The ObserverWhen hello really means bi for now
More and more young women are trying out same-sex relationships. And the last thing they want is to be pinned down by labelsWhen Rebecca Loos, the PA who allegedly had an affair with David Beckham, revealed that, of her 30 or so lovers to date, 'about 60 per cent were men and 40 per cent women', a frisson of titillation went through the tabloid press. As the British public are interested in Loos solely because of her sexual behaviour, it was smart of her to extend her shelf life by adding a whole new ambidextrous (my grandmother's 1940s word for bisexual) dimension to what she likes to get up to between the sheets.
And what a fashionable dimension it seems to be at the moment. Alanis Morissette, Lisa Marie Presley and former Spice girl Geri Halliwell have all acknowledged previous relationships with women as well as men. Drew Barrymore recently spoke of her past affairs with women, claiming: 'A woman and a woman together are beautiful, just as a man and a woman together are beautiful. Being with a woman is like exploring your own body, but through someone else. When I was younger I used to go with lots of women. Totally. I love it.'
What's interesting is that this new bisexuality is very different from the de rigueur posturing of the 1970s when glamrock stars like David Bowie or New York hipsters like Lou Reed went around boasting that they fancied 'guys and chicks'. This time round it is women who are unafraid to announce their sexual interest in people regardless of their gender - and I don't just mean Madonna snogging Britney at the MTV awards.
Angelina Jolie openly talks about her bisexuality. Before her marriage to Billy Bob Thornton she had a relationship with model and actress Jenny Shinizu. And recently she revealed in an interview that she likes 'everything - boyish girls, girlish boys, the heavy and the skinny - which is a bit of a problem when I'm walking down the street'.
This rather greedy-sounding attitude to prospective partners is, it seems, the sign of a feminine free spirit. When Loos admitted, 'I am indeed bisexual and have been ever since I was a teenager,' she touched a chord with many twentysomething women. In fact Loos is part of a fast-growing trend. A recent study shows that four in 10 women have had a bisexual experience; and a Cosmopolitan survey found that at least 65 per cent of women admitted to fantasising about other women.
A new bi-curious generation may go home with a woman one night, a man the next. But what is noticeable is that many of these women seem to avoid the word 'bisexual'. It has connotations of old-fashioned sexual politics, having to 'come out' after years of hiding how you feel and perhaps wanting to join a group with the websites and helpful literature of an oppressed minority. For women such as Loos, liking men and women seems to be a natural progression from teenage fumbling with a girlfriend. The last thing they want is to be pinned down by labels.
Sarah Sommerton, 32, a teacher from Manchester, has never called herself bisexual even though she has had a two-year relationship with a woman and a year-long relationship with a man. She says that in her view it is totally normal to have a unpredictable sexual orientation. 'I just don't like the sound of the word bisexual. It's really unsexy, like something you would find in a laboratory, and a bit old-fashioned. I don't really want to make a big deal of it and run the risk of being judged. I think that people who said they were bisexual in the past often heard the same sort of thing from people who thought of themselves as straight or gay, which is that you just can't sit on the fence like that and that someone like me was simply confused and unable to face the truth. I don't want to feel pressured to declare myself on one side or the other.'
Like many women in their forties, I can't help envying this new liberated attitude. Young women take more risks in relationships, and a rejection isn't the end of the world. My own generation were far more hung up. If another woman made a pass at you, it could be hugely embarrassing. When I was in my twenties I was at a female friend's house when we were getting ready to go out. She suddenly let her dressing gown fall to the ground, told me that she wanted to have sex with me and made a lunge for me. I froze in terror at first, then came to and marched out of the room. I took my usual coward's way out, never mentioning it and making sure that the relationship petered out.
Today's young women seem far more upfront about their sexual needs (a recent internet poll of 700 teenage girls revealed that nearly half had snogged another female as well as boys). In Helen Walsh's controversial new novel Brass, the heroine Millie has a lot of sex, mainly with women, although she does go off-piste with the occasional man. She pays to watch woman lap dancing and even hires a teenage prostitute.
