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Keeley Hawes: still delectable, but not bisexual

Late last year, I wrote a blog post talking about my longstanding admiration for Tipping the Velvet actress Keeley Hawes. In the post, I mentioned a teasingly brief quote that had been attributed to her by the British lesbian magazine Diva, whom she spoke to while promoting Tipping. Of the Sarah Waters adaptation, she had said that:

“It’s true to the book. Except for a slight change at the end. And I completely related to Kitty [her character]. Well not completely, because I’m not a lesbian. I’m bi.”
Even at the time, I was a bit suspicious about this statement – which apparently was not followed up by the interviewer. If Hawes seriously identified as bisexual, then didn’t it seem a bit surprising that she wouldn’t want to elaborate at all to a lesbian magazine – while promoting a lesbian project – about what that meant to her?

Well, a new interview was out with Hawes in last week’s edition of the Radio Times (the British equivalent of TV Guide) – and unfortunately, it seems like my suspicions were justified. In the article, titled “Keeley on the Couch,” which promotes her new show Ashes to Ashes, reporter Andrew Duncan asks Hawes to clarify the bisexual comment:

When she made Tipping the Velvet, as a male impersonator, she’s reported as saying she was bisexual. [Said Hawes,] “Maybe what I meant is that everyone is a little bit bisexual. I’ve been married twice, both times to men.”
Aaaaaaahhhh. Can I just send a note to Hawes – and to Megan Mullally and Nelly Furtado, who are also women in the public eye who have claimed they are bisexual only to take it back later (two weeks later, in Furtado’s case)? While I’m reasonably sure that you mean well – there are some of us out here for whom the words “I’m bisexual” actually mean “I might want to date women.” If you don’t want to date women, could you maybe consider not using the words “I’m bisexual”? Or at least – if you have a very broad definition of bisexuality that includes “wanting to hold my straight female friend’s hand platonically while we’re shopping and talking about men” – could you maybe consider specifying that at the time that you make your statement? Because otherwise, people who don’t define bisexuality the same way you do might start to get ever so slightly confused.

I appreciate that human sexuality is complex. I appreciate that labels don’t always capture that complexity. But the eventual retractions from Hawes, Mullally and Furtado don’t really make me feel like they are sexually ambiguous women struggling to find a way to define their complex feelings. They make me feel (to put a charitable interpretation on it) like they are straight women who were trying to show their support for the queer community, and got carried away. As a bisexual woman, there’s really just one thing I want to say to them: Don’t. Please don’t. Seriously, we have enough trouble as it is trying to convince the lesbians that we aren’t all out to toy with their hearts before inevitably dumping them for a man. And we have enough trouble as it is trying to convince both the lesbian and the straight communities that we aren’t just confused, indecisive idiots who don’t really know who or what we want.

If you’re a straight woman and you want to make a contribution to the queer community, try sending some money to a gay rights charity. Meanwhile, I’ll remain grateful for out bisexual celebrities like Kristanna Loken, who show that bisexuality can actually be a genuine, stable orientation that you maintain – irrespective of whether you wind up with a man or a woman.

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