Bi: Notes on a bisexual revolution

Bi: Notes on a bisexual revolution is a book by Shiri Eisner about bisexuality. The books writes from a feminist and anarchist perspective and investigates the roots of biphobia and monosexism. It takes great care to examine the oppressive structures that affect bisexuals in context and examines the intersections with gender, race, and colonialism. In this way the book aims to investigate the possibility of a radical bisexual politics — one that is concerned with the roots of oppressive structures.

(not) defining bisexuality

Eisner does not claim to provide an authoritative definition of Bisexuality. She points out that, to do so would deny the multiplicity bound up in the experience. She also points out a problematic history of the work getting defined by people who are not bisexual. She provides two working definitions that are personally resonant to her: Bisexual as similar + different and more than one.

similar + different gender desire

A bisexual is someone who experiences desire for people of a similar gender to themselves and for people with a different gender than themselves.

more than one

“I call myself bisexual because I acknowledge that I have in myself the potential to be attracted romantically and/or sexually to people of more than one gender, not necessarily at the same time, not necessarily in the same way, and not necessarily to the same degree. For me, the bi in bisexual refers to the potential for attraction to people with genders similar to and different from my own.” - Robyn Ochs

bisexuality and gender

One of the things that I really appreciated about the book is the care with which Eisner writes about the intersections of bisexuality and gender. Eisner writes about the unique ways that biphobia and monosexism are applied based on gender identity. There are chapters describing the intersections of bisexuality with men, women, and a variety of transgender identities that fall outside "the gender binary". Eisner examines bisexuality without cissexist or transphobic language and writes about transgender and genderqueer perspectives with the benefit of lived experience.

chapter 4: bisexuality feminism and women

Eisner refutes notions that bisexuality in women is somehow more socially acceptable. It is acceptable only on the premise that bisexuality in women does not actually exist. It is rather assumed that women are lying about their bisexuality to please straight men. Inherent in this idea is heterosexism, patriarchy, and the threat of sexual violence. Indeed bisexual women are fetishized in the hetero cis-male gaze. Hyper-sexualized attitudes are projected onto bisexual women and can manifest in the real world with sexual harassment and violence.

Biphobic attitudes often scapegoat bisexual women for the violence they face. Eisner points out the need to center consent and agency of bisexual women.

She finds roots of social anxieties about bisexual women in the threat the female bisexuals pose to patriarchy in the possibility of choice and the embrace of multiplicity. This is connected to an overarching theme about the ways in which bisexuality creates "Gender Trouble".

chapter 5: bisexuality and men

Eisner writes about the way in which patriarchy both benefits and hurts men by pushing them into the role of the oppressor and denying their social and emotional needs. Men are expected to dominate and be in control, to participate in war, sports, and competition, to provide and be the "breadwinner". They are also expected to be emotionally distant, to be invulnerable and not cry or show weakness, they are also sexualized and assumed to be "purely physical" beings who always want and are ready for sex.They are expected to be straight and to not embrace any femininity in their appearance or affect. To not meet these expectations is to have a defective masculinity and looked down on. These patriarchal exceptions intersect with bisexual in interesting ways.

Men are expected to be strictly and always heterosexual. As alluded to above, being gay is one of the most dreaded things that a man might be suspected of, and is often used as a derogatory term for policing men who have deviated from the sacred lines of manhood. That said, as American writer Greta Christina mentions in her blog post “Five Stupid, Unfair and Sexist Things Expected of Men,” once a man actually comes out as gay, this message of “[D]on’t be even a little bit gay” is replaced with “Well ... okay.” More than anything, this tells us that men are allowed to be monosexual (however begrudgingly in the case of gay men), but are strictly forbidden from being bisexual. Heterosexuality for men enforces their compliance with dominant masculinity as well as their value as human beings. Monosexuality for gay men secures their masculinity by exhibiting perceived decisiveness and stability. Bisexuality, however, does not fit together with this framework because its perceived instability, confusion, and indecisiveness clash with those values expected of men.

It is of little surprise, then, that male bisexuality is constantly erased and denied. As mentioned in the previous chapter, while the popular “wisdom” regarding bi women says that “everyone is bisexual, really,” popular “wisdom” about bi men says that “bisexuals don’t exist.”

Bisexuality in men is said not to exist and men who are bisexual are assumed to actually be gay and lying about it. She describes the ways in which male bisexuality is medicalized, sexualized, and denied.

The chapter on Bisexuality and masculinity was particularly useful to me as I started to realize the connections between internalized shame that I had been feeling around my bisexuality and these negative attitudes. In particular, it clarified the roots of a feeling of falseness that persisted no matter how I identified. I wished for a scientific determination that could tell me if I was straight or not. Many of my google searches for information returned information about disease and speculation on the existence of a male bisexual identity. This included the infamous "Gay, straight, or lying" study. As an aside: fuck you Michael J. Bailey. You're a goddamn creep and a hack.

chapter 6: bi and trans

We see the negative stereotypes of bisexuality play out in different ways for transgender and genderqueer people. In mainstream porn and media, transgender people are assumed to be bisexual. This carries similar undertones of threat and violence as it does for women.

connections and intersections

Eisner points out many opportunities for solidarity and shared struggle. Bisexuality and transgender both subvert binaries.

