ABSTRACT
Bisexuals cannot begin work on developing a political presence as long as people continue to equate their ontological status with that of unicorns. Within Western societies, conceptualisations of sexualities have evolved, particularly over the last century. Early understandings of sexuality were based on a unipolar perspective, where only heterosexuality was understood to be valid or viable. As sexologists began to theorise sexuality, there was a shift to bipolar understandings where “heterosexuality” and “homosexuality” were recognised as two distinct identities. During the 1940s and 1950s, Kinsey’s surveys demonstrated the variability and diversity of human sexual behaviour. It was not until the beginning of the 1970s that bisexuality began to emerge more prominently than in the past, as bisexual people began to find each other and form communities, particularly in major cities. This early bisexual movement took place amid the wider context of a cultural turn to free love and sexual liberation within Western culture.
