Performer and writer Bryn Woz talks about dating ahead of her Edinburgh Fringe show SMUT
BY BRYN WOZ, IMAGE BY NICOLE SLOAN
If I find myself on a first date with a man, I’m not asking about favourite TV shows or sibling birth order, I get right to the important stuff:
“So, on a Kinsey Scale of 0 to 6, how gay are you?”
A two or three is ideal. One is acceptable. Zero signals incompatibility.
And not just because of a long-running fantasy in which my boyfriend is flirting with another guy and I push their heads together like a pair of Ken dolls and make them kiss.
It’s because I don’t want a man who just accepts queerness, but one who understands it intimately. Someone who knows that the rules we’re handed about gender, sexuality, and relationships aren’t laws of nature, and there’s so much to be learned in the grey areas. Someone comfortable enough in his own masculinity not to be trapped by it.
I came out as bi at thirteen, but today I also identify as queer. Not only because of who I’m attracted to, but because of how I relate to the world. Queer originally meant strange, peculiar, outside the ordinary. That’s what resonates with me beyond the sexuality: the otherness, the out-of-ordinary-ness of it all.
I’ve never related particularly well to what’s “normal”. I’m sure most of my queer compatriots, as well as women of any sexuality, can relate to the struggle of living in a world not built with us in mind.
A bisexual man may move through the world with most of the same privileges as a straight man, but somewhere along the way, he’s likely experienced feeling different or being perceived as being such. He’s questioned societal expectations (and his own) and has had to examine parts of himself that many cishet men never have to think about.
This doesn’t mean bisexual men are magically better people, but I’ve found that this introspection and questioning foster empathy and emotional intelligence. These are two relationship non-negotiables for me that can be difficult to come by in the str8boi dating pool.
As a bisexual woman, I’ve always existed in a strange in-between space: I’m definitely not straight, yet I’ve been told multiple times by LGBTQIA+ friends that because I’ve dated more men than women, I’m “basically straight.” On the other end, there is a pervasive belief that bisexual men are actually gay and just haven’t admitted it yet. As if bisexuals can’t be trusted to know themselves or are deceiving people by not picking a “side”. By the way: fuck bi erasure.
It’s comforting to date someone who knows what it’s like to have others question your identity, who understands that sexuality isn’t binary, who lives in that liminal space between two worlds.
For me, the love of that grey area doesn’t end at sexuality. Since I was a tiny tot dressing as a boy every Halloween, I’ve always been a unique blend of masc and femme. Sometimes I want to be glam, or soft or dainty. Other times, I want to be loud and boisterous and take up space and not shave my armpits but once a quarter.
I’ve found that bi guys have similar flexibility that blends nicely with mine. I like men who are comfortable with vulnerability. Men who can be soft without feeling diminished by it. Men who aren’t trying to squeeze themselves into somebody else’s definition of masculinity, because they’ve taken time to explore their own. And men who’d never dare to even THINK of asking me to shave.
So for me, if it’s gonna be a boy, it’s gotta be a boy who likes to kiss other boys.
— Bryn Woz, performer of SMUT and former owner of a pair of Ken dolls whose lips mysteriously wore off.
You can see Bryn Woz: SMUT at Assembly Roxy – The Snug from 5 – 31 August (not 18 & 25) at 9.10 pm.
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