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Bisexuality as Paradox

March 2008

As the struggle to propel the LGBQTTI movement continues, the issue of bisexuality still emerges as the nexus of debate around questions of sexuality, identity and politics. The bisexual political movement seeks to fight the pervasive monosexual paradigm (B. Ross, SOCI 369 lecture, February 12, 2008), which restricts sexual identities to the rigid homosexual/heterosexual dichotomy and underlies much discrimination against bisexuals, otherwise known as biphobia. Before the 1980’s, sociologists trivialized the concept of bisexuality or omitted it from their studies of human sexualities altogether (B. Ross, SOCI 369 lecture, February 12, 2008). According to Becki Ross, recent decades have witnessed the emergence of anti-biphobic activism (SOCI 369 lecture, February 12, 2008), pointing to an increased understanding of bisexuality and a willingness to validate bisexual identities within both academia and everyday lived experience. In this paper I seek to examine the discourses and debates surrounding bisexuality, and the ways in which bisexuals formulate, negotiate and live out their identities. I argue that the discursive construction of bisexuality as a paradox creates both limitations and opportunities for bisexuals at both personal and political levels.

Popular perceptions of bisexuality highlight the discomfort felt by many both homosexual and heterosexual. Colloquial synonyms for bisexuality such as “sitting on the fence” and “batting for both teams” reveal assumptions that bisexuals are confused or undecided individuals who are somehow disloyal to a particular group. In an episode of the popular TV show Friends, Phoebe teaches a group of children about alternative sexual identities with a song. “Sometimes women love women,” she sings. “And sometimes men love men. And then there are bisexuals, but some people say they’re just kidding themselves” (“The One After the Superbowl Part 2”). Carrie Bradshaw of Sex and the City echoes this sentiment when she discovers that her boyfriend is bisexual and states: “I’m not even sure bisexuality exists. I think it’s just a layover on the way to Gaytown” (“Boy, Girl, Boy, Girl”). Queer television characters also express disapproval of bisexuality. An episode of The L Word demonstrates this when Alice, herself a bisexual, witnesses her lesbian friend preparing for a date with a man and proclaims, “Bisexuality is gross. I get it now” (“Losing the Light”).

These popular sentiments reflect academic and political biphobia and have surfaced in my personal experience. As someone who has identified as bisexual in the past but now prefers the term ‘queer,’ I am interested in the causes and practices of biphobia that render bisexuality such a deeply problematic identity category for so many people. When beginning my research for this paper, my girlfriend asked me what topic I had decided on. I told her I was researching bisexuality and she laughed. The lengthy and emotionally-charged debate that ensued secured my belief that biphobia, spurred by misunderstandings and misrepresentations of bisexuality, manifests in complex and contradictory ways. The articles I have chosen to examine thus expand upon this belief and contribute to an informed understanding of the highly contested identity category that is bisexuality.

Jonathan Alexander and Karen Yescavage’s article “Bi Media Visibility—The Pleasure and Pain of Chasing Amy: Analyzing Reactions to Blurred Identities and Sexualities” (2001) examines reactions to the 1997 film Chasing Amy. Because the film portrays purportedly bisexual characters in a positive light and engaged in complex relationships, Alexander and Yescavage (2001) argue that it serves as an important popular culture text for the visibility of bisexual identities (p. 118). Although the main character of the film, Alyssa, identifies as gay, she finds herself attracted to the male protagonist over the course of the story. Thus, the authors believe that the film offers a complex portrayal of fluid sexualities, problematizing the rigid gay/straight dichotomy underlying biphobic discourse (Alexander and Yescavage, 2001, p. 119).

Given this premise, Alexander and Yescavage (2001) explore their respondents’ various positive and negative reactions in attempt to identify key debates surrounding sexual identity. They divide respondents’ reactions into four broad categories. The first category, “Identification with Bi Female Representation (Excitement)” (Alexander and Yescavage, 2001, p. 120), describes those with positive reactions. These respondents felt that Chasing Amy validates their bisexual identity and serves as a “‘coming out’ story about bisexuality” (Alexander and Yescavage, 2001, p. 121). The second category of reactions is “Identification with Lesbian Community Representation (Frustration/Anger/Fear?)” (Alexander and Yescavage, 2001, p. 121). Here, respondents mostly felt that the film “‘is a humorless, dour, dreary dick-fantasy about the kind of cartoon lipstick lesbian that spoiled gen-X men think will fuck them if they just trim their goatees properly’” (Alexander and Yescavage, 2001, p. 122). While some lesbians in this category identified with the hostility sometimes faced by those who sleep with men, they still perceived Chasing Amy in a largely negative light (Alexander and Yescavage, 2001, p. 121).

