Bisexuality is a largely underrepresented and often misrepresented identity in fiction. At first glance it’s easy to pass judgement on writers for not writing more bisexual characters. In some cases that judgement might even be warranted but how easy is it to depict bisexuality in the short span of a story? Is it possible to represent bisexuality accurately and avoid harmful stereotypes?
Bisexuality is hard for a lot of people to wrap their minds around. We tend to want to see things in definitive terms. Having a fuzzy answer like “Sometimes” to questions like “Do you like girls?” tends to make people uncomfortable. People assume that either you haven’t figured out what you like yet (rude) or that you’re polyamorous or hypersexual. There is nothing wrong with being polyamorous or hypersexual but those two things do not necessarily coincide with bisexuality. A person can just as easily be bisexual, monogamous, or demi sexual. These same assumptions made about bisexuals in real life are likewise projected onto bisexual characters in fantasy novels.
The very first fantasy book I read with an LGBTQ+ protagonist was Wolfcry by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes. In this novel Olizia, heir to the throne must choose a pair bond but there are a lot of political considerations that make the choice difficult. Lots of men are vying for her attention and the throne when she meets Betia and falls in love. It turns out a marriage to a woman with no possibility of an heir takes a lot of the political pressure off of the decision and allows her to choose her pair bond for love. Still, it takes her some time to realize that the deep friendship she has formed with Betia is romantic love because she has never considered falling in love with a woman.
I loved this book. It was well written and had an underrepresented protagonist. Looking back it was probably the first positive exposure I had to lesbianism. I think I was seventeen when I read it. I distinctly remember thinking that I was supposed to be weirded out by it but actually quite liking it and that was a big step in discovering my own sexuality. Unfortunately, however, stories like Wolfcry where a protagonist must discover their sexuality can contribute to the idea that a bisexual character is a “confused” character who hasn’t completed their story arch yet. That’s not to de-validate the experience of discovering your sexuality. In a heteronormative world a lot of us assume we’re heterosexual before we’re old enough to have a preference. But, for some, on the other side of discovery is an attraction to both genders and the “gay discovery” narrative does not always address this possibility.
A well loved fantasy series that features mostly bisexual characters is Ellen Kushner’s Riverside books, Swordpoint, The Privilege of the Sword, and the Fall of Kings. It’s an exciting series, brimming with duels, affairs, decadent parties, and strange ancient magic. The first book, Swordpoint, follows Richard as he fights duels for hire. He is a dangerous, charming swashbuckler who appears to have had many lovers of both genders throughout his life. His current lover is a mysterious and somewhat rude man named Alec whom he appears to be especially besotted with. Their romance is not the central plot but it is very well written with a lot of nuance and complex character development.
Alec appears in the next book, The Privilege of the Sword, as the uncle of the new protagonist Katherine. He is no longer with Richard but instead has many lovers including an actress who is impregnated with his child. Katherine, a young adolescent girl, challenges a horrible rich man to a duel for raping her friend and while she is training for it learns some things about her own sexual desire She has a brief crush on the aforementioned actress and ends up fooling around with her best friend Marcus. It’s unclear whether this relationship lasts. Katherine appears as a minor character in the last book in the series, The Fall of Kings, unmarried with Marcus nearby as an old family friend. This book is full of sex positive messages as well as caution against too much naivety.
The Riverside series depicts a lot of bisexual characters but most of these characters are also hypersexual and many of them have multiple partners at once. Polyamorous representation is great and so is destigmatizing hypersexuality but coupling those two things with bisexuality does reinforce the the idea that bisexuals are more promiscuous than those attracted to a single gender.
A book I read recently featuring a bisexual protagonist is The Wolf and the Hawk by Julian Greystoke. In this book the plot focuses on a heterosexual romance but it is mentioned in the narrative that the protagonist has slept with women in the past. Her sexuality is not a part of the plot at all, just a minor detail about her character. I actually really liked this casual, underwhelming approach to bisexual representation, but it could be argued that reducing that part of her character to a throwaway comment about her past could be read as dismissive. She ends up with a man after all. Doesn’t that mean her dabbling with women was just a phase?
The same could be said of Rose in my own Snow Roses. She ends up with Snow but she is bisexual. Yes, she is using Boris as a distraction because she and Snow are drifting apart, and yes, he ends up being a horrible monster, but her attraction for him is genuine. Unlike Snow who has no attraction to Otto even when she agrees to marry him for political reasons It’s surprisingly hard to make sure that comes across in the narrative. Something we often forget when we talk about tropes, stereotypes, and representation, is that readers project their preconceived biases onto characters. Unless the writer takes a lot of care to subvert certain assumptions most readers will see them as if they were written into the narrative.
This makes bisexuality particularly difficult to represent. The focus of any romance story is going to be on the end game couple. Any distraction from them getting together can be read as a mere dalliance or experiment if the reader is predisposed to see it that way. On the other hand if a bisexual character does not have an end game partner it reinforces the idea that bisexual people are necessarily more promiscuous than those attracted to exclusively one gender.
Bisexuality is hard to represent for the same reason it’s hard for a lot of people to wrap their minds around. People don’t like their definitions of people to be hazy and inconclusive, sometimes one thing and sometimes another. Bisexuality is by definition two things at once and that ambiguity not only makes some people uncomfortable it is difficult to convey to those who aren’t looking for it.