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Bisexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior toward both males and females,Shudo (Japanese pederasty): a young male entertains an older male lover, covering his eyes while surreptitiously kissing a female servant.]]
Main articles: Homosexuality in ancient Greece and Homosexuality in ancient Rome
Ancient Greeks and Romans did not associate sexual relations with binary labels, as modern Western society does. Men who had male lovers were not identified as homosexual, and may have had wives or other female lovers.
Ancient Greek religious texts, reflecting cultural practices, incorporated bisexual themes. The subtexts varied, from the mystical to the didactic. Spartans thought that love and erotic relationships between experienced and novice soldiers would solidify combat loyalty and unit cohesion, and encourage heroic tactics as men vied to impress their lovers. Once the younger soldiers reached maturity, the relationship was supposed to become non-sexual, but it is not clear how strictly this was followed. There was some stigma attached to young men who continued their relationships with their mentors into adulthood. For example, Aristophanes calls them euryprôktoi, meaning "wide arses", and depicts them like women.
Similarly, in ancient Rome, gender did not determine whether a sexual partner was acceptable, as long as a man's enjoyment did not encroach on another's man integrity. It was expected and socially acceptable for a freeborn Roman man to want sex with both female and male partners, as long as he took the penetrative role. The morality of the behavior depended on the social standing of the partner, not gender per se. Both women and young men were considered normal objects of desire, but outside marriage a man was supposed to act on his desires only with slaves, prostitutes (who were often slaves), and the infames. It was immoral to have sex with another freeborn man's wife, his marriageable daughter, his underage son, or with the man himself; sexual use of another man's slave was subject to the owner's permission. Lack of self-control, including in managing one's sex life, indicated that a man was incapable of governing others; too much indulgence in "low sensual pleasure" threatened to erode the elite male's identity as a cultured person.
Media
Main article: Media portrayals of bisexualityBisexuality tends to be associated with negative media portrayals; references are sometimes made to stereotypes or mental disorders. In an article regarding the 2005 film Brokeback Mountain, sex educator Amy Andre argued that in films, bisexuals are often depicted negatively:
I like movies where bisexuals come out to each other together and fall in love, because these tend to be so few and far between; the most recent example would be 2002's lovely romantic comedy, Kissing Jessica Stein. Most movies with bi characters paint a stereotypical picture.... The bi love interest is usually deceptive (Mulholland Drive), over-sexed (Sex Monster), unfaithful (High Art), and fickle (Three of Hearts), and might even be a serial killer, like Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct. In other words, the bisexual is always the cause of the conflict in the film.
— Amy Andre, American Sexuality Magazine
Using a content analysis of more than 170 articles written between 2001 and 2006, sociologist Richard N. Pitt, Jr. concluded that the media pathologized black bisexual men's behavior while either ignoring or sympathizing with white bisexual men's similar actions. He argued that the black bisexual is often described as a duplicitous heterosexual man spreading the HIV/AIDS virus. Alternatively, the "Brokeback" white bisexual (when seen as bisexual at all) is often described in pitying language as a victimized homosexual man forced into the closet by the heterosexist society around him.
Film
Notable portrayals of bisexuality can be found throughout mainstream media in movies such as Black Swan, Frida, Showgirls, The Pillow Book, Alexander, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Henry and June, Chasing Amy, Velvet Goldmine, Kissing Jessica Stein, The Fourth Man, Basic Instinct, Mulholland Drive, Sunday Bloody Sunday, Something for Everyone, The Rules of Attraction, and Brokeback Mountain.
Literature
Virginia Woolf's Orlando: A Biography (1928) is an early example of bisexuality in literature. The story, of a man who changes into a woman without a second thought, was based on the life of Woolf's lover Vita Sackville-West. Woolf used the gender switch to avoid the book being banned for homosexual content. The pronouns switch from male to female as Orlando's gender changes. Woolf's lack of definite pronouns allows for ambiguity and lack of emphasis on gender labels. Her 1925 book Mrs Dalloway focused on a bisexual man and a bisexual woman in sexually unfulfilled heterosexual marriages in later life. Following Sackille-West's death, her son Nigel Nicolson published Portrait of a Marriage, one of her diaries recounting her affair with a woman during her marriage to Harold Nicolson. Other early examples include works of D.H. Lawrence, such as Women in Love (1920), and Colette's Claudine (1900–1903) series.
The main character in Patrick White's novel, The Twyborn Affair (1979), is bisexual. Contemporary novelist Bret Easton Ellis' novels, such as Less Than Zero (1985) and The Rules of Attraction (1987) frequently feature bisexual male characters; this "casual approach" to bisexual characters recurs throughout Ellis' work.
