KarMel Scholarship 2007

“Mixed Marriages”

By Amy Andre

Desciption of Submission: I travelled around the US, interviewing women in mixed-orientation relationships -- that is, where one of the women is bisexual and the other woman is a lesbian.

My girlfriend is a lesbian.

That may not come as a shocker to you, but it certainly is unusual for me. I've been dating women since I was 17, but until I met Cheri, all the women I dated were bi. Come to think of it, everyone I've dated has been bi. Everyone except Cheri.

I'm bi, too, and to me that means I can be attracted to people, regardless of B but with respect to B their genders.

Cheri has a different view. She's not attracted to men at all and has never dated or had sex with one. She feels that men are fine as friends but not desirable as lovers and has trouble understanding that I've had male lovers in the past. I tend to disregard gender when I think about people I might find attractive. Where Cheri would say, "He's cute, but he's a guy," I would say, "He's cute, and he's a guy" or just "He's cute."

So after three years with Cheri, I've been thinking: are we alone in having these issues? What challenges and unexpected surprises might lesbian-bi couples have in common? Can these kinds of "mixed marriages" really work? Talking with several mixed-orientation couples across the country, I found a range of answers.

The Green-Eyed Monster

Alison and Angie are a thirty-something couple living in the Washington, DC, suburb of Takoma Park, MD. Alison, a graphic designer, identifies as a lesbian. Angie, a recently unemployed lobbyist, is bi. Together eight years and married three, the women recently bought a house together; there plans for parenting on currently on hold while Angie looks for another job.

When she first met Angie, Alison recalls, trust was her big issue. “I had that whole fear that she could leave me for a man,” she says, “which somehow seems worse than being left for another woman. I had that fear for no good reason.”

“Alison was very thoughtful,” Angie says of her partner’s initial skittishness. “She never said anything inappropriate or judgmental. She just asked me questions. I explained to her that there was not something missing for me in being in a relationship with her just because there’s no man involved.”

As it turned out, jealousy and distrust run both ways in the relationship. Describing herself as a naturally jealous person, Angie says, she needed to “take it slow” in the early stages of the relationship. “Having been cheated on [before], I have very strong anti-cheating instincts,” she says. “I hold it in check now. I do completely trust her, but I sometimes get a little flared up for no reason.”

Jealousy takes a more tangible form for Stephanie and Ziadee, another thirty-something lesbian-bi couple, who live in San Francisco. After five years together, Stephanie, the lesbian partner, tells me she still feels “challenged” when she sees bisexual Ziadee hanging out with new male acquaintances. She claims that Ziadee changes her behavior around men; she says Ziadee gives them what Stephanie believes is undue attention. Ziadee, who describes herself as a radical feminist, begs to differ.

Clearly, the two women are interpreting the same situation in very different ways. Who’s right is almost beside the point. The emotions are still there.

What’s in a Name?

The “label” issue is another point of contention for lesbian-bi couples, and one that has become increasingly complex as more dykes experiment with sex with men. Laney, a twenty-year-old student in the Boston area, considers herself a lesbian, even though she has sex with both men and women. For her, sex with men is recreational fun; relationships with women are taken more seriously.

Laney’s current girlfriend, Jen, originally described herself as bi. The two women met at the university where both are students, becoming friends before getting involved. Laney says that she was reluctant to “get serious” at first, because of Jen’s bisexual identity. Even though both women are sexually active with men, Laney felt that Jen’s “bi” label meant that she might not be able to commit to a relationship. When Jen changed her own orientation to gay, Laney was ready to commit to the partnership.

Bisexual women, however, aren’t the only ones who change labels. Before meeting Erin, her current bi girlfriend, Karen, a 41-year-old filmmaker from San Francisco, identified as a lesbian. She began having sex with men about ten years ago, however, after a breakup with another bi woman who soon after started dating a man.

“I was so devastated and angry that she would go for a guy,” Karen recalls, “but at the same time, there was this little part of me that was like, ‘what is the big deal? Why are you doing this?’ I’d never had sex with a man, so I slept with a guy for the first time, and, even though I didn’t feel any emotional attachment, it was kind of fun. He was a nice guy, and it was adventurous.”

Change the Label

When they first began dating, however, Karen’s attitude toward Erin’s bisexuality was a little less carefree. When Erin mentioned to an ex-boyfriend that she was seeing a woman, Karen says that she felt like telling Erin, “Tell him you’re a lesbian! Why don’t you tell him you’re a lesbian?”

“I didn’t want him to still have a part of Erin,” she now says. “I wanted him to think she was a lesbian.”

Like Stephanie, Karen can find bi women’s relationships with men unsettling. “It’s the feeling that you’re giving power to the enemy,” she says. “A woman’s ability to be connected to a man – it’s like a betrayal.”

After Karen broke up with her previous bi girlfriend and started having sex with men, she continued to do so off and on for the next ten years. Having sex with men didn’t really change her identity as a lesbian. “I was a lesbian who occasionally had sex with men. In San Francisco, there are plenty of people who were just like me, who call themselves dykes and who occasionally have sex with men, just to try it, to see what it is like. But there wasn’t any hope of having a deep emotional connection for me.”

