Bisexuality Politicised - A dangerous
sexuality?
This paper asks the question how can bisexuality be or
become a danger to the dominant sexual script which I problematise as
produced racism, sexism, homophobia, and monosexism. That this brand
of heterosexuality occupies 99% of our cultural space in
entertainment, education, history and public expression and is
considered inevitable and unchallengable for 90% of peoples
relationships is, I will argue, the victory of white patriarchal
science.
I intend to show the nature of this victory and imagine what counter
struggle and victories might emerge from the site of my
bisexuality.
The
Historical role of Biphopia- Policing the Treaty.
Underpinning this paper is the belief in that many if not
all heterosexual identifying people can be bisexual and that the
majority are to some extent not privately monosexual. The majority
status of bisexuality does not make it normal nor ideal however I
mention it because it is important to realise that the invisibility
of bisexuality requires extraordinary effort to maintain and
it’s repression occurs against all people not just a few
“natural” bisexuals.
To understand the historical role that biphobia has played and the
historical position of bisexuality it is necessary to recognise
homosexuality as a creation of western patriarchal and homophobic
medical science. Women have always loved women and men have always
loved men but the classification of these experiences as a sexuality
with little or no element of choice and a biological or individual
psychological basis was given currency in the 19th century by a
professional class that feared same sex desire. Their construction of
homosexuality shaped and informs Western cultural understanding of
sexuality “not in the first place because of its meaningfulness
to those whom it defines but because of its indispensableness to
those who define themselves against it.” (Segal, L. p145) for it
was and is needed “not only for the persecutory regulation of a
nascent minority of distinctly homosexual men (and women) but also
for the regulation of the male (and female) homosocial bonds that
structure all culture - at any rate all public or heterosexual
culture.” (Eve Sedgewick in Segal, L. pp194-5) Early
psychoanalytic texts were quite explicit that the project was to
police all male and female relationships warning “teachers and
parents not to take too lightly friendships among girls which become
passionate” and society to “be more concerned with the
degree of heterosexuality or homosexuality in an individual than they
are with the question of whether he has ever had an experience of
either sort”. “The real danger from homosexuality” was
seen to lie “not in actual sex association but in homosexual
attitudes towards life” such as the negative attitudes of
“thousands of women ... toward men, marriage and family
life” influenced by “latent homosexuality” for
“neurotic attitudes about love and marriage can prove
contagious.” (Caprio, F. pp 6 -11)
Generally, prior to this the western world had relied on Christianity
to dictate the terms of sexuality. Whether sexual attraction was
“natural” was no defence under a regime which tended to
view “natural” sexual desires as needing control from a
religious authority. The medical establishment faced the dilemma of
replacing religious authorities without having any utilitarian basis
for the repression of same sex desire.
The construction of homosexuality as a distinct condition was to
define normality as exclusive heterosexuality. In fact
heterosexuality was simply the condition of being human. Sexual
behaviour became a product of a persons condition; the “human
condition” producing normal heterosexual behaviour. There was
now no need for a religious justification for preferencing the
heterosexual over the homosexual because behaviour was not a matter
of choice but a matter of whether or not you were ill; Well or sane
people simply didn’t want to have sex with people of their own
gender.
This was presented as a more humane response to homosexuality than
religious condemnation or incarceration. Psychiatrists often called
themselves compassionate as they argued for an adoption of
“scientific” curative responses to homosexuality. (Caprio,
F, p.xi)
The majority gay and lesbian movement accepted the shifting of
sexuality into an area for science and have embraced the notion of a
biological basis or early psychological basis for sexuality. Their
fight has largely been for homosexuality to be treated as incurable
and it follows natural and equally valid alternative to
heterosexuality, jettisoning any agenda to argue that is better. Only
a minority have argued that homosexuality is a political choice and
an option for everyone.
With both sides ceasing
hostilities1, when homosexuality
was delisted as a mental illness in 1973 (Altman,D.,p5),
institutionalised heterosexuality and gays and lesbians overt
interests have moved to coincide. Victories to normalise
homosexuality also normalise heterosexuality's dominance by
depoliticising sexuality in general. In 1993 when a homosexuality
gene was “discovered” a genetic basis for the majority
status of heterosexuality was created though not declared. Anyone who
would argue that the commonality of heterosexuality might have
something to do with social programming and institutional support can
now be said to be messing with nature.
