![Bisexual Pride Flag](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2a/Bisexual_Pride_Flag.svg)
The history of bisexuality concerns the history of the
bisexual sexual orientation
Sexual orientation is an enduring pattern of romantic or sexual attraction (or a combination of these) to persons of the opposite sex or gender, the same sex or gender, or to both sexes or more than one gender. These attractions are generall ...
. Ancient and medieval history of bisexuality, when the term did not exist as such, consists of anecdotes of sexual behaviour and relationships between people of the same and different sexes. A modern definition of bisexuality began to take shape in the mid-19th century within three interconnected domains of knowledge:
biology
Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...
,
psychology
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between ...
and
sexuality. In modern Western culture, the term ''bisexual'' was first defined in a
binary approach as a person with romantic or sexual attraction to both men and women. The term ''bisexual'' is defined later in the 20th century (for example by
Robyn Ochs
Robyn Ochs (born 1958) is an American bisexual activist, professional speaker, and workshop leader. Her primary fields of interest are gender, sexuality, identity, and coalition building. She is the editor of the ''Bisexual Resource Guide'' (publ ...
) as a person who is sexually and/or romantically attracted to both males and females,
or as a person who is sexually and/or romantically attracted to people regardless of
sex
Sex is the trait that determines whether a sexually reproducing animal or plant produces male or female gametes. Male plants and animals produce smaller mobile gametes (spermatozoa, sperm, pollen), while females produce larger ones ( ova, of ...
or
gender identity
Gender identity is the personal sense of one's own gender. Gender identity can correlate with a person's assigned sex or can differ from it. In most individuals, the various biological determinants of sex are congruent, and consistent with the ...
, which is sometimes termed ''
pansexuality''.
In English the word was used in 1892 by American neurologist
Charles Gilbert Chaddock
Charles Gilbert Chaddock (November 14, 1861 – July 20, 1936) was an American neurologist, psychiatrist, and translator. He is remembered for describing the Chaddock reflex and is credited with the coinage of the terms ''bisexuality'', ''hetero ...
when he translated the seventh edition of
Krafft-Ebing
Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing (full name Richard Fridolin Joseph Freiherr Krafft von Festenberg auf Frohnberg, genannt von Ebing; 14 August 1840 – 22 December 1902) was a German psychiatrist and author of the foundational work '' Psychopath ...
's book ''
Psychopathia Sexualis
''Psychopathia Sexualis: eine Klinisch-Forensische Studie'' (''Sexual Psychopathy: A Clinical-Forensic Study'', also known as ''Psychopathia Sexualis, with Especial Reference to the Antipathetic Sexual Instinct: A Medico-forensic Study'') is an ...
''. The first use of the word ''bisexual'' with the meaning of sexual attraction to both men and women dates back to the 19th century, when the German psychologist
Richard von Krafft-Ebing
Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing (full name Richard Fridolin Joseph Freiherr Krafft von Festenberg auf Frohnberg, genannt von Ebing; 14 August 1840 – 22 December 1902) was a German psychiatrist and author of the foundational work '' Psychopath ...
used it to refer to the gender of individuals whom he believed exhibited both feminine and masculine behaviours. Prior to Krafft-Ebing, ''bisexual'' usually meant having both female and male parts as in
hermaphroditic
In reproductive biology, a hermaphrodite () is an organism that has both kinds of reproductive organs and can produce both gametes associated with male and female sexes.
Many taxonomic groups of animals (mostly invertebrates) do not have s ...
or
monoicous
Monoicy () is a sexual system in haploid plants (mainly bryophytes) where both sperm and eggs are produced on the same gametophyte, in contrast with dioicy, where each gametophyte produces only sperm or eggs but never both.Crandall-Stotler, B.J ...
plants, or in the sense of
mixed-sex education, meaning inclusive of both males and females.
From the 1970s onwards, bisexuality as a distinct sexual orientation gained visibility in Western literature, academia and activism. Despite a wave of research and activism around bisexuality, bisexual people have often been marginalised in literature, film and research.
Societal attitudes towards bisexuality vary by culture and history; however, there is no substantial evidence that the rate of same-sex attraction has varied across time. Prior to the contemporary discussion of sexuality as a phenomenon associated with personal identity, ancient and medieval culture viewed bisexuality as the experience of
homosexual and
heterosexual
Heterosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction or sexual behavior between people of the opposite sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, heterosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" ...
relationships.
The cultures of
ancient Greece
Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of Classical Antiquity, classical antiquity ( AD 600), th ...
and
Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus (legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
accepted that adult men were involved in homosexual relationships, as long as they took the
active role of penetration.
Ancient history
Ancient cultures and societies have conceptualised sexual desire and behaviour in a variety of ways throughout history, which are subject to debates.
