ABSTRACT
Originally published in Valverde, M. (1985) Sex, Power and Pleasure, Toronto: The Women’s Press. Reproduced by permission of the author. In this extract, Valverde discusses the psychoanalytic account of sexual identity to which Clausen alludes in Chapter 11; she also deals with the related claim that ‘everyone is born bisexual’ which George heard from a number of her respondents in Chapter 10. Valverde is thus offering a commentary on the Freudian conception of bisexuality featured in Part I of this volume. It is worth noting in this regard that, like most commentators since the 1970s but unlike Freud himself, Valverde discusses bisexuality in terms of heterosexuality/ homosexuality rather than masculinity/femininity.