The proud bisexual threatens this peaceful coexistence of the
heterosexual majority and homosexual minority. Recognition of our
bisexuality requires a validation of our sexual relationships with
people of our own gender based on choice rather than the agreed
legitimate biological basis. Such choice may be personal or
circumstantial but also political or moral. Normalising bisexuality
with a biological cause won’t defuse it’s threat though it
could contain it if it relegates us to a fixed minority status.
Society still has to reckon with why we choose to validate
relationships with people of our own gender by identifying as
bisexual. We reopen old debates that many who have found safety in a
biological basis for their monosexual identity want to keep closed.
(I will revisit this fear in the last section, Bisexuality and the
Future when I discuss Bi supremacy.)
A bisexual identity simply has to be defined as confused or an
exception to the rule. Individuals have to be pressured to fit
themselves into one or the other category. In a secular society
without moral taboos people can’t be allowed to entertain the
idea that their partners gender is political. Also, understandably
gays and lesbians know those moral taboos still hold significant
power so many still see their best option as policing the treaty
based on the attribution of their sexuality to a biological or
psychological cause.
Bisexuality and identification -
Withdrawing our support for the status quo.
The bisexual identifying person is not predominantly
someone who feels attraction equally to both genders or without any
reference to gender2 and in terms of
actual sexual or emotional experience the majority could be
classified as predominantly homosexual or heterosexual.
“Why then, don’t you call yourself gay or straight?”
is the inevitable response to this confession. And confession it
feels like because to indicate a “leaning” puts at risk the
validity given to a bisexual identity within contemporary discourse.
Sexual expression is usually presented as representative of something
innate rather than a mediation between a person and their world.
Consequently the woman who says she usually finds women easier to
make emotional connections with is seen to be describing her
“innate” difficulty emotionally connecting with men rather
than her experience of men and their culture.
Asserting a bisexual identity in the face of this invalidation is
about contextualising sexual responses rather than finding invisible
internal reasons for them. A bisexual identity in the above
circumstance keeps open the possibility that a preference for
emotional relationships with women could change if men and male
culture changed. Alternatively a preference for sex with men might be
attributable to homophobia. (Weinberg, M.S., p221) The reasons for
choices are not always positive ones but the possibility for counter
argument exists.
Holding onto a bisexual identification based on potentiality, rejects
the conservatism of describing reality by the status quo. However a
bisexual identity is also partially an attempt to accurately relate
personal history as well and this too has a radical power.
Most monosexual identifications represent people only by concealing
some bisexuality. By identifying as bisexual a person accepts and
celebrates those aspects of their life that are inconsistent with a
monosexual identity. The power of metanarratives within modernism,
including descriptions of sexuality, relies on such inconsistencies
being deemed insignificant. Hence a public bisexual identity is a
confrontation of generalist theories with lived experience. If people
promote such a solidarity with their experiences and the people who
compose them that is greater than any to a proposed theory then
expounders of metanarratives (including myself) will lose power. Our
authority to dictate “from above” will be replaced by a
decentralised authority based on being “up close” to our
own reality.
Bisexuality and other
oppressions.
Sexuality forms alliances across genders, ethnicities, and
classes so any bisexual movement which fails to take gender, race or
class issues into account poses a real danger of obscuring
differences and concealing oppression. (This is also true for a
multiplicity of issues such as disability or mental illness). My
discussion of bisexuality and other basis for oppression are not
intended to present bisexual identification as the panacea of the
worlds ills. Social change must be inspired by a diversity of
experience and informed by a range of critiques.
Given the above it is presumptious for me as a half-wog male to seek
to resolve ongoing debates about a bisexual political agenda among
feminist women or debates among black women and men on how to connect
bi pride with anti-racism. To do so would be to pretend that I can
speak from only my bisexuality and abandon any white, male
perspctive. As a long term unemployed person I believe I can speak on
class issues from the inside to some extent but also still
acknowledge the privelage of my university education.
