BiCon 2006 - Saturday

Saturday 15th July started with me once again failing to win the fight with my bed. (The whole of BiCon, I've been having very strange & surreal dreams even by my standards, so feeling very out of it in the morning despite getting 8-10 hours sleep.) So I didn't make it to either What's Your Bi Name? or the Flash Mob Bisexual Snog-In. The former was run by Peter (syllopsium) and was about different worldwide names for "bisexual" and alternative words that can be used that do not focus on the two binary physical sexes, such as "sapiosexual" and "pansexual". Although I was too sleepy to make it to the workshop, I spoke to Peter about it later and was told some of the alternative slang terms he found on the internet included "half chips half rice" and "wizbit" ( Cut for earworm protection! )

The Flash Mob Bisexual Snog-In was run by Bethan (bethanthepurple)and apparently was going to involve people going into town and snogging, kissing, hugging or shaking hands, depending on their preferred levels of bodily contact. I've no idea what happened, but it did sound intriguing!

I did make it to Sainsbury's and obtain bread, juice & fruit, and went with Ludy to the Bi Mental Health lunch run by Alex (ippola) along with Meg and dr_d. This included a mixture of psychologists, counsellors and people with mental health issues. We talked about people's experiences in the mental health system and producing a Good Practice Guide for mental health professionals. We also discussed a recent report from Australia that more bisexuals have mental health problems than gay men or lesbians, and whether this was actually true, and if so what the reasons might be. It could be on the one hand that bisexuals are more likely to suffer from mental health problems due to bisexual invisibility and biphobia from both the straight & gay communities, or that we're no more likely than anyone else to be sufferers, but the openness of the bi community means that we're more likely to be open about it and seek help. All quite interesting stuff, and while I'm not really in a position to help do the research I can certainly be a volunteer subject and answer questions.

In the afternoon, while I was tempted by Make Your Own Bisexual, I was still feeling like a serious discussion, so went to Intersexuality and Bisexuality run by Jennie. As I was already aware of intersexual conditions, I didn't learn a huge amount about the biology or physiology (Jennie specifically said she was trying not to make it too scientific), but there was discussion about intersexuality worldwide and communities of people where it is normal for genetic reasons( Cut for mildly non-worksafe language and trans triggers. )

( Blethering about the evening... )

BiCon 2006 - Sunday & Monday

Sunday 16th July started with me managing to win the fight with my bed almost in time to get to Bisexuals in the Media, but they'd closed the session already. So I faffed about for a minute and decided to go to Sharing the Clothes run by Sian - a workshop supposedly about crossdressing partners, that I had a passing interest in despite no experience. This proved to be a very good idea. Although only a small group (about 8 people), it was a fascinating workshop that ran over by 15 minutes, and the only reason I left was because it was lunch time and I really needed food! ( Cut for possibly non-worksafe language. )

On Sunday afternoon was the Decision-Making Plenary, ably run by djm4, where we made decisions about future BiCons that are to be held and who is going to be in charge. After that was the Official BiCon Group Photograph, but it seems that while some people stayed away because they don't want to be "out" publicly, a lot of other people missed it because they didn't realise it was happening. I'm mentioning this because it was the only organisational cock-up I'm aware of - which is actually a damn good thing and a great credit to this year's team - but it should be fairly easy to avoid in future. (The photograph was mentioned very briefly in the programme booklet under the heading "About plenaries", but did not appear in the programme apart from that.)

I'd thought about going to the Multi-Faith Worship at 3.30pm, but I needed to wash my hair - yes, I know that's a pathetic excuse, but I was feeling tired and grubby. ( Moaning. )

Then I went to barakta's Sign Language workshop, which included general Deaf Awareness. It was interesting because there were five people present with reasonable knowledge of BSL, who were all learning in different parts of the country. So we saw several regional variants of signs, particularly for place names. I remain convinced that I have the wrong kind of brain to learn much sign language, but it's still good to try.

For dinner I had nasty Chinese takeout but good conversation with faerierhona, aster13 and plumsbitch about workshops we'd like to see in the future, perhaps including things like Ethical Consumerism and Alternative Menstrual Products. The evening entertainment was a Ceilidh with a "Scottish" theme. Many people arrived wearing some degree of tartan, although there were also several lovely non-tartan corsets - most noticably Becky's. Ciaran turned up as "Crocodile Dundee" with a 6 foot stuffed crocodile (not an opblasskrokodil!) who tried to eat dino!! (dino had gone over to greet him as a fellow furry reptile, but he decided dino looked like a tasty morsel. I did not get photos of this. Grrr). Alexa got her hair braided into many little plaits by someone who, in typical bi community small-world syndrome, has been friends with fluffymormegil since university.

The Ceilidh itself was fun to watch - it's one of these things I've always wanted to go to but not done so because of leg issues - but too loud, due to the "punk" ceilidh band who played everything at high speed. So after speaking to a few people about their costumes, I went through to the "quiet" bar, and stayed there for a couple of hours, chatting with various people including Alexa, Nickie and David, until it stopped being quiet. Then I went back to my room for chocolate & snuggling with Ludy.

On Monday 17th July I did not get up in time for Re-entry, the workshop about how to cope back in the real world, but I did get to the Closing Plenary and see the bi community "Cake" award presentations. Then I packed, and hung out on the grass with various people, mostly x_mass. Then I was on the train with conflux & the_kumquat, having a quiet BiCon comedown and a touch of travel sickness.

All my BiCon photos are here, and the gallery is a mixture of public & friends-only photos depending on who they're of and if there are other people in the background. Let me know if you want the classification changed on any of them.