[ The author has made adapted and expanded portions of this book available online a]
''A Critique of Social Constructionism and Postmodern Queer Theory''
Homosexual relationships between men are more visible and recorded than those between women in literature and historical texts. Sexual relations between women are, however, present in the literature of ancient China.
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...
religious texts, reflecting cultural practices, incorporated bisexual themes. The subtexts varied, from the mystical to the didactic.
Same sex relationships between boys and men as a part of rituals in pre-city Greece were researched and confirmed by scholars.
The sexual and romantic relationship between males were not recorded explicitly by ''
Iliad
The ''Iliad'' (; grc, Ἰλιάς, Iliás, ; "a poem about Ilium") is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the '' Odys ...
'' or ''
Odyssey
The ''Odyssey'' (; grc, Ὀδύσσεια, Odýsseia, ) is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Iliad'', th ...
''.
The Greeks did not distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate practices, but had a concept of aphrodisia, sexual acts that give pleasure, regardless of whether they are performed with a man or a woman. There was, however, a notion of (active) subject and (passive) object in the relationship between two persons, one of whom is an object and necessarily dominated by the other. However, Plato and Aristotle disagree on the place of men and women. For Plato, both men and women can be subjects or objects, whereas for Aristotle women are necessarily passive objects. For both philosophers, however, the male hierarchy is unquestioned.
Ancient Rome
In Ancient Rome a freeborn Roman performing the penetrative role could have sex with male and female partners as it was considered socially acceptable.
[Amy Richlin, ''The Garden of Priapus: Sexuality and Aggression in Roman Humor'' (Oxford University Press, 1983, 1992), p. 225.] The social status of the partners was more important to judge the moral aspects than their sex. Once married, a man was supposed to have sexual relations only with prostitutes, slaves and ''
infames
''Infames'' is a Mexican telenovela that premiered on 13 February 2012, and concluded on 12 August 2012. It's a Spin-off of the telenovela '' El octavo mandamiento''. The series is stars Vanessa Guzmán, Luis Roberto Guzmán, Miguel Ángel Mu ...
''. Having sex with another freeborn man's wife, his marriageable daughter, his underage son, or with the man himself was not socially accepted and was considered immoral. Sexual use of another man's slave was subject to the owner's permission. The crucial factor was the capacity of performing self control and managing one's sex life to prove that a freeborn was capable of governing others. Giving too much focus on sensual pleasure could undermine the man's standing and his identity as a cultured person.
Ancient Japan
The existence of
men having sex with men in
Japan has been documented since ancient times. There were few laws restricting sexual behaviors in Japan before the early modern period. Anal
sodomy
Sodomy () or buggery (British English) is generally anal or oral sex between people, or sexual activity between a person and a non-human animal ( bestiality), but it may also mean any non- procreative sexual activity. Originally, the term ''sod ...
was prohibited by law in 1872, but the provision was not repealed until seven years later by the Penal Code of 1880 in accordance with the
Napoleonic Code. Historical practices identified by research as homosexual include shudō (衆 道), wakashudō (若 衆 道) and nanshoku (男 色).
Several authors have noted a strong historical tradition of open bisexuality and homosexuality among male Buddhist institutions in Japan.
Genshin
, also known as , was the most influential of a number of scholar-monks of the Buddhist Tendai sect active during the tenth and eleventh centuries in Japan. Genshin, who was trained in both esoteric and exoteric teachings, wrote a number of tre ...
, a Tendai priest criticised homosexuality in severe terms, but the condemnation had more to do with condemning the practice with a man that was not under one's authority some interpreted his position as a condemnation of practices with an acolyte who was not under his authority.
These practices are recounted in countless literary works, most of which have yet to be translated. English translations are available, however, for
Ihara Saikaku
was a Japanese poet and creator of the " floating world" genre of Japanese prose (''ukiyo-zōshi'').
Born as Hirayama Tōgo (平山藤五), the son of a wealthy merchant in Osaka, he first studied haikai poetry under Matsunaga Teitoku and later ...
, who featured a bisexual man in ''The Life of a Man in Love'' (1682), for
Jippensha Ikku
was the pen name of Shigeta Sadakazu (重田 貞一), a Japanese writer active during the late Edo period of Japan. He was among the most prolific writers of the late Edo period — between 1795 and 1801 he wrote a minimum of twenty novels ...
's account of the first gay relationship in the post-publication 'Preface' to ''Shank's Mare'' (1802 et seq), and
Ueda Akinari
Ueda Akinari or Ueda Shūsei (, July 25, 1734 in Osaka – August 8, 1809 in Kyoto) was a Japanese author, scholar and '' waka'' poet, and a prominent literary figure in 18th-century Japan. He was an early writer in the '' yomihon'' genre an ...
