In conversation with Anna Kochetkova

Queermunity interviews Anna Kochetkova about her experiences as a Bisexual woman and writing 'Bi & Prejudice'.

Anna Kochetkova is a busy woman: an author, poetess, social media strategist for not-for-profits, passionate bi+ activist, and creator of Bi & Prejudice Instagram Page. Not only that but she also released a book in October 2021, ‘Bi & Prejudice’, which celebrates and spotlights multisexual attraction. ‘Bi & Prejudice’ combines memoir with poetry and line drawings, seeking to liberate bisexuality from its traditional stigmas. It also provides comfort for other bisexual people, no matter where they are in their journey. It was clear throughout our interview that she is profoundly dedicated to ensuring that no-one ever feels excluded or sidelined. She knows the strongest tool in the queer communities' arsenal is inclusion and acceptance. This is something she believes should be extended to allies of the community - welcoming them into queer spaces as queer people themselves in some form, “so that everyone is part of the same fabric of diversity”. This attitude goes hand in hand with the diversity and fluidity that she recognises as existing within human sexuality in general, reflected in her use of the term multisexual attraction. As a core mission of Anna’s book highlights: there is more than one way of being bisexual - “this is why [her book is] not prescriptive but very descriptive of one person’s life”, one person's journey, which might strike a chord with others, showing us we are never alone even if our journey is undergone differently. Throughout her book and our interview she encourages more people to come forward with their own personal version of bisexuality (or indeed asexuality, homosexuality, heterosexuality and more).

With the current theme of Queermunity being ‘Journeys’, there seems no better person than Anna to shine a spotlight on, who's own personal journey has taken her across continents, cultures and sexuality. Born in Russia to a conservative family, she never had the space to explore her sexuality. A move to Australia began to change that, opening the door to her discovering more about her sexuality as she found acceptance outside of her previously homophobic environment. As she says: “Australia changed everything, because I found the words that described something I was experiencing, something that I was doing, that I was feeling. I didn't know there was a word for it. Initially, I didn't really have any capacity, the emotional space, for exploring or understanding this particular part of myself. And then, with a bit more safety in this country and with people who were showing me and sharing with me similar experiences and emotions I finally thought, ‘Oh, that sounds like something I know, maybe that should be my word’. I'd found the word, connected a few dots”. Just finding the word, however, didn’t mean the rest of the road has been easy; for almost a decade she put this word, ‘Bisexual’, in a box and focused on other things in her life that were more simple to explore and contend with. Even after leaving Russia, she still viewed her own queerness as threatening, potentially dangerous.

She sees her experience reflected in the many coming out stories she has heard over the years: no matter what age people come out, the struggles they experience are similar. During our interview she expressed concern over the binary thinking that she, alongside many other multisexual people, often encounter from both straight and queer people. The assumption that everyone is really either/or. With both straight and gay people claiming her as one of their own without ever asking her where she actually belongs. She sees, therefore, two pervasive issues facing the bisexual community: the stereotype of bisexuals as unstable and prone to cheating, and bi-erasure. This erasure is due to that simplistic, binary way of thinking that is unfortunately common throughout society. Anna instead encourages us to look at sexuality as more akin to water. Bisexuality is understood as a dynamic sexuality that can present itself in a myriad of ways, encouraging the ability to just be “fluid in every moment”.

"A dynamic sexuality that can present itself in a myriad of ways."

Over the years, Anna has become increasingly established as a bi-activist, something that emerged as she realised more about herself and what was actually important to her. However, being an activist was never a path that Anna saw for herself; growing up, idealism and freedom of speech were seen as dangerous behaviours. As she says, “I still kind of can’t quite say that’s what I do, because most of the time I’m afraid, and I do it anyway. Creating a community, finding people and helping them connect the dots through our conversations, and being myself publicly brought it all together. It became just who I was. It developed naturally from what I was doing: just standing up and telling my story somehow became activism. People found something in that.” There is power in just being oneself and telling other people that they can be too - in narrating the story of your journey.

This brings us onto her book, another part of the journey that Anna didn’t expect. The circumstances for the book came about as a rather random opportunity: the publishers, Debut Books, were looking for an author to contribute a book on bisexuality for their Mini Collection. The deadlines were tight and Anna describes the experience as both scary and cathartic: “I wanted to put some of my stories to rest, and I think that’s what I did. I was cringing all the time, I still sometimes do”. The experiences detailed in the book were not always comfortable, particularly with the risk of shocking and upsetting her family in Russia. Anna deals candidly with her past beliefs, even if now she cannot believe that was her life. “Why did I think this way? How did this happen? Why did I do this?” she says of having to confront her past. At the same time, the process has been rewarding and necessary - to lay it all out on paper has reminded her of where she is today and how these things needed to happen for her to be the person she is. The day it was released was especially nerve wracking for obvious reasons, but the reaction has been profoundly positive: “I’m receiving messages from people, and they say ‘this is exactly what I thought, I just...I could never say it’. I was hoping for those things...that's what helped me to continue writing it and not fully fall apart halfway through. Then it was feeling like that's it I said it and the stories are not affecting me any more, they're done, and it was actually so good to let them go”.

