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Bisexuality in Europe: Sexual Citizenship, Romantic Relationships, and Bi+ Identities
Bisexuality in Europe offers an accessible and diverse overview of research on bisexuality and bi+ people in Europe, providing a foundation for theorising and empirical work on plurisexual orientations and identities, and the experiences and realities of people who desire more than one sex or gender
Counteracting the predominance of work on bisexuality based in Ango-American contexts, this collection of fifteen contributions from both early-career and more senior academics reflects the current state of research in Europe on bisexuality and people who desire more than one sex or gender. The book is structured around three interlinked themes that resonate well with the international research frontiers of bisexual theorising: bisexual citizenship, intimate relationships, and bisexual+ identities. This book is the first of its kind in bringing together research from various European countries including Austria, Finland, Italy, the Netherlands, and Scandinavian countries, as well as from Europe as a wider geographical region.. Topics include pansexual identity, non-monogomies, asylum seekers and youth cultures.
This is an essential collection for students, early career researchers, and more senior academics in Gender Studies, LGBTQI Studies and Sexuality Studies.
Counteracting the predominance of work on bisexuality based in Ango-American contexts, this collection of fifteen contributions from both early-career and more senior academics reflects the current state of research in Europe on bisexuality and people who desire more than one sex or gender. The book is structured around three interlinked themes that resonate well with the international research frontiers of bisexual theorising: bisexual citizenship, intimate relationships, and bisexual+ identities. This book is the first of its kind in bringing together research from various European countries including Austria, Finland, Italy, the Netherlands, and Scandinavian countries, as well as from Europe as a wider geographical region.. Topics include pansexual identity, non-monogomies, asylum seekers and youth cultures.
This is an essential collection for students, early career researchers, and more senior academics in Gender Studies, LGBTQI Studies and Sexuality Studies.
- GenresQueer
222 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 1, 2020
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July 5, 2023
this is interesting and informative and it’s nice to see pansexuality discussed a tiny bit.
however, the use of “plurisexual” in the book is wildly inconsistent, and the “bi+” in the subtitle is misleading. pansexual is the most frequently mentioned non-bi mspec identity in the book and it’s still barely discussed. polysexual and omnisexual are mentioned less than ten times combined and aren’t specifically discussed at all. to be clear: this isn’t me being mad that a book about bisexuality doesn’t discuss other mspec identities, this is me being annoyed that a book that claims to also be about “bi+” and “plurisexual” identities hasn’t adequately included or discussed those identities.
and now i’m gonna put some (can’t fit them all) quotes that i highlighted while reading:
“bisexuality challenges the dominant understanding of sexual citizenship in different ways. first, a considerable number of bisexual individuals are openly non-monogamous, which does not match the dominant monogamous understanding of relationship. second, the fluidity of their sexuality challenges the dominant static and fixed mononormative understanding of sexual orientations. this mononormative approach prioritises monosexual sexual orientations, including heterosexuality and homosexuality, over plurisexual sexual orientations such as bisexuality, pansexuality, polysexuality, heteroflexibility, homoflexibility, and queer. third, some bisexual individuals have a queer approach to sexuality, which renders categories of sex, gender, and sexuality fluid or even challenges the relevance of these categories.”
“bisexual asylum seekers’ intimate rights are violated because they are invisible due to their multiple subordinate-group identities. positioned at the intersection of different inequality systems, including heteronormativity, homonormativity, monosexism, colonialism, and nationalism, it is hard for them to tell their stories and for their audiences to understand and accept them as their stories do not fit the prototypical normative narratives.”
“jansen argues that asking asylum seekers to hide their sexual orientation is limiting them from exercising their human rights. according to her, the fact that they have to hide their sexual orientation to be safe means that they are in danger. by asking bisexual asylum seekers to hide their same-sex sexual conduct and their sexual orientation-based identity in their private spaces, their right to express their identity is denied.”
“the netherlands has a history of bisexual activism, including organisations such as stichting bisexualiteit nederland (dutch bisexuality foundation) and landelijk netwerk biseksualiteit (lnbi, or dutch bisexual network). while the former was dissolved many years ago, the latter merged with other lgbt+ organisations only in 2019, after being there for bisexual and other plurisexual people in the netherlands for more than 25 years.”