According to Walsh, 26: 'I have never really identified with being either straight or gay, and I hate the word bisexual. I'm not going to call myself anything that restricts what I can and can't do. This is volatile territory but I have so many friends who've started off as bisexual, going into a relationship with a woman, come down on the lesbian side and had to have a massive shift in what they could do, where they could go and what they could say. And if they have latent impulses to sleep with men, they can't do it; it goes against protocol.'
A friend of mine has always considered herself a lesbian, but in her fifties she started to live with a man. Convinced that she had to explain herself both to her straight and gay friends, she sent explanatory emails saying that she needed something 'solid and simple and without the competitive complications of my previous same-sex relationships' (I didn't have the heart to tell her that I had never found men to be simple, solid or uncompetitive).
She even stood up at a party and felt that she had to announce her new 'bisexuality' while everyone tittered with embarrassment. Having lived with a label much of her adult life she says that she would have 'felt uncomfortable' without one.
How then does a women in her fifties - who had to pluck up a good deal of courage before she could admit to herself that she might fancy men as well as women - feel about this new enthusiasm for bisexuality? 'Young women have such confidence, and I think that on the whole that is a good thing. It is so different from when I was a teenager in the late Sixties and Seventies. I used to worry so much that someone would find out that I wanted to kiss my girlfriends and used to weep for hours. Maybe I am slightly concerned that women are taking it all a bit lightly though. Going to clubs and snogging women and perhaps even exciting men in the process seems a bit shallow and unsatisfying.'
Debbie Harry, Neneh Cherry and Saffron Burrows have talked about their past relationships with both men and women. Although Burrow admits to a discomfort about the new fashionability of bisexuality. 'For a woman to say she has had a dalliance with another women is quite trendy these days, but I don't really like that trendiness. Life isn't about dalliances - it's about individuals. It's not about something flighty.'
Unlike coming out as gay, admitting to bisexuality seems to do little harm to the careers of female celebrities. It is hard to image a male Hollywood star casually telling an interviewer that he liked sleeping with men as much as women, but actresses such as Barrymore and Jolie only seem increase their desirability by spilling the beans. As a male friend explains: 'Look, it is really well known that one of men's favourite fantasies is two women having sex together, and if at least one of those women are open to sleeping with them then so much the better.'
Many young women openly admit to kissing other women to titillate their boyfriends. But - fantasy apart - what is the reality for a man of being involved with a bisexual partner? Does jealousy ever rear its ugly head? Sam Brooks, 37, a landscape gardener, lives with a woman who has had both girlfriends and boyfriends. They have been together for four years.
As he recalls: 'At first it made Christina seem even more exotic and sexy. I met her at a party and she had come with a woman she was involved with. I was extremely flattered when she decided to turn her attention on me and when it started to develop into more of a relationship I was thrilled that she had decided to pick me when she could have so much choice. That feeling has almost completely worn off and I find that when I am feeling unconfident it can make me really quite anxious. She is a very attractive, vivacious woman - at times I have the feeling that everyone wants her. I can't even relax when she goes out with a girlfriend. It's as if her comprehensive sexuality makes me comprehensively paranoid.'
Certainly in the past bisexuals had to fight against a reputation for being both greedy and unfaithful - for literally wanting the best of both worlds. Many gay women were offended by the idea of young women flirting with lesbianism as a lifestyle choice rather than making a serious commitment. But these days being bi-curious is regarded as a sign of sexual independence. With her long hair and model good looks, Saffron Burrows is something of an icon among gay women. According to Sarah, 27: 'All of my friends fancy Saffron because she is gorgeous. We certainly don't hold it against her that she has relationships with men, too. Lots of us like straight women anyway and this is the closest thing. If anything it makes her seem even more interesting. I believe that I was born a lesbian but her sexuality seems to be a choice; I can't help finding that a huge turn-on.'
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