Identity conflict or adaptive flexibility? Bisexuality reconsidered

A definition of bisexuality is offered, followed by a discussion of two opposing models of bisexual functioning: the "conflict model," which views bisexuality as problematic, stemming from identity conflict and confusion that marks a transitional stage to a homosexual orientation; and the "flexibility model," which views bisexuality as the coexistence of heteroeroticism and homoeroticism, as the successful integration of homosexual and heterosexual identities into a dual sexual orientation. The Kinsey data are reviewed in an effort to determine the incidence of bisexuality in the U.S. population. Finally, specific clinical and empirical studies investigating bisexual subjects are reviewed in light of the two models.     

Historicizing (bi)sexuality: a rejoinder for gay/lesbian studies, feminism, and queer theory

One of the principal aims of queer theory has been to challenge heteronormative constructions of sexuality and to work the hetero/homosexual structure to the point of critical collapse. Despite an epistemic location within this very structure, however, the category of bisexuality has been largely marginalized and even erased from the deconstructive field of queer theory. This article explores some of the factors behind this treatment of bisexuality and suggests that bisexuality's marginalization and erasure brings into relief the strained relationship between the fields of gay/lesbian history, feminism, and queer theory. In exploring some early influential queer deconstructionist texts, it argues that in overlooking the role the category of bisexuality has played in the formation of the hetero/homosexual structure, the project of queer deconstruction has in important ways fallen short of its goals. The author concludes with a call to rethink conventional deconstructive reading practices.     

Judgments toward male and transgendered victims in a depicted stranger rape

There has been an increasing amount of research interest into perceptions of male rape in recent years. However, no research has assessed how people react when a transgendered person is raped. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of transgendered status and sexuality on victim blame and perceived severity in a depicted rape scenario. The sexuality of the victim was manipulated to include a heterosexual, homosexual, cross-dresser, female-to-male transsexual, and male-to-female transsexual. It was predicted that the heterosexual victims would be judged the most positively and that heterosexual male participants would make the most anti-victim judgments. One hundred thirty-three lesbian, gay male, and heterosexual members of the general population read a scenario depicting a rape and then completed a questionnaire measuring victim blame and perceived severity of the assault. Results conformed to the predictions. Results are discussed in relation to traditional gender roles and homophobia.     

Judgments Toward Male and Transgendered Victims in a Depicted Stranger Rape

There has been an increasing amount of research interest into perceptions of male rape in recent years. However, no research has assessed how people react when a transgendered person is raped. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of transgendered status and sexuality on victim blame and perceived severity in a depicted rape scenario. The sexuality of the victim was manipulated to include a heterosexual, homosexual, cross-dresser, female-to-male transsexual, and male-to-female transsexual. It was predicted that the heterosexual victims would be judged the most positively and that heterosexual male participants would make the most anti-victim judgments. One hundred thirty-three lesbian, gay male, and heterosexual members of the general population read a scenario depicting a rape and then completed a questionnaire measuring victim blame and perceived severity of the assault. Results conformed to the predictions. Results are discussed in relation to traditional gender roles and homophobia.     

Crooked men and straightened women: images of homosexuality across race in two women's magazines, 1986-1995

Images of traditional sexuality, across race, prevail in mass media, especially in women's magazines. While omitting less traditional sexual practices for the most part, New Woman and Essence magazines construct the image of a bisexual male who threatens the heterosexual woman and the legitimate heterosexual couple. These women's magazines also redefine homosexual activity, suggesting women who experience homosexual inclinations are really engaging in normal heterosexual behavior.     

Staying in the Hood: Black Lesbian and Transgender Women and Identity Management in North Philadelphia

ABSTRACT

The concept Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell regarding Black LGBT sexuality in Black communities has been an acceptable form of identity management for Black LGBT people. In other words, Black LGBT people are accepted as long as they are not vocal about their sexuality. However, this is changing with the issue of gay marriage, which is creating a space where Black LGBT people are more open about their gender identity and sexuality in heterosexual Black spaces. This new form of openness allows Black LGBT people to “stay in” their communities, as opposed to coming out. In this article I examine how Black LGBT women in North Philadelphia stay in their communities: being politically active regarding LGBT issues, disengaging from LGBT issues, passing, and educating straight Black people about issues affecting the Black LGBT community. I conclude with implications of staying in and intersectionality among Black heterosexual and LGBT women fighting for social change.     

Psycho-social issues related to counseling bisexuals

An increasing number of persons who experience bisexual feelings or behaviors are seeking professional counseling. This article explores the psycho-social issues related to counseling individuals and couples concerned about their own or their partner's feelings, fantasies, or behaviors with both men and women, and the appropriateness or inappropriateness of adopting a bisexual identity or developing a bisexual life-style. The steps for helping individuals to differentiate problems, handle confusion, and conceptualize bisexuality are outlined. The counseling process with bisexuals includes developing support systems, examining internalized homophobia and sex-role stereotyping, helping them deal with heterosexual concerns, and with issues which affect partners when one or both is bisexual.     

