ABSTRACT

Bisexual Women in the Twenty-First Century reflects the “brave new world” of bisexual women's lives through an eclectic collection of articles that typifies an ongoing feminist process of theory grounded in life experience. The book's broad scope addresses a “world” created in response to lesbian-feminism, homophobia within the mainstream women’s movement, and sexism within the gay rights movement. The book includes Carol Queen's memoirs of the swinging lesbian scene in the 1970s, a critical examination of Alice Walker's novel The Temple of My Familiar, and a look back at the controversy surrounding bisexual inclusion in the Northampton Lesbian and Gay Pride March in Massachusetts in the early 90s. Previous groundbreaking work on bisexuality had to focus on breaking the silence around bisexual invisibility. This collection works from that foundation to explore the complexities and histories of bisexual women's lives.

Bisexual Women in the Twenty-First Century examines:

  • tensions between lesbians and bisexual women
  • the shifting place of bisexual women in society
  • the use of skin color as a charged metaphor
  • the inclusion of bisexuality into queer theory
  • groundbreaking new work on bisexual youth
  • the creative use of the “sacred whore” archetype
Bisexual Women in the Twenty-First Century is an essential source of social and political critique, and a vital resource for anyone interested in the complex dynamics of human sexuality, regardless of sexual orientation.

chapter 1|7 pages

Introduction: Beauteous and Brave

Bisexual Women in the Twenty-First Century

chapter 2|13 pages

What's in a Name?

Bisexual Women Define Their Terms

chapter 3|30 pages

(Con)Tested Identities

Bisexual Women Reorient Sexuality

chapter 4|19 pages

Stepping into the Same River Twice:

Internal/External Subversion of the Inside/Outside Dialectic in Alice Walker's: The Temple of My Familiar

chapter 5|22 pages

Bisexual Female Adolescents:

A Critical Analysis of Past Research and Result from a National Survey

chapter 6|13 pages

Queering Bisexuality

chapter 8|20 pages

Cyborgs Among Us

Performing Liminal States of Sexuality

chapter 10|19 pages

Pride and Politics

Revisiting the Northampton Pride March, 1989–1993

chapter 13|17 pages

British Bisexual Women

A New Century

chapter 14|11 pages

Lesbian Love in the Swingin' Seventies:

A Bisexual Memoir

chapter 17|24 pages

Bi Film-Video World

High and Low Bisexual Women and Aesthetics in Chasing Amy and high Art

chapter 18|5 pages

Bi Books

The “Weak” Subject: On Modernity, Eros and Women's Playwriting