ABSTRACT
Queer theory and queer politics continue to exhibit a marked silence around bisexuality. This chapter examines, through the lens of bisexuality, how the requisites of identity politics and the binarisms at the center of those requisites structure (and limit) queer theories and politics. It argues that beginning the work of theorizing bisexuality can assist us in articulating bisexual realities and bisexual politics, in theorizing lesbianism and male homosexuality, and in constructing political practices that can more effectively subvert existing power structures. One reason some people avoid or dismiss bisexuality has to do with the garden variety (which is not to say simple) revulsion of prejudice. The question of what one calls oneself, how one identifies one’s sexuality—and why it matters—is bound up in identity politics as it has been practiced by various social movements in this country since the 1960s.
