Chunovic quoted Dack Rambo as saying, “I think a lot of people don’t believe in a thing called bisexuality,” implying that he believes that it exists but he doesn’t apply that term—or any term—to himself.16 In the next issue, Nona Hendryx’s interviewer used the word “bisexual,” and Hendryx did not reject the word but said, “I try to think of myself as asexual.”17 None of these articles gave any hint that bisexuality per se might be an issue in the lesbian and gay community, an impression that was reinforced by the lack of letters to the editor about these articles in subsequent issues of The Advocate.18
In the Lesbian and Gay Community represented by The Advocate, bisexuality is only one issue among many, and it is not a particularly controversial one at that. The issue of bisexuality did not supplant the issue of lesbians and gays having heterosex; instead, it simply joined an ongoing lesbian and gay discourse that was otherwise left unchanged. To the extent that bisexuality is an issue at all in The Advocate, the issue is whether bisexuals should be included in the lesbian and gay movement, and the weight of public opinion is in favor of inclusion. Lesbian feminists who object to bisexuality on political grounds are rarely heard from and marginalized as narrow-minded political extremists, whereas bisexuals themselves are applauded for their humanism and liberated thinking.
In contrast, Out/Look presented bisexuality as a controversial issue with important implications for lesbian and gay discourse. During its brief life, Out/Look published two articles relevant to the issue of bisexuality. In 1990, the cover announced an article by Jan Clausen entitled “My Interesting Condition” with the caption “When Lesbians Fall for Men” and a drawing of Cupid aiming an arrow into the breast of a woman wearing double women’s symbol and “DYKE” buttons.19 In Spring 1992, the cover of Out/Look asked “What do bisexuals want?” The headline graced a drawing of a woman in a short tight skirt holding the arm of a man and looking over her shoulder at a butch lesbian. She looked startled, and the thought bubble above her head was filled with exclamation points and question marks.
Similar to the approach used by 1980s Advocate articles, the issue in the autobiographical article “My Interesting Condition” was a lesbian-identified woman who became involved with a man, not bisexuality. But unlike the authors of The Advocate articles, Clausen dealt directly with the question of bisexuality. She explained that she did not identify as bisexual because she was reluctant to become invested in a new identity and because she did “not know what ‘bisexual’ desire would be, since my desire is always for a specifically sexed and gendered individual.” Clausen characterized lesbian feminism as a way of life that is “very hard on women,” and asked lesbian feminists to be more gentle with each other by relaxing their demands that the personal conform to narrow political prescripts.
Clausen’s article was like a footstep in a minefield. The Spring issue included four letters from readers about Clausen’s article. Two thanked Clausen for the article, one threatened to cancel her subscription to Out/Look, and the fourth blasted Clausen for claiming to be a lesbian.20 All four letters were from women. But this was not the end of the furor. Reader response increased with the next issue of Out/Look, which included no less than seven letters: four applauding, three condemning. The four positive letters were from a bisexual activist woman, two men, and an anonymous reader, whereas the three negative letters were from two women and an anonymous reader.21 The debate continued through the next two issues. In Fall 1990 and Winter 1991—a full year after the publication of the Clausen article—two female readers defended Clausen against the critical letters published the previous Spring and Summer.
The flurry of letters following Clausen’s article clearly presented bisexuality as a controversial issue, particularly among women. But what was the issue, as reflected in these letters? On the positive side, Clausen was applauded for encouraging the acceptance of difference within the lesbian community, for speaking on behalf of those who feel alienated from the lesbian community because of their attractions to or relationships with men, for her courage in bucking the lesbian feminist paradigm, for her intelligence and freedom, and for writing honestly about a very human situation. On the negative side, she was criticized for writing about the wonders of heterosexual fucking in a magazine whose readers were looking for affirmation of their lesbianism and gayness, for using patriarchal arguments to attempt to excuse her “failures as a woman-identified-woman,” for not having realized yet that only another woman can offer her true freedom, and for reaping “the benefits of the heterosexual world while homosexual women continue to struggle for legal and social advancement.” She was also accused of posing a greater threat to the lesbian community than homophobes pose because women like her “dilute and pollute the very definition and essence of lesbianism” by calling themselves lesbians. One reader wrote, “I don’t consider any woman a ‘dyke’ who sleeps with a man. Period.” Clausen’s Fall 1990 defender pointed out that some of the points made in readers’ letters were not responsive to Clausen’s article at all. She wrote that “the letters ignored what for me was the most significant point: that Clausen no longer feels she can attach a label to her sexuality. This point was made quite clearly, and I am confused by the letters condemning her for continuing to call herself lesbian.”22
The fact that letters ostensibly written in response to Clausen’s article were less than completely responsive to the article itself suggests that Clausen’s article was only a trigger. Most of the women who wrote to the editor were obviously engaged in a much larger ongoing debate with a rather complicated history. The two men who wrote brief complimentary letters were apparently not party to the same discourse. Whether they were actually unaware of the heavy political debate within which Clausen’s experiences took place, or whether, as men, they could not participate in this debate, their letters gave the impression that they were peacefully oblivious to the bullets flying past their ears.
Out/Look’s Spring 1992 issue on bisexuality included fifteen pages of cartoons and a selection of articles titled “What do bisexuals want?” “Just add water: Searching for the Bisexual politic,” “Strangers at home: Bisexuals in the queer movement,” and “Love and rockets.” Under the titles, the authors explored the debate about bisexuality, analyzing the political sources of lesbians’ concerns—and secondarily, the concerns of gays in general—about bisexuality and outlining the strategic and ideological difficulties facing the bisexual movement.
In the next issue, the editors wrote that they had “received a striking number of responses” to the issue on bisexuality, and that “Curiously enough, the last time we received this much mail was in response to Jan Clausen’s ‘My Interesting Condition’.” “Tender spot?” they rhetorically questioned their readers. According to the editors, most of the letters they had received were from “bisexuals who felt uncomfortable with the constraints of a ‘debate’ around bisexuality as we had posited it.” They included excerpts from these letters in a sidebar that spanned the length of a printed dialogue among three bisexual writer/activists who presented their views of what the issues really were. Amanda Udis-Kessler, Elizabeth Reba Weise, and Sarah Murray explained that bisexuals are diverse people with a variety of personal needs and political goals. Weise pinpointed the growth of the lesbian and gay movement during the 1970s and 1980s—especially the emergence of a political lesbian identity—as the source of the current antipathy toward bisexuality, and Udis-Kessler attributed the recent growth of a political bisexual identity to this antipathy. Weise also pointed out that some of the most active leaders in the lesbian movement were really bisexual women who either repressed part of themselves in the name of lesbian purity or remained quiet about their involvements with men, and who had recently begun to show “a little more of the reality of their lives.” Bisexuals were not outsiders seeking
