Return to search

Bisexual men's identities: (re)defining what it means to be bi. / Bisexual men's identities: redefining what it means to be bi. / Bisexual men's meaning(s): (re)defining what it means to be bi.

Bisexual identity is formed within the constraints of a heteronormative framework which is infused with power, promotes stability and alignment of apparently binary sex, gender identity, and gender roles, as well as promoting procreation, monosexuality and monogamy. Heteronormative models of sexuality fail to capture the complexity, ambiguity, multiplicity, and fluidity of bisexual experience. Using data collected through interviews with twelve self-identified bisexual men this research explores questions of how bisexual men make sense of what it means to be bisexual within a heteronormative framework of sexuality and if they disrupt or reproduce dominant understandings of sexuality. I found these bisexual men sometimes conformed to a dominant framework; however, as an example of how identity can be unstable in both meaning and expression they also took up a provisional bisexual identity and disrupted dominant discourses by redefining bisexual meanings – offering alternatives to the binary, gender based definitions of sexuality, and monosexuality. / Graduate

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:uvic.ca/oai:dspace.library.uvic.ca:1828/3505
Date26 August 2011
CreatorsPoole, Lisa Dianne
ContributorsDevor, Aaron H.
Source SetsUniversity of Victoria
LanguageEnglish, English
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis
Formatapplication/pdf
RightsAvailable to the World Wide Web

Page generated in 0.0019 seconds