to open up that box that they're trapped in?
00:21:58
Speaker
How do those folks' experiences differ? Within the first category, there are a lot of men who married too soon and found out too late, or married in hopes that marriage would cure them of this phase that they were going through. Yeah, of course. And then the second grouping of men is people who may have come into same-sex attraction later in life or had always been exposed
00:22:18
Speaker
to it and had a knowledge of it, but wanted a family and wanted kids. And I feel like from some of the men that I have had contact with, it's almost as though they would prefer to be fully disclosed with their spouses if our society only let that happen. And then that butts up against whether or not people are comfortable with open marriages, which is a whole different conversation. So what this really has to do with is, you know, one, the concept of monogamy, the contract of marriage,
00:22:48
Speaker
and also expression.
Monogamy and Bisexuality in Men
00:22:50
Speaker
I hope to find, and hopefully by doing a podcast like this, I hope to find a couple whose female spouse totally encourages their husbands open sexuality that they understand
00:23:04
Speaker
that their husband is attracted to men, wants to have sex with men, but can confidently maintain that marriage because certainly we see it time and again, if not totally supported and celebrated by straight men whose spouses, whose female spouses are encouraged to go into certain forms of bisexuality, have sex with other women, and I don't think that's the same for men.
00:23:25
Speaker
I think I've met a couple people who have come out to their wives and it's been okay and their wives have been accepting. You know, it could be a range from like reluctantly accepting it versus enthusiastically accepting it, which makes a big difference. But I've also met other guys who are terrified to come out to their wives and have not yet done so.
00:23:44
Speaker
And that I think is just so difficult to live with, like something you know about yourself that is really important and really a part of your identity that you can't share with this person who is your life partner. So what kind of guys have you met so far working on this project?
00:24:02
Speaker
I've come across men who had lived with this secret for a really long time and couldn't live with it any longer until they had come out. And so now they have gone through marriage, now divorced, they have kids, and now some are completely out to their families. Other men have gone as far as to have the divorce, yet are not out to their families.
00:24:23
Speaker
Also, a lot of these marriages that have ended in divorce, a lot of the men report that sexuality wasn't the only contributing factor to their divorce. So that's also important to keep in mind. And then I've met men who have been able to come out to their wives, whose wives have decided to stay with them in the partnership that is marriage on the part of, you know, companionship, love, trust, and going through this life experience together. But those couples aren't out. So kind of an ironic twist.
00:24:52
Speaker
The husband is kind of out of the closet and facilitating a lifestyle that he's comfortable with, but the wife is somewhat coming into the closet because this relationship is not something that's publicly discussed. And then I have also met men who are in marriages, who have met other men who are in marriages, and decided that they could tell that they were embarking on true feelings for one another, and they integrate one another into each other's lives.
00:25:19
Speaker
so therefore they can hang out publicly like, oh this is Sam. I met Sam at the Buffalo Wild Wings and he's gonna be coming around a lot because we're best friends and they're able to facilitate having full-blown relationships under the guise of friendship.
00:25:36
Speaker
The relationships you're talking about where they're out to each other but not to anyone else are really fascinating to me because it's this good and bad in that it's great that they're able to be open and honest with each other and find that working relationship.
00:25:54
Speaker
But it also contributes to this by erasure that like, here's this great thing that they're discussing with each other, but nobody else knows about it. And so there's no model for it for anyone else. And so everyone is going through that alone when it actually may be so common, more common than anyone realizes.
00:26:13
Speaker
Right. I think that the commonality of this is much greater than anybody suspects and much greater than anybody's willing to talk about. And something, as I said before, is something that gay men or men who have sex with men are very privy to. So you mentioned monogamy and non-monogamy and how that's all related. And I think it really is central, especially if you have not yet
00:26:35
Speaker
had a chance to explore a fluid sexuality before you got married. How have you seen people negotiate within those marriages?
00:26:45
Speaker
our entire concept of marriage isn't what we see. There are straight men and women having sex outside of their marriages to a huge degree, and there are men who are within this situation of having same-sex attraction that are doing the same thing. You know, everybody facilitates their sex outside of marriage in their own ways, but I think across the boards, both straight and gay, sex outside of marriage is something that's happening.