“most of them had felt comfortable or at ease in the lesbian and gay movement; however, they had not felt at home there. this is an important distinction.”
“as monro argues, the organised bisexual communities in the united kingdom probably had much more overlap with kink, bdsm, swingers, or polycommunities compared with mainstream lesbian and gay communities. my study confirms monro’s conclusion, and shows that bdsm and polyamory in particular were understood to be closer to the bisexual movement compared with lesbian and gay organisations.”
“while bisexual people played a prominent role in the gay liberation movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s, including the stonewall riots of 1969, their voices were suppressed a decade later in favour of championing gay and lesbian rights. this all but forced bisexual people to form their own bisexual organisations in the early 1980s.”
“a further reason for the prominence of a lesbian feminism as a point of reference for bisexual feminists in this period was that at least in some countries, particularly the united states, many bisexual feminist leaders had previous experience of organising within lesbian feminist politics.”
“from the late 1960s to the 1990s, many lesbian feminists engaged in a hostile discourse against bisexual feminism, partly as a result of widely held popular anti-bisexual sentiments, and partially in response to the specific challenges posed by bisexual feminism to the central tenets of lesbian feminist ideology and the destabilising effects it had with regard to lesbian identity narratives and rationalities of community formation. george remembers: for some years in the 1970s and 1980s it was very difficult for an active feminist to be open about her bisexuality. for many feminists, bisexuality was seen simply as the cowardly holding to heterosexual privilege.”
“the emphasis on a feminist ethics of friendship is closely linked to the broadening of the category ‘lesbian’ through a fusion of feminism with lesbianism and the refashioning of lesbian identity away from sexual orientation to a primarily political identity (around women-centred life choices and political strategies) since the 1970s.”
“a binary construction of sexuality that, by definition, excludes the whole concept of a distinct and separate ‘bisexual’ identity. attempting to conceptualise bisexuality within a binary system results in some form of part-heterosexual, part-homosexual hybrid, which in turn leads to further mythical beliefs, such as that bisexual people are in a state of internal psychological conflict because they are unable to satisfy their sexual desires.”
“bisexual identities have been marginalised for years within the lgbt movement in italy. only in recent years have local groups and associations emerged that are dedicated to bisexualities. mondo bisex: coordinamento nazionale per la visibilità bisessuale has been active since 2016, and was formed by activists from different local groups. in addition, the first italian bi+ pride was held in padua in 2017.”
“the legislation that regulates partnering in italy is shaped by heteronormativity and compulsory monogamy. under 2016’s cirinnà law, marriage remains accessible exclusively to couples consisting of a woman and a man, while same-sex couples have access only to civil unions, and no recognition is provided outside of couple relationships. in this context, both plurisexualities and non-monogamies suffer from delegitimisation and stigmatisation.”
“since the 1990s a more inclusive definition of bisexuality has spread among bisexual movements, both with respect to non-binary identities and with regard to the possibility of experimenting with different degrees and modes of attraction to different genders.”
“one person’s bisexual identity can be another person’s pansexual (which is another person’s queer, and another person’s heteroflexible, etc.) – and at times, several terms are employed simultaneously.”
“plurisexual identities are sexualities that are not based on singular sexed/gendered attraction; they include bisexual, queer, pansexual, and fluid identities.”
“bisexuality as a recognised identity started to emerge in the finnish mainstream media in the early 1990s. before that, bisexuality was a concept used in sexual minority politics as well as in porn and sensation magazines. currently, bisexuality is a visible part of sexual minority politics in finland; however, the stereotypes drawn decades before continue to impact the experiences and identities of the people who define themselves bisexual.”
“while in the 1970s and the 1980s homosexuality meant that same-sex desire was present in a person’s repertoire of desire, in the 1990s homosexuality started to mean that different-sex desire was excluded from a person who felt same-sex desire.”
