ABSTRACT
Bisexuality as a recognised identity started to emerge in the Finnish mainstream media in the early 1990s. Before that, bisexuality was a concept used in sexual minority politics as well as in porn and sensation magazines. In the sexual minority politics of the 1970s and 1980s, the concept of bisexuality was used to emphasise the relevance of providing sexual rights to non-heterosexuals, since human sexuality was seen as fundamentally bisexual. Therefore, if everyone was bisexual, sexual minority rights also concerned everyone. However, a separate bisexual identity was not recognisable due to the generalised use of the concept. At the same time, bisexuality was represented in a highly fetishised fashion in porn magazines. In this atmosphere, the idea of a bisexual identity was not credible. It was only in the late 1980s that bisexuality became a concept that described sexual identity. People who defined themselves as bisexual started to be active in sexual minority politics as well as to talk openly about bisexuality in the Finnish media. Currently, bisexual politics are a visible part of sexual minority politics in Finland; however, the stereotypes drawn decades before continue to impact the experiences and identities of the people who define themselves as bisexual. This research is based on an analysis of the vast material collected from Finnish sexual minority associations’ publications, porn magazines, mainstream magazines, and newspapers from 1969 to 2011, as well as interviews with 40 bisexual people. The interviews were conducted in 1999, 2005, and 2009–2010, and 12 interviewees were interviewed twice to provide a longitudinal perspective for the study.