Sexual fulfillment of heterosexual, bisexual, and homosexual women

Seventy females were interviewed in depth regarding their sexual responses and sexual fulfillment. They were categorized as heterosexual, bisexual, or homosexual according to self-definition. The quantity and quality of female sexual response, the source of the response, and the interactional patterns of sexuality were analyzed, and shown to differ, for different sexual orientations. The fallacy of emphasizing heterosexuality, and the fallacy of utilizing a heterosexual-homosexual dichotomy, in studies of female sexuality are indicated. It is suggested that knowledge about all sexual orientations can lead to more fulfilling sexuality in general, regardless of the individual's particular orientation.     

Troubling the canon: bisexuality and queer theory

This essay explores the notion that bisexuality and contemporary bisexual political movements both align and trouble canons of queer theories of sexuality and gender. This project provides an historical review and assessment of recent bisexual theorizing to highlight key themes in its evolution as well as a discussion of how these themes have shaped the relationship of bisexuality and queer theory. Drawing on this assessment and a wider discussion of GLBT scholarship, we invite critical inquiry regarding the implications of bisexual theorizing on queer theory and vice versa. We address questions of bisexual epistemologies, its discursive roles within queer theory, and its impact on queer politics and organizing. Noting bisexuality's absence in much of this research and scholarship, we suggest these projects have been limited in their ability to fully and effectively address sexual subjectivity both in theory and in its everyday lived experience.     

Juan Gabriel and audience interpretation. cultural impressions of effeminacy and sexuality in Mexico

Juan Gabriel's purported effeminacy and sexuality have made him a controversial subject in Mexico, but still loved by fans. Juan Gabriel, by trying to gain acceptance into Mexican society, has become part of a hybrid culture, between the feminine/masculine and homosexual/bisexual/heterosexual groups. This study focuses on interviews with 20 participants who discuss Juan Gabriel's popularity and sexuality. The findings of the study indicate that Juan Gabriel may be considered by his fans to be effeminate, and consequently homosexual. Even though homophobia is widespread in Mexico, Juan Gabriel's fans tend to ignore or exoticize his sexuality, thus affording his success. It is also possible that Juan Gabriel, consciously or not, uses his controversial sexuality as a way to generate popular interest.     

Same-Sex Sexuality and Educational Attainment: The Pathway to College

Research finds lower levels of academic performance among sexual minority high school students, but some studies suggest sexual minorities have higher levels of educational attainment in adulthood. To further our understanding of how and why sexual orientation is associated with educational success, this study turns attention to the pathways to college completion, examining points along educational trajectories in which sexual minorities fall behind or surpass their heterosexual peers. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, we find that sexual minority women are less likely than women with no same-sex sexuality to complete college, in part due to their high school performance and transition into college. Men who experience same-sex sexuality only in adolescence struggle in high school, but men who experience same-sex sexuality for the first time in adulthood are more likely to earn a college degree than men who do not experience same-sex sexuality.     

Embracing the “And”: Between Queer and Bisexual Theory at Brighton BiFest

Questions of bi identities can be invisibilized and overlooked by queer theorizing and LGBT studies. This article explores the ways in which complex performances of bisexuality can simultaneously encompass and deconstructively critique bi identity in a manner that embraces the “and” between bi and queer, offering important insights into how bi is lived, contested, and reaffirmed. Drawing on the BiCon and BiFest events in the UK, we argue that both the materialities (and supposed fixities) of bi erasures and exclusions and the fluidities that trouble the heterosexual/homosexual divides offer key insights into the spatial and temporal fixing and unfixing of identities.     

Sexual minority youth victimization and social support: the intersection of sexuality, gender, race, and victimization

In comparison to heterosexual youth, sexual minority youth are more likely to experience victimization. Multiple studies have connected anti-gay prejudice and anti-gay victimization to negative outcomes. Research shows that social support may protect sexual minorities from the harmful effects of anti-gay victimization. However, rates of victimization and the negative outcomes linked to sexual identity within the sexual minority community have been relatively unexplored. Using data from three years of statewide data from heterosexual and sexual minority adolescents in grades 9-12, this study examines victimization, substance use, suicidality, and access to social support by sexuality. Results indicate that sexual minority youth are at increased risk for victimization, substance use, suicidality, and social isolation compared to their heterosexual counterparts. Results also indicate that there is very little bivariate difference within the sexual minority community. Multivariate results indicate differences among sexual minorities' experiences with victimization and substance use.     

