bisexuality

‘This magical place’- understanding bicon 2008

| helenbowescatton

I have a new article out! This one has been a long time in the making- it’s drawn from my 2015 PhD thesis and has had a long journey to publication since I first submitted it in 2017. After all this time, I’m delighted to finally see it in print.

It’s been published open access in Sexualities, and you can download it by clicking on the image below. Underneath that, I’ve started writing a summary in less technical language, that I hope will be accessible to more people. I’ll keep adding to this as I have time- bear with me!

A link to my latest article on bi spaces as heterotopic place-events.

Plain English summary

Abstract

In this article I outline findings from my study of a bisexual community event in the United Kingdom, in which I interviewed people about photos they had taken at BiCon 2008. Participants described the event as taking place in ‘a separate world’, a ‘portable bubble’ that they reached by consciously leaving behind their everyday lives as they travelled to the event.

Bisexual people often speak of feeling invisible in their everyday lives, but BiCon is a place where bisexuals can recognise and validate each other. I’ve used two theoretical ideas to explain how the people I talked to experience BiCon. The idea of ‘heterotopia’ is useful in thinking about how BiCon is similar to, and different from, the spaces of the everyday world. The idea that BiCon is a ‘place-event’ helps to explain that people interact with one another and move around the spaces of the venue in particular ways. Taken together, these two ideas help to explain why many participants ee BiCon as a ‘magical place’.

Introduction

There is a shortage of research about bisexual-centred spaces. This study focuses on participants’ experiences of BiCon, an annual convention for UK bisexuals and their allies. In this article I talk a lot about ‘spaces’, and when I use this word I’m not just referring to physical space, but to the ways in which spaces are ‘made’ by people moving around and interacting over time- the kind of atmosphere they have, and what it’s like to be there. The main contribution that this article makes to the literature on bisexual spaces is that it uses the idea of ‘heterotopia’ to explain what BiCon is like. A heterotopia is a space that is different from the social world that surrounds it, but also has some of the same social dynamics.

Participants in this study see BiCon as different from the everyday world. They describe how, in everyday life, they feel displaced- for many there is no space or time in their lives where they feel their bisexuality is recognised and understood. In the first section of this article, I explain the history behind this sense of displacement, and discuss what various theorists have said about it. I then go on to look at the ways that activists and academics have sought to establish ‘bi spaces’ in literature, in language, and in the physical world. I then go on to explain what BiCon is and how I set about studying it. Then I explain my findings, which are that my participants see BiCon as a ‘magical place’ outside of ordinary reality, where they can express their desires for a differently-organised world that is more affirming of bisexuality. However, although participants describe BiCon as distant from the everyday world, their words also show that BiCon has a lot of the same problems as the outside world when it comes to issues of power and equality. They talk about BiCon in ways that suggest that BiCon can be understood as a ‘heterotopic place-event’. This idea is helpful because it allows me to explain both how BiCon is related to the everyday world, and how the movements and interactions of participants make BiCon a space in which bisexual identities can be recognised and validated in ways they often aren’t in everyday life.

More to follow…

FAQ: ‘Why are there so many stereotypes about bisexuals?’

| helenbowescatton

Image credit: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/93/Cover_of_This_Bed_We_Made_by_Artemis_Smith_-_1961.jpg
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/93/Cover_of_This_Bed_We_Made_by_Artemis_Smith_-_1961.jpg

INTERIOR: DAY. The Bisexual Questions Office, a small, untidy office that looks as if it used 
to be a cupboard. The Duty Bisexual, a forty-ish white woman, sits at a desk cluttered with 
used coffee cups, copies of Bi Community News and cuddly purple unicorns. 
She is leafing through a copy of Biscuit magazine and humming to herself.

A purple phone on the desk rings, and the Duty Bisexual answers.

DB: Hello, Bisexual Questions Office, Helen speaking, how may I be of service?

CALLER: 'I've been wondering why there are so many stereotypes about bisexuals?'

DB: That's an interesting question, Caller. Would you like a detailed explanation, 
or just the headlines for now?

C: Um, just the headlines, I guess?

DB: Right you are. [clears throat]

The headlines:

  • Western cultures are invested in the idea that ‘gay’ and ‘straight’ are opposite ‘sides’- you’re either on one or the other.
  • Bisexuality undermines this idea and makes people on both sides uncomfortable.
  • To resolve this discomfort, both ‘sides’ try to discredit bisexuality by claiming that bisexuals don’t exist, are attention-seeking, are immature and untrustworthy, etc etc.
  • And that’s why there are stereotypes about bisexuals.
DB: Thank you for calling the Bisexual Questions Office, is there anything else I can help you 
with today?

