The Bisexual Imaginary : Representation, Identity and Desire

by Bi Academic Intervention (Editor), Phoebe Davidson (Editor), Jo Eadie (Editor)

This collection of essays focuses on historical and contemporary representations of bisexuality - both "real" and "imagined" - in literature, film and the visual arts. They ask questions concerning what it means to desire both men and women and explores the role of bisexuality in the construction of every person's sexual identity.

Genres: Bisexual, Queer, Nonfiction, Theory, LGBT

224 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1997

Reviews

[Sasha Wolf · Rating 2 out of 5]

This collection was published in 1997, and the style of many of the essays reflects the postmodernism that was prevalent in academic cultural studies of the time. I'd forgotten what a dense and unnecessarily difficult read it makes for. Only two of the contributions really seemed worth the effort to me: Chedgzoy's on sexuality in Shakespeare's sonnets, and Selby's on Whitman and Ginsberg. I don't understand at all why the editors included, without commentary, two series of photographs by Device that certainly illustrate the photographer's difficulties as a bisexual woman, but are artistic rather than academic expressions. Content warning: One of the photographs by Device depicts a knife cutting flesh in a context that implies either self-harm or dubiously consensual kink.