Music
Rock musician David Bowie famously declared himself bisexual in an interview with Melody Maker in January 1972, a move coinciding with the first shots in his campaign for stardom as Ziggy Stardust. In a September 1976 interview with Playboy, Bowie said, "It's true—I am a bisexual. But I can't deny that I've used that fact very well. I suppose it's the best thing that ever happened to me." In a 1983 interview, he said it was "the biggest mistake I ever made", elaborating in 2002 he explained "I don't think it was a mistake in Europe, but it was a lot tougher in America. I had no problem with people knowing I was bisexual. But I had no inclination to hold any banners or be a representative of any group of people. I knew what I wanted to be, which was a songwriter and a performer America is a very puritanical place, and I think it stood in the way of so much I wanted to do."
In 1995, Jill Sobule sang about bi-curiosity in her song "I Kissed a Girl", with a video that alternated images of Sobule and a boyfriend along with images of her with a girlfriend. Another song with the same name by Katy Perry also hints at the same theme. Some activists suggest the song merely reinforces the stereotype of bisexuals experimenting and of bisexuality not being a real sexual preference. Lady Gaga has also stated that she is bisexual, and has acknowledged that her song "Poker Face" is about fantasizing about a woman while being with a man.
Ric Ocasek of The Cars said that he was bisexual in an interview in 1986, stating, "I like beautiful women. Tall, thin, beautiful women. Fat little ugly women. I like all kinds of women. I'm always attracted to the opposite sex. I'm attracted to both sexes, actually. But not only beautiful men -- I think I like weird men." Brian Molko, lead singer of Placebo is openly bisexual. Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong has also identified himself as bisexual, saying in a 1995 interview with The Advocate, "I think I've always been bisexual. I mean, it's something that I've always been interested in. I think people are born bisexual, and it's just that our parents and society kind of veer us off into this feeling of 'Oh, I can't.' They say it's taboo. It's ingrained in our heads that it's bad, when it's not bad at all. It's a very beautiful thing." In 2014 Armstrong discussed songs such as "Coming Clean" stating, "It was a song about questioning myself. There are these other feelings you may have about the same sex, the opposite sex, especially being in Berkeley and San Francisco then. People are acting out what they're feeling: gay, bisexual, transgender, whatever. And that opens up something in society that becomes more acceptable. Now we have gay marriage becoming recognized... I think it's a process of discovery. I was willing to try anything."
Television
See also: List of LGBT characters in television and radioThe FOX television series House features a bisexual female doctor, Remy "Thirteen" Hadley, played by Olivia Wilde, from season four onwards. The same network had earlier aired the television series The O.C., which for a time featured bisexual Alex Kelly (also played by Olivia Wilde), the local rebellious hangout spot's manager, as a love interest of Marissa Cooper. In the HBO drama Oz, Chris Keller was a bisexual serial killer who tortured and raped various men and women. Other films in which bisexual characters conceal murderous neuroses include Black Widow, Blue Velvet, Cruising, Single White Female, and Girl, Interrupted.
Beginning with the 2009 season, MTV's The Real World series featured two bisexual characters, Emily Schromm, and Mike Manning.
The Showcase supernatural crime drama, Lost Girl, about creatures called Fae who live secretly among humans, features a bisexual protagonist, Bo, played by Anna Silk. In the story arc she is involved in a love triangle between Dyson, a wolf-shapeshifter (played by Kris Holden-Ried), and Lauren Lewis, a human doctor (played by Zoie Palmer) in servitude to the leader of the Light Fae clan.
In the BBC TV science fiction show Torchwood, several of the main characters appear to have fluid sexuality. Most prominent among these is Captain Jack Harkness, a pansexual who is the lead character and an otherwise conventional science fiction action hero. Within the logic of the show, where characters can also interact with alien species, producers sometimes use the term "omnisexual" to describe him. Jack's ex, Captain John Hart is also bisexual. Of his female exes, significantly at least one ex-wife and at least one woman with whom he has had a child have been indicated. Some critics draw the conclusion that the series more often shows Jack with men than women. Creator Russell T Davies says one of pitfalls of writing a bisexual character is you "fall into the trap" of "only having them sleep with men" He describes of the show's fourth series, "You'll see the full range of his appetites, in a really properly done way." The preoccupation with bisexuality has been seen by critics as complementary to other aspects of the show's themes. For heterosexual character Gwen Cooper, for whom Jack harbors romantic feelings, the new experiences she confronts at Torchwood, in the form of "affairs and homosexuality and the threat of death", connote not only the Other but a "missing side" to the Self. Under the influence of an alien pheromone, Gwen kisses a woman in Episode 2 of the series. In Episode 1, heterosexual Owen Harper kisses a man to escape a fight when he is about to take the man's girlfriend. Quiet Toshiko Sato is in love with Owen, but has also has brief romantic relationships with a female alien and a male human. British newspaper The Sun ran the headline "Dr Ooh gets four gay pals" prior to the first series, describing all of Torchwood's cast as being bisexual.
