Though bisexual people make up roughly 52% of the LGBTQ+ community, they've been underrepresented on television and in media for a long time.
When they do appear, they're frequently painted as sociopaths (cough, Villanelle on Killing Eve) or are painted as promiscuous or confused, if their identities are addressed at all.
Fortunately, many recent TV shows have been making up for decades of bisexual erasure and misrepresentation by featuring nuanced bisexual characters. On this Bisexual Visibility Day, here are some of TV's greatest bisexual icons.
1. Magnus Bane (Shadowhunters)
<p>While many bisexual characters fall into stereotypes that range from indecisiveness to hypersexuality, <em data-redactor-tag="em">Shadowhunters' </em>immortal warlock offers a different window into what it means to be a bisexual man. Bane has been bisexual for hundreds of years—so it's definitely not a phase—and is dedicated to his committed, monogamous relationships with both men and women.</p>
The truth is that every kind of bisexual person is different, just as every person of any particular identity is different. Still, the most important thing to know is that bisexuality is a valid identity, and it doesn't mean that you have to act any particular kind of way. You can be sexually promiscuous or perpetually single; you can be cis, trans, or anything and everything in between. You can be in a straight relationship or gay relationship and still be bisexual, or you can deviate from expectations about your sexual orientation without feeling bad about disloyalty to the queer cause. Don't let TV or the Internet tell you what to think or dictate your reality or tell you what it means to be a "good" or "bad" bisexual (or person). Just love who you want to love, and if you feel up to it, be out, loud and proud this Bisexual Visiblity Day and every day.
It's difficult to overstate the importance that The L Word held for the lesbian community after it originally premiered in 2004.
Never before had there been a show featuring a full cast of lesbian and bisexual characters. In fact, there'd been very few gay women (in this article the word "woman/women" denotes anyone who identifies with the term) on TV at all. In 2004, America had barely become comfortable with the "gay best friend," which, as problematic as that trope is, at least worked to familiarize the public with the concept of homosexuality in men. But female-on-female sex and romantic relationships, though sometimes culturally less maligned than male-on-male relationships, were still firmly taboo, seen as a mere waypoint on the road to settling down with a man or fetishized by the male gaze. Then, at last, The L Word showed a mainstream audience a community of women who loved women without shame. It also helped define a vocabulary of words for LGBTQ+ people. It was important, but it certainly wasn't perfect.
Many of the cast members were notably feminine and played by straight women, which in and of itself isn't necessarily an issue, but it did often serve to make the frequent sex scenes feel absolutely sodden with the male gaze. Between the lacy lingerie, liberally applied makeup, and pornographic noises, a lot of gay women felt that the show didn't reflect the less picturesque realities of lesbian identity and sexuality. Even worse, the endless dramatics of the soap opera-esque show sometimes seemed to imply that lesbians are compulsively promiscuous, prone to extreme drama in their relationships, and even likely to come unhinged (as seen in the truly bonkers storyline of Jenny Shecter). And while we're at it, it's worth mentioning that the characters were almost exclusively upper-middle class, white cis-gendered women (not to mention the deeply problematic portrayal of transgender individuals when they did try to broach that topic). Still, flawed representation is often better than no representation, and despite all the show's faults, a generation of both budding and seasoned gay women watched The L Word with devotion and gratitude.
Now, the beloved show is getting a 2019 style makeover in the form of eight new episodes called The L Word: Generation Q. A lot has changed in the gay community since The L Word's final episode premiered in 2009—perhaps most notably, the language LGBTQ+ people use to describe themselves. While many wonder if this new reboot can atone for the sins of the original series while still capturing its particular magic, one thing is clear after the first two episodes: Things are a lot less black and white than they were in the early aughts of Dana and Alice drama.
Already, the series has introduced two openly transgender characters played by actual trans actors, Leo Sheng as Micah Lee and Brian Michael Smith as Pierce Williams, a refreshing change from the at times downright offensive transgender character of Max from the original. Additionally, while we have a femme gay couple (Dani and Sophia) at the center of the story, we also have Finley, a self-described "traditional lesbian when it comes to tools," complete with an affinity for short sleeve button ups and using the word "dude."
