A bisexual author wrote the famous children’s book “Goodnight Moon” and her story is pretty timely.

Yes, it’s true. “Goodnight Moon” author Margaret Wise Brown was queer. And Blanche Oelrichs, a writer and playwright who wrote with the pen name Michael Strange, and was also Brown’s on-again-off-again partner, inspired Brown to write the story.

The history of “Goodnight Moon”

Brown’s 1947 children’s classic started as a poem she wrote while recuperating from surgery and her recent breakup with Strange.

Brown was living in Maine in a home she called “The Only House” and started to think how a girl would feel if she had to move from her peaceful home to a bustling city. Those thoughts became the poem “Goodnight Room.”

“Years later, while back in Strange’s arms, the poem returned to her in a dream along with images of her downstairs neighbor’s apartment—its bright green walls, red furniture with yellow trim. The result was ‘Goodnight Moon,’ which initially published to positive press and moderate sales. In 1953, 1,500 copies were sold — today it’s 800,000 copies a year,” The New York Post reports.

The love behind the book

Although Brown and Strange’s relationship was fraught with issues—Strange was moody and Brown was needy. Also: Strange was married.

The relationship came to an end when Strange blamed her cancer diagnosis on her “bad behavior,” aka her romantic relationship with Brown. Strange’s sad, misguided—but totally understandable for the time.

The couple’s Earthly relationship ended in a bittersweet way, too: Strange called for Brown on her death bed. Brown, holding vigil for her sick lover outside Strange’s hospital room, heard Strange call for her as she slipped away.

“Before Strange’s death, Margaret promised that she would memorialize her in writing,” the Post adds.

“In one diary entry—a rare quote in this book that uses far too few of Brown’s words—she wrote of her lover: ‘One who has dared to be gloriously good and gloriously bad in one life. No limbo for her.’”

Dang.

More than a writer

While we love discovering new information about one of our favorite children’s book authors, we’re also stoked that Brown is now noted as one of the most famous, and talented, bisexual women in history. Take that, patriarchal white authors!

Read more about Brown’s wonderful life at The New York Post and Autostraddle. Each piece contains a ton of awesome information about Brown and her work.

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ColumnBisexuality has long been mocked as a layover on the way to the “Full Gay” (for men) or its sister stereotype – the “lesbian until graduation.” But it is indeed a real sexual orientation.

It’s not a joke: it’s people’s lives, their loves, and their sex. It’s no longer okay to deride gay men and lesbians for their sexuality (unless you’re on Duck Dynasty) so why is it still okay to make fun of bisexuals, or to ignore them altogether?  We’re well acquainted with the ugliness and systemic bias of homophobia. Many good people are working to eradicate it from the planet forever – and making some good progress. But biphobia – is that a word you’ve heard or used lately?

Thanks to Tom Daley’s new relationship with a man, bisexuality is having a moment, and it’s a teachable one. Other famous bisexuals have recently made news: the new first lady of New York City was an out lesbian before she met and married Bill De Blasio. Maria Bello recently wrote a Modern Love column for the New York Times in which she talked about her relationships with men and women. Cynthia Nixon (star of “Sex and the City” and political activist) was married and had a child with a man, but currently lives with her partner – a woman.

So what’s the big deal? These are just people falling in love, feeling lust, or finding companionship (or some combination of the three). Yet their choices are considered suspect – not just to the privileged hetero-normative culture we live in, but also by the gay and lesbian community. Dan Savage once questioned the authenticity of bisexuality, and then apologized for doing so. I’ve had conversations with gay friends, both men and women, in which they said bisexuals are just greedy or living a lie.

Here is bi activist Shiri Eisner’s take on the myth of bisexual greed:

Greed… is Western society’s fear of sexuality. Of anything not heterosexual-cisgender-coupled-monogamous-vanilla-missionary-position-intercourse-in-bed. Bisexuality is hypersexualized under the presumption that sex is bad, that wanting too much of it is bad, that wanting any of it is bad, that wanting people of more than one gender is bad. That wanting more than one person is bad. Bisexuality means sexual revolution. It means sexual independence for women. It means exploring and enjoying our bodies, our sexualities, our various genders and our sexual interactions, no matter who we are, no matter who our partners. In a society based on sexual fear and a culture of rape, taking our sexualities into our own hands is a revolutionary act.

