Textual Immaturity: Bisexuality, Textuality and Adolescence

ABSTRACT

The article takes a common stereotype of bisexuality—as ‘immature’—and repurposes it as textual immaturity. The adolescent is a temporally in-between figure, sited ambiguously between past and future—a position analogous to that into which bisexuality is cast in monosexist discourse. Thus, bisexualities become a point from which to approach literary texts ‘immaturely.’ The article argues that the positioning of bisexuality as a phase en route to fixed monosexual identity is a product of a broader investment in teleological narratives of maturation. Given its distinct relations to narrative temporality when denigrated as ‘immature,’ a critical focus on bisexuality can offer a site for resistance to this restrictive narrativity. The Buddha of Suburbia proves an exemplary text. The article reads Hanif Kureishi's novel, TV adaptation, and David Bowie's album to explore their bisexual textuality.

KEYWORDS:

• adolescence
• bisexuality
• heteronormativity
• narratives
• television

Acknowledgment

The author would like to thank Èmiel Maliepaard and Caroline Walters for making EuroBiReCon 2016 such an inspiring success, and to all those attendees whose generous thoughts and probing questions helped this work to develop. Thanks also to Vincent Quinn and Jacob Engelberg for their vital support and discussions in developing these ideas.

Funding

Earlier stages of this research were supported by Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) doctoral funding and the School of English, University of Sussex.

Notes

1. The editions used are Kureishi (1999), Michell (2007) and Bowie (2007), respectively.

2. As the deployment within queer communities of camp as a form of resistance shows.

3. His next album, 1995's 1.Outside sees him reunite with Brian Eno with whom he had collaborated in the 1970s. One of the singles, ‘Hallo Spaceboy,’ features the repeated lyric, “Do you like girls or boys / It's confusing these days” (Bowie, 2003).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Joseph Ronan

Joseph Ronan is a lecturer in English Literature at the University of Brighton where he teaches on Literature and Joint Honours programs. He received his PhD in sexual dissidence in literature and culture in 2015 from the University of Sussex, where he had previously completed his BA and MA. He remains attached to Sussex as a tutor in the International Summer School. His current research focuses primarily on bisexuality as it intersects with queer theory, narratology, adolescence, temporality and camp in twentieth and twenty-first century British literature and popular culture. He has recently published on Alan Hollinghurst and ‘bisexual camp’ and his current project explores narratives of sexuality, adolescence and futurity in literary engagements with punk.