“during the same decade, the term ‘queer’ emerged in finnish sexual minority political discussions. the term was adopted as is; it was not translated into finnish. some suggestions for translation of the term ‘queer’ appeared, but none of them took root in sexual political activism. the discussions of the concept of queer and the bisexual identity were concurrent.”
“the interviewees born before the 1970s said that they encountered the term ‘bisexuality’ only in the 1990s, and formed their bisexual identity in adulthood, even in their late middle age. before the 1990s, bisexuality as a concept was not used to define sexual identity widely enough for the concept to be accessible or understandable. the younger interviewees, by comparison, did not need to find the term ‘bisexual,’ since it was already culturally available. identifying as bisexual was easier to them than it had been to earlier generations.”
“bisexuality as a concept is linked to other sexual categories that do not engage in identity political activism, namely kinky, fetish, and bdsm sexualities, which appear more as categories of pleasure and less as categories of identity.”
“it seems that people born in the late 1980s, 1990s and the early years of the 2000s may define themselves with other terms than ‘bisexual.’ anecdotal evidence indicates that among the younger generations, ‘pansexuality’ seems to be a more popular term than ‘bisexuality’ to define sexual desire and sexual experiences that do not fit into the conceptual boxes of heterosexuality or homosexuality.”
“for the informants of juvonen’s study, the boundary between bisexuality and pansexuality was random and fluid. the use of the terms depended on the context in which people talked about their identity and desire. the definitions of bisexuality and pansexuality overlap. studies conducted in other countries have also shown that people may refer to their sexual identity as queer, pansexual and bisexual at the same time. identities are seen as transcendent and as entailing potential to change.”
“in more recent years, research has indicated that pansexual people may also find that their identities are invisible in similar ways to bisexual people.”
“there also seems to be a trend towards the pluralisation of labels for sexualities, and plurisexual labels seem to be on the rise. some research is already heading in this direction. such research will show whether pansexuality, sexual fluidity, and other labels are used similarly or differently to bisexuality, whether people using such labels have different life experiences, and so on. the way we live and name sexuality is constantly changing; our research should investigate these dynamics. thus, it remains interesting to study what different labels arise, how people conceptualise them, how people understand this diversification, and how these developments impact people’s everyday realties.”
“relatedly, a large proportion of people who, to different degrees, are sexually and/or emotionally attracted to people of more than one sex or gender do not identify as bisexual; they use different sexual identity labels – and not always plurisexual labels.”
“queer theory-informed arguments can inspire us to live with these ambiguities, to use different labels, and to exchange and play with them, as discussed in the journal of bisexuality 2009 special issue on bisexuality and queer theory.”
however, the use of “plurisexual” in the book is wildly inconsistent, and the “bi+” in the subtitle is misleading. pansexual is the most frequently mentioned non-bi mspec identity in the book and it’s still barely discussed. polysexual and omnisexual are mentioned less than ten times combined and aren’t specifically discussed at all. to be clear: this isn’t me being mad that a book about bisexuality doesn’t discuss other mspec identities, this is me being annoyed that a book that claims to also be about “bi+” and “plurisexual” identities hasn’t adequately included or discussed those identities.
and now i’m gonna put some (can’t fit them all) quotes that i highlighted while reading:
“bisexuality challenges the dominant understanding of sexual citizenship in different ways. first, a considerable number of bisexual individuals are openly non-monogamous, which does not match the dominant monogamous understanding of relationship. second, the fluidity of their sexuality challenges the dominant static and fixed mononormative understanding of sexual orientations. this mononormative approach prioritises monosexual sexual orientations, including heterosexuality and homosexuality, over plurisexual sexual orientations such as bisexuality, pansexuality, polysexuality, heteroflexibility, homoflexibility, and queer. third, some bisexual individuals have a queer approach to sexuality, which renders categories of sex, gender, and sexuality fluid or even challenges the relevance of these categories.”
“bisexual asylum seekers’ intimate rights are violated because they are invisible due to their multiple subordinate-group identities. positioned at the intersection of different inequality systems, including heteronormativity, homonormativity, monosexism, colonialism, and nationalism, it is hard for them to tell their stories and for their audiences to understand and accept them as their stories do not fit the prototypical normative narratives.”