But even with these more inclusive identities, we get much less anxiety over labeling, which the original series could never escape. Within the first few episodes, the 2004 series made it clear who saw themselves as a butch lesbian, a femme lesbian, a top, a bottom, bisexual, and who was still on their way to one of these concrete identities. Besides Finley's single mention of being a "traditional lesbian," we see less of this need for definition in the new series. Instead, we simply see who each character is attracted to in a given situation, placing them all in a vague space of queerness—which is a much more realistic depiction of fluid sexual identity.
Indeed, regardless of what your feelings about the show are, comparing the reboot with the original is a fascinating study in the changing nature of LGBTQ+ language. We learn that Micah is Dani's ex, making it clear that, despite his amorous connection to a gay man in the first two episodes, he does not exclusively date men. This plot point is never harped on but merely accepted, something that would have been an impossibility in the original series, which spent ample time parsing out the exact nature of each character's sexuality. Even the adjusted title, "Generation Q," obviously denotes this major difference, as today's gay community is composed of people who feel less pressure than their forebearers did to claim a single term to define their sexuality. Instead they reclaim previously derogatory terms like "queer," which Merriam Webster defines as, "Use of the word queer as referring and relating to sexual orientation, and, more recently, to gender identity, has changed dramatically since the 1980s. Formerly used only as a strongly pejorative term, queer is now commonly used by some as a positive self-descriptor. The word is also prominent as a neutral term in academic contexts that deal with gender and sexuality."
But reclaiming previously derogatory words isn't actually new. The reboot highlights the changing nature of the titular "L" word itself. As Lit Hub points out, "Lesbian and tribad and invert and sapphist were all still being used relatively interchangeably at the turn of the twentieth century; in some literature, lesbian was the female equivalent of sodomite, itself a negatively charged legal term." So in the same way that "queer" is no longer a slur, the word "lesbian" was reclaimed by previous generations of women who loved women. As such, the original series took the word to mean women who loved and slept with other women, regardless of the strictness of this preference.
But now, LGBTQ+ individuals have a much larger vocabulary at hand to describe their sexuality. While one might think this means that labeling is becoming even more important for this generation, it actually has the exact opposite effect. In fact, there is so much language available to define one's sexual identity that words are actually becoming less important and more inclusive. Words like "queer," "pansexual," "bisexual," "asexual," "aromantic," and "fluid" all offer a sense of validity to those who may identify with them, but they also offer an openness to interperpretation, which is highlighted by the fact that the new generation of The L Word isn't harping on terminology at all. While characters like Dana, Alice, Shane, and Jenny all clung to "lesbian" as an identifier of their sexual preference and often as a sort of membership card in a counterculture, the new cast of Generation Q exists in a much more amorphous, queer space. It's just understood that the characters are not exclusively attracted to cis-gender people of the opposite gender, and beyond that distinction, they are all comfortable existing in the malleable, ever-changing, identifier of "non-straight," each presumably ascribing to various words within the LGBTQ+ identifier.
In fact, I would go so far as to say that few LGBTQ+ femme individuals who are attracted to other female-identifying individuals use the term "lesbian" anymore. As Christina Cauterucci puts it in Slate, "In other words, we shared a common sexual orientation [with lesbians], but little, if any, cultural affiliation. In the space between "lesbian" and "queer," my friend and I located a world of difference in politics, gender presentation, and cosmopolitanism." In fact, Cauterucci isn't the only one who feels this way, and the use of the word "lesbian" online has decreased notably since 2015, as shown in the graph from Nexis Unis below.
In many ways, the term is becoming antiquated, particularly as our perception of gender changes. And isn't that a good thing? Isn't the ultimate goal of expanding our understanding and acceptance of various sexualities to make specifying language obsolete, leaving people to love who they love, without question or stipulation? For all of the ways The L Word has let us down in the past and may continue to do so in the future, at least it serves as an accurate portrait of the changing language of LGBTQ+ people.
Harry Styles has kept fans waiting for new music for quite a while, but he certainly did not disappoint with his first single since 2017's "Sign of the Times."
— (@)
"Lights Up" is a frothy, effortless indie pop number that places Styles' flawless vocals above a funky bassline and dreamy guitar flourishes. It feels infused with the kind of energy that citrus skincare advertisements promise you, but its substance and nuance extend much further than skin-deep.
