Essay On Bisexuality

One of the most enabling definitions of bisexuality comes from a bisexual activist named Robyn Ochs. According her her, “bisexuality is the potential to be attracted – romantically and/or sexually – to people of more than one sex and/or gender, not necessarily at the same time, not necessarily in the same way, and not necessarily to the same degree” (Ochs). However, bisexuality did not always refer to sexual orientation. One of the first uses of the word ‘bisexual’ can be found in Psychopathia Sexualis, a late nineteenth-century forensic study authored by psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing. The study was one among many which pathologized homosexuality. In this work, however, ‘bisexuality’ is used to describe what is now known as ‘intersexuality’ in which “a person is born with a reproductive or sexual anatomy that doesn’t seem to fit the typical definitions of female or male” (Eisner 14-15; What is Intersex?). Sigmund Freud’s idea of bisexuality more closely fits what we know as bisexuality today, however he regarded it as a primitive sexuality found in male children which would develop into heterosexuality or homosexuality later on (Eisner 15). Appropriately, one of the first people to refer to bisexuality as a normal, viable sexual orientation was Alfred Kinsey, himself a bisexual (Queen and Lawrence 1216). According to him, “the world is not to be divided into sheep and goats. Not all things are black nor all things white” (Kinsey 639). Though as many as 1.8% of Americans identify as bisexual, many people continue to discriminate against them or assert that they do not exist (Gates). This kind of marginalization is known as biphobia. On the whole, the Wikipedia article for biphobia covers a variety of topics and presents goo...

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...ality is none other than Dan Savage. Though he asserts that bisexual people do exist, he frequently insists on tacking on that a lot of people who once identified as bisexual now identify as gay and that “a bi-identified 36-year-old is likelier to be bisexual than a bi-identified 16-year-old” (Savage). He as also suggested that closeted bisexual people are the most to blame for biphobia as they create their own erasure (Savage). This is of course ridiculous because it suggests that bisexual people are responsible for their own oppression.

In conclusion, the Wikipedia article for biphobia does a fair job. Several important topics and examples are covered, however there is definite room for improvement, expansion, and reorganization. Making these changes would help this article to be more understandable and informative to anyone who might peruse it in the future.