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| - Writing about sexual orientation, especially same sex attraction, brings a bucketful of implications and problems for a writer. Politically, the tug-of-war between prejudice and gay advocacy makes a character's sexuality hard to balance so that one group can feel represented without causing an uproar. There is also a balance between having the exoticism of an uncommon sexuality without alienating the target audience. This is where bisexuality comes in. While bisexuality has historically been caught in this crossfire with the result being an erasure of their existence, the end result has also been that bisexuality, when it does surface in fiction, becomes a tool to consolidate this dilemma.
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| abstract
| - Writing about sexual orientation, especially same sex attraction, brings a bucketful of implications and problems for a writer. Politically, the tug-of-war between prejudice and gay advocacy makes a character's sexuality hard to balance so that one group can feel represented without causing an uproar. There is also a balance between having the exoticism of an uncommon sexuality without alienating the target audience. This is where bisexuality comes in. While bisexuality has historically been caught in this crossfire with the result being an erasure of their existence, the end result has also been that bisexuality, when it does surface in fiction, becomes a tool to consolidate this dilemma. While bisexuality in Real Life spans a huge spectrum that covers both ends on the Kinsey scale and everything in between, it is actually very rare to see a show that treats attraction to two genders as equally valid and important. Terms such as heteroromantic, homoromantic, biromantic, and aromantic exist because of the distinction between romantic and sexual orientation; characters that fall under this trope would thus be described as heteroromantic bisexuals or homoromantic bisexuals under such terminology, as opposed to biromantic bisexuals. However, there is one form of bisexuality in particular that holds a disproportionate presence in fiction and that is the kind of bisexuality that, when it comes down to it, lies closer to the orientation of the target audience. There are many variations to this, but key is to create some form of pecking order between the sexes, presumably in order to make the character more appealing to the audience depending on what gender and sexuality they are expected to have, while at the same time having the titillation, comedic material or diversity of "deviant" sexual behaviour. Of course, the prevalence of the trope brings some Unfortunate Implications for real life bisexuals; that in the end it's only one gender that matters to them and that their experiences with the other one are worthless. A bisexual character who is written in this way usually treats the genders differently by one or more of these three aspects: 1.
* Time: Alice used to date or sleep with both sexes, but there is no indication that she does so now. 2.
* Actions on screen: Bob sleeps with both sexes, but the only relationships he forms are with women. Of course, heteroromantic bisexuals--people who are sexually attracted to both genders but only romantically attracted to the opposite gender--do exist in real life, as do homoromantic and aromantic bisexuals. But that's probably giving the creators too much credit. 3.
* Tone/emotion: These two usually go together. If Alice considers her experiences with women to be wacky hijinks and her experiences with men to be lovestories, they are usually treated as such by the music, the other characters and the rest of the set. Alternatively, the character could be like one of the above examples but slanted in favor of homosexual relationships instead, but this is rarer and usually played for fanservice or a queer intended audience. Compare But Not Too Gay and But Not Too Black. Contrast No Bisexuals, Hide Your Lesbians. Related to Have I Mentioned I Am Gay?, Acceptable Feminine Goals. Examples of But Not Too Bi include:
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