Interpreting the Invisibility of Male Bisexuality

Summary

Bisexuality has come to be a contentious, openly-hidden identity amidst evolving sexual identities and contested sexual politics. A number of specific dynamics characterize engagements involving bi-sexuality, including definitional controversies, border disputes among gay, lesbian, and bisexual communities, and debates over minority group rights that have both reflected and produced gay and lesbian investments in identity. This article draws on these themes and addresses sexual identity and gay-bi male relations through an examination of bisexual men's relative invisibility in comparison to bisexual women. I bring together social scientific “constructionist” theory and humanities-based “queer theory” to develop a nuanced explanation of how discomfort shared by many gays and lesbians regarding bisexuals may generate dissimilar levels of conflict among men than among women. I suggest that while gay men may have negative attitudes about bisexual men, these have generally been much more concealed in the U.S. than have lesbians' negative reactions to bi women, widely considered to have spurred bi women's visibility. Bi men have not valorized or publicly asserted their sexual identities as widely as bi women because, I propose, they have been less excluded from and stigmatized by their broader homoerotic community. Implications for analysis and sexual politics are considered.

Key Words:

• Bisexual men
• bisexuality
• gay
• identity politics
• lesbian
• masculinity
• queer
• queer theory
• social constructionism
• social movements