Some are born hermits, and some have hermiting forced upon them

[erastes]

My advance for Transgressions has arrived. Well, half of it, but it means I can be unemployed for about a month longer! Not a sexy thing to add to one's interview questions though. "What did you spend your first major advance on?" "Being unemployed."

Rictor Norton's website is down http://www.infopt.demon.co.uk/ - - the main page is there,but I can't access any of the other pages - and the visitor counter has reset to zero. That can't be good. This is worrying - I spend a LOT of time on that site. A LOT. eta: I've just heard from Rictor (bless him) and his site has been suspended due to too many visitors. This is a disaster. A DISASTER.

I have realised that I'm not quite the born hermit that I thought I was. It's all right being a hermit when one has a car to be ABLE to go out when one fancies it, but having enforced hermitage isn't suiting me at all. I've been housebound since last Thursday and frankly I'm sick of it.

Call me dim if you like - I won't mind - but I've suddenly realised that if Transgressions does well then Perseus are going to turn around and say "OK - what else have you got?"  It's probably better if I don't stare blankly at them and make guppie noises.  So I need to get FF finished and I'll get started on Fleury this week, even if it's only a case of scribbling down ideas. And which book is missing from my shelf?  Yup. Everyday life in the 1800's, which is exactly the book I need. Why does this happen?  I SWEAR I've got malicious Borrowers in the house, because every time I want a particular thing I can't find it. Yesterday I really really really wanted to play Snake Eater and it was the one game that was missing. *Sets the cats on the Borrowers*

There's an interesting article on bi-sexuality here which I linked to via bi-writers.  It's a little depressing too, that bis are so marginalised by all sides and pushed under the carpet. I don't often talk about my personal life or whatever but I am overwhelmingly bi. For me, attraction has nothing to do with gender - it's the person. If I get on with someone and there's that spark there then that's more important. This doesn't mean that any of my friends with whom I have a spark with need worry I'm going to jump 'em - any more than straight men should worry that gay men will do, it doesn't work like that. I used to be (I suppose), straight, in as much as I had relationships with men - but the first time a woman made a pass I reciprocated gladly. 

What I don't like about that interview is that it colours bis as being unfaithful - the gay curious/bi politicians who are constantly being found out, the woman who says she's married with a girlfriend. Not that there's anything wrong with that at ALL, but just because one is bi, it doesn't mean that one has an open relationship. I'm monogamous when in a relationship, obsessively so - but the choice of the gender of my next partner isn't fixed in stone.

Comments

[sleveen.livejournal.com]

For me, attraction has nothing to do with gender - it's the person. If I get on with someone and there's that spark there then that's more important.

Me too!!!

I'm monogamous when in a relationship, obsessively so - but the choice of the gender my next partner isn't fixed in stone.

This is the clearest and sanest elucidation of bisexuality that I've heard in recent years. I love my husband - but I loved my girlfriend, too, and if (heaven forfend!) Hubby and I were to break up, my next partner need not necessarily be a man...

[erastes.livejournal.com]

It's such a simple statement too and to me it makes perfect sense. I don't see why both some straight people and some gay people get so worked up about it. It's almost like a race problem - "you aren't supporting your own kind." Scuse me? When did I have to be anyone's kind?

I have a friend who went from exclusively with boyfriends to a girlfriend which obviously caused some upset. She was with women for many years and then she met a lovely man and they've been together for about five years. However! The furore this caused was un-bel-ievable. She had people threatening to lose her her job - in a gay organisation - because she was "no longer a lesbian"

I think that was the first time I realised that there was a "problem" and I've been baffled about it ever since.

[aunty_marion]

I'm boringly straight (*g*), but I've never had any problems with people being gay (of any flavour), bi, or whatever. I like women, but as friends - I've never been sexually attracted to them. But I can't see why people fuss over people who are, aren't, might be, will, won't....

just because one is bi, it doesn't mean that one has an open relationship - exactly! One of my good friends used to have a boyfriend; then she started living with another female friend (who, quite honestly, I hadn't realised was lesbian/bi at all!), and they've been very happy together for several years ... but they've now split up and the first one has got another boyfriend now! (said boyfriend being also a friend, and a former boyfriend of another friend ... ain't life complicated?) But as far as I know, they weren't catting about all over the place, any of them, just because they happened to be gay, bi or not as the case may be. Why should they? Any more than vanilla-straight couples?

