Paula C. Rodriguez Rust/Mediakit

A few months ago, when the whole “Lesbian Mafia” controversy happened, I decided I wanted to learn more about the lesbian/bisexual divide, and I started looking for an academic book on the subject. I ran across the book “Bisexuality and the Challenge to Lesbian Politics: Sex, Loyalty, and Revolution (The Cutting Edge : Lesbian Life and Literature Series.” I skimmed the reviews of the book and it looked like it was pretty balanced so I decided to read it. Unfortunately the last edition was published in 1995—but it seemed like at least some of it was still relevant today.

The author of the book, Paula C. Rodriguez Rust, is someone who has experienced the lesbian/bisexual divide first hand; she had come out as a lesbian and considered herself one until she got involved with a man. She then experienced first hand the rejection several women in the lesbian community face—if they engage in bisexual behavior. She still considered herself a lesbian, but she began to think more about bisexuality, about bisexual women, and about her own attitudes towards bisexuality. Even though her relationship [ended], she still was interested in bisexuality and decided to do a study of people’s attitudes and perceptions of it, in both the lesbian and bisexual communities. Although, she still considers herself a lesbian indentified female sociologist, she also now thinks of sexuality as a continuum.

The book starts by talking about how bisexuality is and has been viewed and covered in the lesbian and gay press; at first it was barely mentioned, or treated as a joke, but since the late 80’s, it began to be mentioned more, with both positive and negative results. Some readers of the publications wrote in and said they didn’t have a problem with it, but it seemed more did, and they felt that it wasn’t something that should be discussed in a gay or lesbian magazine. The author then went on to discuss how the political interests of the lesbian community had developed since the Stonewall riots. The actual study—both lesbians and bisexual women were asked questions at pride events, and some were also recruited to fill out questionnaires that asked questions such as “does bisexuality exist?” “What do you think of bisexuals?” and “how does bisexuality affect gay and lesbian politics?”

What the author found was that lesbians of different races, educational levels, and social classes seemed to share the same ranges of attitudes about bisexual women. These attitudes ranged from “it doesn’t exist.” “It’s a cop-out.” “Bisexuals are really gay and can’t admit it,” [or "everyone is bisexual to some degree" and “I feel bisexual women have to put up with a lot.” What I found most interesting was that a majority of the lesbians interviewed, including the ones who believed bisexuality exists and were sympathetic and or welcoming of bisexual women. [They said] that they had a hard time relating to bisexual women and imagining themselves in their place. Lesbians who had once identified as bisexual themselves indicated that they had a bit of an easier time, but it was difficult for many of them as well. Eighty percent of lesbians interviewed, felt that lesbians experience [is] much more discriminatory  than bisexual women; and only twenty percent felt that bisexuals experienced a great deal of prejudice.

The findings were both interesting and startling, when it came to the attitudes of bisexual women. While many of course believed bisexuality existed, there were some that didn’t, and indicated that they felt confused and also thought most bisexuals were confused—even though they identified as bisexual. Many also stated that being bisexual was harder than being straight or gay, and that they felt invisible and that because of this, they chose to identify as lesbians.

As the author interviewed more bisexual women, she found that 1 in 3 of them [lesbian] believed bisexuality was the norm and most people were bisexual to some degree. Yet 84 percent had identified as lesbians at some point in their lives, and 51 percent agreed with the statement that “it is more acceptable to be bisexual.” Some people who are really lesbians say they are bisexual and 44 percent indicated that they believed bisexuality could be a transitional identity, and felt that they identified more with the lesbian community than the bisexual one. Only 14 percent said they felt like they identified with the bisexual community. As the author stated at the end of the study, the two most striking findings were the extent to which bisexual women’s attitudes towards bisexuality resembled those of the lesbians, and the extent to which bisexual women felt a lack of their own community and their own political interests.

The good news is that as this study was done in 1995, both the attitudes of many lesbians and many bisexual women have changed significantly, and there is now much more of a bisexual community, more tolerance in the gay and lesbian communities (though we still have a long way to go), and more voices that speak for the political interests of the bisexual community. However, I have noticed that there are still a significant number of bisexuals who don’t feel connected to their community; or don’t want to use the term “bisexual.”  That really struck me as something that hasn’t changed enough since the book was written. What this book made me wonder was “how can we who are active in the bisexual community, reach out to more bisexual people (especially young people) so that [bisexuals] feel they have a community to identify with—and aren’t afraid of  the “b” word?

Overall I found the book very interesting and well written, and I do recommend it. The main drawback is that the study [was written in 1995]. I would be very interested to see a current follow up—I’m sure it would answer a lot of questions.