This is not to say that I think that sexism is a womens issue or that
the responsibility for opposing racism is solely non-whites. Nor am I
comfortable being accountable to lesbian or straight feminists on the
issue of bisexual profeminism or placing beyond reproach the
homophobia of some black liberationist theorists like Eldrige
Cleaver. What to speak on and when in regard to a radical
bisexualitys’ impact on patriarchal, white supremist and class
oppresion is best defined as problematic. As a simple way out I hope
to show how I see a politicised bisexuality contributes to my
pro-feminism, anti-racism and support for class struggles. It is my
hope that this will have relevance for a wider audience.
Radical Bisexuality and
Pro-feminism.
Judith Butler states that “the heterosexualisation of
desire requires and institutes the production of discrete and
assymetrical oppositions between “feminine” and
“masculine” identities.” (Segal, L. p190) Monique
Wittig goes further to argue that a woman’s place in
heterosexuality is a class of oppression and that the lesbian escapes
her class position.(Wittig, M, p.47) I agree that
“hetero”-sexuality (literally a sexuality based on
opposites) reproduces and supports womens oppression in other spheres
by creating a binary gender system. Men need to realise that their
love for women is problematic when it is that “love” of the
“feminine identity” that belongs to this sytem. This is the
attraction for the other and requires women’s difference to be
exaggerated and emphasised. These exaggerations shape women as
not-men while we men shape ourselves and are shaped into embodiments
of the ideal. The seeming irony of male heterosexuality where women
are objects of love being consistent with misoginy where women are
objects of hate makes perfect sense through the operation of
oppositional heterosexuality precisely because the love requires
women to be less than men.
A love that does not require partners to be different than ourselves
is not possible within exclusive heterosexuality because it fails to
provide the argument to repress same sex desire. It is necessary for
heterosexual men to confront their homophobia which demands they
repress or invalidate their same sex desire before they can love
their female partners as their “own kind” and not another
species.
An additional benifit to patriarchy of discrete gender identities
that is liable to be lost when men reject oppositional
heterosexuality is the regulation of male social interaction.The
arguments to exclude gay men from the military reveal the mindset
deemed necessary to produce a war machine;
“We are asking men in combat to do an essentially irrational
thing - put themselves in a position where they are likely to get
killed ... One of the few ways to persuade men to do that is to
appeal to their masculinity ... You cannot have an adrogynous
military ... The idea that fighting is a masculine trait runs deep.
As a cultural trait it predates any written history. It may even be a
genitic trait ... Just think what it would mean to demasculinize
combat. The effect on combat effectiveness might be
catastrophic.”
- Charles Moskos, Military Socioligist quoted in Colonel
R.D.Ray, Military Necessity and Homosexuality (Gays:In
or Out, p63)
It is regrettable that non-heterosexual men and many women are
proving they too can make excellent
soldiers.3 However the above
quote exaggerates a fact that male “buddy” relationships
are relied on by the military and that this requires a repression of
same sex desire. This is because same sex desire is preferential - it
is not a love of all men equally - but of a few and potentially for a
time. The same-sex loyalty that is demanded by patriarchy including
it’s military needs the stability of exclusive
heterosexuality;
“..the recognition of homosexuality is a threat to that
peculiar combination of male camaraderie and hierachy on which most
organisations depend; sexual desire is too anarchic, too
disrespectful of established boundaries to be trusted.”
(Altman, D. p63)
Unravelling their heterosexuality is not the most important thing men
must do to support feminism however it is a legitimate part of this
support for “it is the repressed recognition of this fact (that
everyone can be homosexual) that does much to fuel homophobia, but
equally acts so as to promote male bonding and certain crucial
authority structures.” (Altman D.,p XI)
Radical Bisexuality and
Racism.
The construction of homosexuality as a “natural”
difference from the heterosexual norm shares and competes for the
same conceptual space as constructions of race as biological
differences from the white norm. This is particularly true because
the hetrosexual ideal is represented as white with the sexuality of
non-whites traditionally seen as untamed, violent, promiscuous or
otherwise deviant even if heterosexual. Non-whites are considered
only ever partly heterosexual while white queers are considered not
proper whites.
