[This was originally sent to my newsletter subscribers on Thursday 15th April]
Bi
Hi babes,
The Way It Breaks is now 10 weeks away from publication! When I think of it in cinematic terms, I see Omar Sharif making his way across the desert in Lawrence of Arabia — looks close, but is actually miles away, but actually not that far but still distant but nearby.
‘We need to stay visible’
I was not looking forward to the shops reopening. While I’d had enough of working from home and missed the bookshop, it felt too soon. Covid cases are still high, many of us are yet to be vaccinated, and before this latest lockdown I’d had my fair share of people pulling down their masks to make enquiries, while maintaining a 2-inch distance from my face no matter how far I tried to back away. I envisaged spending my post-lockdown days as a hissing, cornered cat.
Thankfully, the first day back was a pleasant one. Not least because of a particular interaction at the till. A young man — I’d guess uni student — approached, wearing a mask of the bi flag, as well as a matching pin badge. Ordinarily, I keep my sexuality to myself, especially at work. It’s true what they say about us queers: we don’t ever stop coming out. Every interaction with a stranger is a potential landmine. Bigots get around. So on seeing this young man proudly expressing himself, I felt a compulsion to show solidarity.
I remarked on his mask and badge.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I like people to know.’
I nodded. ‘We’ve got to stay visible.’
‘Wait,’ he said, ‘are you…?’
‘Yeah.’
Brief though the moment was, we were both cheered by it. It may sound like nothing, but the mere act of figuratively high-fiving another bisexual man felt monumental. From a young age, I knew I wasn’t straight. As a six-year-old I liked both the little mermaid and her prince, or at least what I could make out of them on that pirate VHS. Although those feelings obviously hadn’t been sexual, they were part of something I couldn’t yet articulate.
In fact, it took a very long time to articulate. I knew about gays and lesbians, there were TV shows about them. My teen years saw the coming of Will & Grace and the original incarnation of Queer Eye; before them, Ross’ wife had left him for another woman in Friends. But bisexuals were a fantasy, bisexuality the gateway to coming out as a gay man. I’d seen it happen. Friends chose to soften the blow to their parents with the cushion of potential heteronormative marriage.
But just as I knew I wasn’t straight, I also knew I wasn’t gay.
Because of my feelings for women, I too thought I could ‘live a normal life’. I even felt lucky to have that as an option, back when a romantic relationship with another man was as inconceivable a concept as, well, any romantic relationship for me.
In movies and TV, university is where people discover themselves, handily fishing out an OS map to their souls from the bowl of condoms at a house party. I had one (1) whole sex while I was at uni. The rest of the time I was baking along with Mary Berry and playing with my housemate’s Wii (some sentences are best not read aloud). And the sex I had wasn’t gay. I still didn’t know if I would like men after I’d tried one.
It was only after university, when I met a man I could picture myself with, a man I was unexpectedly envisaging as my partner, to chat with, travel with, read with, that I could say without a doubt that I was bi. I was 25.
Erased
When I first started writing my debut novel, Disbanded Kingdom, the protagonist was bi. I was only two chapters into the first draft when I decided to make him gay instead. This was for two chief reasons: first, I didn’t want bisexuality to be tied to his indecisive, confused nature. I’d already heard this cliché about My People. Second, I was filled with a vague dread, that people wouldn’t ‘buy’ it — as in, his bisexuality would seem to many readers as a far-fetched piece of fiction.
You may think this was silly of me, even dramatic, but I know I’m not alone in these feelings. There’s a reason why Vaneet Mehta created the hashtag #BisexualMenExist; by and large, we’re treated as mythical creatures, the silent B in LGBT.
Conversely, those who do believe in our existence tend to regard us as shady; duplicitous, greedy, manipulative, untrustworthy. The speediest, easiest way to present a bisexual character is to show them with partners of different genders. And as we all know, adultery is a staple of Drama, so bi + duplicitous becomes cemented in people’s minds.
When Disbanded Kingdom came out, I faced another problem entirely: many bookshops were too hesitant to take the risk in stocking it, not only because it was ‘London-centric’ (weirdly more so than the huge majority of books set in London managed to be…?) but because the protagonist was gay. These two aspects had factored in its rejection by several publishers, too.
So I started The Way It Breaks adamant that my characters would be straight and not ruffle anyone’s feathers. I’m not naïve; I know that if I want to earn a living as a writer, my books have to sell. Besides, why should I, as a queer writer, be forced to write stories about queer lives? Straight people write about us all the time, they just call it ‘fiction’ and collect their coins.
It wasn’t long before I gave up the straight path. Simply put, I couldn’t do it. Queer is what I know, and if people can’t handle reading about a marginalised group then it’s on them. In any case, I’d been increasingly bothered by my self-erasure; I had managed to get a book published, yet failed to represent men like me. The Way It Breaks wouldn’t only be set in Cyprus. It would now also wave a rainbow flag.
So while my protagonist, Orestis, sleeps with women, he yearns for men — even if he won’t admit it to himself. Though its central relationship is between a cis man and a cis straight woman, what with two bisexual characters, a gay man and an asexual in the narrative, the book is ironically more queer than my debut was.
As before, I did wrestle with the ‘issues’ of bisexuality. Is this how I wanted to represent My People: as hot guys who sleep with anyone for money? As a young man in denial, closeted, dreaming of perfection rather than accepting himself for who he is? Short answer: yes. The stories I wish to tell are never cheery, never ideal, and my characters are not avatars for the perfect human I aspire to be. If I have no qualms writing flawed straight characters, why pressure myself to write perfect queers? It’s the equivalent of being a ‘good immigrant’ — the shining example of a minority figure to kiss the boots of the majority’s prejudice. Orestis longs to be a good human, and a worthy one. He wants people to like him, to admire him the way he likes and admires them. He can tell himself he’s only eyeing men with ideal bodies because he’s set that goal for himself. To paint him as secure in his bisexuality would be to erase my own experience of it: growing up as a mythical object of ridicule, knowing while simultaneously disbelieving myself.
There’s another reason why that encounter with the young man brought a tear to my eye. Whereas I hid myself, doubted myself… he is making himself visible.
Με αγάπη,
Polis
The Way It Breaks will be published on 24th June, 2021 by Cloud Lodge Books.
You can pre-order from all good bookshops. E-book available to order on Kindle.
Waterstones / Foyles / Hatchard’s / Blackwell’s / Hive
