Why bisexuality, the largest non-heterosexual group in Spain, remains invisible on television

According to official data, in Spain there are more bisexuals than homosexuals, pansexuals or any of the LGTBI+ communities.

However, they continue to be underrepresented in such an important medium for social visibility as television.

And, when they appear in it, they often do so accompanied by prejudice.

This is how it is analyzed by a group of sexologists, screenwriters and representatives of the group who have been consulted by this newspaper.

6% of Spaniards say they are bisexual and 5% define themselves as homosexual.

These are data from a 2021 Ipsos survey on the visibility and public perception of the LGTBI+ collective, which places Spain as the third country in the world and the first in Europe with the largest non-heterosexual population.

Among young people, the presence of bisexuality is even greater.

The 2021 CIS survey on social and affective relationships divides its study by age and shows that 13.2% of young people between the ages of 18 and 24 declare themselves bisexual and 3.2% homosexual.

Luis Noguerol, cultural mediator and long-standing member of Lambda, a collective for sexual, gender and family diversity in Valencia, considers the treatment given to bisexuality in the infotainment format to be especially harmful.

“Those afternoon magazines, in which as soon as they talk to you about the war in Ukraine and about the fashionable miniskirt and everyone gives their opinion, they show the most carnivorous part of television.

They mask certain harmful and

opinions and approaches with supposedly scientific arguments.

When they ask us to collaborate with them, they usually ask us for profiles within the group that can generate curiosity, ”he explains by phone.

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The sexologist and sociologist Norma Ageitos, who has participated in informative formats for RTVE, recalls that, just as there is the Bechdel test to assess the gender gap in series and movies, there is also the Vito Russo test to do so with respect to the LGBTI+ community.

“And Spanish television does not show it.

There is a lack of seriousness when it comes to reflecting bisexuality or sexual diversity in general, ”she comments.

She points out that perpetual clichés remain in fiction: they are mistakenly considered to be more promiscuous people, less loyal in their affective relationships or that they are just exploring until they land on heterosexuality or homosexuality.

“And I find it hard to think of bisexual characters that are men.

They continue to be generated among the female characters, which feed the male fantasy,

Yolanda Cosgaya, cultural spokesperson for the Collective of Lesbians, Gays, Transsexuals and Bisexuals of Madrid (COGAM) and a professional screenwriter, argues that television, as part of the society that it is, is better handled by blacks and whites than in the field of grays and shades.

The structure that she defines as "monosexism" makes homosexuality better understood as opposed to heterosexuality and even transsexuality as the opposite of cisgender.

“If a person begins a relationship with someone of the same sex, the rest assume that he has declared himself homosexual.

They see you with respect to who you have next to you, ”she points out.

"And so invisibility is perpetuated," completes Ageitos.

In the television season that is about to end, the bisexual presence on general channels has stood out in the reality television format.

These programs, although based on coexistence and competition, establish plots that serve as the common thread of the story, as happens with fiction.

The rapper Arkano explained last November that he had relationships with men and women while competing in the kitchens of

on La 1 de Televisión Española, as Alba Reche, Natalia Lacunza and María Escarmiento did in

2018 .

, also from the public chain.

David Colchero commented on it a few months ago within the coexistence of

(Telecinco) without marking his passage through the contest.

He had occasional conversations about the matter with his colleagues and outside the house, on the set, he analyzed with equal ease whether he could have a love relationship with a partner or with a partner, regardless of gender.

In

, Zoe Mba Bayona also declared herself bisexual, although on this occasion she did help the program to develop a plot around the morbidity that aroused a possible rapprochement with her partner Tania Medina.

This plot arc was born from some of the male participants of the Telecinco format, who showed incomprehension and surprise at the sexual tendency of her partner.

Lambda values ​​the capacity for social change of television entertainment, which sneaks into every home at all hours.

Even when that visibility is often stereotyped.

“It generates references and, sometimes, resolves doubts and opens dialogues in families, which makes legislating these realities more plausible later,” argues Luis Noguerol.

Apart from general television, digital platforms sometimes program series that address bisexuality from a more realistic perspective.

"Generally they are independent productions," Noguerol points out, since their low budget allows greater freedom when telling the story without having to satisfy so many intermediaries (producers, television networks) or a mass audience.

Yolanda Cosgaya points out that almost none of the productions that deal with bisexual characters appear on open television, they are always programmed on pay platforms and that, again, the representation is not always positive.

"In

(Movistar Plus +) is quite well represented through her protagonist's relationships, but in

(Netflix) the character who openly declares himself bisexual is once again the villain and the tormented one”, recalls the screenwriter.

Cosgaya admits that internalized biphobia, born of the rejection that the group often experiences within the LGTBI+ community itself, means that there is little bisexual activism on the other side of the screen, in the director's chair, the script tables and, especially , in the production.

“Even if there are [bisexual workers], if in production it is understood that what is commercial and what is salable is to launch stories that are based on the cliché, we are not going to see the change.

Outside of Spain, the protagonist of

(Netflix) was clearly bisexual, but she did not say the word until the seventh season, after pressure was put on by the associations, ”she concludes.

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