BI

An overview of bisexuality and the misconceptions surrounding it.

A London-based criminal psychologist and podcaster with an interest in gender studies, Shaw aims “to bring the colorful world of bisexual scholarship out of the shadows.” Her work blends assessments of contemporary research, anecdotes concerning famous bisexual individuals, and reflections on her own sexuality. Among the author’s primary targets are those who would dismiss bisexuality as a form of false consciousness, and she passionately advocates for a recognition of its legitimacy as a category of sexual identity—and more generally for an increased acceptance of fluidity in sexual orientation. In doing so, she draws parallels between the cultural reception of bi and trans identities and movingly describes how bisexuals have historically alarmed—and continue to provoke hostility from—both gay and straight communities. Shaw writes intriguingly about the idea that bisexuality represents “an original step in the evolution of [human] sexuality. Instead of it being unnatural, being behaviorally bisexual is commonplace in the animal kingdom, even in far less complex creatures than ourselves. It’s just humans who have conceived of non-heterosexual behavior as ‘crimes against nature.’ ” Also engaging are Shaw’s accounts of pioneering researchers such as Alfred Kinsey and Fritz Klein, whose work has helped gradually shift public attitudes. The author devotes considerable attention to long-standing and entrenched forms of prejudice, but she finds evidence, at least in the Western world, of progress in how bisexuals are finding ways to affirm their identity more freely. As she contends, “it is becoming harder for people not to see the beautiful world of attraction beyond gender.” The largely informal and always lively style of Shaw’s writing helps make her case. She is persuasive in her insistence that bisexuality is an important and overlooked dimension of the human story.

An accessible, often insightful consideration of a misunderstood sexual identity.