Girls Get Free Drinks: Undergraduates’ Misunderstandings of Heterosexual Privilege

Heterosexual privilege is a challenging concept to teach in undergraduate courses. Using data from self-reflection essays on the first and last days of the semester, we present students’ learning and growth in their understanding of heterosexual privilege and their ability to distinguish it from cisgender privilege. The majority of students accurately identified an instance of heterosexual privilege in their lives and discussed the counterpart to privilege: the marginalization and/or disenfranchisement experienced by individuals who hold other sexual identities. This article highlights the two most common misunderstandings of heterosexual privilege that emerged in students’ writing. On the first day of class, 18.2% outright denied that heterosexual privilege exists, and 17.6% conflated gender with sexuality. It reduced to 11.9% and 11.3%, respectively, on the last day of class. We saw growth in students’ sophistication of perspective even for some students who demonstrated these misunderstandings at the end of the term.     

Bisexuality: reassessing our paradigms of sexuality

Sexuality research currently needs to re-examine critically its constructs of sexual orientation and identity for theoretical inconsistencies and simplistic assumptions about the nature of sexual desire continue to plague it. This becomes evident when one reviews how the confluence of heterosexual and homosexual desire in individuals is "explained" by theories that assume a basic dichotomy in sexual orientation. This article examines how categories such as homosexual, heterosexual, and bisexual have developed, and differentiates between their utility as social labels and as scientific constructs. The intrusion of social and political considerations into the scientific investigation of sexuality is noted, and it is suggested that the use of these labels impedes rather than advances such study.     

Is Gaydar Affected by Attitudes Toward Homosexuality? Confidence,Labeling Bias,and Accuracy

Previous research has largely ignored the relationship between sexual orientation judgement accuracy, confidence, and attitudes toward homosexuality. In an online study, participants (N = 269) judged the sexual orientation of homosexual and heterosexual targets presented via a series of facial photographs. Participants also indicated their confidence in each judgment and completed the Modern Homonegativity Scale (Morrison & Morrison, 2002). We found that (1) homosexual men and heterosexual women were more accurate when judging photographs of women as opposed to photographs of men, and (2) in heterosexual men, negative attitudes toward homosexual men predicted confidence and bias when rating men’s photographs. Findings indicate that homosexual men and heterosexual women are similar in terms of accuracy in judging women’s sexuality. Further, especially in men, homophobia is associated with cognitive biases in labeling other men but does not have a relationship with increased accuracy.     

Erasing Bisexual Identity: The Visibility and Invisibility of Bisexuality as a Sexual Identity in the Dutch Homosexual Movement, 1946-1972

Scholars of bisexuality commonly agree that bisexuality as a distinct sexual identity remained invisible for epistemic reasons until the 1970s. This article examines this dominant explanation for the late invention of bisexual identity by discussing how bisexuality functioned in the homosexual movement in the Netherlands from 1946 to the early 1970s. This historical case study shows that in the Netherlands bisexuality as an identity existed in the movement in the first postwar decades and was erased in the late 1960s, not only for epistemic reasons but also for tactical ones. The article aims to contribute to a better insight into the history of bisexuality and the politics in the Dutch postwar homosexual movement.     

Sensitive drawings of sexual activity in human sexuality textbooks: an analysis on communication and bias

Sensitive drawings are a distinctive genre of explicit sexual imagery which has become a standard way of illustrating sexual acts in human sexuality textbooks. This essay presents an analysis of signs defining age, ethnic status, class, and sexual identity encoded in such sensitive drawings as used in 23 recent textbooks and of the biases which this encoding reflects. The strong class and heterosexual biases characterizing the images are consistent with those found in the sex manuals which inspired the style of drawing. Functions of the drawings and their relationship to the texts' written materials are discussed, and it is argued that the biases mirror problems in treatment of social class and sexuality and in the treatment of sexual acts, e.g., masturbation, oral sex, and sex, and coitus, as they relate to sexual identities.     

Health Status and Risk Behaviors of Sexual Minorities Among Chinese Adolescents: A School-Based Survey

This study aimed to examine the association between sexual orientation and health disparities among a stratified random sample of 3776 secondary students in Hong Kong. The prevalence of homosexuality and bisexuality were 1.5% and 2.6% in boys and 1.8% and 3.7% in girls, respectively. A total of 10.7% of boys and 8.8% of girls were unsure of their sexual orientation. Homosexual and bisexual boys reported poorer physical and mental health than their heterosexual peers. Homosexual and bisexual boys were more likely to engage in smoking, frequent drinking, and vaginal sex and be subjected to sexually transmitted disease and sexual victimization. However, lesbian and bisexual girls were less likely to engage in risky health behaviors except for smoking and being subjected to sexual victimization. There is a gender-specific problem that may warrant prevention and intervention programs to address the unique health issues facing homosexual and bisexual adolescents in Hong Kong.