Samantha Allen over at DailyBeast.com asks, and quite possibly answers, why bisexual women have significantly higher rates of smoking marijuana than their straight or lesbian peers. According to Allen and the 2000 National Alcohol Survey, “nearly 38 percent of bisexual women reported marijuana use in the last year compared to only 5 percent of straight women and just over 20 percent of lesbians.” Add to this the findings of another study that shows college-aged bisexual woman are three times as likely to have smoked pot than those same comparative sample groups and it all adds up to a big ‘why?’
One reason, not terribly shocking, is to combat levels of anxiety. According to Dr. Margaret Robinson of the Ontario HIV Treatment Network who has been conducting one-on-one interviews with bisexual woman, there is the added exclusion of being bisexual where straights view them and their lifestyle as “transitional” while their lesbian cohorts see them as “fence-sitters.” As one bisexual woman told Dr. Robinson: “I think that, in some ways, the anxieties that we experience as being sort of a ‘sandwich community’ which isn’t really here and isn’t really there plays into why more of us smoke,” one woman, 48, told Dr. Robinson.
But if biphobia is a substantial factor, why, asks Allen, aren’t we seeing the same rates of increased marijuana use in bisexual men whose lifestyles are perceived similarly among straight and gay men? According to another study, ““Bisexuality was a [significant] predictor for females only.” In other words, bisexual men may still smoke weed more frequently than straight men—and some studies suggest this is the case—but their orientation doesn’t have nearly as noticeable an impact on their use as it does for women.”
The answer now appears obvious. Dr. Robinson, who is herself bisexual, believes that the link between marijuana and bi women specifically could be due to the added layer of discrimination that they face as women. “The big difference, I think, is that bisexual women are exposed to sexism as well as biphobia and homophobia,” she told The Daily Beast. “It could be something about the anxiety we feel living at the intersection of multiple oppressions that instigates such elevated use of cannabis.”
“Bisexual women aren’t treated with respect, which is the broader problem overall,” she says.
