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Bisexuality

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Encyclopedia of Critical Psychology

Introduction

Bisexuality has been an under-researched and under-theorized topic in the psychology of sexuality and in the study of human sexualities more broadly. The main reason for this is that it occupies a problematic position within the dominant heteronormative understanding of human sexuality which views people as dichotomously attracted to either the “same gender” or the “opposite gender” with no space for attraction to more than one gender. Related to this, bisexuality has often been regarded as problematic within LGBT politics with its potential to disrupt some of the foundations upon which lesbian and gay rights have been fought for (essential and dichotomous sexuality on the basis of gender of attraction).

Up until very recently, traditional psychologists have attempted to disprove the existence of bisexuality (e.g., Rieger, Chivers, & Bailey, 2005), and bisexuality has been excluded from mainstream psychology textbooks or only briefly mentioned and then dropped due to the...

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Social Sciences, Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, 7 6, UK

    Meg Barker

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  1. Meg Barker
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Correspondence to Meg Barker .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Thomas Teo

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Barker, M. (2014). Bisexuality. In: Teo, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Critical Psychology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5583-7_28

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5583-7_28

  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-5582-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-5583-7

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Behavioral Sciences

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