The song builds up to clusters of harmonies and gospel choirs, wound together with delicate piano. At three minutes, it's a short, concise, and crisp collage of modern and vintage sounds that show off Styles' versatility as well as his expert pop sensibility.
Lyrically, it's all over the place, and since the moment it was released, fans have been reading into its possible implications. Some proposed that the lyrics "I'm not ever going back" are referring to Styles' decision to never return to his One Direction boy band days.
Others think that this is Styles' official declaration of his bisexuality (it is National Coming Out Day, after all). Styles has never explicitly confirmed his sexual orientation, and in 2017, he told The Sun that he doesn't use labels. "No, I've never felt the need to really. No…I don't feel like it's something I've ever felt like I have to explain about myself," he said.
His lyrics have insinuated bisexual themes before. In the song Medicine, he sang, "Tingle running through my bones / The boys and the girls are in / I mess around with him / And I'm okay with it."
Perhaps Styles is smart to avoid labeling his sexuality. Recently, there has been extensive debate about the difference between bisexuality and pansexuality, a difference that largely boils down to semantics and individual interpretation. Labels are perpetually changing and shifting, but of course, these monikers and intricacies obscure what is arguably the point of the entire LGBTQ+ identity: We should all be able to be who we are, and to love who we wish to love.
— (@)
Of course, it sometimes seems like our world does everything to make this impossible. A deeper dig into the "Lights Up" lyrics reflects this, revealing that not everything is love and light in Harry Styles' glamorous world. Styles did tell Rolling Stone that his new album is going to be all about "having s*x and feeling sad," and in "Lights Up," he's keeping that promise.
The lyrics, "All the lights couldn't put out the dark / Running through my heart / Lights up and they know who you are / Do you know who you are?" seems to hint at a kind of existential questioning that belies the discomfort that often accompanies trying to figure out who you are, corroborated by the pressures of being caught in the insatiable limelight.
We may never know who Harry Styles really is, beyond the glittering figure he presents himself to be. Then again, we're all constantly performing various identities, many of us never knowing just how much we've been influenced and shaped by the outside world and its conventions. As we try to come to terms with who we really are, the best we can hope is that we have a few nights spent on the backs of motorcycles like Styles in "Lights Up," throwing our hands up to the sky and dancing to the beat.
Bella Thorne wearing Giambattista Valli at the amfAR Gala
Photo by Image Press Agency (NurPhoto/Shutterstock)
Sexuality is confusing, especially if you turn to the 21-year-old "wannabe mogul" Bella Thorne for explanations.
While appearing on Good Morning America to promote her new book, Life of a Wannabe Mogul: Mental Disarray, she declared, "I'm actually pansexual and I didn't know that. Somebody explained to me very thoroughly what that is." The actress continued, "[Pansexuals] like beings. You like what you like. It doesn't have to be a girl or a guy or a he or she or they or that—it's literally, you like a personality. You just like a being."
The LGBTQ+ term has become more common since 2018, which was deemed "the year of the pansexual," with Merriam-Webster spotlighting the orientation on their Words of the Year list. It was thanks, in part, to singer Janelle Monáe coming out in a Rolling Stone interview in April, when she explained, "I read about pansexuality and was like, 'Oh, these are things that I identify with too.' I'm open to learning more about who I am." Soon after, searches for the term spiked—and continue to do so, as we keep turning to Dr. Google to understand non-heternormative identities.
"Alexa: Are you pansexual?"Nexis Uni data
Merriam-Webster defines "pansexual" as "of, relating to, or characterized by sexual desire or attraction that is not limited to people of a particular gender identity or sexual orientation." As for Thorne, she simply says, "I like sexy girls, I like sexy guys. I like sexy in general, you know?
Well, that's not all there is to pansexuality. Despite being coined by Sigmund Freud in 1914, the word wasn't used to describe a sexual orientation until the 1980s. Of course, there have been individuals all throughout history who have loved regardless of "labels and boundaries." Then the sexual revolution and free love subculture created enough activism and visibility that pansexuality was given its own letter in the queer community's "alphabet soup": LGBTTQQIAAP (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, queer, questioning, intersex, asexual, ally, pansexual).