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Exactly - it's like people who say that all gays are completely promiscuous and they all go to nightclubs to have random sex. Many do, many don't. *hates generalisations of all kinds* *giggles at the irony*

[aphephobia.livejournal.com]

Agreed with you 100% on bisexuality. I go for people, but they're overwhelmingly male or straight (or attached) girls, and I HATE the "bi = polyamorous/cheater" thing. Urrrgh.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Perhaps part of it is that bis are often "invisible" - living with partners of the opposite sex and monogamously so?

[aphephobia.livejournal.com]

Yep, that's a decent point.

Then again, I think it's just that a lot of people really can't get their head around the idea that some people don't think like they do and are only attracted to one gender. It makes it easier for them, you know? *sighs*

[orchard-mnt.livejournal.com]

I'm a hermit by choice, and bi...though it's been 15 yrs since I've been with anyone but my husband...

Apparently loving a man enough to marry him and raise a family together is a real turn off to other lesbians...plus, I'm over the hill, over weight, and very opinionated and hicified in attitude. I'm quite sure my drummer-boy is the only person on this earth that truly appreciates me...

I hope that website gets it's ducks in a row and you continue to receive $$$ for you writing. I'm aware I write solely for the pleasure it gives me, yet I too dream of being published.

[alex-beecroft.livejournal.com]

Staring blankly and making guppie noises is my only option at present :) But congratulations on the advance!

And yes, you might have more initial choice as a bisexual person, but once you've made your choice you're as stuck with it as everyone else. (If that makes sense?)

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Well we both need to pull our fingers out then! I'm using the loss of my book as an excuse for today!

Exactly. Sure there are polymory (is that right? I suck at being bi) relationships but they aren't the norm.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Yay for Bi-Hermits! There should be a club.

Having just peeked at your writing, have you considered sending to Black Lace? They do a lot of naughty historicals.

[cbpotts.livejournal.com]

Hermiting takes practice. I've been at it for years now, and it's a long term process to get comfortable with it.

And it's much more fun when it's a choice, and not the car won't go!

Hooray on the advance arrival. Those are always good days.

[orchard-mnt.livejournal.com]

well...first off...I'd like to finish it before I start pimping it out...

I use LJ more for off site back up, editing hints and blogging entertainment.

but...if you could share a link...is this another lj comm? or a website?

[liebesdammerung.livejournal.com]

I don't understand why bisexual people are so marginalised. I have a straight friend who thinks that bisexuality doesn't actually exist, and I have a lesbian friend who hates bisexuality and calls it "double dipping." Is it really a terrible thing to care more about the person than about which sexual organs they have?

[semioticwarrior.livejournal.com]

>one “interest shared by both straights and gays is an interest in knowing one’s place in the social order.”

That's about the size of it...plus the spectre of choice....

At the same time, it's easy and safe for a bisexual in a relationship with an opposite-sex partner (::whistles in the dark::) to go with other people's assumptions of their heterosexuality and avoid negative repercussions--something that I think pisses a lot of people off.

Not that it's anyone's business, or should be. But I can understand how these three things could really get under the skin of both gay and straight.


Although both of my WIPs have bi main characters....

[semioticwarrior.livejournal.com]

RIctor's site is back up. And thanks for the link!

[mysid.livejournal.com]

"What did you spend your first major advance on?" "Being unemployed."

But you aren't unemployed; you are a full-time writer! Embrace it!

[erastes.livejournal.com]

http://www.blacklace-books.co.uk/

I belong to Lust Bites and a lot of the writers are published there, I don't know what their submission rules are though, haven't checked.

[megleigh.livejournal.com]

I've just heard from Rictor (bless him) and his site has been suspended due to too many visitors. This is a disaster. A DISASTER.

Indeed! I neeed that site! arrgh!

