It was lust at first sight and love after the third martini. Over a get-to-know-you-dinner I discovered all I needed to know: I had found the Perfect Woman. All the boxes were ticked and the taxi was winding its way to my bedroom when she said: ‘You should know that I’m bisexual.’
She must have seen the frown on my face because she quickly added, ‘But everyone is bisexual.’
‘No. I’m not,’ I said gently.
‘Yes you are,’ she insisted.
‘No, I’m a heterosexual,’ I said through gritted teeth.
‘No, we’re all bisexual,’ she said with muffled exasperation.
There followed an infantile exchange of Yes you are!/No I’m not! that ended when I snapped and shouted: ‘You bloody bisexuals are so arrogant — you think everyone wants to be just like you!’
She bolted from the cab and my life.
It was in 1970s Britain that I first heard this curious claim that we’re all bisexual. Back then decadence was divine, the film Cabaret was on at your local cinema, David Bowie was on your television (Top of the Pops) with his arm around another bloke (guitarist Mick Ronson). Bisexuality was so fashionable that it seemed that everyone I knew was either bisexual or pretending to be. Even David Bowie, we later learned, was faking it.
The glitter and glam of those years has gone — but the bi brigade and their fundamentalist belief that we’re all bisexual is still alive and active. A new generation of bisexual activists is no longer content to be seen as the frivolous and sexually feral offspring of the gay and lesbian movement. They want to be taken seriously, to stop partying and start protesting. The attempt by some bisexuals to acquire victim status seems absurd, no one says a bad word about them.
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