Bisexual Women in the Twenty-First Century [Paperback]

Dawn Atkins (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: 2002 | ISBN-10: 1560233036 | ISBN-13: 978-1560233039 | Edition: 1

Bisexual Women in the Twenty-First Century reflects the “brave new world” of bisexual women's lives through an eclectic collection of articles that typifies an ongoing feminist process of theory grounded in life experience. The book's broad scope addresses a “world” created in response to lesbian-feminism, homophobia within the mainstream women’s movement, and sexism within the gay rights movement. The book includes Carol Queen's memoirs of the swinging lesbian scene in the 1970s, a critical examination of Alice Walker's novel The Temple of My Familiar, and a look back at the controversy surrounding bisexual inclusion in the Northampton Lesbian and Gay Pride March in Massachusetts in the early 90s. Previous groundbreaking work on bisexuality had to focus on breaking the silence around bisexual invisibility. This collection works from that foundation to explore the complexities and histories of bisexual women's lives.

Bisexual Women in the Twenty-First Century examines:

• tensions between lesbians and bisexual women
• the shifting place of bisexual women in society
• the use of skin color as a charged metaphor
• the inclusion of bisexuality into queer theory
• groundbreaking new work on bisexual youth
• the creative use of the “sacred whore” archetype

Bisexual Women in the Twenty-First Century is an essential source of social and political critique, and a vital resource for anyone interested in the complex dynamics of human sexuality, regardless of sexual orientation.

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Haworth Press; 1 edition (2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1560233036
• ISBN-13: 978-1560233039
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,759,032 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Dawn Atkins, (MA, Anthropology) is a nationally known writer, educator, and activist on a variety of issues including body image, sexuality and diversity issues. She has given workshops and lectures around the country and abroad on a variety of topics.

She has also been guest editor of issues of the Journal of Lesbian Studies, Journal of Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Identity and Journal of Bisexuality. She also served on the editorial board of the Journal of Lesbian Studies and the Journal of Bisexuality.

She was the founder and Chair of the Body Image Task Force and is the former Research Chair for the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance. She is featured in the educational video "Killing Us for Our Own Good: Dieting and Medical Misinformation" (produced by the BITF).

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sometimes vague, sometimes loud, sometimes clear....but an appropriate reaction, February 10, 2007

By 

Dr. Lee D. Carlson (Baltimore, Maryland USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Bisexual Women in the Twenty-First Century (Paperback)

Human sexual preferences have been deemed so important in the last four decades that they are now the subject not only of scientific investigation but also of human resource departments, military recruitment officers, and political campaign advisors. It is difficult to say just how and why the astronomical weighting assigned to sexual preferences got started, but at the present time many are careful to note whether they are heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual, or some other designation. In this regard, some social commentators have complained of the "commodification" or "exploitation" of sex through pornography or prostitution. Whether or not pornography is really as rampant as claimed, it does not compare with the huge weighting placed on sexual orientation and its blatant "in-your-face" advertisement. In addition, sexual orientation it seems is now considered a branch of both philosophy and political science, with all the accompanying rhetoric, some of it sophisticated and some of it not, usually taking place in these areas.

This book, which is a collection of essays, could be read in this light. The rhetoric it contains, sometimes designated as "queer theory" in some of the articles, is blatant but not really to the point. A large amount of uncertainty is left in the reader's mind about its content and direction. One might wonder why the authors have chosen to write the articles in the book. In some of them it is apparent that academic pressures to publish, and its consequent parallel need for originality, have motivated some of these scribes of sexuality to put on paper what is sometimes screamed out in marches and rallies. And the articles written by these authors, along with all the others, would in fact be academic if it were not for the legal environment faced by people with alternative sexual persuasions (alternative meaning non-heterosexual). If all sexual behavior would be accepted and never be subjected to legal action, if even imprisonment, there would be no point, outside of scientific curiosity, for the current rhetoric of sexual preferences and for any need for asserting some vague notion of sexual identity. Bisexual women would no longer need to worry of invading "lesbian space." Husbands would no longer need to worry about any news that their wives are bisexual. There would be no need for "standpoint theorists" who are "located outside of dominant ways of being and knowing" and therefore imputed to be in a state of apodictic certainty and whose mental gyrations on gender preferences are taken to be axiomatic and beyond dispute. And most of all, there would be no need for the sophomoric shrill of sexual politics, and its capacity to bore if not dull the mental attention of those who are sympathetic with all individuals who experience suffering or political/legal persecution. But as today's headlines bear witness to, there is still much to be done to make sexual preferences beyond the prying eyes and gavels of government henchpeople. This book therefore is appropriate reactionary literature and an example of the out-of-equilibrium ethos of the twenty-first century.