[tammylee.livejournal.com]

Just out of curiosity, in the world of m/m romance are there many bi characters?

I also agree that the ability to 'blend in' with one camp or another might part of the reason for the disdain from both sides. It's like being a double agent. I think too that when a person is involved in gender politics and strongly backs GLBT or Het communities they very strongly develop a sense of 'us' and 'them'. Folk on both sides who are NOT into the politics of their sex seem to be much more accepting.

Speaking as someone bi AND poly...

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

...it's STILL more complicated than "all bisexuals are unfaithful/cheaters/poly."

It's more like... gender is only one factor among many that influences my attraction to someone, and I don't assume as a default that any relationship I'm in will be exclusive, those are boundaries I negotiate with each partner and situation.

For the MOST part, although I find both men and women hot, I tend to fall in love more easily with guys, but even that's only a tendency, not an absolute.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I'm sure there must be a good few in ordinary m/m - although I don't know as I don't read contemporary stuff. I know of three or four in historical: A Gentleman's Agreement and Phantasmorgorical by Madelynne Ellis, - Phyllida and the Brotherhood of Philander by Ann Herendeen and Forbidden Shores by Jane Lockwood.

Daft isn't it - you think that they would be MORE accepting, not less.

Re: Speaking as someone bi AND poly...

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Interesting - I'm enjoying this discussion.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Am going to see if he would be amenable to sponsorship...

[erastes.livejournal.com]

*laughs* Well, for now I am....

Until they take my house away! (ain't going to happen, thanks to Safety-net Dad, but still..)

[erastes.livejournal.com]

the main page only, none of the sub-pages..

[erastes.livejournal.com]

It's a very good day. I want to frame it. I wonder if the bank will give me the cheque back once it's cleared?

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Exactly - some gays are absolutely militantly against it, and I don't get it, as I've said below, you'd think they would be more accepting.

[girluknow.livejournal.com]

Congratulations on the major advance and yayyy for its timeliness!
I have been a hermit since kindergarten and maybe earlier :) so I have full empathy with you--though even when I'm without a car, it doesn't bother me much. I live too much inside myself, I guess.
Also share your feelings in regard to teh sex. I need to click emotionally with someone to want to be with them physically. Who they are is relevant; what they are is not. It's all about what's inside.
Btw, what is on Rictor's page? I haven't been there and am curious now.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I suppose it's a case of - when you meet new people you don't say "Hi, I'm Joanna and this is John, we are together but I'm bisexual." It's a case of what people perceive to be true. Same as when they see two people of the same sex together and assume they are both gay and not bi. I mean het people don't have to proclaim their straightness so why should anyone else?

[erastes.livejournal.com]

the main page of Rictor's site is still there which gives a flavour of what it was like. It has to come back, it's the only site of its type - I've often wanted to emulate it for the 19th century, although I'm certainly not a scholar.

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

My "kind" is people who aren't worried about who I'm with, so long as the partner's a good human being and we're happy together. I still occasionally scratch my head at the Feminist Academic who commented (about but not to me) that an m/m writer who 'claims' to be in a long-term relationship with another woman "requires" an explanation.

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

I think some are insecure, and like anybody who's insecure, they feel stronger if other people are just like them. It's sad that they can't see they're doing the same damned thing as the people who made them insecure in the first place.

I'm with Kinsey--I think it's a continuum.

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

Yeah, this is called "living on your earnings as a WRITER." Hard to believe, isn't it?

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

How do you define bi characters - those who can feel attraction to the opposite sex, or who have an active relationship? Two of my characters (David Archer in Ransom and Kevin Kendrick in Walking Wounded) have had intimate relationships with women, but wound up in long-term relationships with men. For David it was partly situational (life on a ship with no women around) but Kevin it's more -- well, more what it was for me; the attraction to one individual is so intense that there's nothing the opposite sex could offer as a distraction. That doesn't come up in the story, it's just who those characters are. I do have a future book planned with a character who winds up in a bi relationship but can't say much about it yet.

