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Below is an excerpt from an
interview with me by Kathy Guidroz which was published in off
our backs in part one of a two volume series on sex, 1993
"As bisexuals stand up and define ourselves and our
contributions we will make the possibility of no `one'
correct
way of loving more imaginable and therefore more
available."
-- Loraine Hutchins, "Biatribe," off our backs, Feb.
1988, p. 18.
NOTE:
Loraine Hutchins has an incredible presence. She freely wears
spandex
and black lace blouses, with large pink triangle earrings. If it's
warm weather she'll be encouraging women of all shapes and ages to
go top-free along with
her. For special occasions such as gay pride day you'll see her in
her Wonder Woman With A Hard On outfit.
Last year she starred both in a centerfold in On Our Backs,
and as one of ten women "coming" together in a circle in Betty
Dodson's masturbation video: "SelfLoving: Portrait of a Women's
Sexuality Seminar." She is co-editor of Bi
Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak
Out (Alyson, 1991), a local and national bi activist,
and a lover, friend and role model to many. I met Loraine at the
1991 Gay Pride Day in Washington, D.C.
* * *
Kathy: How do you define bisexuality?
Loraine: Bisexuality is the capacity to love more than one gender, whether or not one ever acts on it. That embraces a whole range -- from people who behave, or might want to behave, bisexually and may not ever take that label, all the way to people who proudly do wear the label. All of these people are bisexual in the most inclusive sense of the word. That's 25-50 million Americans, according to various estimates extrapolated from the Kinsey research of the 1950s. But as far as you'd know it listening to public debates about what "causes" homosexuality today, there's a big line drawn down the middle between gay and straight, and NOTHING in between. We 50 million bisexuals in the U.S. are invisible. Either/or mentality erases bi identity. But that doesn't mean we don't exist.
Then there's the stereotypes. They say bi-ness is a phase. Sure, it can be. So can heterosexuality or homosexuality be phases. My point is that the current gay movement has bought into the hetero-patriarchy'sÞeither or mentality. A recent, under-reported Kinsey study showed that almost half of lesbians surveyed at a women's music festival had had het sex in the past five years. That's lesbians, not including the bi women! Sex happening now between gay men and lesbians is one of the most under reported things in the movement.
Biphobia is the fear of intimacy and closeness to people who don't identify with either the heterosexual or homosexual orientation. Biphobia is rooted in, and manifested as homophobia in the heterosexual community, and as heterophobia in the gay community. It's stupid to get stuck, whether as a feminist, a gay rights activist, or anything else, in the argument that heterosexual privilege interferes with gay rights. Of course it does. But "making" everyone gay is not going to work, just by edict, anymore that trying to "demand" that men become feminist or that whites wallow in the guilt of being born white. It's not privilege that's the problem, it's what you do or don't do with it.
They say bisexuals can't be monogamous. Well, neither can hets or gays if you look at the confused, sneaking behavior all kinds of couples engage in. Monogamy and polyfidelity are not related to any specific sexual orientation. They're related to what kinds of relationships you want and what you think you can have, regardless of your orientation and how you've been socialized.
Kathy: What do you like most about being bisexual?
Loraine: I feel like me; comfortable, whole. In the 70s I was taught that we HAVE to be lesbian, to choose lesbianism as a political act, whether we feel fully lesbian or not. And train our pleasure or our responses or our nature to respond lesbianly to the whole world. Well, it was an interesting effort. I don't regret it.
But what I found in Loraine's theory and practice -- as opposed to lesbian feminist theory -- is that each of us has to be true to her own self and to work, in community with others, to figure out the politics of how we can live together.
Kathy: When did you come out as bisexual?
Loraine: I started coming out as a woman-loving-woman in the early seventies. I wrote one of the first articles off our backs [oob] ever published on loving women. But there wasn't a bi movement, there wasn't a bi identity to join, or claim.
(long part cut out here ....)
then it continues ...
Kathy: Does your weight and body-image affect your sense of your sexual self?
Loraine: Sure. I still fight my body. I have old memories of shame and fear and pain and rage I'm trying to get through in therapy, and alone. I fight to allow the energy flow to be clear through my body and not get blocked around my pelvis, my heart, my neck. When I have a certain amount of weight around my pelvis it diminishs the intensity of orgasm, makes it harder to move. That's one reason I did the Betty Dodson video. She couldn't get any large women who'd agree to be on camera. On the video, sitting naked in the circle, I say, "I'm here for all the large and larger women who deserve sexual pleasure and deserve to love ourselves just the way we are!" You gotta start somewhere.
Kathy: What would you say to younger women like me, or any age women who are afraid of coming out as bi?
Loraine: Find others like yourself, however you can do it. If you're in an isolated part of the country find them by phone and by letters. Stablize your sanity. If you can't find people in your community who are bi try to find people who are, as we say, bi-positive, bi-friendly. Stand up for who you are, don't be intimidated. You deserve to be whoever you want to be. And we can do it. We ARE doing it. It's an exciting time to be alive!