00:27:10
Speaker
on a huge, undiscussed level, and probably more so than ever now. One more interesting thing that I wanted to say that I feel like is a really interesting concept is let's take a hypothetical situation here and say that I'm a gay-identified male.
00:27:26
Speaker
and that there's Joe, and Joe is a straight-identified male, and we have a three-way with a woman. Women go outside of that three-way, and we have that conversation socially. Coming away from that, everybody is having the conversation as to Joe getting a little friendly with gay-identified Eric, but nobody's having the conversation whether Eric, who just had sex with a woman, is sliding into heterosexuality.
00:27:47
Speaker
And I think that's actually real because I know a lot that there are so many people who are homo flexible or at least gay identified and kind of exploring more bi-territory and like that can so easily be erased. And I feel with the gay perspective I think that the trauma and the stress of realizing you have same-sex attraction within our culture is so significant that for us to identify as having same-sex attraction becomes the struggle and because of that struggle
00:28:14
Speaker
and the fact that we've crossed this line and gone away from it almost means that we can never go back to consider maybe being bi ourselves as gay identified men. That we also have the capacity of being somewhat hetero flexible. That's your whole story. That was what you've struggled with. Well and why it's been so hard to identify as bi and actually live in a bi lifestyle since then because I had already attached myself to a gay label
Listener Participation in Documentary
00:28:41
Speaker
at one point.
00:28:41
Speaker
Right. Exactly. When I came out as bi, nobody questioned if I liked guys. They're like, but if you come out as bi, they're going to be like, really? Do you really like women? Because, yeah, it's totally seen differently. Yeah. So thank you for joining us. I think this is such an important topic and we've been wanting to cover it, but it's challenging to find actual married guys who are exploring their
00:29:07
Speaker
sexuality, because it's very invisible and it's hard to be public about that, especially if you have not come to terms with it within the marriage. So if anyone is out there listening, we are interested in talking more about this next season, so please get in touch. And Eric is developing this project and looking for people to talk to, to interview.
00:29:28
Speaker
anyone with insight from all sides that we've been discussing today. So if you are interested in participating in either, please follow To Buy Guys on social media. Instagram and Twitter are the best ways to get in touch with us. Our DMs are open so you can let us know what your experiences
Bisexual Representation in Media
00:29:46
Speaker
are. And if you would like to get in touch with Eric and participate, we will pass your info along. Thank you so much, guys. Cool. Thank you. Thanks for being here.
00:30:02
Speaker
So Rob, you wrote online order at SVU for nine years, right? Seven years, but you know, it felt like... Seven years, all of the years. So I'm interested in this topic. I feel like it's been a little bit overlooked and I'm glad to talk about it because I feel like you especially have probably thought a lot more about it as somebody in the field. But bye folks in media.
00:30:21
Speaker
Yeah, well, you know, I started SVU in 2011, I think, and I was there seven years and it's interesting that landscape has really changed a ton in that time. And like when I started there, I didn't see much bisexuality on TV.
00:30:37
Speaker
And I identified it straight. I did not realize that I was bi. And I think a part of that was that it was so invisible and that it wasn't in a lot of shows. And a lot of times when fluid sexuality was portrayed on television, it was identified as gay. That those characters might have existed, but they weren't labeled gay because I don't think
00:31:00
Speaker
there were actual bisexual people who were out who were in those writers' rooms. And I think you really need representation in writers' rooms and among producers and among actors on shows in order to both get this content through and also to get it through authentically and explain bisexuality appropriately and accurately and without all these misconceptions that a lot of people have.
00:31:26
Speaker
And the truth is my actual experiences after coming out have really informed how I might write about this topic. And then I could have written about the closeted by experience at the time. But coming out and having these experiences, it led me to understand this identity in a new way. And I think what I want to talk about a little as we're going to go through some shows that are dealing with this stuff is that
00:31:49
Speaker
I can now see the difference between a show that is actually wanting to understand the bisexual identity and that experience, that unique experience, versus some shows that just want to open up plot possibilities and have a character who's traditionally been with one gender suddenly be with another gender for a plot reason.
