Loose Women: ‘debating’ bisexuality as cishet members of the media Establishment

Steve Topple returns to The Queerness to vent his spleen about Loose Women and their ‘debate’ on bisexuality. 

I’m not a fan of daytime television – in fact, I avoid it at all costs. I’m with Eddy on this one: “Mid-morning bloody television; patronising women, castrated males and Welsh cartoons ‘til people who like a gin and tonic get home at six-thirty.”

I am especially not a fan of Loose Women – a programme for those who like their discussion in the same way they probably like their coffee – insipid, watery and full of unnecessary fat.

But my attention was drawn to a Twitter-furore surrounding a debate about bisexuality – namely bisexual men, so I flicked open ITV Player, disengaged my brain and frantically ate a bar of Dairy Milk to get myself into an appropriate stupor to watch this lobotomised dross.

The conversation was based around the fact that Sacha Baron-Cohen has come out as 23% gay – “DESPITE BEING MARRIED TO ISLA FISHER!!!” Ruth Langsford declared, asking whether it would bother her fellow witless, factory-produced TV drones.

Jane Moore, whose husband’s best man was Elton John, said it wouldn’t bother her about the emotional side, but sexually she’d “be concerned he was thinking about the other 23%” (cue the performing seals in the audience laughing hysterically). I assume the Tiny Dancer and your husband maybe have a slightly closer friendship than you’d like, Jane…?

I flicked open ITV Player, disengaged my brain and frantically ate a bar of Dairy Milk to get myself into an appropriate stupor to watch this lobotomised dross.

She then went onto recount a “story” about a friend’s husband who left her for another man, claiming that “she felt the whole marriage had been a sham… every time he was in bed with me he was thinking of men.”

It couldn’t possibly be that this “friend’s” husband couldn’t fucking stand his wife, and left her for that reason first and foremost? No?

Of course not. Anyone who’s bisexual is obviously more highly sexed and promiscuous than those of a heteronormal or gay persuasion. I mean – I certainly am if you count sleeping with four people (three of whom I was in long term relationships with) in my 34 years on this planet as equating to the life of a rabid sex maniac.

Ruth Langsford went on to add more stunning pearls of wisdom, this time saying she’d “like to think she’d be sympathetic” if moronic autocue expert Eamon Holmes “came out”. Sympathetic? I wasn’t aware I’d suddenly been diagnosed with a terminal illness when I announced my bisexuality last year! Shit! Best get myself to the doctor’s, quick!

It couldn’t possibly be that this “friend’s” husband couldn’t fucking stand his wife, and left her for that reason first and foremost? No?

Asserting that she’d “have to worry about all the men out there as well as the women” (have you looked at your fucking husband of late, Ruth? I doubt even Cameron would go with that), Langsford tipped the phobia barometer over the edge.

Apart from being completely biphobic, their witless waffling shows a complete lack of understanding of what it means to be bisexual.

Yes! I know it’s odd – but as a bisexual man, I don’t walk down the street with a constant hard-on, just because I’m sexually attracted to both men and women. In fact, I’d say I’m probably more selective when it comes to possible sleeping partners, as so much more of that decision is based around factors other than getting my rocks off.

Being bisexual is a multi-faceted thing. I have generally, throughout my life, fallen in love with people based on them as humans – sex has always been an afterthought. I don’t find someone attractive just because they either have great tits, or a massive cock – I find them attractive because they can hold a conversation (usually about politics, oddly) and because they challenge me intellectually. I’d be lying if I said that the sexual side isn’t complicated – it is, but more so than anyone else on the planet? I very much doubt it.

Apart from being completely biphobic, their witless waffling shows a complete lack of understanding of what it means to be bisexual.

And, to imply that bisexual people are somehow obviously unable to be monogamous or maintain a long-term relationship? Perhaps you’d like to ask your latest panellist Katie Price about that one.

While obviously the views of four straight, cis, Establishment feminists whose intellectual equal is the bottom of a rabbit hutch is mostly irrelevant, it encapsulates the attitude that still saturates society when it comes to bisexuality; one of distrust, suspicion, assumption and ultimately fear – all completely unfounded, but all perpetuated by both the gay and straight communities and only compounded by thoughtless, privileged dross like this.

So, slow applause for the Loose Women. You’ve just cemented my opinion that daytime television really is the domain of the utterly inane.

Follow Steve on Twitter (@MrTopple)