Anecdotally — I’ve been told by straight women friends that my openness to dating a bisexual guy is weird and gross – yes, really. And male friends (and boyfriends) have had similar responses. Although Generation Y is starting to put these old stereotypes to bed, straight men can be pretty freaked out and threatened by bisexuality – unless they believe that it’s a performance for their pleasure. As long as they feel in control rather than sidelined (assuming the women are subjects to their objectification, as in porn) most dudes are cool with that.

Just as straight people don’t choose to be straight, and gay people don’t choose to be gay, bisexuals don’t choose their orientation. Scientists have begun to establish the fluidity of women’s sexuality, so we’re perhaps more comfortable with the idea of bi women. We’re also titillated by them – which is a huge part of the problem. Apparently Miley Cyrus has been experimenting with same sex liaisons – and it’s big news. Remember when Lindsay Lohan dated Samantha Ronson? The press religiously freaked out about that one. Oh, and also this week, Michelle Rodriguez made out with model Cara Delevingne and OMG OMG OMG. Calm down, people.

Also this week, transgender model Carmen Carerra and “Orange is the New Black” star Laverne Cox were interviewed by Katie Couric, and what happened is illustrative of the general hetero-normative response to anything that isn’t non-threatening vanilla sex (see a few paragraphs above). Couric kept going back to a line of questioning that was essentially, “Wait, but, you have different GENITALS??? How does that WORK?” Cox beautifully schooled Couric about the invasive nature of her questions, and let her know she was entirely missing the point: transgendered people at great risk of violence, and when the press keeps weirdly obsessing about their private parts, we miss the opportunity to talk about the real issues.

The bottom line? As the wise saying goes — love is LOVE.

Got a question for Stefanie? Email stefanie at ecosalon dot com and she’ll answer it in the next Sexual Healing column.

Keep in touch with Stefanie on Twitter: @ecosexuality

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ColumnMaria Bello’s recent Modern Love column shows that people still don’t understand non-traditional definitions of love, sexuality and family.

Many headlines about actress and activist Maria Bello’s Modern Love column in The New York Times say things like: “Maria Bello Comes Out as Gay” and “Maria Bello Is a Lesbian.” In our collective quest to classify people, those headlines miss the point of her column and prove that bisexuality, or as she wishes to define her own sexuality, “whatever,” is still largely misunderstood.

But this isn’t really a coming out story about sexuality, anyway. It’s a story about family and soulmates.

Her point that a family can include ex-lovers, parents, friends and fake aunts isn’t really radical (see: “It takes a village” for the Hillary Clinton via hippie commune history of the idea), but it is one that still confuses people because of an outdated concept: the soulmate.

We’re taught from a young age that we should seek out a soulmate, a person with whom we’ll construct a family. Many people have embraced that idea that the soulmate might be a same-sex partner. Some people have even gotten okay with the idea that soulmates may not want children. But most people have yet to grasp the idea of family that Bello has built and so beautifully shares in her column.

Most Americans have yet to let go of the one and only soulmate as one of life’s biggest goals.

Maria Bello has more than one person she thinks of as a partner but only one romantic partner? She used to be straight but she’s gay now? She’s bisexual? She and her girlfriend hang out with her ex? They have dinner with her son’s father, like all of the time on purpose? She has multiple soulmates? Minds are blown because her life shatters our social constructs about family and the idea that families are built around two soulmates choosing to live in a bubble of joy.

Personally, I have never bought the whole soulmate thing. The idea that my husband can be everything to me at every moment seems ludicrous. The idea that the two of us chose to marry and have a traditional monogamous relationship would have sounded impossible to me 10 years ago because I identified as gay. But the reality of how my life evolved, because I was open to possibility and didn’t try to fit into someone else’s ideas about love, is perfect.

Embracing my own bisexuality and happily choosing to marry a man that I love meant redefining my ideas about what having a person—which is often how I describe my relationship with my husband Erik—truly means.