“jansen argues that asking asylum seekers to hide their sexual orientation is limiting them from exercising their human rights. according to her, the fact that they have to hide their sexual orientation to be safe means that they are in danger. by asking bisexual asylum seekers to hide their same-sex sexual conduct and their sexual orientation-based identity in their private spaces, their right to express their identity is denied.”
“the netherlands has a history of bisexual activism, including organisations such as stichting bisexualiteit nederland (dutch bisexuality foundation) and landelijk netwerk biseksualiteit (lnbi, or dutch bisexual network). while the former was dissolved many years ago, the latter merged with other lgbt+ organisations only in 2019, after being there for bisexual and other plurisexual people in the netherlands for more than 25 years.”
“most of them had felt comfortable or at ease in the lesbian and gay movement; however, they had not felt at home there. this is an important distinction.”
“as monro argues, the organised bisexual communities in the united kingdom probably had much more overlap with kink, bdsm, swingers, or polycommunities compared with mainstream lesbian and gay communities. my study confirms monro’s conclusion, and shows that bdsm and polyamory in particular were understood to be closer to the bisexual movement compared with lesbian and gay organisations.”
“while bisexual people played a prominent role in the gay liberation movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s, including the stonewall riots of 1969, their voices were suppressed a decade later in favour of championing gay and lesbian rights. this all but forced bisexual people to form their own bisexual organisations in the early 1980s.”
“a further reason for the prominence of a lesbian feminism as a point of reference for bisexual feminists in this period was that at least in some countries, particularly the united states, many bisexual feminist leaders had previous experience of organising within lesbian feminist politics.”
“from the late 1960s to the 1990s, many lesbian feminists engaged in a hostile discourse against bisexual feminism, partly as a result of widely held popular anti-bisexual sentiments, and partially in response to the specific challenges posed by bisexual feminism to the central tenets of lesbian feminist ideology and the destabilising effects it had with regard to lesbian identity narratives and rationalities of community formation. george remembers: for some years in the 1970s and 1980s it was very difficult for an active feminist to be open about her bisexuality. for many feminists, bisexuality was seen simply as the cowardly holding to heterosexual privilege.”
“the emphasis on a feminist ethics of friendship is closely linked to the broadening of the category ‘lesbian’ through a fusion of feminism with lesbianism and the refashioning of lesbian identity away from sexual orientation to a primarily political identity (around women-centred life choices and political strategies) since the 1970s.”
“a binary construction of sexuality that, by definition, excludes the whole concept of a distinct and separate ‘bisexual’ identity. attempting to conceptualise bisexuality within a binary system results in some form of part-heterosexual, part-homosexual hybrid, which in turn leads to further mythical beliefs, such as that bisexual people are in a state of internal psychological conflict because they are unable to satisfy their sexual desires.”
“bisexual identities have been marginalised for years within the lgbt movement in italy. only in recent years have local groups and associations emerged that are dedicated to bisexualities. mondo bisex: coordinamento nazionale per la visibilità bisessuale has been active since 2016, and was formed by activists from different local groups. in addition, the first italian bi+ pride was held in padua in 2017.”
“the legislation that regulates partnering in italy is shaped by heteronormativity and compulsory monogamy. under 2016’s cirinnà law, marriage remains accessible exclusively to couples consisting of a woman and a man, while same-sex couples have access only to civil unions, and no recognition is provided outside of couple relationships. in this context, both plurisexualities and non-monogamies suffer from delegitimisation and stigmatisation.”
“since the 1990s a more inclusive definition of bisexuality has spread among bisexual movements, both with respect to non-binary identities and with regard to the possibility of experimenting with different degrees and modes of attraction to different genders.”
“one person’s bisexual identity can be another person’s pansexual (which is another person’s queer, and another person’s heteroflexible, etc.) – and at times, several terms are employed simultaneously.”
“plurisexual identities are sexualities that are not based on singular sexed/gendered attraction; they include bisexual, queer, pansexual, and fluid identities.”