Now sharing a happily polyamorous relationship of two-plus years, Karen and Erin have similar definitions of bi and lesbian. According to their view, a lesbian might have sex with men and women, but only a bisexual is capable of having romantic feelings for both. At the beginning of their relationship, Karen still identifies as a lesbian, but a recent experience triggered a bit of sexual soul searching.

“I had a sexual encounter with this guy that I’ve been seeing,” she says. “It turned into a very emotional thing; I was crying. I was telling Erin about it, and she said, ‘You had an emotional connection with a guy!’ I said, ‘Yeah, wow, I did.’”

As a result of that experience, Karen produced a film called Women in Love, to capture her journey to this new identity. Sharing her feelings about this with Erin has become an integral part of their relationship. “It felt so good to have her support,” Karen says.

For Erin, Karen’s decision to identify as bisexual means more support for her own bisexuality. “I’ve felt comfortable that she’s not going to judge me whether it’s a man or a woman,” she says.

The Community Weighs In

These issues extend into the larger dyke community, where bi women and lesbians often intermingle, sometimes with tension and misunderstandings. Outside of her relationship with Erin, for example, Karen’s second coming-out process has not been so smooth.

“I have a lot of exuberance about this new way of being in the world, being bisexual,” she says. “But I felt a lot of judgment from my friends. Our community is about being liberated and being free and being different. It’s not okay to get mad at somebody who’s bisexual, but the feelings are still there.”

Erin has also had experiences with lesbian biphobia. A recent sexual encounter with a man that left her excited got a distinctly negative response when she talked about it with a lesbian friend. “She was just like ‘ewww’ and kind of turned off,“ Erin says. “She’s afraid that I’m going to get hurt or get some STD. But if it had been with a woman, I don’t think she would have this reaction.”

These attitudes may be based on some lesbians’ experiences prior to coming out. When Erin was in her early twenties and began having relationships with women, she says, many of the lesbians around her thought that relationships between two women were more equal than those between women and men. Erin disagrees.

“I think a lot of women have had really shitty relationships with men,” she says. “They feel like there is a power differential between men and women. I didn’t have that experience. When I was having relationships with men, I didn’t feel like I was being submissive in a nonconsensual way. I was just having a relationship with a person on an equal playing field.”

Even so, Erin often has been reluctant to out herself as bi in the lesbian community and for ten years, only dated women. “The safer I felt, the more likely I would be to say I was bisexual. But with a bunch of dykes, I wouldn’t usually say that I was bisexual.”

Which is not to say either Erin or Karen think bi women should stay closeted. “If they’re bisexual, people need to say it,” Karen says. “They need to come out. Then people need to have their reactions to it and be honest about it, and then a dialogue and some analysis need to happen. Then we’re on our way!”

Communication Is Key

Alison and Angie continue their volunteer work in their local LGBT community while waiting for the right time to start a family. Having different orientations doesn’t seem to phase them or alter their relationship in any way. Committed to each other, they have an eye on the future together.

“Being queer is a strong part of my identity,” says Ziadee. Despite the challenges of having a different orientation from Stephanie’s, she’s happy and in love. She describes her biggest struggles around orientation coming from the lack of comfort other lesbians seem to have with bisexuality – not Stephanie’s response to it.

As for Laney and Jen, even though they both now identify as lesbian, they also still both have sex with men – as part of their polyamorous relationship – and usually together! Laney mentions to me that she feels that orientation is not always a black-and-white issue. “We’re not really into labels any more,” Laney explains.

Does this mean we should all toss off our “labels,” like Laney and Jen? Maybe, maybe not. Should we only date people of the same orientation, like Karen and Erin? Not necessarily.

Bi women and lesbians have always run in the same circles and will continue to do so, and overlapping communities mean overlapping opportunities for attraction and love to develop. While it may be easier to understand someone who has the same orientation, mixed-orientation matches have a lot to offer as well. As Karen says, “If you understand each other, it’s more comforting. I’m relieved that [Erin and I are] sort of on the same page now, calling ourselves both bisexual. I’m not saying that’s ideal. I mean, it’s good to appreciate each other’s differences, too.”

The conclusion: Mixing is a mixed bag. For many female couples, love and good communication can supersede the differences, and the same holds true for relationships between the lesbian and bi women’s communities. Lesbian and bi women have always had relationships with one another, on a scale ranging from couple-hood to community affiliation.

Having experienced biphobia myself, I empathize with my bi friends and lesbian allies and join them in a call for greater communication between the two groups. This is the only way we will be able to break down the stereotypes that keep us from connecting. Stronger relationships between the communities will help sustain stronger relationships within mixed-orientation couples.

As for my own “mixed marriage,” I’ve learned to see our differences in a new light. After all, Cheri and I are “mixed” in many other ways. She’s Asian-American; I’m mixed-race, African-American and white. She was raised born-again Christian and is now an atheist; I was raised atheist Jewish and still am. She’s butch; I’m femme.

We blend all these elements of our identities, retaining our favorite parts and sharing them with one another in the ways that work best for us. So what about sexual orientation? We just add it to the mix.

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