Alexander and Yescavage (2001) then identify respondents who felt as though the film affirmed “fluid sexuality and sexual agency” (p. 124). Exploring the concept of fluid sexuality, the authors found that viewers characterized the sexuality of the film’s characters according to their own sexual fluidity; for example, bisexual respondents were more likely to characterize the ambiguous character Banky as bisexual or queer than were heterosexual respondents (Alexander and Yescavage, 2001, p. 127). Finally, Alexander and Yescavage (2001) distinguish reactions of “boredom/bitterness” (p. 127), mostly amongst gay/bi/queer men who felt that Chasing Amy offers a limited and negative snapshot of male sexualities (p. 129). The authors thus conclude that the multiple readings of Chasing Amy, especially within the LGBQ community, reveal the tensions surrounding the formulation of bisexual identities as both a personal validation and a political tool.

Alexander and Yescavage’s study succeeds in accounting for the multiple possible readings of Chasing Amy from a diverse sample in terms of gender and sexual identity. The authors acknowledge the various advantages and disadvantages of bisexual identity politics, allowing their research to raise the following new questions: “Are we fighting to see an identity represented? Or are we fighting for people’s right to love and self determine? And, most provocatively, must the two always be at odds with each other?” (Alexander and Yescavage, 2001, p. 132) These concluding questions reflect the various positions and needs of the LGBQ community.

Alexander and Yescavage accomplish their revelatory findings by using open-ended questionnaires that allow respondents to explain their unique perceptions. This qualitative method thus ensures the validity of their findings regarding the complex ways in which people negotiate sexual identity. However, respondents’ feelings and opinions are filtered through the framework of Chasing Amy as a text. The authors fail to account for the limitations of using this film as a queer text; a more nuanced reading of the movie might reveal heterosexist ideologies underlying the script that need to be problematized when attempting to represent bisexuality. One of the authors, with a background in literary and textual analysis (Alexander and Yescavage, 2001, p. 119), certainly could have acknowledged this. Furthermore, because their sample includes no mention of trans people, Alexander and Yescavage contribute to the general invisibility of trans issues in academic and popular discussions of sexuality. The opinions of trans people who identify as bisexual would have lent even more valuable insight into Hollywood representations of bisexuality. Alexander and Yescavage’s study ultimately explicates the ambivalent feelings many people experience towards the concept of bisexuality as well as possibilities for new ways of identifying.

Christian Klesse’s study “Bisexual Women, Non-Monogamy and Differentialist Anti-Promiscuity Discourses” (2005) examines the experiences of bisexual women in non-monogamous relationships and the challenges they face in a society rife with sexual double standards that render them multiply stigmatized. Seeking to examine discourses, debates and power inequalities surrounding bisexual practices and politics (Klesse, 2005, p. 446), Klesse employs qualitative research methods to inform his research on bisexual women in the United Kingdom.

Klesse (2005) argues that the hegemonic construction of bisexuality as non-monogamous by necessity, while true for many bisexuals, underlies much anti-bisexual discourse (p. 449). He then explains how anti-promiscuity discourses reflect the social policing of female sexuality, particularly that of queer and non-white women (Klesse, 2005, p. 450). Most women in his study feel that sexual double standards usually do not permeate their bisexual community or affect their personal, sexual lives (Klesse, 2005, p. 451); sometimes, bisexual men treat them as promiscuous sexual objects (Klesse, 2005, p. 452). The women of color Klesse (2005) interviewed generally regard race issues as a personal matter of coming out to their community (p. 453). One woman, however, felt that white lesbian culture in the UK promotes racialized norms for sexual identity that exclude women of color (Klesse, 2005, p. 454), offering a more political view of racialized discourse in the bisexual community. Klesse (2005) argues that “the problem that the bisexual movement in the UK is predominantly white is aggravated by the fact that the readiness to confront issues regarding ethnocentrism and racism is not highly evolved in its cultural spaces” (p. 454).