While neither of these identities is automatically subversive (indeed, many people who identify as bi or trans consciously support sexual and gender binaries), the response that they cause in society and culture points to the deep anxieties that they trigger. Bisexuality raises social anxieties concerning the hierarchical binary of gay and straight, and transgender raises anxieties concerning the hierarchical binary of woman and man. As mentioned above, these subversions threaten to blur—and confound—the “clear cut” borders between oppressor and oppressed classes. In addition, they also expose the fact that a hierarchy exists, since by crossing that metaphorical “border,” they reveal its very existence.

the plight of the bi-trans

Eisner writes from the perspective of a genderqueer bisexual activist who began her work on bisexuality from within the transgender movement in Israel/Occupied Palistine. She describes encountering biphobia from people in the transgender movement and encountering transphobia and cissexist attitudes in the bisexual movement. While she maintains that accusations of inherent cisexism in the bisexual identity is scapegoating and points out the history of bi and trans solidarity, she criticises the places where the mainstream continues to let down the transgender community through use cissexist language, exclusion, and transphobia.

monosexism and biphobia

Biphobia describes prejudice held by individuals against bisexuals and is mostly carried out in individual interactions. It is distinct from homophobia in the sense that there are specific stereotypes and prejudicial attitudes reserved for bisexuals. For instance, consider accusations of duplicity, infectiousness, "fence-sitting", greed, promiscuity. Additionally, the idea that bisexuality doesn't exist and the idea that bisexuals choose to be straight or gay.

Eisner introduces the term monosexism to describe the overarching system of power that reproduces these attitudes and erases bisexual experience.

transcending myth-busting and respectability politics

The typical response to these negative attitudes and stereotypes from the community is one of "myth-busting" — formulating statements that negate each accusation. Bisexuals are actually not more likely to be liars, cheats, promiscuous. They are not more likely to be non-monogamous, indecisive, or HIV positive, ect... Eisner points out how this "myth-busting" approach does not challenge the underlying systems of power that give these accusations weight in an attempt to fit into the mainstream. What about bisexuals who are non-monogamous, indecisive, disabled, HIV+, sex-workers, ect... Are they simply bad bisexuals? Obviously not. Eisner points out that these negative attitudes provide opportunity for a more radical bisexual politics to build greater solidarity and challenge the systems of power that give the attitudes cultural weight.

Taken from an epistemological perspective, these stereotypes should not be taken literally at all, but rather read as metaphors about the subversive potential of bisexuality. What I mean is that bisexuality as an idea is something that society finds threatening to its normal order. This has nothing to do with bisexual individuals. I certainly do not mean to suggest that being bisexual is subversive or radical in and of itself (if only it were). Being politically subversive or radical takes a lot of work, thought, and effort, which a simple identity label is insufficient to achieve. I also do not mean to set a whole new standard for bisexual behavior that might alienate large portions of the bisexual community. And I do not mean to imply that the stereotypes are correct as far as the personal behavior of bisexual people goes. What I do mean to do is to examine why society places bisexuality on the side of anxiety, threat, and subversion. And how can we use these very things to disrupt social order and create social change?

In so doing, what I’m attempting to do is step away from the binary discourse of Yes versus No, True versus False, or Good versus Bad, and open a third, radical choice of transgression, subversion, and multiplicity. Such a move, in my opinion, is also bisexual in character, marking a resistance to binaries, a collapse of boundaries, and a subversion of order.

Eisner points out that behind each of these attitudes and stereotypes there are anxieties about the established social order. More powerful responses that do not seek to sooth these anxieties can be formulated — challenges to notions of gender normativity, patriarchy, and purity, and embrace of fluidity, change, multiplicity.

bisexuality and privilege

Bisexuals are often accused of having heterosexual privilege. Eisner notes a troubling lack of engagement with this idea both from those that argue against it and from those who assume it to be true. Eisner finds the idea that bisexuals carry heterosexual privilege to be suspicious and counters it with a materialist argument. If the privilege exists then we should see measurable social advantage for bisexuals over gay and lesbian identities. This does not bear out in reality. Studies summarized in the Bisexuality Invisibility Report find that bisexual people have worse socio-economic outcomes as well as worse mental and physical health than gay and lesbian people on the whole.

Eisner criticizes the myth-busting approach to the idea of bisexuals carrying heterosexual privilege and again takes and epistemological approach. She examines where the idea of bisexuals having heterosexual privilege comes from and deconstructs the idea with nuance. She points out that at the heart of the accusation of heterosexual privilege is a denial of a unique bisexual experience. Bisexuals are said to be oppressed insofar as they appear to be homosexual and have privilege insofar as they appear heterosexual. In reality there are unique problems that bisexual people face by virtue of them being bisexual.

At the same time she points out that it is true that couples that appear to be straight will not face harassment in public for their identity in the same way that visibly queer couples will.

She argues that insofar as bisexuals can be said to have privilege it is the privilege to pass as straight and that passing is always a double edged sword.

She also challenges the notion that visibility equals transgression. She points out discrimination that bisexuals face in both gay and straight communities without scapegoating gay people. She lays the blame with heterosexism, patriarchy, cisexism, ect...