The competition for the limited conceptual space has led to
historical difficulites in linking white supremacy with heterosexism
(exacerbated by white queer activists own racial interests) and in
fact has unwittingly linked Gay Power with white power.
“Homosexuality as a race” has developed into a gay and
lesbian ethnicity. For whites under racism where their whiteness is
considered the norm and thus unnamed, this ethnicity is their only
ethnicity, the lesbian/gay “language” their only language,
and lesbian/gay history their only history, to the point that it is
not seen as a difference within whiteness but a difference from
whiteness. (Blasingame, p52) While we (white queers) are unconscious
of our whiteness queer cultural politics consequently becomes a way
of colonising non-white cultures with a new white culture, white
leaders and white history in a particularly insidious way. While not
as powerful as heterosexual institutions for people wanting to be
publicly non-heterosexual we have considerable power; in the framing
of beauty along racist lines, in the support of white
non-heterosexual bourgeoius or political leaders and in the very
conceptualisation of sexuality. As one example Brenda Marie
Blasingame in Bisexuality and Feminism speaks of a history of
sexuality in U.S. black communities which did not include placing
people in particular “boxes” and accepted the practice of
bisexuality. A part of moving into the white gay and lesbian movement
for her was the requirement to come out as a specific sexuality and
accept the marginalisation of bisexuals. For many people who are not
white taking up a gay or lesbian and to a different extent bisexual
identity requires an abandonment of their own ethnic politcal
identity or view. (Blasingame, pp.51 - 53)
The common conceptual space of non-heterosexual and non-white however
can and should however produce queer anti-racism provided white
queers realise that this conception of their sexuality is wrong.
There is a shared interest in anti-racism and anti-heterosexism in
critiqing normalcy and naturalness. As only one example the
construction of beauty posits that naturally “Gentlemen prefer
Blondes”. Not only is this sexist for reducing women to a hair
colour (and the Blonde is meant to be read as a woman) but it is
heterosexist and clearly as racist as “Gentlemen prefer
whites” when Blonde is only a white persons natural hair colour.
When we politicise our sexuality we can open up not only the
arguments against heterosexual dominance but the arguments against
the sexual sterotypes of non-whites including the framing of Asian
men as “young girls” represented in this regrettable quote
from the 70’s magazine Gay Power;
“I dig beautiful oriental men. Asking me to shoot at them is
the same thing as asking heterosexual soldiers to shoot at beautiful
young girls that they would like to fuck.” (Teal, D.
p99)
Radical Bisexuality and
Class.
It is worth noting that capitalism which I understand as
the continual oppression of the poor that patriarchy is for women is
no longer wedded to heterosexuality in Western affluent nations as it
has been in the past. This is because Western nations are primarily
consumer societies of fairly easily produced goods (easily because
their production is either located in the Third World or in the
Quattro Monde - the world of the Western underclass or because their
production is automated). Western capitalism can therefore relax the
“restraint and repression” which was necessary to both
control factory floors and ensure a ready supply of human capital
through reproduction. (Altman D, p90) Part of this is also due to
unemployment and global capital mobility being sufficient to obtain
cheap labour and another contributing factor has been Western women
raising their education so they are more useful in employment than at
home. Also marriage was the institution by which women were given the
role of providing a whole range of services capitalism wouldn’t
such as aged care and child raising as well as supporting adult men.
Now many of these services are provided by profitable private
institutions so traditional marriages are actually in competition
with capitalism. Of course the worlds poor can’t afford these
services and Thirld World countries remain supportive of compulsory
heterosexuality (Altman, D, p90) but in the Western
consumer-capitalism there is a an interest to increase consumption
through the market of previous services fulfilled by women’s
unpaid labour.
In order to perpetuate consumption growth capitalism must also locate
new disatisfactions like teenage angst, at an alarming rate while
also offering at a price their answer. In this context gay, lesbian
and even bisexual identities as well as transgenderism, S+M and
fetish celebrations are eagerly embraced by many industries as the
basis for new markets. Our anxiety for recognition, meaning, ceremony
and a positive celebration of our sexuality are easily
exploitable.