The book’s blend of poetry and prose lends itself to this, it is never polemical but instead acts as our guide through the various confusions and feelings that Anna has experienced over the years. She starts each chapter with poetry, “like a proclamation, and finishes with a call to action.” The reader is positioned as active throughout, encouraging us to pause and reflect not just on Anna’s words, but on ourselves as well. It’s an exploration, not a speech, and Anna has been careful not to position herself as a ‘spokesperson’ for bisexuality. As she says: “every time I say I'm bisexual, [people assume that I] represent a whole group of people, and I don't actually feel that way. I always hope for people to ask me ‘what does Bi mean?’ instead of [just assuming they understand it]. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't, but my goal there is to tell them that I'm glad you asked me, but I'll not represent the next person. They may be different. Here's what I am, and I always refer only to myself...I just want to leave heaps and heaps of room for all of those variations of being bisexual”. Her weaving of poetry and prose has allowed her to tackle this goal, as she pinpoints the flavour of each chapter within her opening poems and gives herself the space and time to develop her own answer to that question of ‘what does Bi mean?’ Utilising poetry as a significantly personal form of narrative construction, in the same way that the identity an individual holds is equally unique. Her poetry and her sexuality flowing like water throughout her book as she uses her poems to touch upon and introduce “different stories from my life [not necessarily in chronological order] ... they were interesting to follow because I think they are just everyday experiences that happen to us a lot, and we just put them away” when really we should recognise the significance they have throughout our lives.

"The reader is positioned as active throughout, encouraging us to pause and reflect not just on Anna’s words, but on ourselves as well."

What does she hope people take away from the book, I ask? Anna has her answer at the ready: “for others to see another way, to see more than one option…[It can feel] really raw and very intimate ... It’s almost like seeing a picture that wasn’t there before.” She also hopes that her book can inspire someone to tell their own story, to celebrate the diversity of different experiences - “especially with so many identities under the Bi plus umbrella.” There is a wider element to her book as well, insofar as Anna wants this to spark more conversations about Allyship, and how straightness and queerness are configured in opposition to each other. Straightness is still so often held up “as icons of how life should go because it's the default and then there is the queer community”. Anna wants to see a world in which the two communities can move closer together - where all identities and personal realisations are celebrated equally and upheld. She wants allies to try and find a way to understand their own unconscious biases, be that through therapy, talking to friends or reading. To interrogate the beliefs one might not even be aware of holding. She believes that “once that’s cleared up a little bit more they will have the answers, and we won't need to do the work of teaching allies what they need to do … because they would be able to see us as well.” It is clear how important this is to Anna as she speaks and throughout her book.

Towards the end of our interview I asked Anna what her favourite thing about the Bisexual Community in Australia was, remembering that, especially at the moment when we are all still experiencing the effects of COVID-19, it is important to reflect on solid moments of positivity. Her response was refreshingly energetic as she cited the organisation BiCONIC. An inclusive party and event organisation dedicated to the Bisexual Community and its allies. The organisation is centred around creating safe nightlife spaces: “I entered the nightclub on the dance floor and it was so cool to look out into the room and to not have to think [or worry about] who they are [or might be]. I knew they were not concerned with who I was...suddenly everyone [was] just people, no one was a girl or a boy or gay or straight everyone was just partying.” This is one of Anna’s favourite things because the events are moments in which bisexual and other multisexual people can just exist free of assumptions.

To finish off Anna gave me a couple of Bisexual Book recommendations which turned out to be Volumes One and Two of ‘The Bi-Bible’, a collection which a previous writer for Queermunity, Vaneet Mehta, has also contributed to! The personal essays are her favourite “because they had really … diverse stories so you could … pick and choose things that [connect] to you” - something that these volumes and her own book clearly have in common. It was a pleasure meeting and interviewing Anna, with her warm and pleasant aura. The hour long conversation we had felt more like 20 minutes and her book gives off that same sense. If you haven’t read it already it is available on Debut Books Publisher’s website: https://www.debutbooks.com.au/bookshop/p/bi-prejudice-by-anna-kochetkova and I hope that this article has convinced you to pick up a copy and immerse yourself!

Article Written By Anna Kochetkova (Interviewee) (She/Her)

and Queermunity (Interviewer)