00:32:13
Speaker
I'm not saying that's necessarily bad. It's, like, great to have openness and fluidity. But there is a difference. Completely. So let's talk about some of these. Yeah, what's out there? Why don't we start with some of our favorite things, our favorite portrayals of bisexuality? I mean, there's one that does come right to mind. Sense 8, when it came out. Oh, right. Here was a show where these eight characters who are kind of all over the world are experiencing each other's senses and can, like, relate to each other through their senses, basically.
00:32:41
Speaker
And it leads to scenes where these people of mixed gender, obviously, including a trans person, for example, very queer oriented, they're all having sex on screen together, essentially. There's just eight naked people all together. And it's because they're just experiencing each other's senses in that way. And it's not explicit bisexuality in the same way. And it's an artistic take on it, obviously.
00:33:09
Speaker
That actually reminds me so much of the Black Mirror episode in the most recent season, where it was about two guys, but they were in this virtual world role-playing as a man and a woman, and they had sex in the virtual world, and then had to deal with that in the real world where they were straight identified.
00:33:29
Speaker
I didn't love the ending of that episode. I thought they wrapped it up in a weird little bow that was a little bit problematic, but I did love the fact that they were tackling this issue, and it was complicated the way that this fantasy integrated with their real-life straight identity.
Positive Examples of Bisexual Representation
00:33:46
Speaker
So what about you? Are there shows that come right to mind? A couple of my favorites we already discussed. The real first one that I heard the word bisexual was Brooklyn Nine-Nine, the character Rosa. I don't think she came out till many seasons in. She was identified as straight before then and dated all sorts of guys on the show. And the episode where she came out,
00:34:09
Speaker
I cried. And one of the things she said in that episode was that she didn't want to tell people because she didn't want anything to change. And that was so much how I felt when I was coming out that like, yes, this is a huge thing and it is a big deal, but I'm also the same person and I don't want everything to change and everyone to look at me differently. What's really going on? I'm dating a woman. I'm bi. Oh, that's great.
00:34:36
Speaker
So I didn't say anything about being bi because I didn't think it was anybody's business. And I also didn't want anything to change. I get it. I'm sorry. So nosy. I actually felt really good to tell somebody on the squad, finally. I'm glad it was you. All right. And the actress, Stephanie Beatrice, who plays Rosa, is also bi. And I've read that she worked with the writers and the show creators to do that storyline authentically. And it was very successful for that reason. And then in the next episode, she came out to her parents
00:35:04
Speaker
And it's another amazing episode that was treated really authentically, and a lot of the stigmas that are specific to bisexuality, not just being gay, were presented in that episode. Like, it's a phase, or... But you're still gonna marry a man, right? Like, it was really good. What about the show The Bisexual? The Bisexual's another one. I watched The Bisexual. Uh-huh.
00:35:26
Speaker
I haven't. Oh, you haven't? It's great. It's great. It's only six episodes. It's on Hulu. It's awesome. I actually met the creator of that show, Desiree Akavon, who is bisexual herself, which also makes another difference, right? Yes, what you were talking about before.
00:35:41
Speaker
Yeah, because watching that show, it felt very, very authentic to the bi experience. And she, in the show, identified as a lesbian at the beginning, I believe, and broke up with a longtime girlfriend in the first episode. Spoiler. And then that was what precipitated a
00:35:58
Speaker
exploration of bisexuality. I thought it was great and such an authentic portrayal of what that experience is really like and how confusing it is and how other people will react to it. When you have to fight for it, I think that being gay can become the biggest part of you.
00:36:15
Speaker
and that you're gay or you're straight, and one comes with an entirely different lifestyle than the other, like different clothes and different friends, and you can't do both. And I don't mean to be condescending to you. I don't know what it's like to grow up with the Internet. I just get the sense that it's changing your relationship to gender and to sexuality in a really good way, but in a way that I can't relate to. I think you're making a problem where there isn't one.
