A History of Bisexuality (The Chicago Series on Sexuality, History, and Society) [Paperback]

Steven Angelides (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0226020908 | ISBN-13: 978-0226020907 | Publication Date: September 15, 2001 | Edition: 1

Why is bisexuality the object of such skepticism? Why do sexologists steer clear of it in their research? Why has bisexuality, in stark contrast to homosexuality, only recently emerged as a nascent political and cultural identity? Bisexuality has been rendered as mostly irrelevant to the history, theory, and politics of sexuality. With A History of Bisexuality, Steven Angelides explores the reasons why, and invites us to rethink our preconceptions about sexual identity. Retracing the evolution of sexology, and revisiting modern epistemological categories of sexuality in psychoanalysis, gay liberation, social constructionism, queer theory, biology, and human genetics, Angelides argues that bisexuality has historically functioned as the structural other to sexual identity itself, undermining assumptions about heterosexuality and homosexuality.

In a book that will become the center of debate about the nature of sexuality for years to come, A History of Bisexuality compels us to rethink contemporary discourses of sexual theory and politics.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“This book is suited to advanced scholars of sexuality, primarily those interested in theory, representation, and ways of knowing. It is a valuable criticism of the historical understandings of sexuality that provides novel re-readings of many of the classics of the theory of sexuality. . . . If the reader approaches the text prepared for its dense theoretical content, one will be rewarded with a well thought-out and novel approach to the modern system of sexuality.”—M.M.L. Arthur, Archives of Sexual Behavior

(M.M.L. Arthur Archives of Sexual Behavior )

“Angelides presents a provocative and ambitious account of bisexuality from its modern origins in theories of evolution, through sexology and psychoanalysis, to its scant mentions in the canon of queer theory. . . . In its breadth and attention to historical detail, A History of Bisexuality represents a significant advance on earlier work. In particular, the book’s central claim that the erasure of bisexuality is necessary for the production of modern sexuality has significant implications for contemporary and historical studies of sexuality.”—Lachlan MacDowall, Cultural Studies Review

(Lachlan MacDowall Cultural Studies Review )

“There is much to recommend in the book. It introduces the social science study of bisexuality, working through the current literature tidily. . . . It then works clearly through its two principal case studies, psychoanalysis  and sexual politics, before drawing the debate together and simultaneously broadening it out through the discussion of the new sexual sciences. It has the consistent voice of a single-authored text. . . . It also finds a measured, even sober way to deal with bisexuality, resisting the hyperbole of what we might see as a willfully ‘postmodern’ brand of theorizing.”—David Bell, Gender, Place and Culture

(David Bell Gender, Place and Culture ) --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From the Inside Flap

Why is bisexuality the object of such skepticism? Why do sexologists steer clear of it in their research? Why has bisexuality, in stark contrast to homosexuality, only recently emerged as a nascent political and cultural identity? Bisexuality has been rendered as mostly irrelevant to the history, theory, and politics of sexuality. With A History of Bisexuality, Steven Angelides explores the reasons why, and invites us to rethink our preconceptions about sexual identity. Retracing the evolution of sexology, and revisiting modern epistemological categories of sexuality in psychoanalysis, gay liberation, social constructionism, queer theory, biology, and human genetics, Angelides argues that bisexuality has functioned historically as the structural other to sexual identity itself, undermining assumptions about heterosexuality and homosexuality.

In a book that will become the center of debate about the nature of sexuality for years to come, A History of Bisexuality compels us to rethink contemporary discourses of sexual theory and politics.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 296 pages
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press; 1 edition (September 15, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0226020908
• ISBN-13: 978-0226020907
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,805,718 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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17 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Doesn't Live Up, December 16, 2005

By 

John Rex - See all my reviews

This review is from: A History of Bisexuality (The Chicago Series on Sexuality, History, and Society) (Paperback)

I had high hopes for this book, but the postdoc author seems much too intent on proving he's smart and knows big words. The reader must work hard to see through the unnecessarily highfalutin verbiage in order to find (basically unsatisfying and/or obvious) theories.

I had no clue where the author was headed until page 16, where Angelides identifies his unifying theme that "... historically, bisexuality represents a blind spot in hegemonic discourses of sexuality. Bisexuality has functioned as the structural Other to figurations of sexual identity and has represented the very uncertainty of the hetero/homosexual division." Huh?

Fortunately, the next pages give an outline for the book, which basically breaks down into: (1) frank examination of bisexuality undercuts neat, comfortable ideas about sexual identity; (2) sexologists couldn't fit bisexuality in with their "oppositional" categories of straight and gay; (3) bisexuality trips up Freud's Oedipal complex theories; (4) later psychoanalysts resolved the crisis about heterosexual identity by pathologizing gays in a way that would be more difficult if they were honest about bisexuality; (5) 1970s gay liberation missed the chance to embrace bi as it fought stigma; (6) Michel Foucault, bringing deconstructionist analysis to sexual and power issues, swept away categories that are needed for there to be a bisexual category to talk about; (7) for the most part, modern queer theorists unwittingly buy into the idea you're gay or straight because they rely and build on earlier theories and histories that ignore bisexuality; and (8) modern bisexuals are engaged in community and political organizing, and they should re-assert deconstructionist ideas in the increasingly scientific discourse about sexuality--when that discourse gives short shrift to bisexuality.

I won't swear that the above paragraph accurately captures the book's eight chapters, which I could barely skim. If you want to delve into the points above, and see decent summaries of what other scholars have said, check out the book. Strangely, it doesn't mention an interesting and more convincing work published earlier by Kenji Yoshino in the Stanford Law Review on Bisexual Erasure, whose abstract is online.

Now, for fun, some of the language that supports the idea that the author is trying to sound clever rather than to convey information: "In this phallocentric economy of (evolutionary) sameness, then, bisexuality provided the metonymic link between men, women, blacks, and our hermaphroditic ancestors." "As my microanalysis has shown, with the advance of science in the nineteenth century, the evolutionary concept of bisexuality was incorporated into the notion of subjectivity as self-possession." "Symbolic interactionism and social labeling were thus made possible, yet simultaneously constrained, by the emergence of a gay lifestyle and a homogenizing category of homosexual identity." Huh? You can find sentences like these on almost every page.

I wanted a book that explained why, despite anecdotal evidence it's common, so few people study and understand bisexuality or come to grips with its apparent commonness. This isn't that book.