“... one of the possible negative side-effects of the
popularity of 'lesbian chic' was that it codes lesbianism as merely a
kind of fashion statement, something that requires certain consumer
goods to mark the individual as lesbian.” (Newitz &
Sandell)
Bisexuals have to be mindful that while we seek recognition,
capitalism is looking for new markets and while these interests
coincide this will only be true for those of us who can afford it and
it will be on the backs of the world’s poor involved in the
production of our new consumerables and bearing the greatest brunt of
the waste from our new consumption. One positive way to resist
becoming merely another market is by applying the awareness of the
political nature of sexual desire to the desire for consumer goods
and services. Both desires are constructed to serve particular
interests and not fundamentally our own. Through working to ensure
that all of our desire works for liberation we will resist
commodification as we achieve recognition.
Bisexuality
and the Future
To outline what I see as the goal of Radical Bisexuality I
will illustrate two scenarios depicting false victories and
one which I believe genuinely opens up the
greatest possibility for liberation.
Scenario 1. Recognition of bisexuality as a third alternative
way that people unchangably are. To some extent as I have said
earlier this can’t overcome the capacity of bisexuals to fit in
as straight and thus can’t conceal the choice to embrace the
homosexuality within the heterosexual that they represent. However
there are arguments that could be presented that bisexuals have to
express their same sex desire or become depressed (“go
mad”). These arguments could form the basis of depoliticising
and medicalising bisexuality as has been done with homosexuality.
This may make bisexual lives easier to defend and add to the options
for young people but relegates bisexuals to the same minority status
as is currently given to gays and lesbians. Most people who admit to
loving their own gender in straight society would face the same
oppression bisexuals now face as “heterosexual
experimenters” and recruitment of the majority would be
difficult as they would remain “true” heterosexuals as
unable to change as “true” bisexuals or gays and
lesbians.
Further it could also trade the oppression that is invisibility for
bisexuals with the oppression that is hyper-visibility for straight
men and women, and increasingly gays and lesbians. Having recognised
sexuality’s repression but not it’s production we will be
easily exploitable by capitalism and our liberation may mean as being
as marketed to and ritutalised as heterosexuality.
Scenario 2. Bisexuality is considered the only natural sexuality
which equates it with the only right sexuality. Heterosexuality
would be patholigised along with homosexuality as both are considered
to have unnatural “blocks” to loving one or the other
gender. This is Bisexual Supremacy which I acknowledge as a
justification for gays and lesbians to distrust bisexuals. While it
is unlikely to be widely accepted it is possible that it could
dominate queer spaces as a pocket of resistance to heterosexual
dominance in the same way as celebrations of gay and lesbian purity
have. It is certainly more likely to be targetted at lesbians and
gays than straights and while this is the fault of
heterosexism’s power, not my own, it must be refuted.
This is not to say that politicising sexuality will not require some
gay men in particular to reassess their rhetoric. Mysoginistic
comments which denegrate women’s bodies deserve political
criticism and can’t be assured the right to be accepted. However
the wider charge of institutionalising the sexual oppression of women
and supporting male social bonding can’t be levelled at male
homosexuality and certainly not at lesbianism.
Indeed at certain points in the struggle against institutionalised
oppression different sexual identifications and choices will be
appropriate. Because bisexuality is as deliberate a sexuality choice
as any other and not a submission to some biological imperative (and
even if it were I reject the claim that naturalness equals rightness)
we can’t claim an non-contextual ideal status. Its political
usefulness is only that of any tactic relative both to the
circumstances and to the person, meaning that for some and at some
times other sexual choices and identifications are more
appropriate.
Bisexual supremacy also prioritises the effort to be bisexual over
other efforts to unravel heterosexist, patriarchal and racist
programming. I have already stressed the need for a variety of
critiques of power to inform social change which Bisexual supremacy
ignores. In particular men in relationships with women need to
realise that doing their share of the housework is far more
meaningful than maintaining or developing their capacity to love
other men.
Scenario 3. The Dream.
Realising our sexualities are scripted will hopefully prompt
redrafts along feminist, anti-racist and anti-capitalist lines.