00:36:42
Speaker
Transparent is another one. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, one of my favorite shows and the younger sister Identifies as bisexual I believe the older sister positive identifies as something something Yeah, yeah, the older sister too. I think that because she was married to a man and then in a relationship with a woman I can't remember if she used that word doesn't right the brother does not interestingly Yeah, although he reminds me a lot of myself
00:37:07
Speaker
So I think like if the show continues. There's a sexual frustration and journey there, but it's not a buy one necessarily. Yeah. Yeah. Which I guess I can be only slightly irritated that it happens to be the one male character. Right. Right. Whatever. Moving on. It is what it is. And I just think that show is so great in so many ways. Yeah. In exploring queerness and in exploring gender and gender fluidity. Yeah. It's just such a great show.
00:37:33
Speaker
Did you ever watch the movie, it just hit me, the movie Alex Strangelove at all? No, I never heard of it. No, like it was like Love, Simon, but like a bi teen story, right? That's what it was framed as, like character, he's struggling and he thinks he's bi, he's attracted to the sky. But I think at the end, if I remember correctly, he basically decides that he's gay or like it's implied that he's gay. And it's just like,
00:37:56
Speaker
It was like such good representation for a little bit. Yeah. And then I just remember being like torn apart by the fact that like, oh, no, he's just gay. You know, it's stepping stone narrative, you know. Huh. Yeah, it sucked. Interesting. And actually, I just saw Love, Simon for the first time recently. And I loved the movie. I thought it was awesome.
00:38:15
Speaker
But it also sort of did the same thing and there was one line I'm forgetting where the fact that he might have possibly been bisexual was dismissed by another character very quickly.
Media Missteps in Bisexual Portrayal
00:38:26
Speaker
Whereas if he had dismissed that, it might have felt more...
00:38:31
Speaker
But otherwise like maybe that's why I related to love Simon so much because like that fed into my narrative. It reminded me of your experience that like if you express an interest or you have a crush on a guy and you're a young person in middle school or high school you will be pushed by people to identify as gay. Tell me about this guy you love. You sure? Yeah. It'll help me kill off hetero Simon in my mind. You don't have to kill him all. He's dead. Sorry. Packing him up with a mental machete as we speak.
00:39:01
Speaker
All right, fair enough. Ooh, you know what I want to talk about? Do you watch Big Mouth? No, but I've heard problematic things about Big Mouth. Well, there was one problematic thing, but I also think the show is doing good things for representation and they made a mistake. And I think something we've talked about on this podcast is like, we don't want to be so afraid to make mistakes that we don't talk about this stuff. So I actually think Big Mouth is an awesome show. It's really funny. And for a couple of seasons, they've had a storyline about the character Jay,
00:39:30
Speaker
So Jay is exploring his bisexuality and at the beginning it takes the form of he's exploring masturbation with a male pillow and a female pillow and the pillows talk to him and he likes both of them.
00:39:45
Speaker
Well, it's different. I kind of like it with both of you. That's bullshit. If you say you like boy pillows and girl pillows, it means you really just like boy pillows. No, I don't know. Everybody wants me. I'm very confused. And hard again? Okay. But then that goes beyond that in the next season and he really is starting to come to terms with the bisexual identity. There was controversy in one of the later episodes where a pansexual character came to the school
00:40:15
Speaker
and basically said, I identify as pansexual because I'm not only into men and women, I'm into any gender. And the response, which I agree with, was like, hey, bisexuality is not trans-exclusive. People who identify as bisexual also can be attracted to people of any gender, not just men and women. Had you or I been in there, we would go, hey, guys,
00:40:40
Speaker
This storyline is cool, but Pan and Bi mean similar things to a lot of people and what that character is saying is kind of biphobic. And it's cool that she wants to identify as Pan and she can explain that, but she should not mischaracterize Bi in the process. They got a lot of heat for that on social media. The showrunner issued an apology and
00:41:01
Speaker
understood where that was coming from, which I thought was great. It's great to acknowledge that. Yeah. But I think it's brave of them to tackle this subject, even if they're going to make mistakes. Yeah. Can I mention one that really frustrated me too? Yeah. Personally, the way that bisexuality was in Glee was bothersome to me because the character who was bi and who was very, very clearly presented that way throughout the whole show was Brittany, who was like the dumb blonde. And she's the one we choose to be bi.
