Culture

Nearly Half Of Aussies Say They Would Refuse To Date Someone Who’s Bisexual

"They could be letting a wonderful person who would be the perfect partner slip away."

by Millie Roberts  22 June 2021

Want more Junkee in your life? Sign up to our newsletter, and follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook so you always know where to find us.

Nearly half of Australians wouldn’t date someone bisexual, the latest stats in an ABC survey revealed.

‘Australia Talks’ reached out to 60,000 people to hear their opinions on politics, the environment, technology, health, wellbeing, and life.

The survey asked respondents, assuming they weren’t in a relationship, how open they’d be to romantic involvement with someone who identifies as bisexual, and 44% said they weren’t into the idea at all.

According to The Conversation, one in 25 Australians identify as either gay or bi. A 2018 Triple J survey also found that while 83% of gay men and 86% of gay women have come out, less than half of bi people have done the same.

Hosts Annabel Crabb and Nazeem Hussain clarified that the conversation depended on age, and that for young Australians, their partner being bi wasn’t as big a deal. In fact, 84% of 18-24 year olds were cool with it.

For Aussies older than 75, more than three-quarters of people said that was a dealbreaker.

A 2018 report by Australian Institute of Health and Welfare noted that older people who identify as queer have “lived through a period of social and cultural transition”, and while the times have changed over the last half decade, many have likely suffered “first hand stigma, discrimination, criminalisation, family rejection and social isolation.”

“This has all the hallmarks where attitudes are going to change over time,” Crabb said last night.

We might be more accepting nowadays, but bisexuality continues to be played off by some straight people as experimentation, or en route to coming out ‘fully’ in parts of the gay community.

“Many bisexuals avoid coming out because they don’t want to deal with misconceptions that bisexuals are indecisive or incapable of monogamy, or going through a phase (stereotypes that also exist among straights, gays and lesbians alike),” sex therapist Matty Silver wrote in 2014.

“They also feel that they are sometimes shunned by the gay and lesbian and the straight world alike.”

Societal response to this sexual orientation becomes greyer when it intersects with gender. Research by Deakin University suggests that bi men are falsely viewed as “untrustworthy and [having] secret affairs”, they might “transmit HIV and STI to women”, or even be “abusive to their women partners.”

Similarly, while social media has normalised ‘bi wife energy’ and ‘alt bi GF, gamer boyfriend’ tropes, many bisexual women who are in straight-passing relationships continue to be discredited by others.

More open conversations, listening to the experiences of bisexuality, and spreading awareness around Bi Visibility Day all help in reframing bisexual relationships.