Bisexuality: A Critical Reader

by Merl Storr (Editor)

A Critical Reader presents the essential primary texts on bisexuality from the last 100 years in an easy-to-read format. Exploring this often controversial concept from a range of perspectives, this book places bisexuality in its historical and cultural context and explores its many meanings and uses. Merl Storr's introductions give a straightforward overview of the texts included and sets them clearly in the context of debates on bisexuality.
This collection includes pieces
* Henry Havelock Ellis
* Sigmund Freud
* Alfred C. Kinsey, Wardell B. Pomeroy and Clyde E. Martin
* and Hélèn Cixous.

Genres: Queer, Bisexual, Nonfiction, LGBT, History

248 pages, Paperback

First published June 21, 1999

Reviews

[sologdin · Rating 2 out of 5]

A mix of classic statements (such as Freud’s) and more recent items through the 1990s, this text presents a lively discussion. The original meaning of the term is biological in the sense that a species can be bisexual, i.e, have two sexes. Assuming we accept the underlying abstraction, we might call it sexual dimorphism now. Another old meaning involved a person expressing both alleged masculine and purported feminine characteristics. That’s fairly 19th century.

More recently, the term came to refer to preference, which then escalated to orientation, and thence to full blown identity—all abstractions from a set of affections or practices that go in multiple directions. I think the notion is destabilized by the critique of sex and gender we find in Judith Butler and Foucault, but this volume does present the issues well. The entire third section seeks to transform the concept into an epistemological perspective, which is not bad at all. By the end, we're looking at ways to split binaries, which have grown to include the bisexual retort of 'monosexual,' which despite its slickness is a hierarchizing binary.

[Highlyeccentric · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked that this collection gave a wider variety of perspectives than Eisner's 'Bi: Notes for a Bisexual Revolution', even though in many ways the Critical Reader is far outdated and could be replaced by Eisner. I found the entrenched binarism of the discourse, even the 90s articles, quite tough going - perhaps my favourite article was an exerpt from a sociological study on exactly that, binary discourse in bisexual women's communication about sexuality. That article noted that even where the women decided to reject models of sexuality based on having a 'heterosexual' and 'homosexual' side, they did so by investing in other binaries: queer versus straight being a particularly popular one. While reading this, I was finding the easy 'nono, bisexual doesn't mean binary!' rebuttal more and more difficult to swallow. I realise there's more to the term than etymology, but the concept of 'bisexual' is exactly as caught up in the man/woman gay/straight binary as the terms 'homosexual' and 'heterosexual' (f'rinstance, as pointed out this morning, wouldn't it make more sense to talk about gynosexual and androsexual orientations?) I found the entrenched gender binarism and relatively... uh... *straight* positioning of opposite-sex relationships involving bisexuals throught the reader quite alienating.

I also found that men's writing about bisexuality annoyed me more than women's. Perhaps it was selection bias of this collection, but it was mostly men who wrote about embracing "all people" and being "liberated" and "truly ourselves" with both sexes. There were a few articles which dealt with the difficulty of being bisexual in lesbian communities, but surprisingly little dealing with the politics of being queer while dating a heterosexual. I enjoyed the exerpt from Jan Clausen's My Interesting Condition and hunted down the full article. I don't identify with her on many counts but it was a very interesting read and I plan to read 'Apples and Oranges' further down the track.

[Heron · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting bi-section of psychoanalytical, psychological, epistemological, theoretical, and philosophical work on bisexuality, ranging across the 19th and 20th centuries.

[Yuta Tamberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Comprehensive, wide enough and deep enough, a perfect starting point in the field for the scholarly inclined. Very Well written, too