Bi-visibility

In most conversation I have with people regarding sexuality and orientation, it usually seems that we talk about people who are straight or gay, rather than bi or the even broader label of queer-- and in my personal life, I know far, far, far more straight or gay people than I do bi people.  I can think of... three bi women that I know in real life, and only one of them is out as bi-- and she's poly and in an open relationship.  So it's sort  f surprising to me-- and awesome-- that there's been some bi visibility on tv lately!  I don't watch a lot of tv, it's true, but in two of the... three, if you count Jeopardy... shows I regularly watch, there have recently been bi characters.

How I Met Your Mother is definitely one of my favorite shows.  The characters aren't perfect, but they're so fun-- and Barney, the consummate playboy, reminds me a lot of one of my real life friends.  But even though all the main characters exclusively date people of the opposite sex, one of Ted's exes was recently shown getting married to a woman!  Without discounting her previous interest in Ted!  Meaning, she's bi!  And it's treated as no big deal among the rest of the characters!  To me, this is awesome-- but then, Lily occasionally alludes to sexual fantasies involving Robin, Robin briefly had a sexual fantasy involving... herself, and Barney and Marshall briefly fought over which of them Ted would be most likely to have a crush on when they thought Ted was interested in men.  So, there has been some nonchalance about sexuality in past episodes, but Rachel Bilson's character is the first to actually get involved with both men and women!  Go HIMYM!

Also doing good things in bi-visibility is Glee, with the darling Brittany and less darling Santana.  Both date boys, and yet also make out with each other and even SCISSOR!  Brittany loves Santana, but Santana just likes sex with anything or anyone hot!  And they're main characters!  And the rest of the main cast doesn't care!  Sure, their sexuality had been alluded to in the past, and they've used the idea of girl on girl action in seducing guys before, but of the the recent episodes showed them in bed together, making out for their own pleasure, no guys involved.  And acted like it was normal!  And they get to be real characters with both good points and bad-- well, they're still caricatures, as are all the cast members of Glee, but they're just as real and developed as the other kids are!

So, I've got to say, I'm pretty pleased with that, because I feel like anything outside of pure straightness gets ignored by a lot of society, and anything outside of pure straight or pure gayness gets ignored even more.  So yay for Glee and How I Met Your Mother.  Yay for treating bi people as completely normal.  And keep it up-- we need more of this in the world, because no matter what people are into, as long as it doesn't harm others, it's ok.