Introduction

This article explores bisexual identity as an ambiguous social category within the dominant dualistic sex/gender structure. The article documents the stigmatization of the bisexual category in the discourse of both the Religious Right and lesbian feminist communities, then examines the impact of dual stigmatization on bisexual women, who often see bi identity as disrupting the dominant sexual binary. Drawing from interviews with bisexual women, the article argues that bisexual women's discourse on sexual subjectivity does not escape the influence of binary structures, although it does at times reconfigure the binary along the queer/nonqueer and bisexual/monosexual axes. While the bisexual identity category may work as a discursive stabilizing device during the sex/gender crisis provoked by the AIDS epidemic, its politicization by bi feminists also allows the category to be strategically deployed for feminist and queer political projects. At the present time, the regions where the grid is tightest, where the black squares are most numerous, are those of sexuality and politics; as if discourse, far from being that transparent or neutral element in which sexuality is disarmed and politics pacified, is in fact one of the places where sexuality and politics exercise in a privileged way some of their most formidable powers. ‐Michel Foucault No wonder people think we [bisexual women] are all sleazy. ‐Bisexual woman

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Introduction

Cited by 4 publications

References 0 publications

A think tank in evolution or decline?: The Australian institute of international affairs in comparative perspective

A think tank in evolution or decline?: The Australian institute of international affairs in comparative perspective

Policy think‐tanks: The experience of the Israel democracy institute

Ambiguous Identity in an Unambiguous Sex/Gender Structure: The Case of Bisexual Women

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