Klesse then goes on to examine biphobia within the lesbian community, highlighting many key debates stemming from the gay liberation movement about the problematic nature of bisexuality. He finds that lesbians often deploy anti-promiscuity discourse, linked with beliefs that sleeping with bisexuals places them at a higher risk of contracting HIV/AIDS, to discriminate against bisexual women both politically and as potential partners (Klesse, 2005, p. 457). Klesse (2005) concludes that bisexual non-monogamous women employ various strategies to assert their sexual agency in the face of hegemonic discourses that discredit their identity (p. 459). He argues that the “the intersecting discourses constitutive of gendered, classed, racialized and sexual differences” (Klesse, 2005, p. 459) shape the varying degrees of danger that different women face in expressing their sexuality.

The article’s greatest strength is its contribution to an academic understanding of how discourse specifically impacts lived experience. Moreover, Klesse’s examination of the complex intersecting forms of oppression illustrates how various social factors contribute to the stigmatization of bisexual non-monogamy. One can then employ this knowledge to combat biphobia. Furthermore, because this political struggle relies on the recognition and validation of bisexual identities, Klesse also succeeds in defining bisexuality on the respondents’ terms. Many academics perpetuate stereotypes of bisexuality as ambiguous or confusing by equating the experiences of research participants who do not identify as bisexual with those of self-identified bisexuals. For Klesse (2005), “self-declared identity and conscious references to bisexuality by [his] research partners provide the basis of [his] discussion of bisexuality” (p. 447). This approach positively contributes to bisexuals’ endeavors to politically organize.

Klesse’s relatively small, mostly white sample is limiting; although he attempts to address issues of racial discrimination, a larger sample of non-white participants would have expanded this topic. Similarly, the study would benefit from a larger sample to further illuminate the diversity of experiences with bisexual non-monogamy.

Finally, although Klesse acknowledges that he researches bisexual non-monogamous men elsewhere, an integration of the knowledge gleaned from that study would prove useful here; because he examines sexual double standards in this article, a comparison with bisexual non-monogamous men’s experiences would further explicate this issue. Nonetheless, Klesse’s study serves as an important source of understanding about the constructions of bisexual non-monogamy that found biphobic discourses and the ways in which these discourses bear negatively on the lives of bisexual non-monogamous women.

The article “Bisexuals at Midlife: Commitment, Salience, and Identity” (2001), by Douglas Pryor, Martin Weinberg and Colin Williams, discusses a life-course study of bisexual men and women in San Francisco. Following interviews conducted in 1983 and 1988, the authors present their findings about the same respondents’ experiences in 1996. The study seeks to determine the effects of time and aging on the identities, practices and sexualities of bisexuals, accounting for changing social factors such as the AIDS crisis and the queer movement. Pryor, Weinberg and Williams (2001) employ face-to-face in-depth interviews and closed-end questionnaires (p. 185) to examine changes and similarities across time in respondents’ sexual involvement and direction, ties with the bisexual community, and self-identity. Finally, the authors wish to consider some of the limitations of a constructionist approach. According to them, “a focus on flux is a much-needed corrective, but this does not eliminate the need to examine the degree to which sexual-preference identities can exhibit coherence and stability” (Pryor et al., 2001, p. 182).

In regards to sexual involvement, Pryor, Weinberg and Williams (2001) found that sexual activity had decreased for most respondents and that they attributed this decrease to general aging factors such as health problems, menopause, and a decrease in energy (p. 188). Women were more likely to feel less sexually attractive as they aged, while one man found that “as you get older you get status as a ‘daddy’ and younger men find you attractive” (Pryor et al., 2001, p. 190).

Because of decreased sexual activity overall and a common fear of AIDS, respondents had become less bisexually active than in previous years, with half of them currently monosexually active (Pryor et al., 2001, p. 191). Those who now engaged in exclusively heterosexual behavior attributed the change to factors such as decreased exposure to queer communities, pressures to conform to heteronormative expectations of family and “settling down,” and fear of AIDS (Pryor et al., 2001, p. 193). Those who now solely practiced homosexual behavior largely cited the decrease of bisexual communities as a reason for pursuing specifically homosexual relations (Pryor et al., 2001, p. 194). While women found same-sex encounters more difficult to pursue, men found them easier (Pryor et al., 2001, p. 194); conversely, fear of contracting HIV/AIDS from men encouraged both men and women to seek female partners.

