Bisexuality and the Challenge to Lesbian Politics
Bisexuality and the Challenge to Lesbian Politics

Author: Paula C Rust

Publisher: NYU Press

Published: 1995-10

Total Pages: 387

ISBN-13: 081477444X

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The subject of bisexuality continues to divide the lesbian and gay community. At pride marches, in films such as Go Fish, at academic conferences, the role and status of bisexuals is hotly contested. Within lesbian communities, formed to support lesbians in a patriarchal and heterosexist society, bisexual women are often perceived as a threat or as a political weakness. Bisexual women feel that they are regarded with suspicion and distrust, if not openly scorned. Drawing on her research with over 400 bisexual and lesbian women, surveying the treatment of bisexuality in the lesbian and gay press, and examining the recent growth of a self-consciously political bisexual movement, Paula Rust addresses a range of questions pertaining to the political and social relationships between lesbians and bisexual women. By tracing the roots of the controversy over bisexuality among lesbians back to the early lesbian feminist debates of the 1970s, Rust argues that those debates created the circumstances in which bisexuality became an inevitable challenge to lesbian politics. She also traces it forward, predicting the future of sexual politics.

Bisexual Politics
Bisexual Politics

Author: Naomi S Tucker

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-06-11

Total Pages: 387

ISBN-13: 1317712463

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This anthology presents a vivid collection of essays that explore the history, strategies, philosophy, and diversity of bisexual politics and theory in the United States. The 33 contributors develop a multifaceted approach to defining bisexual politics. Through these voices, the book seeks to understand the contexts in which the bisexual movement has evolved. The authors analyze different organizing strategies, formulate new bisexual political theory, provide a vision of future directions for redefining sexuality and gender, and educate activists and allies about current issues pertinent to the bisexual community. This book is the first of its kind. To date, it is the only book that documents and analyzes bisexual politics and theory. While existing literature on bisexuality has focused on identity, coming out, and forming communities, Bisexual Politics takes the vital next step into bisexual political theory and activism. The many subjects and subthemes addressed in Bisexual Politics appeal to a multitude of readers from activists to academics, from friends and family of bisexuals, to those who have struggled with bisexuality. It is a sourcebook for those seeking to locate bisexuality in the schema of other social justice movements. It is a tool to build alliances with other progressive groups, and build coalitions with both lesbian/gay and heterosexual communities. It is a primer for anyone interested in bisexual activism and theory.

Bisexuality and the Challenge to Lesbian Politics
Bisexuality and the Challenge to Lesbian Politics

Author: Paula C Rust

Publisher: NYU Press

Published: 1995-10-01

Total Pages: 387

ISBN-13: 0814776728

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The subject of bisexuality continues to divide the lesbian and gay community. At pride marches, in films such as Go Fish, at academic conferences, the role and status of bisexuals is hotly contested. Within lesbian communities, formed to support lesbians in a patriarchal and heterosexist society, bisexual women are often perceived as a threat or as a political weakness. Bisexual women feel that they are regarded with suspicion and distrust, if not openly scorned. Drawing on her research with over 400 bisexual and lesbian women, surveying the treatment of bisexuality in the lesbian and gay press, and examining the recent growth of a self-consciously political bisexual movement, Paula Rust addresses a range of questions pertaining to the political and social relationships between lesbians and bisexual women. By tracing the roots of the controversy over bisexuality among lesbians back to the early lesbian feminist debates of the 1970s, Rust argues that those debates created the circumstances in which bisexuality became an inevitable challenge to lesbian politics. She also traces it forward, predicting the future of sexual politics.

Bisexuality in the United States
Bisexuality in the United States

Author: Paula C. Rust

Publisher:

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780231102278

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FOR YEARS BISEXUALITY WAS CONSIDERED MERELY A TRANSITIONAL STAGE between a person's presumed sexuality, whether heterosexual or homosexual, and their "true" sexuality. Bisexuality was therefore regarded with suspicion by the lesbian and gay community and with contempt by the "straight" world. The study and understanding of bisexuality has surpassed the stereotyped representations of previous eras (e.g., Basic Instinct), but few books attempt seriously to engage the subject as a whole. Paula Rust at last rectifies the absence in the literature by presenting the first interdisciplinary and comprehensive review of social scientific research and theory about bisexuality. With contributions by sociologists, psychologists, historians, political theorists, and others, Bisexuality in the United States yields an overall picture of what we know, and what we don't know, about the subject. The book provides a wealth of information about the lives and experiences of bisexual people. Articles cover early research in which bisexuality was conceptualized as "situational homosexuality". pioneering research on bisexuality as an authentic sexual orientation, scholarship on bisexuality in the context of AIDS research, the phenomena of "bisexual chic" and biphobia, queer theory, and the contemporary relationship between academia and political activism. Selections include theoretical and empirical studies from social science perspectives as well as popular writings about the growth of the bisexual movement in the 1980s and 1990s.