Webseries
In October 2009, "A Rose By Any Other Name" was released as a "webisode" series on YouTube. Directed by bisexual rights advocate Kyle Schickner, the plot centers around a lesbian-identified woman who falls in love with a straight man and discovers she is actually bisexual.
Among other animals
Main article: Animal sexual behaviour See also: Homosexual behavior in animalsMany non-human animal species exhibit bisexual behavior. Examples of mammals that display such behavior include the bonobo (formerly known as the pygmy chimpanzee), orca, and the bottlenose dolphin. Examples of birds include some species of gulls and Humboldt penguins. Other examples of bisexual behavior occur among fish and flatworms.
Many species of animals are involved in the acts of forming sexual and non-sexual relationship bonds between the same sex; even when offered the opportunity to breed with members of the opposite sex, they pick the same sex. Some of these species are gazelles, antelope, bison, and sage grouse.
In some cases, animals will choose to engage in sexual activity with different sexes at different times in their lives, and will sometimes engage in sexual activity with different sexes at random. Same-sex sexual activity can also be seasonal in some animals, like male walruses who often engage in same-sex sexual activity with each other outside of the breeding season and will revert to heterosexual sexual activity during breeding season.
See also
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References
- ^ van Dolen, Hein. "Greek Homosexuality". Retrieved 17 February 2007.
- Amy Richlin, The Garden of Priapus: Sexuality and Aggression in Roman Humor (Oxford University Press, 1983, 1992), p. 225.
- Catharine Edwards, "Unspeakable Professions: Public Performance and Prostitution in Ancient Rome," in Roman Sexualities, pp. 67–68.
- Andre, Amy (16 December 2005). "Opinion: Bisexual Cowboys in Love". National Sexuality Resource Center. Retrieved 22 November 2006.
- Pitt, Richard N.; Jr (2006). "Downlow Mountain? De/Stigmatizing Bisexuality Through Pitying And Pejorative Discourses In Media". Journal Of Men's Studies. 14: 254–8.
- Silverman, Stephen M. (9 July 2003). "Angelina Jolie Airs Colorful Past on TV". People. Retrieved 7 April 2015.
- Livia, Anna (2000). Pronoun Envy: Literary Uses of Linguistic Gender. Oxford University Press, ISBN 9780195138535
- Gordinier, Jeff (June 2010). "Bret Easton Ellis: Eternal Bad Boy". Details. Retrieved 15 June 2010.
- Carr, Roy; Murray, Charles Shaar (1981). Bowie: An Illustrated Record. New York: Avon. ISBN 0-380-77966-8.
- "Interview: David Bowie". Playboy. September 1976. Retrieved 14 September 2010.
- Buckley (2000): p. 401
- Buckley (2005): p. 106
- Collis, Clark (August 2002). "Dear Superstar: David Bowie". blender.com. Alpha Media Group Inc. Retrieved 16 September 2010.
- "Lady Gaga Rolling Stone Interview".
- "Lady Gaga admits bisexuality and explains "Poker Face" to Barbra Walters".
- Profile '86 radio interview, broadcast 1986 on NBC Radio
- Dave West. "Molko: I wish I kept quiet on sexuality". Digital Spy. Retrieved 20 September 2011.
- "AOL Radio – Listen to Free Online Radio – Free Internet Radio Stations and Music Playlists". Spinner.com. Retrieved 25 November 2013.
- "'Dookie' at 20: Billie Joe Armstrong on Green Day's Punk Blockbuster". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 18 March 2015.
- "Real World DC".
- "Emily Schromm talks".
- "Mike Manning Metro Weekly".
- drsquid (30 September 2010). "Nine Questions with Lost Girl Creator and Writer Michelle Lovretta". RGB Filter.
Bo is a succubus, a grown woman, and bisexual....
- ""Lost Girl" showcases the Lauren and Bo relationship for Season 2". AfterEllen. 28 October 2011. Retrieved 28 October 2011.
- Ryan, Maureen (14 July 2007). "Spike from 'Buffy' and 'Torchwood's Captain Jack Harkness — Yowza!". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2 June 2009.
