Persistent Invisibility: Damaging Stereotypes Continue to Plague Bisexuals

• In Event: 306 - Section on Sociology of Sexualities Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 04. Marginalization

Abstract

In May 2015, The American Sociological Association will focus its 110th annual meeting on the topic of “Sexualities in the Social World. This is a striking topic for bisexuality researchers as it was a decade ago on 5 July 2005 when the front page of The New York Times read: “Straight, Gay or Lying? Bisexuality Revisited.” Bisexuality on the front page of The New York Times! Indeed, this should have been a watershed moment to bring bisexuality to the forefront. Unfortunately, this “front page news” was not the visibility bisexual researchers had hoped for. Why? Instead of promoting bisexuality as a legitimate sexual identity, the article attempted to scorn bisexuality. Popularizations of bisexuality in mainstream media and some academic research have lead to misrepresentations of those who claim a bisexual identity as confused members of society who are simply going through a phase until they adopt their “real” sexual identity. First, I look at the connotation of primarily bisexual women who are gendered as “chic” or “trendy.” Second, I consider the idea of male privilege and how it applies to how bisexual men are gendered as “masters of deceit.” I argue that the latter connotations have real life consequences for the women and men who identify themselves as bisexual—rendering their identities as incomplete or illegitimate. Finally, this paper looks at future questions that gender and sexuality researchers might investigate, including the call for future research to entertain that gender and bisexuality do not operate as mutually exclusive categories.

Author

• Andrea D. Miller, Webster University