Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Bisexuals Making Out with Cyborgs: Politics, Pleasure, Con/fusion

  • Published:
International Journal of Sexuality and Gender Studies

Abstract

This article considers the appeal of the figure of the cyborg for bisexuals, offering bisexual readings of both Donna Haraway's cyborg, and of the cyborg self created within text-based virtual reality. The writer argues that understanding bisexuality as part of a web of meanings and material realities can lead to a new political awareness, and suggests ways to make some of these connections. Through her analysis, she emphasises the role of technology in creating and developing contemporary bisexuality.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

REFERENCES

  • Albright, J. M. (undated, 1996?) The emergence of bisexual identity in text-based virtual reality. http://www-scf.usc.edu/~albright

  • Bi Academic Intervention. (Eds.) (1997). The bisexual imaginary: Representation, desire and identity. London: Cassell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bordo, S. (1990). Feminism, postmodernism, and gender-scepticism. In L. J. Nicholson (Ed.). Feminism/Postmodernism New York & London: Routledge. (pp. 133–56.)

    Google Scholar 

  • Butterworth, D. (1996). Wanking in cyberspace. In S. Jackson & S. Scott (Eds.). Feminism and sexuality: A reader (pp. 314–20). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cixous, H. (1991). The laugh of the Medusa. In R. R. Warhol & D. P. Herndl (Eds.). Feminisms: An anthology of literary theory and criticism (pp. 334–49). New Jersey: Brunswick Press. (Originally published in 1975).

    Google Scholar 

  • Cresap, K. (1996). Bisexuals, cyborgs, and chaos. pmc@jefferson.village.virginia.edu

  • Danet, B., L. Ruedenberg, & Y. Rosenbaum-Tamari (1994). ‘Smoking dope’ at a virtual party: Writing, play, and performance on internet relay chat. msdanet@pluto.msc.huji.ac.il

  • Eadie, J. (1993). Activating bisexuality: Toward a bi/sexual politics. In J. Bristow & A. Wilson (Eds.), Activating theory: Lesbian, gay, bisexual politics (pp. 139–170). London: Lawrence & Wishart Ltd.

    Google Scholar 

  • Garber. M. (1995). Vice versa: Bisexuality and the eroticism of everyday life. New York: Simon & Schuster.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haraway, D. (1991). A cyborg manifesto: Science, technology, and socialist-feminism in the late twentieth-century. In D. Haraway, Simians, cyborgs, and women: The reinvention of Nature (pp. 127–81). London: Free Association Books. (Originally published as A Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the 1980s Socialist Review, 15, 80, 1985)

    Google Scholar 

  • Haskel, L. (1996). Cyberdykes: Tales from the internet. In N. Goodwin, B. Hollows, & S. Nye (Eds.). Assaults on convention: Essays on lesbian transgressors. (pp. 50–61). London: Cassell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kendall, L. (1996). MUDder? I hardly knew ‘Erl: Adventures of a feminist MUDder. In L. Cherny & E. R. Weise (Eds.). Wired women: Gender and new realities in cyberspace (pp. 207–23). Seattle: Seal Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kroker, A., & Weinstein, M. A. (1994). Data trash: The theory of the virtual class. Montreal: New World Perpectives.

    Google Scholar 

  • Martin, J. (1996). On healing self/nature. In N. Lykke R. Braidotti (Eds.), Between monsters, goddesses and cyborgs: Feminist confrontations with science, medicine and cyberspace (pp. 103–19). London & New Jersey: Zed Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • McRae, S. (1996). Coming apart at the seams: Sex, text, and the virtual body. In L. Cherny & E.R. Weise (Eds.). Wired women: Gender and new realities in cyberspace (pp. 242–63). Seattle: Seal Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Morton, D. (Ed.) (1996). The material queer. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Robins, K. (1995). Cyberspace and the world we live in. Body and Society, 1, 3–4

    Google Scholar 

  • Spivak, M. (1990). The joy of text: A gormet guide to typesetting with the AMS-TEX Macro package. Providence: American Mathematical Society.

    Google Scholar 

  • Storr, M. (1997) ‘New sexual minorities’, oppression and power: Bisexual politics in the UK. In T. Jordan & A. Lent (Eds.). Storming the millenium: The new politics of change. London: Lawrence & Wishart.

    Google Scholar 

  • Turkle, S. (1995) Life on the screen: Identity in the age of the internet. New York: Simon & Schuster.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilson, E. (1993). Is transgression transgressive? In J. Bristow & A. Wilson (Eds.), Activating theory: Lesbian, gay, bisexual politics (pp. 107–17). London: Lawrence & Wishart Ltd.

    Google Scholar 

  • Winder, D. (1996) Sex and the internet. Bath, UK: Future Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Women's Studies, University of York, York, UK

    Ann Kaloski

Authors
  1. Ann Kaloski
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Kaloski, A. Bisexuals Making Out with Cyborgs: Politics, Pleasure, Con/fusion. International Journal of Sexuality and Gender Studies 2, 47–64 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026389132350

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026389132350

Search

Navigation