And we get it: That's a lot of representation, a lot of separate politics, a lot of colorful banners, and an uneasy responsibility not to possibly offend anyone if you don't know the definition and history of each letter. Luckily, that's what the Internet is for.
The foremost questions that come to mind when discussing pansexuality are usually: "How is that different from bisexuality? Says who? And does it really matter? #LoveIsLove" While that's fair, as with most words attempting to describe the immeasurable gamut of human behavior, the meaning of the word is complicated and weird and constantly in flux. But it's mostly about intent. Generally speaking, that's how we end up with so many synonyms in the English language when they all mean the same thing. We mainly adopt new words to assimilate the history of that word into our culture. We can call someone "funny" or, let's say, "comical." But "comical" is a boring direct descendant from the Latin word comicus (a writer of comedy, a comic actor, or comedian), whereas "funny" is an odd colloquialism from the good old American South in the 1800s, which denoted anything from a "tingling sensation" to "mental hospital"—which makes the word not only more diverse but also hilarious.
The point is: "Bisexual" creates the clear distinction that someone is attracted to two genders (usually cisgenders, indicating individuals who identify as the gender they were assigned at birth). The problem is that excludes any non-cisgender individuals. Growing awareness of trans, nonbinary, and genderqueer identities and the discrimination they still face today (both legally and socially) gives the inclusivity of "alphabet soup" grave importance.
Rolling Stone points out that there's plenty of debate about the necessity of a pansexual orientation within the LGBTQ+ community itself. Some agree with the Bisexual Resource Center's Gabrielle Blonder, who says, "I personally like the historical aspect of it. It's the label we've fought for recognition under for decades, and it's the most widely-known label. Language isn't a static entity, and words can change meaning over time...I believe the term bisexual has morphed into a different meaning than it originally was." Similarly, Ethan Remillard, 22, who came out as bisexual in his early teens, bluntly stated, "I identify as bisexual because I like f**king dudes and romancing girls. But I don't claim pansexuality because trans[gender] girls and boys are the same as their cis[gender] counterparts."
While that's true, others acknowledge that they do respond differently to trans and genderqueer individuals as a form of respect for their separate expressions of gender. Daniel Saynt, founder of the private club NSFW, says, "I've definitely met attractive trans and non-conforming individuals, but the feelings I have [for them have] never been sexual in nature." Saynt adds, "It's more of an appreciation for who they are, what they represent, and just a desire for them to find happiness regardless of identity."
Ultimately, "pansexual" doesn't just include trans, nonbinary, and genderqueer individuals as valid subjects of sexual attraction; it signals that they're attractive because of their specific expression of gender(s), not despite it.
As RuPaul's Drag Race alum Courtney Act told Attitude, "It's important to acknowledge bisexual, pansexual. We have such a rigid idea of what heterosexuality is, and that's problematic. We have such a rigid idea of what gay is, and that's also problematic." So Bella Thorne may be the latest high-profile figure to discuss pansexuality, but she joins a growing cohort including Janelle Monáe, Panic! At the Disco frontman Brendon Urie, Miley Cyrus, Orange is the New Black star Asia Kate Dillon (who also identifies as non-binary and uses the pronouns "they/their"), and teenage trans-activist and reality star Jazz Jennings.
More importantly, up to 25 percent of Americans identify as not "completely heterosexual," and at least 4.5 percent of U.S. adults identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. It's true that the mouthful of acronyms in the LGBTQ+ community is clumsy, always changing, and difficult to grasp, but so is human behavior. Language is still trying to catch up with today's enlightened reality that gender is a social construct, sexuality is fluid, and everybody can get it on with anybody (or no one, if that's what they prefer), as long as it's between two (or three, or five, or ten) consenting adults.
No matter how you swing it, Willow Smith won't stay on the ground.
The first song on her newest album is appropriately called "Like a Bird." Beginning over delicately picked electric guitar, it layers her reverb-washed harmonies over an expansive bass-line. The product is heady, transcendent, and reminiscent of Kevin Abstract or maybe some of the moodier parts of Beyoncé's Lemonade, but ultimately, it's all uniquely Willow.
Not so long ago, of course, Willow was being forced into an image that was very much not of her own devising. At ten years old, Will and Jada's precociously talented daughter found her way into the spotlight with the song "Whip My Hair."
