Research Perspectives on Bisexuality

‘Am I Too Straight for the Gay People, Am I Too Gay for the Straight People?’: A Qualitative Analysis of How Young Bisexual Women Navigate Self-presentation on Dating Apps

“…In many areas of public debate, such as sexualities scholarship, the media as well as sexual minority politics bisexuality often remains marginalized, erased or minimally included, thereby consolidating the invisibility of bisexual identities and subjectivities (Lahti, 2020; Maliepaard & Baumgartner, 2020; Monro et al, 2017). It has been argued bisexuals face erasure or invisibility through a multiplicity of stereotypes, microaggressions or ‘binegativity’ (Israel, 2018; Hayfield, 2020; Lahti, 2020).…”

“…In many areas of public debate, such as sexualities scholarship, the media as well as sexual minority politics bisexuality often remains marginalized, erased or minimally included, thereby consolidating the invisibility of bisexual identities and subjectivities (Lahti, 2020; Maliepaard & Baumgartner, 2020; Monro et al, 2017). It has been argued bisexuals face erasure or invisibility through a multiplicity of stereotypes, microaggressions or ‘binegativity’ (Israel, 2018; Hayfield, 2020; Lahti, 2020). Key to this is ‘the monosexual assumption’, which purports that people can only be attracted to people of one gender, leading to the perception of bisexuals in mixed-gender relationships as straight, and bisexuals in same-gender relationships as lesbian or gay (Israel, 2018).…”

Introduction

“…It also invites us to see gender and sexuality as unstable categories that are on the move (re) assembling and connecting in new ways and taking new forms through intimate world-making practices (Fox and Alldred, 2013;Kolehmainen, 2018;Lahti, 2018). Furthermore, while post-humanist conceptualisations of sexuality point to the processes, entanglements and encounters of multiple bodies (Fox and Alldred, 2013;Lahti, 2018Lahti, , 2020aLahti, , 2020bWeiss, 2020), gender can also be conceptualised as a multiplicity that emerges as an effect of entanglements of multiple elements (Kolehmainen, 2020;Schuller, 2020). Gender and sexuality can be seen as the products of bodies' relations with other bodies; in other words, they are about 'becoming rather than being' (e.g.…”

“…Gender and sexuality can be seen as the products of bodies' relations with other bodies; in other words, they are about 'becoming rather than being' (e.g. Coleman, 2009;Kolehmainen, 2018;Lahti, 2018Lahti, , 2020aLahti, , 2020b, which allows for a consideration of queer intimacies and queering intimacies without reducing gender and sexuality to stable, individualised identity categories. In this book, we propose a shift away from human-centred and identity-based notions of gender and sexuality.…”

Bisexuality in Europe

“…From this perspective, becoming bisexual can be seen as a transsubjective and intercorporeal process, rather than as the achievement of a fixed identity (Kolehmainen & Juvonen, 2018). This approach derives from new materialist approaches in (bi)sexuality research (Fox & Alldred, 2013;Fraser, 1999;Kolehmainen, 2018;Lahti, 2018Lahti, , 2020. New materialist relational ontologies challenge prevailing conceptualisations of gender and sexuality (Kolehmainen, 2018(Kolehmainen, , 2019Kolehmainen & Juvonen, 2018).…”