Bisexuality and ambiguity: metaphoric relations and metonymic processes in discursive productions on bisexuality

Abstract

The absence of research on bisexuality in the twentieth century and concerns regarding the AIDS epidemic enabled the construction of speculative narratives on the bisexual population, which is commonly described as an ambiguous category. Analyzing bisexuality through an anthropological lens, this article examines the symbolic complexes that produce bisexuality as an ambiguous category, relating it to the discursive production of fictions of contagion, which are essentially metonymic.