It could be because I grew up with a slew of fake relatives that were just as real as my blood relatives. It could be because my parents are an awesome team—but always had their own lives going on. Or it could be that as someone who spent 10 years in relationships with women, and an entire lifetime surrounded by female and gay male best friends, I am 100 percent fine with the fact that there’s no way I can expect Erik to be my go-to for everything.

Which means that while he’s my person and I’m his, we both need other people to round out our lives and our family. In the real world, “You complete me” is not merely cheesy—it sets an impossible standard for both partners.

For example, when I want to talk about TV, I hit an email chain filled with friends who are interested in dissecting what Rayna’s nail polish choice says about her real interest in Deacon on the most recent episode of Nashville. Erik could not give a shit. And when he wants to talk about the players he benched in this week’s fantasy football game, he doesn’t seek me out. Thank god.

Those are traditionally sexually stereotypical examples for a reason. The way I engage with my friends over seemingly fluffy topics leads us to deeper conversations (usually). In those conversations we connect and draw examples from our own lives. We process life in ways that are necessary to me on a regular basis. Erik, I assume, finds connections that he needs while talking to his friends.

We’re not all half-people wandering the world for our missing puzzle piece. We’re whole and complex. Some days we’re damaged, and some days we’re perfect. We have a lot of needs, and a lot to give. We all require more than one person to build our families.

Headlines that focus on Maria Bello coming out as a … whatever … miss the point. Bello isn’t writing about sexuality, she’s writing about family.

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Gay marriage is legal in Illinois, and I couldn’t be happier.

This week, a bill legalizing gay marriage passed in Illinois. Despite growing up with parents who stayed married because they love each other (44 years and counting—go parents!), marriage was never a goal of mine. I didn’t stage mock weddings with my 20 Barbies and one Ken. I didn’t know that putting a pillowcase on your head and playing “bride” was a thing.

Getting married was never something I thought about, in part, because it wasn’t on the table. For more than 10 years I identified as a lesbian—the longest relationship I had before getting married to a man was with a woman.

In my mid-20s, my realization that I was actually bisexual—just like Lady Gaga!—totally freaked me out. Without my lesbian identity, who was I? I asked myself: Is bisexual a real identity?

As I became more comfortable with myself as a bisexual, I weeded out those who didn’t support me (just like I had to when I came out as gay), thanked my parents for their perpetually amazing acceptance of me as me, and just kind of did my thing when it came to dating. Ultimately, my thing led me to one really awesome man. A man that I could, and did, marry.

When I started dating men, simple privileges like the ability to hold hands in public totally blew my mind. I felt guilty that I could do that. I felt guilty for liking it. I felt like a sellout and a phony.

I didn’t yet understand that falling in love with a man didn’t negate my place in the LGBT community. A community that shaped who I am down to my core. A community that I haven’t left, despite the fact that I married a man. All of this explains why I’m going “like” crazy all over Facebook since gay marriage passed in Illinois!

Getting married didn’t matter to me until it did. And when it did, it became more important than ever for me to fight for marriage equality. That might seem counter-intuitive, but as someone who never had a marriage agenda (though I totally have a gay agenda), I understood and supported the legal and cultural importance of gay marriage as essential to living in a just society—but I didn’t get the emotional part.

Marriage is a declaration that you have chosen to be a family. You can’t choose who you love, but you sure can choose who you build a family with.

Civil unions were a nice start and remain a good choice for both gay and straight couples looking for an alternative to traditional marraige while securing some legal protection. But, in our society, marriage carries cultural heft, so classifying civil union as a gay thing and marriage as a straight thing lends far more importance to one than the other. With both open to all couples, civil unions can carry the same weight because the couple is choosing how to celebrate giving legal status to the relationship, not picking the only available option.

There have been a lot of haters out there since, well, forever, and the anti-gays have gotten more vocal since gay marriage passed in Illinois. Some of them will eventually catch up and get it, others will not.

But I am hopeful—in part because of this video of kids talking about gay marriage—that as we progress as a society, the biggest issues around same-sex weddings will be whether Cyndi Lauper’s “True Colors” gets over-played. I for one hope that it does.

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