13 Cultural Moments That Launched Bisexual Awakenings: From Mulan to The Great Recession
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The moment your desires crystalize can be an overwhelming experience in a young gay life, especially when those desires seem to conflict. But what is bisexuality if not horniness enduring? Is there a bisexual in your life? If not, why are you on this website? If so, ask them what sparked their own bi awakening, and you’re likely to get an answer about some foundational piece of media, animated character, hot celebrity, or celestial event.
Across my own bisexual timeline, there have been many hot people who fed the eager flame of yearning burning low within me until it roared up into a blaze, consuming everything in its path. These days, we have bi-cons IRL to quench that thirst, but let’s take a dive into the watershed moments in bi history.
Well, not real bi history, because this isn’t a Jane Lynch-produced miniseries about the legacy of LGBTQ+ throughout the ages, and I wouldn’t watch that if it was! What you’ll find here instead is, mostly, a list of things that have been confusing, titillating, and devastating to your hypothetical bi friends.
These are just a few cultural phenomena that have stirred bisexual awakenings for me, according to me, but perhaps also across space and time. Because all bisexual people have the exact same experience of bisexuality with no nuance whatsoever. (This is a joke.)
Various Disney Couples
Despite their failed attempts to make characters seem less gay, Disney has been inspiring queer awakenings for decades. During the Disney renaissance of the late ’80s to early ’90s, pairings like Aladdin and Jasmine, Hercules and Megara, Mulan and Li Shang, and literally the entire cast of Atlantis were providing foundational material for many nascent bisexual epiphanies. But the most relatable woman in the Disney canon is the one who thinks Aladdin is “rather tasty.” I am she. She is me. And I wholeheartedly believe she would feel the same way about Jasmine if given the chance.
Rachel Weisz and Brendan Fraser, The Mummy
Few people have been hotter on screen than these two: Fraser at peak ’90s dreamboat status and Weisz decades before I and many others would refer to her primarily as “mommy.” Weisz would of course go on to play many queer women in her career. (We’ve all seen the spit scene from Disobedience, right?) She is also in possibly the most bisexual-passing marriage of all time with Daniel Craig. Baby queers were really cooking with this one. There’s a reason this movie is now typically seen as a bisexual canon event.
Angelina Jolie
Angelina with short hair in Hackers. Angelina with TERF bangs in Girl, Interrupted. Angelina with guns in Tomb Raider. Angelina in Gia. Angelina Jolie crushing on Michelle Pfieffer. In any universe, I will find Angelina Jolie and think she’s hot.
Scholastic Book Fairs
Drag queen story time isn’t turning your children queer, but knowledge is power, and having access to the cumulative knowledge of the human race via the annual Scholastic Book Fair absolutely helped shape the queers we are today. During one trip I might have purchased a Goosebumps book and the latest Harry Potter (sorry), but I was also snagging a puffy pink pen topper at checkout. Is capitalism inherently bisexual? We both spend and earn money, which sounds pretty bi to me!
Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
A bisexual awakening so universal it’s mentioned in Heartstopper! There’s just something about these actors being so damn pretty, and the way both of them are so gender between Keira’s corset and Orlando wielding a sword. It was simply too powerful to resist. They could buckle my swashes anytime, naw mean?
The Great Recession
Thanks to a mortgage crisis I absolutely can’t explain, but Margot Robbie in a bubble bath can, millennials graduated from college in the early aughts without the hope of a secure future — and it is my (half-serious) hypothesis that this was a catalyst for widespread bisexuality. We were broke and jobless with the burgeoning awareness we’d never own a home or have the life our parents had set out before us. With every other trend line headed down, the least we could do is increase the number of genders we slept with.
The Bisexual Episode of Sex and the City
You know how some TV shows had “very special episodes” about drugs or sexually transmitted diseases? Sex and the City kind of did that, except their very special episodes were about being insanely degrading towards marginalized groups. Case in point the season three episode “Boy Girl, Boy Girl,” in which Carrie dates a bisexual guy, and she and her friends say some of the most rancid things imaginable about bisexuality being a stop on the way to Gay Town (where I’m hoping to own property one day). The joke is on them, though, because Carrie ends the episode making out with Alanis Morissette, confirming that bisexuality was, in fact, cool. I do worry about Alanis, because I’m sure chain-smoking Carrie’s breath stank.
Christian Bale and Winona Ryder, Little Women
Sorry Timmy and Saorsie, these two will always be my Jo and Laurie. Bisexuality is not knowing if you want Jo and Laurie to be together or if you want to be with one/both of them.
Judy Funnie, Doug
This bitch had the tea! In her little beatnik outfit with those glasses on, so we couldn’t tell which person she was checking out? I recognize my sister!
Neo and Trinity, The Matrix
The first representation of a bisexual T4T couple many of us ever saw on screen. Thank you, Lilly Wachowski, and we salute Trinity and Neo for their service.
Lindsay Lohan Dating Samantha Ronson
As a person who would crack open their laptop and log on to PerezHilton.com every day during my freshman year of college, Lindsay’s bi era was huge for me. I knew even then that, like Lindsay, I needed a “hey mamas” lesbian to fix my life for me. Years later, I would receive acknowledgement for my standom from Lindsay’s ex herself. Please clap.
Anjelica Huston
Who was this tall, imposing woman, so terrifying as the Grand High Witch in The Witches and devastating as the wicked stepmother in Ever After? When Drew Barrymore asked if she’d ever been loved by her stepmother and Huston replied that no one “could love a pebble in their shoe,” my degradation kink was born. I needed, more than anything, to be in a Morticia and Gomez Addams sandwich. We’ve all seen that one photo of her in the wife pleaser, right? Step on me!
The Big Bang
The Big Bang created the universe, and if the universe hadn’t been created, there never would have been humans with different genders who were attracted to humans with different genders, meaning the Big Bang literally created bisexuals. I’m on the right track baby, I was born this way…
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