Article
Bisexuality as a Category in Social Research
Journal of Bisexuality
(2007)
Abstract
Bisexual and lesbian women are often categorized as a single entity in social scientific studies, resulting in potential distortion of knowledge. After surveying scholarly debates about bisexuality as a research category, the gendered narratives of a small group of heterosexual, bisexual, and lesbian women were analyzed to see which of two binary sexual classification schemes best provided useful analytic distinctions: “straight/gay” and “bisexual/monosexual.” Findings revealed that bisexual women expressed different relationships to femininity than “monosexuals.” Acknowledging the potential for reification using either schema, the author concluded that the “bi/mono” binary and its concomitant ternary conceptualization of the sexual might be useful tools for social scientific analyses of gender and sexuality.
Keywords
- Bisexual women,
- bisexuality,
- gender,
- narratives,
- monosexual,
- femininity
Disciplines
Publication Date
January 1, 2007
DOI
10.1300/J159V06N04_03
Citation Information
C. Lynn Carr. "Bisexuality as a Category in Social Research" Journal of Bisexuality Vol. 6 Iss. 4 (2007) p. 27 - 46 ISSN: 1529-9724 Available at: http://works.bepress.com/clynn-carr/5/