No-one should be the sole author of this project even with their own
sexuality as we all need to listen to the perspectives our privelages
rob us off. Certainly a part of this will be a dialogue between
political lesbians, bisexuals and straight women which already has a
history and whose future I don’t want to conclude. Consequently
my dream is vague.
What I don’t see in this future is the fetishisation of wealth,
whiteness or gendered difference.
Women in relationships with men will recieve support and
encouragement as full humans. Advertisers will be incapable of
capturing our consumption with snake oil as we demand economic
production satisfy new needs that we create, for justice and
community. Pleasure including sexual pleasure will mean enjoying our
values not forgetting them.
Bisexuality like other sexualities will have to argue it’s
political legitimacy but not it’s existance. Sexual
identifications such as “Confused” may replace bisexual for
many if it is recognises more of their personal truth and political
terms like Anti-racist may be key elements of sexual identification.
Radical bisexuality wont end all struggles but the raw energy of
sexuality will be accountable to and in the employ of the great
project of improving the world .
Bibliography
Altman, Dennis, The Homosexualisation of America, The
Americanization of the Homosexual, St. Martins Press, New York,
1982
Sedgewick, E.K., "How to Bring Your Kids Up Gay", pp. 69 - 81,
Fear of a Queer Planet : Queer Politics and Social Theory,
Warner,M. (Editor), University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis,
1993
Segal, Lynne, Straight Sex: Rethinking the Politics of
Pleasure, University of California Press, U.S.A., 1994.
Foucalt, Michel, The History of Sexuality, Volume 1:An
Introduction, Allen Lane, London, 1978
Newitz, A. and J. Sandell,“Bisexuality And How To Use It: Toward
a Coalitional Identity Politics”, Bad Subjects, Issue #
16, October 1994
Caprio, F.S. M.D. Female Homosexuality:A Psychodynamic study of
Lesbianism, The Citadel Press, New York, 1954
Weinberg,M.S., C.J. Williams, D.W.Pryor, Dual Attraction:
Understanding Bisexuality, Oxford University Press, Inc., New
York, 1994
Blasingame, B.M., “The Roots of Biphobia: Internalised Racism
and Internalised Heterosexism” in Closer to Home: Bisexuality
and Feminism, Edited by E.R. Wise, Seal Press, U.S.A., 1992
Colonel R.D.Ray, Military Necessity and Homosexuality ,
reprinted in Gays:In or Out: The U.S. Military &
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Acknowledgements
In regard to this essay I especially need to thank my partner,
Katie Kirwin, for her love and support, her intellectual challenges
and her inspiration. In the production of this work in particular and
in the acceptance of myself that this work required she has been my
greatest support. In the development of my appreciation of feminism
she has been my most constructive critic.
Gina Settle deserves special mention for maintaining my faith in
queer politics and alliances in it's darkest hours while allowing me
my rage.
I thank Bob Pease for his appreciation of the difficulty in writing
this as well as his clear testimony in support of profeminism.
Lastly I wish to acknowledge that I owe a debt to the debates and
scholarship of political lesbians in particular but also the broad
queer movement which is inadequately recognised in the bibliography
above.
1 Any faith that the medical establishment have changed their agenda may be misplaced. Eva Sedgewick in How to Bring Your Kids Up Gay suggests we have seen merely a shift to focusing on pre-adolescents rather than adults. She explains the introduction of “Gender Identity Disorder in Childhood” in the first Diagnostic Statistics Manual (the psychologists bible) to not include homosexuality as a disorder (DSM-III) to indicate that the project to prescribe heterosexuality hasn’t ended. (Sedgewick,E, 1993)
2 This may present itself as a history of finding more people from one gender attractive or generally finding people of one gender easier to enjoy sex or emotional intimacy with but these differences are usually obscured within the question “Which gender are you more attracted to?” (Weinberg, M.S., pp39-48
3 The performance of traditional masculine roles have been made accessable to non-hetrosexual men (and women) as the price of equality with “real men”. Pursuit of civil rights within the depoliticised framework for sexuality that this essay criticises, tends to take up such offers or even demand them.