“bisexuality as a recognised identity started to emerge in the finnish mainstream media in the early 1990s. before that, bisexuality was a concept used in sexual minority politics as well as in porn and sensation magazines. currently, bisexuality is a visible part of sexual minority politics in finland; however, the stereotypes drawn decades before continue to impact the experiences and identities of the people who define themselves bisexual.”
“while in the 1970s and the 1980s homosexuality meant that same-sex desire was present in a person’s repertoire of desire, in the 1990s homosexuality started to mean that different-sex desire was excluded from a person who felt same-sex desire.”
“during the same decade, the term ‘queer’ emerged in finnish sexual minority political discussions. the term was adopted as is; it was not translated into finnish. some suggestions for translation of the term ‘queer’ appeared, but none of them took root in sexual political activism. the discussions of the concept of queer and the bisexual identity were concurrent.”
“the interviewees born before the 1970s said that they encountered the term ‘bisexuality’ only in the 1990s, and formed their bisexual identity in adulthood, even in their late middle age. before the 1990s, bisexuality as a concept was not used to define sexual identity widely enough for the concept to be accessible or understandable. the younger interviewees, by comparison, did not need to find the term ‘bisexual,’ since it was already culturally available. identifying as bisexual was easier to them than it had been to earlier generations.”
“bisexuality as a concept is linked to other sexual categories that do not engage in identity political activism, namely kinky, fetish, and bdsm sexualities, which appear more as categories of pleasure and less as categories of identity.”
“it seems that people born in the late 1980s, 1990s and the early years of the 2000s may define themselves with other terms than ‘bisexual.’ anecdotal evidence indicates that among the younger generations, ‘pansexuality’ seems to be a more popular term than ‘bisexuality’ to define sexual desire and sexual experiences that do not fit into the conceptual boxes of heterosexuality or homosexuality.”
“for the informants of juvonen’s study, the boundary between bisexuality and pansexuality was random and fluid. the use of the terms depended on the context in which people talked about their identity and desire. the definitions of bisexuality and pansexuality overlap. studies conducted in other countries have also shown that people may refer to their sexual identity as queer, pansexual and bisexual at the same time. identities are seen as transcendent and as entailing potential to change.”
“in more recent years, research has indicated that pansexual people may also find that their identities are invisible in similar ways to bisexual people.”
“there also seems to be a trend towards the pluralisation of labels for sexualities, and plurisexual labels seem to be on the rise. some research is already heading in this direction. such research will show whether pansexuality, sexual fluidity, and other labels are used similarly or differently to bisexuality, whether people using such labels have different life experiences, and so on. the way we live and name sexuality is constantly changing; our research should investigate these dynamics. thus, it remains interesting to study what different labels arise, how people conceptualise them, how people understand this diversification, and how these developments impact people’s everyday realties.”
“relatedly, a large proportion of people who, to different degrees, are sexually and/or emotionally attracted to people of more than one sex or gender do not identify as bisexual; they use different sexual identity labels – and not always plurisexual labels.”
“queer theory-informed arguments can inspire us to live with these ambiguities, to use different labels, and to exchange and play with them, as discussed in the journal of bisexuality 2009 special issue on bisexuality and queer theory.”
May 8, 2023
Un livre incroyable, qui met la lumière avec 12 articles sur ce qui peut se faire dans la recherche bi en Europe. C'est parfois plus général et d'autres fois très centré sur des pays (Italie, Pays-Bas par exemple), mais ça donne une bonne idée de ce qui commence à se faire.
Il y a des pays qui ont une communauté plus active, une histoire plus riche, la France n'est malheureusement pas de la partie, un constat amer (mais pas surprenant). Mais cette lecture nous permet de voir l'étendue des sujets à aborder, les possibilités variées, les études futures. C'était une lecture rude face au constat d'un manque flagrant d'études en Europe, mais qui donne de l'espoir pour la suite.
Il y a des pays qui ont une communauté plus active, une histoire plus riche, la France n'est malheureusement pas de la partie, un constat amer (mais pas surprenant). Mais cette lecture nous permet de voir l'étendue des sujets à aborder, les possibilités variées, les études futures. C'était une lecture rude face au constat d'un manque flagrant d'études en Europe, mais qui donne de l'espoir pour la suite.
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