chose to remain anonymous says as much as her letter does.33 Although these two letters were critical of lesbian feminist antagonism toward bisexuals, neither letter conveyed a strong bisexual voice. The former dismissed the debate as trivial; the latter was a plea for tolerance.
But a self-conscious and political bisexual voice did begin appearing in Lesbian Contradiction in 1990, after Murphy’s views were aired once again in “The Gay-Straight Split Revisited.” Dajenya deplored the tendency of oppressed groups to argue over who’s more oppressed, rejected the accusation that as a bisexual she was “consorting with the enemy,” and presented her bisexuality as a source of political awareness and action.34 In the same issue, Jane Litwoman wrote that “gender is just not what I care about,” and analyzed the sources of her privilege and oppression as a person who, in this “gender-fetishic culture,” is usually labeled “bisexual.”35 Three years later, Alena Smith wrote about her ability to enjoy making love with both genders, and rejected the stereotypes that as a bisexual woman she was “going through a phase” or avoiding serious relationships.36 Although self-consciously bisexual voices appeared in Lesbian Contradiction two years earlier than they did in Out/Look, they were individual voices that spoke of the personal, sometimes in political terms but largely in reaction to lesbians’ criticisms of bisexuality; there was little evidence of the growing bisexual community with issues and interests of its own. In Lesbian Contradiction, the “bisexual issue” is still a “lesbian controversy.”
In summary, different lesbian and/or gay publications present the issue of bisexuality differently, and some, like 10 Percent, don’t present it as an issue at all. In the mainstream and traditionally male-dominated pages of The Advocate, bisexuality is merely a topic for conversation. Bisexuals came into existence when The Advocate wasn’t looking and when bisexuals wrote to The Advocate to announce themselves, The Advocate duly reported their existence and then went on with business as usual. Insofar as bisexuality is an issue, the issue is bisexual inclusion and the predominant liberal humanist opinion favors inclusion. In contrast, in the Lesbian and Gay Community represented by Out/Look, bisexuality is a controversial issue. Lesbian feminist concerns about bisexuality were serious, but they belonged to an earlier era and their merit is fading as the lesbian and gay mainstream returns to its humanist origins. The bisexual movement is the wave of the future. Bisexuals not only exist and belong in the lesbian and gay movement, but they have interests, issues, and a voice of their own. Bisexuals are no longer asking to be included in the lesbian and gay movement; they are in the lesbian and gay movement and they are also forming a separate community and movement. Finally, if one reads about The Lesbian Community in Lesbian Contradiction, one finds that lesbian feminist concerns about bisexuality are alive and well, and that they drown out the few anonymous humanists who dare dissent. There are a few political lesbians who ask not to be condemned for their heterosexual feelings, and a few bisexuals who reject lesbians’ negative stereotypes about bisexuality and describe bisexuality in political terms, but there is little evidence of a collective bisexual voice or of a bisexual movement with issues defined by bisexuals.
Lesbians who read these different publications receive very different images of what The Lesbian Community thinks about bisexuality. Which image is accurate? Is bisexuality an issue, or not? If it is, what is the issue? Are objections to bisexuality limited to a few extremists whose politics are stuck in the 1970s as Out/Look suggested, or are they alive and well and dominating lesbians’ opinions about bisexuality, as shown in Lesbian Contradiction? Are bisexuals visible, vocal, and independent political activists, or apologetic hangers-on? The truth is that none of these images are entirely accurate, because each reflects the opinions of only a segment of the Community. More importantly, however, articles and letters to the editor reflect only the opinions of those individuals who bother to express their opinions in writing and have the means to get them published. The vast majority of lesbians—and bisexual women—lack either the time or the inclination to write articles or letters to the editor. They might not even read the articles and letters written by others. What do they think?
To find out what lesbians and bisexual women think, we have to find the voices that are not represented in The Lesbian and Gay Press. This book represents those voices and demonstrates that both lesbians and bisexual women have strong and varied opinions on the subject. Most of this book focuses on the opinions of lesbians, among whom the issue of bisexuality is alive and well and very controversial. The intensity of lesbians’ opinions about bisexuality suggests that the issue has very deep political implications. It is the argument of this book that these implications cut right to the heart of the meaning of lesbianism itself. As lesbians, we have fought long and hard for our lesbian identities and communities, and bisexuality constitutes a psychological, social, and political threat to these hard-won victories. It forces us to confront our own differences of opinion over what lesbianism is and what its political implications are; that is, who we are and what we stand for. In the early 1970s, we debated these issues openly as we laid the groundwork for the lesbian movement. Since then, the “who” and “what” debates have faded into the background, but the issues were never resolved. We still disagree about who we are and what we stand for. The topic of bisexuality uncovers these dormant issues and brings our differences to the surface. The energy with which we debate bisexuality today is none other than the energy with which we struggled to define ourselves two decades ago.
2 “EXPERTS’” VOICES: LESBIANISM, BISEXUALITY, AND THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
We live in an age of science and technology. It is the era of computers, laser surgery, space travel, fax machines, and hydroponics. We look to science to answer our questions and solve our problems. We have learned that science is objective. According to my high school textbook, the scientific method involves asking a question, designing a study to answer the question, and then doing the study to find out the answer. Values, biases, and power do not enter the picture.
As a society, we are quickly finding out the hard way that this sterile image of science is false. Values shape the questions we ask and biases shape the way we ask them. The problems that are solved are often the problems of the most powerful in society, because the least powerful do not have the funding, training, or voice to put their problems on the agenda. Research on breast cancer has been dangerously underfunded in comparison to research on heart disease. Until 1993, the CDC definition of AIDS included opportunistic infections common among HIV infected men but not diseases common among HIV infected women, preventing women from receiving financial and medical opportunities available only to people with an AIDS diagnosis. We know almost nothing about lesbian health issues; we do not even know what the issues are.
Science does provide answers and solutions, but we cannot accept them at face value. We must study science with a critical eye, and select for ourselves that which is useful and that which is not. This is particularly true in an area as value-laden, controversial, and powerful as sexuality. This chapter will examine the contributions social scientists have made to our understanding of sexuality. In it, I will analyze the many different models of sexual orientation that are implicit or explicit in the sexological literature, and the ways in which these models have affected the questions that have been asked and the information we have gained about our sexuality. Readers who are familiar with the highlights of the history of sexology in the United States might want to skip to the subheading “New Models of Sexuality.”
WHAT IS A MODEL?
A model, or paradigm, is a way of representing something. Usually, in the social sciences, models are used to make something that is intangible—for example, the economy—a bit more tangible. Nobody can see the economy, but economists have computerized models of the economy that
