Bisexual Men in Culture and Society

Gain a fresh perspective on this misunderstood sexual orientation!

From invisible to pathological, the literary, cultural, and theoretical representations of male bisexuality have been almost uniformly negative. Bisexual Men in Culture and Society provides a clear, rational analysis of the negative stereotypes and the underlying reasons for them.

”The bisexual is the brutal father, the abusive husband, the violent rapist (all familiar figures of male heterosexual power), but he is also the simpering, oral-sadistic mama's boy found in psychoanalytic accounts of homosexuality. . . . Bisexuals are queers with straight privilege, . . . straights with gay chic.” Jonathan David White's caustic summary of bisexual men as seen in David Lynch's film Blue Velvet also applies to many of the representations of male bisexuality in popular and high culture. The original essays in Bisexual Men in Culture and Society deconstruct that dangerous image with blistering force and accuracy.

Bisexual Men in Culture and Society offers thoughtful, insightful examinations of the cultural meanings of bisexuality, including:

• the recurring figure of the predatory, immoral bisexual man in the novels of E. Lynn Harris

• the overlooked bisexual themes in James Baldwin's classic novels Another Country and Giovanni's Room

• the murderous bisexual men in such films as Blue Velvet and American Commandos

• the portrayal in women's magazines of the bisexual husband as a promiscuous, deceitful AIDS carrier

• the conflicts within sexual-identity politics between gay men and bisexual men

• the focus on bisexual orientation, rather than sexual behavior, as a risk factor for AIDS

  Continuing the tradition of Bisexuality in the Lives of Men: Facts and Fictions, Bisexual Men in Culture and Society offers a brilliant analysis of the lives of bisexual men and their precarious position within a racist, sexist, and homophobic society.