- "James Marsters Interview (January 2008)". Radio Times. Retrieved 25 January 2008.
- Davis, Glyn; Needham, Gary (2009). Queer TV. Routledge (28 January 2009). pp. 153–156. ISBN 0-415-45046-2.
- Knight, Dominic (8 August 2010). "More Torchwood details revealed". Associated Television Network. Retrieved 8 August 2010.
- Frankel, Valerie Estelle (2010). "Gwen's Evil Stepmother: Concerning Gloves and Magic Slippers". In Andrew Ireland (ed.). Illuminating Torchwood: Essays on Narrative, Character and Sexuality in the BBC Series. McFarland. pp. 90–101. ISBN 9780786455607.
- Sarah Nathan (September 2006). "Dr Ooh gets four gay pals". The Sun. London. Retrieved 6 October 2006.
GAY Doctor Who star John Barrowman gets four BISEXUAL assistants in raunchy BBC3 spin-off Torchwood.
- "Rose By Any Other Name".
- "Fencesitter Films".
- "From Out Bi Director Kyle Schickner".
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Bi Specieswas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Diamond, Milton (1998). "Bisexuality: A Biological Perspective". Bisexualities – The Ideology and Practice of Sexual Contact with both Men and Women. Retrieved 17 February 2007.
- ^ Scott Bidstrup (2000). "The Natural Crime Against Nature". Retrieved 26 June 2007.
Further reading
General
- Sigmund Freud. Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex. ISBN 0-486-41603-8
- Michel Larivière. Homosexuels et bisexuels célèbres, Delétraz Editions, 1997. ISBN 2-911110-19-6
Ancient Greece and Rome
- Eva Cantarella. Bisexuality in the Ancient World, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1992, 2002. ISBN 978-0-300-09302-5
- Kenneth J. Dover. Greek Homosexuality, New York; Vintage Books, 1978. ISBN 0-394-74224-9
- Thomas K. Hubbard. Homosexuality in Greece and Rome, U. of California Press, 2003. ISBN 0-520-23430-8
- Herald Patzer. Die Griechische Knabenliebe , Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1982. In: Sitzungsberichte der Wissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft an der Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main, Vol. 19 No. 1.
- W. A. Percy III. Pederasty and Pedagogy in Archaic Greece, University of Illinois Press, 1996. ISBN 0-252-02209-2
By country
- Stephen O. Murray and Will Roscoe, et al. Islamic Homosexualities: Culture, History, and Literature, New York: New York University Press, 1997. ISBN 0-8147-7468-7
- J. Wright & Everett Rowson. Homoeroticism in Classical Arabic Literature. 1998. ISBN 0-231-10507-X (pbbk)/ ISBN 0-231-10506-1 (hdbk)
- Gary Leupp. Male Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1995. ISBN 0-520-20900-1
- Tsuneo Watanabe & Jun'ichi Iwata. The Love of the Samurai. A Thousand Years of Japanese Homosexuality, London: GMP Publishers, 1987. ISBN 0-85449-115-5
Modern Western
- Dual Attraction: Understanding Bisexuality by Martin S. Weinberg, Colin J. Williams, & Douglas W. Pryor, ISBN 0195098412
- Bi Any Other Name : Bisexual People Speak Out by Loraine Hutchins, Editor & Lani Ka'ahumanu, Editor ISBN 1-55583-174-5
- Getting Bi : Voices of Bisexuals Around the World by Robyn Ochs, Editor & Sarah Rowley, Editor ISBN 0-9653881-4-X
- The Bisexual Option by Fritz Klein, MD ISBN 1-56023-033-9
- Bi Men : Coming Out Every Which Way by Ron Suresha and Pete Chvany, Editors ISBN 978-1-56023-615-3
- Bi America : Myths, Truths, And Struggles of an Invisible Community by William E. Burleson ISBN 978-1-56023-478-4
- Bisexuality in the United States : A Social Science Reader by Paula C. Rodriguez Rust, Editor ISBN 0-231-10226-7
- Bisexuality : The Psychology and Politics of an Invisible Minority by Beth A. Firestein, Editor ISBN 0-8039-7274-1
- Current Research on Bisexuality by Ronald C. Fox PhD, Editor ISBN 978-1-56023-289-6
Other reading
- Bryant, Wayne M.. Bisexual Characters in Film: From Anais to Zee. Haworth Gay & Lesbian Studies, 1997. ISBN 1-56023-894-1
External links
- American Institute of Bisexuality
- American Psychological Association's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Concerns Office
- "Bisexuality" at the Magnus Hirschfeld Archive for Sexology
- The Continuum Complete International Encyclopedia of Sexuality
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