Abstract
The present chapter considers the research literature that frames our understanding of bisexuality. By reviewing current models for conceptualizing sexuality we gain a better understanding of the framework from which individuals identify with bisexual and other plurisexual labels. Bisexuality is often rendered invisible as it is simultaneously defined against heterosexual, monosexual, and cisgender norms. Self-identification, then, can be seen as a way of socially marking and making bisexuality visible. Acknowledging that individuals often use multiple identity labels across social contexts, the present chapter considers the way different plurisexual labels (bisexual, pansexual, queer, and fluid) are used to highlight specific aspects of bisexual desire.
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Notes
- 1.
Plurisexual is used to refer to identities that are not explicitly based on attraction to one sex and leave open the potential for attraction to more than one sex/gender; e.g., bisexual, pansexual, queer, and fluid. The term plurisexual is used instead of nonmonosexual because it does not linguistically assume monosexual as the ideal conceptualization of sexuality (See Galupo, Davis, Grynkiewicz & Mitchell, 2014)
- 2.
singular they is used as a gender neutral pronoun in order to be inclusive of all genders
- 3.
gender/sex is used to reference a concept that cannot be understood as only biologically or socially constructed (van Anders, 2015) and where gender/sex cannot be easily separated
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This research was funded by a grant from the American Institute of Bisexuality.
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Galupo, M.P. (2018). 4 Plurisexual Identity Labels and the Marking of Bisexual Desire. In: Swan, D., Habibi, S. (eds) Bisexuality. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71535-3_4
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