Pryor, Weinberg and Williams’ third important finding was the overall decrease in bisexual community involvement. All respondents significantly decreased their involvement for various reasons: respondents settled into monogamous relationships and families, some moved away from urban centers, several bisexual centers closed down, and the young queer movement largely replaced the bisexual movement of the respondents’ generation (Pryor et al., 2001, pp. 196-8). The middle-aged bisexuals admired the young queer movement, believing that it promotes inclusiveness and solidarity (Pryor et al., 2001, p. 197).

Finally, Pryor, Weinberg and Williams (2001) probe the pivotal question of sexual identity and find that four-fifths of the sample still identified as bisexual in mid-life (p. 199). According to the authors, this finding demonstrates that “the bisexual identity can be stable and that people who self-define as bisexual are not necessarily ‘in transition’ toward another sexual preference identity” (Pryor et al., 2001, p. 199). For the most part, respondents felt more secure about their sexual identity as they aged; although many now behaved monosexually, their continuing attraction to both sexes affirmed their bisexuality (Pryor et al., 2001, p. 200). Some respondents now identified as queer, one identified as “intersexed gay,” and some rejected labeling altogether (Pryor et al., 2001, p. 201).

Pryor, Weinberg and Williams (2001) conclude that the identity category of bisexuality is fluid, sex-positive and inclusive, and can be determined by factors such as attraction and not necessarily practice (p. 202). The stability of the bisexual identity over the course of respondents’ lives challenges postmodern, constructionist queer theory; “the respondents did not experience themselves as fragmented or incoherent but rather as being grounded in one body that exists over time” (Pryor et al., 2001, p. 205). This study thus validates the experiences of bisexuals who rely on the label as the truest descriptor of their identities.

The life-course approach of this qualitative research provides much-needed insight on sexual identity formation. Because bisexuals are often perceived as undecided or confused, the study of middle-aged bisexuals who consistently maintain their identities as such proves a valuable source to debunk this myth. Pryor, Weinberg and Williams’ diverse sample of men, women and trans people further informs an in-depth understanding of lived bisexuality.

Unfortunately, all participants of this study are white, middle-class people and the authors fail to account for race and class. Because sexuality, gender and age intersect with race and class in inextricable ways, Pryor, Weinberg and Williams could have contributed to understandings of bisexuality more significantly with an exploration of these issues. Finally, the glaring flaw of this study is its sample source; members of a Bisexual Center in 1983, the bisexuals depicted here fail to represent the identity negotiations and experiences of the many bisexuals who remain alone in their identification. A similar life-course study of bisexuals uninvolved with bisexual communities or urban centers would further expand our understanding of bisexual identity politics.

The findings gleaned from these three studies illustrate how, as a phenomenon, bisexuality finds itself subject to discourses constructing it as a paradox. The paradoxical nature of bisexuality then creates obstacles and opportunities for bisexuals that they negotiate throughout their lived experiences. In The History of Sexuality (1980), Michel Foucault explains how the discursive construction of human sexuality serves as a tool for dominant forces to exercise power over individuals through moral regulation (p. 32). When various religious, medical and moral discourses of the nineteenth century constructed “deviant” sexualities as abnormal and the homosexual as a species, “the machinery of power…established [this whole alien strain] as a raison d’être and a natural order of disorder” (Foucault, 1980, p. 44). The widely accepted heterosexual/homosexual divide existing today reflects the naturalization of these categories of sexuality and reveals the source of confusion surrounding bisexuality.

Today we see the pathologization and discrediting of bisexuals operating in a similar fashion to that of the homosexual during the nineteenth century. Klesse’s examination of anti-promiscuity discourse reveals how bisexuals must combat arguments historically used to oppress women and homosexuals. This conundrum raises the question of the power of naming, and whether or not the term ‘bisexual’ helps or hinders the goal of subverting sexual binaries. Alyssa of Chasing Amy never calls herself a bisexual, yet respondents of Alexander and Yescavage’s study identified with her sexual fluidity. Those who did not expressed outrage at her disloyalty to the gay identity. These findings highlight the paradox of bisexuality whereby claiming the identity undermines the goal of sexual fluidity while the failure to name it creates confusion and invisibility.