Bisexual Politics
Bisexual Politics

Author: Naomi Tucker

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 358

ISBN-13: 9781560238690

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This anthology presents a vivid collection of essays that explore the history, strategies, philosophy, and diversity of bisexual politics and theory in the United States. The 33 contributors develop a multifaceted approach to defining bisexual politics. Through these voices, the book seeks to understand the contexts in which the bisexual movement has evolved. The authors analyze different organizing strategies, formulate new bisexual political theory, provide a vision of future directions for redefining sexuality and gender, and educate activists and allies about current issues pertinent to the bisexual community. This book is the first of its kind. To date, it is the only book that documents and analyzes bisexual politics and theory. While existing literature on bisexuality has focused on identity, coming out, and forming communities, Bisexual Politics takes the vital next step into bisexual political theory and activism. The many subjects and subthemes addressed in Bisexual Politics appeal to a multitude of readers from activists to academics, from friends and family of bisexuals, to those who have struggled with bisexuality. It is a sourcebook for those seeking to locate bisexuality in the schema of other social justice movements. It is a tool to build alliances with other progressive groups, and build coalitions with both lesbian/gay and heterosexual communities. It is a primer for anyone interested in bisexual activism and theory.

Sexual Identities, Queer Politics
Sexual Identities, Queer Politics

Author: Mark Blasius

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2001-01-28

Total Pages: 393

ISBN-13: 0691058679

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In this collection, political and public policy analysts explore the concerns of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and the transgendered--what has come to be known as "lgbt" or "queer" politics. Issues ranging from legal equality, to recognition in policymaking of family and relational diversity, to the regulation of sexuality itself, are explored.

Look Both Ways
Look Both Ways

Author: Jennifer Baumgardner

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Published: 2008-03-04

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 0374706565

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For the acclaimed author and activist Jennifer Baumgardner, bisexuality has always been more than the "sexual non-preference of the '90s." In Look Both Ways, Baumgardner takes a close look at the growing visibility of gay and bisexual characters, performers, and issues on the national cultural stage. Despite the prevalence of bisexuality among Generation X and Y women, she finds that it continues to be marginalized by both gay and straight cultures, and dismissed either as a phase or a cop-out. With intimacy and humor, Baumgardner discusses her own experience as a bisexual, and the struggle she's undergone to reconcile the privilege she's garnered as a woman who is perceived as straight and the empowerment and satisfaction she's derived from her relationships with women. Part memoir, part pop-culture study, Look Both Ways connects the prominent dots of a bisexual community (Alix Kates Shulman, Ani DiFranco, Rebecca Walker, and, of course, Anne Heche) that Baumgardner argues have bridged feminist aims with those of the gay rights movement. Look Both Ways is a compelling and current study in bisexual lives lived secretly and openly, and an exploration of the lessons learned by writers, artists, and activists who have refused the either/or paradigm defended by both gay and straight communities.

Activating Theory
Activating Theory

Author: Joseph Bristow

Publisher:

Published: 1993

Total Pages: 294

ISBN-13:

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Activating Theory is the first comprehensive volume to represent the diversity of lesbian, gay and bisexual identities and subcultures that have flourished over the past decade. In particular, it gives prominence to the controversial emergence of queer activism, and the birth of a bisexual politics. Is there any common ground between bisexuals and homosexuals? How has ACTUP affected demands for lesbian and gay rights? What's stopping health educators teaching school children about HIV/AIDS? Combining work by academics and activists belonging to a variety of fields - including psychoanalysis, political theory, sex education and AIDS research - this is a wide-ranging and provocative collection that will appeal to many different audiences.

Bisexuality and Queer Theory
Bisexuality and Queer Theory

Author: Jonathan Alexander

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-04-10

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 1317995554

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According to David Halperin, sexuality in our time is typified by a "crisis in contemporary sexual definition". What is sexuality? What does it mean to have a sexual identity or orientation? What is the relationship between sexuality as a knowledge construct, on one hand, and the often messy flows of desire and practices of love, on the other? How and why are some sexual, erotic, and intimate practices normalized and others marginalized? Queer Theory has emerged in the West as one of the most provocative analytical tools in the humanities and social sciences. It scrutinizes identity and social structures that take heteronormativity for granted – that do not question the social construction of heterosexuality as normative in relation to its oppositional binary, homosexuality. At the same time, bisexuality is a practice, identity, and orientation that challenges the binary logic around which cultural notions of sexuality are organized. It is a portal to the imagination of a world of amorous expression beyond that divide. This provocative collection presents bisexuality and queer theory as two parallel thought collectives that have made significant contributions to cultural discourses about sexual and amorous practices since the onset of the AIDS era, and explores the ideas that circulate in these thought collectives today. We learn much about the construction and experience of sexuality, and the power it still holds throughout the contemporary Western world to shape identities and practices. This volume challenges our understanding of what it means to be sexual, to have a sexual identity, and to practise the arts of loving. This book was orginally published as a special issue of the Journal of Bisexuality.

Bisexuality in the United States
Bisexuality in the United States

Author: Paula C. Rust

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 694

ISBN-13: 9780231102261

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This book provides information about the lives and experiences of bisexual people. Articles cover early research in which bisexuality was conceptualized as "situational homosexuality," pioneering research on bisexuality as an authentic sexual orientation, scholarship on bisexuality in the context of AIDS research, the phenomena of "bisexual chic" and biphobia, queer theory, and the contemporary relationship between academia and political activism.