Revisiting the Invisibility of (Male) Bisexuality: Grounding (Queer) Theory, Centering Bisexual Absences and Examining Masculinities

Abstract

The article draws upon research published in the Journal of Bisexuality since the author's 2001 article to make observations about bisexuality research and about continuing sex and gender differences in bisexual visibility. Great interest in queer theory reflects the preponderance of theorizing about bisexuality as a transformative, liberatory and disruptive social identity. Advocating for sociological approaches and the analytic inclusion of nonbisexual identified but behaviorally bisexual individuals, the author suggests that more empirical attention to material relations, social structures and everyday social interactions is needed to complement the symbolic emphasis of queer theory and cultural studies. Further incorporating analytical attention to non-bisexual-identified individuals would better ground bisexuality studies and would involve a redirection of critical attention to the multiple social processes that generate bisexual 'absences.' Critical gender studies, which identify masculinity as a perpetually threatened status requiring continual performance to ward off discrediting stigmas, is identified as a promising framework for examining the continuing invisibility of male bisexuals and of bisexual behavior among men.

Queering men and masculinities in construction: towards a research agenda

“…Relevant to this paper is the observation that there has been much scholarly interest in using queer theory as a lens through which to examine the disruptive potential of bisexualities for shattering restrictive sexual and gender binaries (Burrill, 2009;EricksonSchroth and Mitchell, 2009;Steinman, 2011). This marks a welcome point of departure for queer theory 810 Rumens analyses, which have traditionally focused on (male) homosexuality.…”

“…Some bisexual men may wish to evade persecution and discrimination by not disclosing their bisexual identity to colleagues, while others may actively instigate 'gender trouble' in the workplace, by refusing to be constrained by organizational gender and sexual norms. This leads Steinman (2011) and others (Eliason, 2000) to suggest that bisexual men might find it extremely challenging, perhaps more so than bisexual women, to construct positive gendered identities and subjectivities in the workplace, especially within environments where traditional notions of masculinity appear to hold firm. But, as other studies on bisexualities in the workplace show (Rumens, 2012), possibilities exist for bisexual men to challenge and disrupt organizational heteronormative binaries that relate to sexuality and gender.…”

“…Despite these progressive developments, it is striking that studies on male bisexualities are relatively uncommon. As Steinman (2011) notes, in regard to the content of Journal of Bisexuality over the last 10 years, there is appreciably less research on and produced by bi-identified men than research about and conducted by bi-identified women. A number of reasons may be put forward to explain this discrepancy (e.g.…”

“…I doubt if the paucity of accounts on gay and bisexual men as managers betrays a serious aversion among scholars to researching the connections between gay and bisexual men, masculinities and management. But the overwhelming focus displayed in this scholarship on heterosexual (and white, middle-class, able-bodied) men exposes the implicit heterosexism that has been imported into much of this scholarship, which also colours the broader 'critical' literature on men, masculinities and organization (Steinman, 2011). This neglect brings its own problems, not the least of them being the normalization of heterosexuality and the conflation of men with masculinity, preserving restrictive gender binaries.…”

“…The promise that bisexualities appear to hold in this respect relates to the way bisexuals are frequently considered to be fluid and dynamic in their sexuality. Indeed, the literature on bisexualities, more generally, is largely conceptual, typically addressing definitional issues (Steinman, 2011). But empirical accounts that solely focus on bisexuality as a lived experience have grown appreciably over the last 10 years or so (Elia and Eliason, 2012), revealing the opportunities and limitations of the conceptual fluidity routinely allotted to bisexuality, although these rarely extend into the workplace.…”