C: Yes, hang on a minute! Why is bisexuality so uncomfortable that it needs to be discredited?

DB:  Well... [sips coffee, realises it's gone cold, grimaces]

Cultures that have stereotypes about bisexuals have a dominant way of thinking that philosophers call dualism– they like to think in terms of pairs of ‘opposites’ like good/bad, heaven/hell, body/soul, white/black, man/woman and gay/straight (1). These opposites (‘binaries’, or ‘dichotomies’) are defined against one another- so, to be female is to be Not Male, and to be straight is to be Not Gay (2). There’s also usually a hierarchy between the two sides of a binary- one term is seen as ‘better’, one ‘worse’.

Ideas that disrupt these binary categories (suggesting that there are ‘shades of grey’ between black and white), can be quite threatening to these cultures. Bisexuality is one of those ideas.

So, stereotypes about bisexuality are a kind of cultural attempt to resolve this discomfort by discrediting or getting rid of bisexuality, and sorting everyone back into those tidy gay/straight boxes. This is what’s happening when it’s suggested that bisexuals are ‘really’ gay (but closeted) or ‘really’ straight (but attention-seeking). Bisexuals are being denied their identities, on the grounds that everyone is ‘really’ either gay or straight.

C: But I

DB: Anyway, [self-deprecatingly, but also reaching for coffee cup and preparing to rise from 
desk] I can talk about this for hours, b-

C:  No, wait! Don't go yet! [pause] I mean, if that's okay?

DB: [sits back down again, replaces cup, sighs] Um, sure!

C: Because I was wondering, if society tries to erase bisexuality because it's so  threatening, 
why are we always talking about it? It's always popping up in the media.

DB: Ah, that's because we actually need bisexuality to exist, just as much as we need it 
not to exist.

C: I'm sorry, what?

DB: I know, right? Bear with me.

OK, so our cultural ideas about bisexuality work a bit like our cultural ideas about coins. For the sake of convenience, we think of coins as having two entirely separate ‘sides’ that have nothing to do with each other. But of course, the ‘sides’ aren’t separate- they are just two faces of the same object. And a coin actually has a third surface- its edge. We tend to keep the edge thin to make the coin compact. But it’s always there, and it’s no less a part of the coin than its two sides are.

Spinning coin

Bisexuality is like the edge of the gay/straight coin. It’s absolutely integral to the  way we think about sexuality in Western cultures. Without it, there’s no distinction between ‘straight’, and ‘gay’. So you can’t get rid of it entirely. All you can do is to give it as little space as possible, just a sliver, just enough to allow it to mark the boundary between the two ‘sides’ of the coin (5). So we keep mentioning it- a celebrity comes out as bi and it makes the news, there’s a bi character in a soap opera- but almost immediately dismissing it. The celebrity has a film to plug and is just after the publicity. The soap character soon realises they were really gay all along… That’s the work that the stereotypes do- they allow us to briefly acknowledge bisexuality, and then dismiss it as inauthentic.

DB: There's more, but that's the main takeaway, I think. Does that make sense?

C: I... I think so, but to be honest my head hurts a bit now.

DB: Fair enough! It's complicated.

C: Like, I've got more questions, but... maybe later?

DB: [grabbing coffee mug, pushing chair away from desk, smiling broadly] Sure! Thank you 
for calling the Bisexual Questions Office, have a nice day and don't let the binary get you down!

C: Don't let the binary... right. OK, thanks again.

DB: [cheerily] Byeeee!

 

Sources/further reading:

Chewy academic stuff, if you’re into the theoretical aspects of this discussion:

Things that are easier to digest: 

  • You should definitely read everything The Bisexual Index has to say about bisexuality, for it is wise.
  • Purple Prose, edited by Katy Harrad, is a brilliant collection of essays on bisexuality in the UK.
  • If you’re an OU student, I wrote a general introduction to the history of sexuality for the Open University module ‘Living Psychology’ (DD210). It has a sexy orange mouse called Bob in it.

 

Footnotes:

(1) This way of thinking goes all the way back to Plato and Aristotle, and is dominant in societies informed by Judeo-Christian thought.

(2) Not convinced? Try defining the word ‘gay’ without referring (even implicitly) to the idea of ‘straight’, or the idea of female’ without referring to ‘male’).

(3) This, of course, is a lesson that the lesbian and gay movements learned from the US civil rights movement as well as the women’s suffrage movement.

(4) This assumption that there are two (and only two) ‘opposite’ genders to ‘choose’ between is, obviously, another deeply flawed binary. I’d argue that this ‘male/female’ binary exists for the same reason that the ‘straight/gay’ one does- because in a historically-misogynistic culture, men have a lot invested in not-being-female, and women’s fight for equality rests on the assertion that they are profoundly and innately different from men. But that’s a whole other discussion…

(5) And that, of course is why being bi-  trying to inhabit the line between gay and straight- is often referred to as ‘sitting on the fence’.

