1st Edition

Bisexual Women in the Twenty-First Century

By Dawn Atkins Copyright 2003

    Bisexual Women in the Twenty-First Century reflects the “brave new world” of bisexual women's lives through an eclectic collection of articles that typifies an ongoing feminist process of theory grounded in life experience. The book's broad scope addresses a “world” created in response to lesbian-feminism, homophobia within the mainstream women’s movement, and sexism within the gay rights movement. The book includes Carol Queen's memoirs of the swinging lesbian scene in the 1970s, a critical examination of Alice Walker's novel The Temple of My Familiar, and a look back at the controversy surrounding bisexual inclusion in the Northampton Lesbian and Gay Pride March in Massachusetts in the early 90s. Previous groundbreaking work on bisexuality had to focus on breaking the silence around bisexual invisibility. This collection works from that foundation to explore the complexities and histories of bisexual women's lives.

    Bisexual Women in the Twenty-First Century examines:

    • tensions between lesbians and bisexual women
    • the shifting place of bisexual women in society
    • the use of skin color as a charged metaphor
    • the inclusion of bisexuality into queer theory
    • groundbreaking new work on bisexual youth
    • the creative use of the “sacred whore” archetype
    Bisexual Women in the Twenty-First Century is an essential source of social and political critique, and a vital resource for anyone interested in the complex dynamics of human sexuality, regardless of sexual orientation.

    • About the Contributors
    • Acknowledgments
    • Introduction: Beauteous and Brave: Bisexual Women in the Twenty-First Century
    • What’s in a Name: Bisexual Women Define Their Terms
    • (Con)Tested Identities: Bisexual Women Reorient Sexuality
    • Stepping into the Same River Twice: Internal/External Subversion of the Inside/Outside Dialectic in Alice Walker’s The Temple of My Familiar
    • Bisexual Female Adolescents: A Critical Analysis of Past Research, and Results from a National Survey
    • Queering Bisexuality
    • Are You Bisexual? Are You Human?
    • Cyborgs Among Us: Performing Liminal States of Sexuality
    • Musing on Pain, Love, and Others
    • Pride and Politics: Revisiting the Northampton Pride March, 1989-1993
    • Bisexual Women in Heterosexual Relationships
    • How Do I Get to a Bi-Bar?
    • British Bisexual Women: A New Century
    • Lesbian Love in the Swingin’ Seventies: A Bisexual Memoir
    • Bisexual Women as Emblematic Sexual Healers and the Problematics of the Embodied Sacred Whore
    • The Relationship Between Women’s Sexual Identity and Perceived Wellness
    • BI FILM-VIDEO WORLD
    • High and Low: Bisexual Women and Aesthetics Chasing Amy and High Art
    • BI BOOKS
    • The “Weak” Subject: On Modernity, Eros and Women’s Playwriting, by Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio
    • Index
    • Reference Notes Included

    Biography

    Atkins, Dawn