In “Ambiguous Identity in an Unambiguous Sex/Gender Structure: The Case of Bisexual Women” (1996), Amber Ault offers one potential solution to the paradox: queer/nonqueer or bisexual/monosexual divisions, she argues, can “displace the hetero/homo binary” (p. 461). According to Ault (1996), these new configurations might “offer prospects for the redistribution of privilege” (p. 461). Indeed, some middle-aged bisexuals in Pryor, Weinberg and Williams’ study now identified with the more inclusive queer movement. Most respondents, however, continued to claim a bisexual identity. For these men and women, identifying and organizing as bisexuals proved validating and useful both politically and personally. As Klesse acknowledges when he defines bisexuality by the individual’s choice to self-identify, we can no longer question the existence or validity of a sexual identity claimed by so many like those in Pryor, Weinberg and Williams’ article, even as we navigate the many questions and debates surrounding it.

The research I have presented in this paper raises new questions to probe in future research on bisexuality. The varied responses to the film Chasing Amy described in Alexander and Yescavage’s study led me to wonder how audiences would react to the film had it been about a gay man falling for a straight woman. This hypothetical scenario, paired with the different responses from lesbians, gay men and bisexual women and men, highlights questions of gender intersecting with issues of sexuality. In the same Sex and the City episode mentioned earlier, Carrie remarks, “I did the ‘date the bisexual guy’ thing in college, but in the end, they all ended up with men.” Samantha responds, “So did the bisexual women” (“Boy, Girl, Boy, Girl”). This popular stereotype illustrates gendered assumptions regarding bisexuality. Similarly, Klesse’s research reveals sexual double standards that stigmatize bisexual men and women differently. Pryor, Weinberg and Williams’ study of middle-aged bisexuals challenges these gendered constructions in various ways. Thus, future research might explicitly examine the multiple intersections of gender and sexuality to better understand how both are socially constructed and consequently shape perceptions of bisexuality.

None of the articles I have included in my research explicitly deal with issues of race. Although studies of the implications of bisexuality for racialized identities exist, I would further examine this intersection within the context of questions raised by the articles I draw from here. Firstly, I question the reasons for the large absence of non-white respondents from these studies. Secondly, Klesse briefly mentions his respondents’ tendency to read issues of race on a personal, rather than political, level. Given that bisexuality exists as an ambiguous hybrid of a hegemonic dualism, the study of hybrid racial identities as analogous and related to bisexuality might answer important questions regarding race, sexuality and power.

After a tearful and convoluted discussion, my girlfriend and I finally resolved our dispute. Although we discovered a conceptual common ground on which to make peace, we now jokingly refer to one another as the bisexual and the biphobic lesbian. This tentative resolution mirrors the ambivalent position that bisexuality occupies in theoretical, social and political realms. The very occurrence of our argument, however, suggests that bisexuality will continue to problematize and therefore enrich current understandings of human sexuality by virtue of its paradoxical ambivalence.

References

Alexander, J. & Yescavage, K. (2001). Bi Media Visibility—The Pleasure and Pain of Chasing Amy: Analyzing Reactions to Blurred Identities and Sexualities. Journal of Bisexuality, 1(4), 116-135.

Ault, A. (1996). Ambiguous Identity in an Unambiguous Sex/Gender Structure: The case of bisexual women. Sociological Quarterly, 37(3), 449-463.

Bicks, J. (Writer). & Thomas, P. (Director). (2000). Boy, Girl, Boy, Girl. [Television series episode]. In J. Bicks, C. Chupack, M. P. King, & J. Melfi (Executive Producers), Sex and the City. Home Box Office (HBO).

Crane, D. & Kauffman, M. (Writers). & Lembeck, M. (Director). (1996). The One After the Superbowl: Part 2. [Television series episode]. In K. Bright, D. Crane & M. Kauffman (Executive Producers), Friends. Warner Bros. Television.

Foucault, M. (1980). The History of Sexuality, Volume I. New York: Vintage Books.

Klesse, C. (2005). Bisexual Women, Non-Monogamy and Differentialist Anti-Promiscuity Discourses. Sexualities, 8(4), 445-464.

Pryor, D. W., Weinberg, M. S., & Williams, C. J. (2001). Bisexuals at Midlife: Commitment, Salience, and Identity. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 30(2), 180-208.

Troche, R. (Writer & Director). (2006). Losing the Light. [Television series episode]. In I. Chaiken & R. Lam (Executive Producers), The L Word. Hollywood: Showtime Networks Inc.

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