Obviously, people's sexuality can change over their lifetime - both in terms of what they find attractive, and in how they choose to define themselves.
Having said that, Jessie J's sudden announcement that she isn't bisexual any more gives the impression of someone trying to distance themselves from a marketing campaign for a brand which has moved on.
She wrote: “Remember the thing that you tried/did back in the day. The phase you had? That is so not YOU anymore?! And you look back and think wow how I’ve changed.
Jessie, the idea that bisexuality or pansexuality is a "phase" tends to be a concept used by people who aren't bisexual or pansexual.
“Something that you don’t even talk about or want to talk about anymore. Because you’ve moved on? That was just part of you growing up? Discovering yourself and working out what you liked and disliked…. Remember?
“I have those too. Yet I’ve noticed some people hold onto mine because they were blogged and put into the media."
It wasn't "blogged and put into the media" - you chose to talk about in Cosmopolitan, it was you who chose to take bisexuality and try it on for a bit.
“I have felt under pressure since being famous to be what some people want me to be for them! I have learnt that the hard way. It’s too much!
“[People] can change. As they should. And I have changed and grown up ALOT, and that’s allowed. And I feel more comfortable in my own skin now than ever before. We all are on a journey and I refuse to feel boxed and judged because of how I felt once!”
Let's accept that this isn't just someone trying to disown a bandwagon they once jumped upon, and do J the courtesy of taking at her word the idea that she was bisexual, once, for just long enough to issue a press release and then it went away.
Instead, let's just look at the way she's chosen to de-announce her bisexuality.
There's a general sense that she finds the idea of being bisexual something of a teenage embarrassment - which is a chilli in the eye for those of us who remain as bi as they were yesterday morning.
There's the use of the word "judged". Surely the reaction to someone judging you because you are, or were, bi -
especially if you elbowed your way into the community in the first place, and that community were nothing but welcoming and supportive - is to question why people think that's something on which a person should be judged at all.
You'd hope if someone came up to Jessie J and said "ewwww, you're bisexual and that's disgusting", her reaction would be "no it isn't" rather than "no I'm not."
You would hope that someone who had chosen to share the identity of a group which
suffers from high levels of mental illness and stress might, at the very least, withdraw from that group without making it look like she was recoiling in horror from a terrible youthful indiscretion.
In an attempt to
try and clear things up, she spoke to the Mirror to try and throw a blanket of platitude over the mess:
Brilliantly, she also joked online that “vegetarians eat meat sometimes”. When asked about the comment yesterday, she said: “I thought that was quite funny.”
Actually, Jessie, no; vegetarians don't "eat meat sometimes". You're getting confused with people who claim to be vegetarian but actually aren't.
Also, you're comparing standing up, publicly and painfully distancing yourself from bisexuality with a person on a largely meat-free diet having a sausage roll?
She says of her past revelations: “I did talk about it, and I was open about it, and I do support being lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender - love who you want.
“That’s what I’m doing."
I think that's great news there for the bi community - I think we'd all had a nervous 48 hours over whether we'd all have to stop it for good now Jessie's thrown it in. How generous of her to not only licence our sexual identities, but to
support us, too. Even if we've chosen the one that is horrible to have blogged.
“I don’t regret anything I ever said."
It's not clear here if J is not regretting saying she was bisexual, or regretting that long series of Tweets where she spoke about how she regretted saying she was bisexual.
"I’m just so bored of it"
Oh, goodness. It turns out being thought bisexual is boring. How lucky to be able to slew it off when it become tiresome.
"I want to stop talking about it completely now and find myself a husband."
It might come as a shock to Jessie, but being bisexual doesn't actually prevent you from finding a husband if you're a woman. Hell, these days it doesn't prevent you from finding a husband if you're a man.
You're in a national newspaper suggesting that bisexual people have to renounce their sexuality if they want to have a permanent relationship. Did you even think how that looks?
It's hard to see how anyone could make this worse, but then she manages it:
She adds: “It’s a true struggle. All the chick flicks that didn’t make sense to me, I now understand – Sex and the City is real!”
Bisexual people don't understand chick flicks. It's
true; if you fill a cinema with bisexuals and show them When Harry Met Sally, they literally cannot see anything happening on the screen. There's something about our retinas which means the minute 27 Dresses comes on, we're rendered functionally blind.
That's how you can tell if you've been cured of bisexuality - you suddenly start seeing Richard Gere and Julia Roberts on the Pretty Woman DVD box.
Do you want to just pat us on the head before you leave, Jessie?
“For me, it was a phase,” she says. “But I’m not saying bisexuality is a phase for everybody."
Oh, how very, very generous of you. How very kind.
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