What ensued, apparently, was a nightmare. "Whip My Hair" shot to success and topped 2010's charts, but with that success came the immense pressures of fame, and the Internet's cruelty. Co-signed by Jay-Z and poised for industry domination, Smith fell into a spiral of depression and self-harm. During this time, she fought bitterly with her father, who apparently was trying to pressure his children into the spotlight. For a while, she considered quitting music.
When she returned, it was on her own terms. In the interim after "Whip My Hair," Smith had found solace in spirituality and science, and those themes weave through all of her new music. 2015's ARDEPITHECUS was a sophisticated, futuristic work of experimental R&B, and it covered everything from evolution to climate change to her own confusion at the state of the world.
That album came out when Smith was 15. Many of its songs felt like teenage diary entries, smashed together with spiritual wisdom beyond its writer's years. Often, the combination worked, particularly on songs like "Marceline," which blends playful escapism and real social critique, with a cosmic thread running through it all. The same went for 2017's The First, which focused closely on the chaos of the teenage experience but also offered an unusually vast and poetic perspective on human life and the universe at large.
Her newest self-titled album, Willow, contains fewer idiosyncrasies. It feels like the work of a mature artist, whose worldview has merged into a unified whole that's porous enough to contain multitudes. Musically, the album is smoother and dreamier than her previous work, buoyed by grainy guitar layers and echoing harmonies.
Lyrically, it's similar to her previous output, continuing to meld implicitly ordinary observations with spiritual, otherworldly themes. "I am human, I am woman," sings Willow, sounding like a space queen or a messiah—anything but an ordinary human. Throughout the album, she's in a constant state of becoming, from naturalist to futurist, lover to time traveler, lonely girl to enlightened woman.
She's also a resolute feminist, which is particularly apparent on the standout "PrettyGirlz," a song that initially appears to be about the beauty standards that women know too well. Willow doesn't stick to "love yourself" clichés, though; she does a 180 on them. Halfway through, the song becomes a love song about a pretty girl.
Willow is openly bisexual, and in a way, the song speaks to the complexity of the lesbian and bisexual femme experience. These relationships can often be complicated by existent beauty standards, but they can also transcend them entirely, opening up a space outside of heteronormative constructs.
At the end of the song, Willow bundles up these emotions and themes and washes them away in a rolling climax of synths and drums and furious guitar. The music speaks for itself, or Willow speaks through the music. Her message is clear: She's transcending expectations, soaring above it all.
Willow produced every song on the album, alongside Tyler Cole. It's decidedly experimental, combining gospel influences with dream pop and hip hop. Her brother Jaden brings rap to the table, delivering a verse on "U KNOW." On that song, Smith goes fully occult, singing, "Falling into memories of Anunnaki dreams / Falling over ley lines and sacred geometry." Then Jaden appears, his voice initially almost unrecognizable through a cloak of autotune. "U KNOW" is a song about finding patterns in the unfathomable, making constellations out of disparate stars. It's full of holes and empty spaces, and can feel like an imitation of depth—kind of like a tattered mandala tapestry on a dorm room wall—but it always manages to maintain its magic, like all of Willow's work. A lesser artist would be unable to elude corniness in the way she does, but there's something in Willow's voice that makes you believe her completely, even when she's singing about aliens or energetic flows.
The album closer, "Overthinking IT," is Willow at her most grounded. Over a guitar progression reminiscent of reggae and surf rock, she doubles back on the previous song's esoteric speculations, resolving to chill out and focus on what's important.
Of course, she never really touches the ground, and always keeps one foot in the door to the mystical dimensions. Clearly Willow cannot be confined. She might not achieve the mainstream success she could've if she'd continued on the "Whip My Hair" track—but she's creating high-quality, innovative work that stays true to her values. At 19, she's only just taking off, testing her wings. We'll be lucky if she decides to bring back some of whatever she finds above the clouds.
David Bowie Ziggy Stardust Graffiti on Storefront in Trapani, Italy
Photo by Katy Hardman (Unsplash)
People seem to have a lot of spare time to speculate over Ariana Grande and Billie Eilish.
