Bi: The Hidden Culture, History, and Science of Bisexuality

 Bi: The Hidden Culture, History and Science of Bisexuality by Julia Shaw

“To exclude bisexuality from discussions of history, culture, or science is to belittle the human capacity for love and attraction. It also means that people with bisexual desires are often left abandoned in their search for a place in the world.”

Synopsis:

“ ‘Hetero' comes from the Greek heteros which means another, while ‘homos' means same, and both are melded with the Latin word ‘sexus'. Not long after this, ‘bi', or two, started to be used to refer to people who had both homosexual and heterosexual desires. A way that bisexual researchers often talk about this is that the ‘bi' in bisexual means two, but the two are not ‘men' and ‘women', they are ‘same' and ‘other'.”

My Thoughts:

• As a bisexual person who often feels a sense of not-belonging to either heterosexual or queer culture, I related to this book a lot and felt very seen by this.
• The author is also a bisexual woman who draws on her own experiences as well as current and historical scientific and psychological discourse.
• The book looks at how heterosexuality is treated as default & why bisexuality is often considered code for ‘closeted homosexual' or ‘promiscuous woman'.
• Shaw seeks to identify what, if any, is the ‘bisexual identity' and combat bi-erasure. She discusses the pervasiveness of bi-erasure is even (or especially) in LBGTQIA+ spaces.
• I would have liked the book to contain more and go into more depth. This may not be a fault on the part of the author though, more the limitations of the available research and discourse she is drawing on. Shaw presents a review of available literature and her commentary on it but has not engaged on any further study herself (although she is a working psychologist, her specialism lies outside of this field of study).
• Overall, a good overview but not terribly in-depth. Provides a good and accessible starting point.

“Many of our queer elders fought for their lives, and for our rights, and only some survived to tell the tale.”