The 'us-them' thing... sigh.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Alex's Peter is probably more bi than most of ours so far, or that's how I see it. I think he would have had a successful marriage and been happy in it, I wonder if Alex would agree?

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

Hermitage is like anything - great if you choose it, onerous if it's forced by outside circumstances. I'm mostly hermitacious, as long as there's a library nearby.

You don't suppose the Borrowers are getting back at you for slashing them...?

[erastes.livejournal.com]

*Laughing so Hard!!!*

I never thought of that, but no - how would they know? Unless they have tiny tiny computers...

Actually, that's not a far stretch, they always had the same tech as the people they lived with - with miniaturisation ...

And anyway, you'd think they'd be PLEASED! It was always obvious to me that Spiller had to be gay, and as for Peagreen, well - even more so.

[angelabenedetti.livejournal.com]

I wonder whether gay people (the politically active ones, anyway) have felt so under seige that they want every possible person to be on "their team," so having someone who's bi and could be a visible member of their team but is choosing to play for the other team right now is infuriating. And maybe a bit of being angry with them for being able to "pass?" If you have a choice, then you can choose the option that brings you the least amount of harassment and persecution, whereas someone who's completely gay can't make that choice without committing to a lot of a different sort of unhappiness.

And yes, I'm sure the whole "choice" thing is part of it. A lot of the conservative bigots still insist that gay people choose to be gay, and that they could therefore choose to be straight if they wanted to, while gay people insist this is not the case. Bi people seem to prove the bigots' theory. I have to wonder, though, whether it's the gay people who can't wrap their minds around the possibility that -- just as there's more than one kind of person re: attraction to your own or the opposite sex -- there might be another kind of person who's attracted to both? Or whether they get it (or most of them, anyway) but they're afraid that one more layer of complexity will be just too much for the bigots' tiny little minds and the chances of ever explaining it in a way that will actually click with them goes out the window if you have to include bisexuals. :/ Unfortunately, I have to agree that this last is a definite possibility.

The whole thing of bi=unfaithful is just ridiculous. That's like saying that because I like men, I'm going to cheat on my husband with any hot guy who crosses my path. I value my relationship with my husband far too much to do that, even if the opportunity came up, and I'm sure there are plenty of bi people who operate the same way. And that's aside from the fact that it's only cheating if you're breaking a promise. If a bi man's wife doesn't mind if he has a boyfriend, then his having a boyfriend isn't cheating. That's another thing most people seem to have a hard time wrapping their minds around -- the fact that different people can work out different modes of operation for their relationships and have it work just as well as pure monogamy ever has. Folks who insist that whenever a third person is involved, someone must be cheating are, again, insisting on an over-simplification of a situation which in real life has more complexity to it. [sigh]

Angie

[venivincere]

I explained it to my old pastor this way:

"You're married, right?"

"Yes."

"Would you cheat on your wife with another woman?"

"No."

"If I were married, I wouldn't cheat on my husband with another person, either. It's about the commitment, not about what's between their legs."

It made sense to him, explained like that. It's just that the idea is so mind-bending to people, so "other", that they automatically remove far too many of the "person like me" attributes and look for an explanation for the missing parts that aren't really missing at all. Badly worded, I think, but I'm tired and can't think properly any more tonight.

[nagasvoice.livejournal.com]

One of my friends commented that a relationship is about the other person involved, not the plumbing.
Which always reminds me of one of the more startling conversations I've had with my Significant Other. At one point, somehow my mother's breast cancer surgery and scars came up. This SO of mine turned to me and said, very fiercely, "You know, if it should ever happen that you were diagnosed with something that severe--and I'm praying it never does--then you do know that I'd be there regardless, right? You do know that it wouldn't matter to me if you had to have any bits taken off, whether it was a naughty bit or a toe or a hand or whatever, right? The bits are nice, but that's not the main point, however lovely they are."
I'm afraid I made guppy noises at him...

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Rather scary too. Even if it only lasts for a couple of months, at least I supported myself for a while.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

That's a good point, I'd never thought about it like that - gays being unable to choose. I can understand their annoyance in that respect, but then again - I'd still think that people would be more understanding!

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

This is just the beginning!