The singers' respective new songs contain a few flippant lines that hint at non-heterosexuality. Grande sings the line "I like women and men" in "Monopoly," her collaboration with the openly bisexual singer Victoria Monet, and Billie Eilish released a single with the inflammatory title, "Wish You Were Gay." Both generated wild buzz that they were coming out as LGBTQ artists. According to the singers, neither song is about "coming out," which only generated more backlash against the artists for queerbaiting (in addition to driving their fan armies to defend their pop queens).
For better use of time, there's a much richer history to look back on for songs that made controversial stances on sexuality. Released when homosexuality was still a criminal act in most states, some of these tracks were designed to outrage with their fluid expressions of non-heteronormative love, while others were simple responses to marginalized experiences. Here are seven classic songs celebrating fluid sexuality.
1."Rough Boys" by Pete Townshend (1980)
Written by The Who frontman after he went solo, the lyrics to Townshend's typically 80s, guitar-driven rock song feature undeniable descriptions of the decade's leather gay scene. Townshend sings, "Rough boys don't walk away / I wanna buy you leather / Make noise try and talk me away / We can't be seen together. In the chorus, he repeats, "Tough boys / Come over here / I wanna bite and kiss you.
He later described his inspiration in a 1990 interview with Newsweek: "I know how it feels to be a woman because I am a woman, and I won't be classified as just a man." He explained, "In a way it was a coming-out. That it was a real acknowledgment of the fact that I'd been surrounded by people that I really adored — and was actually sexually attracted to — who were men. And that the side of me that responded to those people was a passive side, a subordinate side."
2. "Triad" by David Crosby (1967)
The politically-charged folk songwriter and founding member of The Byrds wrote this ode to polyamory amidst the free love counterculture of the 60s. Still, The Byrds rejected the song, with Roger McGuinn calling it a "freak-out orgy tune." Crosby opens with the first line, "You want to know how it will be / Me and her or you and me." He continues, "you know we love each other it's plain to see / There's just one answer comes to me / Sister lovers, some of you must know about water brothers."
3. "A.C.D.C." by Sweet (1974)
The long-haired, glam rock band sang about loving a bisexual woman. In 2006, Joan Jett, despite never confirming or denying her own rumored bisexuality, recorded a cover version. The first verse begins, "She got girls / Girls all over the world / She got men / Every now and then / But she can't make up her mind." With "A.C. D.C." considered to be a coded reference to bisexuality, Sweet's song is a celebrated bisexual anthem of the hair band era.
Urban Dictionary
4. "Rebel Rebel" by David Bowie (1974)
Of course, the glam rock legend David Bowie has a number of celebrated queer anthems, many of which were released when they were most taboo. Highbrow Magazinepraises "Rebel Rebel" for its appreciation of androgyny and gender non-conformity. Bowie sings, "You've got your mother in a whirl / She's not sure if you're a boy or a girl / Hey babe, your hair's alright. Hey babe, let's go out tonight / You like me, and I like it all." The song "brought the concept of bisexuality to the front lines of popular culture," while Bowie's overtly sexual expressions of gender confusion laid a foundation for non-binary representation in mainstream media.
5. "See My Friends" by The Kinks (1965)
Frontman Ray Davies said he wrote the song in mourning over his late sister, but the track has mostly been remembered as one of the first pop songs about homosexuality. Its cryptic lyrics simply repeat, "She is gone / She is gone and now there's no one left / 'Cept my friends / Layin' 'cross the river." In the 60s, "friend" was a heavily coded word for "homosexuality," so much so that the record company changed the title from "See My Friend" to "See My Friends" in hopes of avoiding controversy. However, Davies later acknowledged a queer reading of the song, tellingQ magazine, "It's more about camaraderie than homosexuality, but then it borders on that."
6. "Jet Boy, Jet Girl" by Elton Motello (1978)
Long before Call Me By Your Name romanticized an affair between a teenage boy and an older man, Alan Ward, frontman of the punk rock band Elton Motello, sang, "I took his arm and kissed his lips / He looked at me with such a smile / My face turned red / We booked a room into the Ritz / Ooh, he gives me head." Ward later reflected, "Judging by the emails I receive, my lyric has touched many more people and seems to ring a chord in many more hearts" since its first release. The song's chorus repeats, "Jet boy jet girl / Gonna take you round the world / Jet boy, I'm gonna make 'em penetrate / I'm gonna make you be a girl / Ooh, jet boy jet girl."