FAQ: Is bisexuality becoming more common?

| helenbowescatton

boy wearing white shirt with iridescent hair color infront of flag
Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Pexels.com

Last October, bisexuality was in the UK news because of an increase in the proportion of young people identifying as bi. Data from the Office of National Statistics showed that for the first time, the proportion of 16-24 year olds identifying as bi (1.8%), was greater than that identifying as gay or lesbian- 55% of LGB (lesbian, gay or bisexual)-identified young people identified as bi rather than lesbian or gay. Furthermore, the ONS’s Annual Population Survey showed that the number of people identifying as bisexual (across all age groups) had risen by 45% in three years.

So, what’s this all about? Is bisexuality becoming more common? I was invited to discuss this question on Newsnight on 6th October 2016- I can’t find an official BBC clip to link to, but you can watch the segment I’m in below:

 

The main points I make in the clip are below (I’ve expanded on them a bit to make them clearer):

  • Society’s attitude towards sexuality has changed a great deal, and people in general are  more confident to talk about their sexual identities and feelings than they used to be- so we’d expect to hear about more diversity than previously.
  • People are not so invested in identity politics as they once were. In the 1980s and 1990s, activists lobbied for equal rights for lesbian and gay (LG) people on the basis that people were born lesbian or gay. They hadn’t chosen their sexuality, so they couldn’t be blamed for it, and ought to have the same rights as anyone else.
    • In contrast, social conservatives were keen to establish that being lesbian or gay was Not Normal.  If you weren’t straight, you were either developmentally abnormal in some way and needed fixing, or you were downright perverse, and deliberately choosing to behave badly. Straight people, on the other hand, were healthy and normal.
    • So, both ‘sides’- LG and straight people- had a lot invested in establishing that you could either be lesbian/gay, or heterosexual. Homophobes needed to be sure that they weren’t tainted by icky homosexuality, and LG folk needed to make it clear that they couldn’t help being different.
    • The idea that some people were bisexual was unacceptable to both sides, because it suggested that individuals could choose their sexuality. For the conservatives, bisexual people were particularly depraved because they ‘could’ choose to be ‘normal’, and didn’t. For LG people, bisexual people were confusing the issue- their whole argument for equal rights was based on the idea that sexuality wasn’t a choice.
    • Happily, although things are far from rosy for a lot of LGBT people, most of the legal battles for equality have now been won. LG identities are less stigmatised in most communities than they were 20 years ago, so people are not as worried about bisexuality’s potential to confuse the issue.
  • Sexuality is fluid. Bisexuals are often described as ‘going through a phase’ or ‘bi now, gay later’, as Stuart Whoo pithily puts it in the clip. But bi people’s sexualities aren’t any more fluid than anyone else’s – sexuality is just quite a fluid thing, and that fluidity is more obvious to the world if it shows up in the gender of your partners, than if your sexual tastes change in other ways. Furthermore, there are of course a lot of people who initially come out as lesbian, gay, or straight, and then come out as bi later, and plenty who identify as bi for their whole lives.
  • Biphobia isn’t necessarily as overt as it used to be, but research shows that bi people often struggle with a sense of feeling out of place- there are thriving bi communities in the UK but they don’t have permanent commercial spaces in the same way that LG communities do, and bi people are often marginalised in LG spaces.
  • Stereotypes about bisexuality persist, partly because;
    • As a society, we like binary categories. Right and wrong, good and evil, normal and abnormal. We like things to be ‘either/or’, not ‘both/and’.
    • Because of this, you can’t talk about being bisexual without using binary language like ‘male/female’ and ‘gay/straight’, which makes it sounds as if your identity is split between gay and straight ‘sides’.
    • Research shows that bi people experience their identities as unified, not split, but it’s hard to express that verbally, so when bi people are asked about their identities and experiences, they can sound as if they’re ‘confused’ or ‘going through a phase’.
    • We tend to see identities as authentic if they persist over time, and as inauthentic if they aren’t consistent. We’re used to hearing about people who had been ‘living a lie’ until they ‘finally admitted to themselves that they had been L/G all along’. Bi people can look to others as if they are still in the ‘living a lie’ part of this narrative, particularly if they have partners of different genders over their life course.

 

P.S. If you’re wondering what being on Newsnight was like, here’s a clip of me being interviewed by a colleague the next morning for the OU Graduate School’s YouTube channel.  (You can tell I’ve had a late night, I look very tired… ). I talk about what it was like to do TV for the first time, and share some of the advice colleagues gave me beforehand: