no, heterosexuality still isn't subversive
At some point in the last few years, bisexuality became the hot new thing in literary fiction. Maybe it began with Sally Rooney’s Conversations with Friends, where protagonist Frances begins an affair with an older man, Nick, while remaining friends with her ex-girlfriend, Bobbi. It was certainly popular by the time Rooney released Beautiful World, Where Are You?, where two bisexual characters, Alice and Felix, become entangled in a relationship. Of course, Rooney isn’t the only author who makes use of a bisexual woman protagonist. Other examples include Melissa Broder’s Milk Fed, Kiare Ladner’s Nightshift, Naoise Dolan’s Exciting Times, Florence Given’s Girlcrush, and possibly my least favorite book I’ve read in years, Lillian Fishman’s Acts of Service.
In order to understand the trend of the bisexual protagonist, we must accept that her sexulity is not just personal but political. She is feminist and anticapitalist, and dating women is her way of rebelling against the system. She hates men, wishes she weren’t attracted to them, and yet she is obsessed with them.
As someone who spent the first twenty years of my life trying to be attracted to men, I often struggle to connect with characters who lament about their interest in men, wish it away. What world are they living in, that dating exclusively women is somehow easier?
Acts of Service exists in this foreign world. A world where protagonist Eve can declare herself a lesbian for political reasons, and spend the rest of the novel attempting to self-justify her attraction to men. A world where she is shamed for this attraction, made to feel guilty about it. A world in which her eventual decision to embrace a relationship with an older, married man is seen as somehow “subversive,” rather than one of the most frequently explored topics in the literary world for years. Acts of Service is a novel by an author who is so caught up in the echo chamber of a certain subset of the literary world she seems to have forgotten that homophobia is an actual problem.
Eve goes as far as to claim that gay relationships are “easier” than straight ones, because the people “have things in common,” as if the only things people can have in common are directly related to gender. This idea ties into the fundamental problem of Acts of Service, one that takes it from seeming simply oblivious about the real world to genuinely harmful. The author seems to believe that 1) men and women are defined by fundamental biological differences and 2) relationships that do not contain these differences are somehow lacking.
In one of her many reflections on relationships, heterosexuality, and gender roles (these “reflections” make up about half the book), Eve says "women were valuable only until their bodies expired, women who gave themselves only to each other relinquished that value entirely." Even ignoring the fact the she is defining women’s worth by their beauty, a notoriously sexist idea she seems to be agreeing with in order to be “brutally honest” or something along those lines, Eve apparently doesn’t believe that women can appreciate each other’s bodies.
This is why I struggle to believe in Eve’s supposed bisexuality, the same way I struggle to believe in the queerness of many other characters in this subgenre of “cool girl literary fiction.” What kind of queer woman, who has been pursuing relationships and sex with other women, would genuinely believe that her body has no value in these circumstances? Is she incapable of finding other women beautiful? Does she think that an attraction to women is somehow less real?
Eve claims that something is missing in her life if she doesn't have sexual experiences with men, because who else would appreciate her body and her femininity in the same way? So that is what she thinks sex and attraction are based on—the fundamental biological differences between men and women, the contrast of femininity and masculinity. This is an idea that excludes lesbians, gay men, trans people, and nonbinary people from ever attaining what she believes is a truly fulfilling relationship.
And all this in a book marketed as a subversive exploration of queer womanhood. Well, I would like to tell everyone who believes this that no, heterosexuality still isn’t subversive. Conforming to traditional gender roles still isn’t subversive. Defining women on their appearances alone still isn’t subversive. It’s certainly an idea I’m used to hearing from deeply conversative groups, that straight people are “oppressed” now that gay people are allowed to exist, but this is my first time seeing it from inside the community.
Whatever kind of subversive feminism Fishman is trying to explore, it’s not meant for lesbians. It’s not meant for trans women. It’s not even really meant for bisexual women, as the dismissal of relationships between women devalues an aspect of their own identity. It’s meant for straight women who are afraid that asking men to dominate them in bed means they aren’t “woke” enough. And do we really need a whole book for that small category of women?