If you’re reading this article, there is a 96.6% chance that you are straight, statistically speaking. You might even be gay or lesbian (1.6%) or bisexual (0.7%), but based on the data, that doesn’t seem very likely.
For those of you who know me, you know that I fall within that 1.6% (and no, I don’t mean I’m a lesbian). And as much of a “minority” as I may be, you probably also know that I am 100% comfortable with myself, in part due to the extremely accepting environment of Laguna Beach.
But Laguna is a bubble; it is not an accurate representation of the rest of the world. If I were to travel to my homeland, Iran, I would be faced with the death penalty. If I were to attend a sermon at the Westboro Baptist Church, I would be heavily ostracized.
Unfortunately, this world is filled with hatred, whether we like it or not. We live in a “cruel world,” as Lana Del Rey puts it.
Support for the LGBT community has greatly expanded in our generation, as has the acronym itself. Now the acronym is LGBTQIA+ (as all-encompassing as it gets), with the last A standing for, among other things, “ally.”
Now you can be straight and fall within the community. All you have to do is support equality.
But let’s take it a step further. If you’re a straight man or woman, you have access to virtually 50% of the population. If you’re gay or lesbian, there aren’t nearly as many “fish in the sea.” You don’t have access to the other 50 percent. They’re all straight, remember?
Now look at bisexuals. They represent 0.7% of the U.S. population, yet they have access to virtually 100% of the population.
Actually, that’s not the case. Such would only be the case if all of us, every last one of us, were bisexual.
So what am I proposing? That we all “choose” to be bisexual?
No. It isn’t a choice. If it were, I would one day marry a woman, have lots of babies, and make my father proud. But life doesn’t work that way.
Let me also make it clear that I am not saying bisexuality is “the right choice” for society, but it’s pretty cool if you think about it.
In 8th grade, my intense emotions decided to latch onto a boy in my grade – a breeder (my term of endearment for straight people).
Unfortunately, I am not the king of handling emotions. I ignored common sense; I ignored rationality. My feelings lasted for over three years, when my best friend finally asserted that I was being an idiot and needed to move on with my life.
Now reimagine the situation. If sexuality were not a concern, the probability of unrequited love would be significantly reduced.
Unrequited love, however, is not the main reason for this “call to action.” Acceptance is perhaps the most important reason, the reason so many teens (and even adults) fear “coming out” to a potentially unaccepting society.
If we were all bisexual, who would we be to judge others?
“Haha, he likes other boys… wait, so do I,” the average straight-turned-bisexual teenage boy would be forced to concede.
Furthermore, this would help us renounce the stereotypes that surround different sexual orientations. Pretty models would like girls just as much as the “butch” girl, and lumberjacks would like boys just as much as the “girly” boy.
Beyond the borders of the U.S., some countries are extremely intolerant of members of the LGBT community. But what if they were all bisexual?
Would Ahmadinejad have been so rash in declaring that there are “no homosexuals in Iran” if he himself liked men? I think not.
People fear what they don’t understand. But if we were all on the same page, how could there be any discrimination?
I am not advocating a bisexual revolution, to be perfectly clear. This is just an exaggeration to get my point across, but…
People are people, and there is no reason to treat anyone differently because of who or what they like. We should all learn to love one another– you know what I mean.