00:41:30
Speaker
to me that just feeds the narrative that there's something wrong with bi people. Why couldn't it just be an average character who wasn't literally the dumbest one on the entire cast?
00:41:40
Speaker
Well, and this, another example that's totally different, but using it as a device in the same way, which we've mentioned is House of Cards, which was not really interested in what's the experience of bisexuality, but really used it as a manipulative tool. The character used it to manipulate people. Because bi people are villains. They're murderers. They're everything.
00:42:02
Speaker
And that plays into the idea that sexuality is fixed and that anyone who is fluid is using it to manipulate people. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is another one that we mentioned last time. Great by a male character. The Good Place doesn't explicitly say bye, but the main character, Eleanor, she definitely expresses a lot of interest into Hani.
00:42:26
Speaker
and finds her very attractive. But that's in the same way that The Office has Steve Carell obsessing over this other character, B.J. Novak, right? Right. Oh, good. Which is a little by, and I actually can still appreciate, it's a little different. There's pluses and minuses. Actually, I think it is a little bit of by erasure when shows do that without really addressing it. I mean, in a comedy, it's one thing, because
00:42:47
Speaker
Michael doing that is funny, and Eleanor doing that is funny. But why is that funny? And that's what irritates me a little bit, but if we're still having a conversation right here at least, but why is him being sort of by, or her being sort of by only in comedy?
00:43:02
Speaker
Well, in a sense, it opens things up because it allows for normalizing those kinds of thoughts and expressions before someone is comfortable saying I'm bi or I'm not straight. However, it is also a little bit erasure in using it as a punchline.
Future Podcast Topics and Season Wrap-Up
00:43:19
Speaker
But I do think there is a way to thread that needle in a way that isn't harmful, but it's also not like pushing the narrative forward.
00:43:27
Speaker
There's so much more. We will get back to this in season two and continue the conversation. We should wrap up at this point, I suppose. Yeah. So we want to continue this next season. There's so many things we want to discuss, like people have been writing to us. Somebody just wrote to me today about talking about bisexuality within restrictive religions. That's a topic we'd like to get to.
00:43:49
Speaker
we want sort of the female perspective more. Well, gender inclusivity overall. Women, trans folks, non-binary folks, we really didn't touch on any of that. Well, bisexuality and gender non-conformity and trans identities, I think there's a lot of things that are related. They're obviously not the same thing, but I do think there's a unique understanding that bi and trans people can have a conversation to have next season. Yeah, so we want to get into that.
00:44:17
Speaker
And also like by community even and like how by community exists. Why are there no by bars? Yeah, right. By erasure. We've talked about that a little, but we want to get more into that. Also just like where do political implications affect us, right? Yeah, as by folks and right. And even even health things too, like looking at sexual health, how are bi people implicated in all of that, right? And all kinds of big conversations that we don't have time to get into, unfortunately, this season.
00:44:43
Speaker
Yes, we've done a short season, but we hope to do more. And so that's also a part of where you come in. We would really love to continue this for season two. We want to go far beyond what we've done now. Thousands of episodes. We did it. Thousands. We're doing thousands. But we need your help. If you've been listening, we need you to tell your friends. We need you to send us around, follow us on social media, you know, rate us on Apple, rate us on the podcast charts. All of this will help us continue this.
00:45:12
Speaker
next season. I also think creating community is something we may want to start doing. And we're going to talk about ways to create sort of a virtual to buy guys community that moves beyond just these episodes. Yeah, because, you know, we had by request in New York City, but a lot of people don't have that. So we are going to be thinking about ways to keep everyone connected and talk about these issues while we are off the air, while we're taking this break. Yeah. So stay tuned for updates. Please follow us. Please subscribe and stay tuned.
00:45:42
Speaker
So this has been season one of Two Bye Guys. I'm Rob. And I'm Alex. And thank you all so much for listening. Thank y'all. Our music is by Ross Mincer and graphic design by Caitlin Wineman. This podcast is edited by Moxie Pung and is also produced by Moxie Pung, Matt Loomis, Alex Boyd, and me, Rob Cohen. Thanks for listening to Two Bye Guys.