's portrayal of a gay Buddhist monk in ''Tales of Moonlight and Rain'' (1776). Similarly, many of the greatest artists of the period, such as
Hokusai and
Hiroshige
Utagawa Hiroshige (, also ; ja, 歌川 広重 ), born Andō Tokutarō (; 1797 – 12 October 1858), was a Japanese ''ukiyo-e'' artist, considered the last great master of that tradition.
Hiroshige is best known for his horizontal-format l ...
, took pride in documenting such love affairs in their prints, known as
Ukiyo-e
Ukiyo-e is a genre of Japanese art which flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries. Its artists produced woodblock prints and paintings of such subjects as female beauties; kabuki actors and sumo wrestlers; scenes from history and folk t ...
, ''pictures of the floating world'', where they adopt an erotic tone,
shunga
is a type of Japanese erotic art typically executed as a kind of ukiyo-e, often in woodblock print format. While rare, there are also extant erotic painted handscrolls which predate ukiyo-e. Translated literally, the Japanese word ''shunga' ...
or springtime pictures.
Nanshoku was not considered incompatible with heterosexuality; books of erotic prints dedicated to nanshoku often featured erotic images of young women (concubines, mekake or prostitutes, jōrō) as well as attractive teenagers (
wakashū
is a historical Japanese term indicating an adolescent boy, used particularly during the Edo period (1603–1867). status was indicated by haircut.
Appearance and ceremonies
properly referred to a boy between the ages at which his head was ...
) and young cross-dressers (
onnagata
(also ) are male actors who play female roles in kabuki theatre.
History
The modern all-male kabuki was originally known as ("male kabuki") to distinguish it from earlier forms. In the early 17th century, shortly after the emergence of the g ...
). Similarly, women were seen as particularly attracted to wakashū and onnagata, and it was assumed that these young men would return this interest. Nanshoku practitioners and the young men they desired would be considered bisexual in modern terminology.
Ancient China
In Ancient China, there are many historical records about same sex relationships between upper-class people.
The writings on sexuality in literature and historical records in ancient China are often allusive and implied, using phrases and words only recognizable for people who are familiar with the literary culture and background.
Words like "Long Yang (龙阳 lóngyáng)" and "male trend (男風; nánfēng)" are created to describe men who are engaged in a sexual or romantic relationship with men. Although women's same sex relationships are less recorded compared to men's, some researchers believe that societal attitude towards same sex relationship between women are more stable compared to that of men's.
People who engage in sexual or romantic relationships with the same sex typically also engage in heterosexual relationships. For example, emperors who have male concubines also have female concubines and offspring.
In addition, the concept of sexual identity was not present in ancient China before Westerners' introduction of the idea.
One example that produced the word that describes a homosexual relationship – Duànxiù, or "breaking the sleeve" – happened between the Han
Emperor Ai and his male lover
Dong Xian
Dong Xian ( 董 賢) (23 BCE(?) – 1 BCE) was a Han Dynasty politician who quickly rose from obscurity as a minor official to being the most powerful official in the imperial administration of Emperor Ai within a span of a few years, and he ...
(董賢). Emperor Ai was so devoted to his male lover that he attempted to pass the throne on to him.
When Emperor Ai had to leave early in the morning, the Emperor carefully cut off his sleeve to not waken Dongxian, who had fallen asleep on top of it. People in China will imitate the cutting of sleeves to express their love for same sex lovers.
One of the most well-known historical stories about same sex relationships in ancient China is the story of "YuTao (余桃 yútáo)", the "leftover peach", as documented in the ''Intrigues of the Warring States''. The book is a collection of political idioms and historical stories written by
Han Fei
Han Fei (233), also known as Han Feizi or Han Fei Zi, was a Chinese philosopher or statesman of the "Legalist" (Fajia) school during the Warring States period, and a prince of the state of Han.
Han Fei is often considered to be the greatest r ...
(280–233 BC), a Chinese philosopher. Han Fei recorded this story between
Mi Zixia (彌子瑕) and
Duke Ling of Wei
Duke Ling of Wey () (ruled 534 — 492 BC) was the 28th ruler of the ancient Chinese state of Wey, the son of Duke Xiang of Wey. He was the subject of Chapter 15 of the '' Analects'' of Confucius. His given name was Yuan ().
Family
Duke Ling w ...
(衛靈公). His male lover Mi found a very sweet peach in the garden; after tasting it, he shared the remaining half with Emperor Ling.
As more Western and Central Asian visitors came to China during the Tang Dynasty, China became increasingly influenced by the sexual moral conduct of foreigners. Female companions of emperors began accumulating political power which only male companions could gain in the past. Same-sex relationships became more elusive and less recorded in the
Tang Dynasty
The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdom ...
. From the beginning of the Tang Dynasty, stories about female same-sex companions between Buddhist and Taoist nuns were first discovered.
Modern history
According to Dutch anthropologist
Gert Hekma
Gerhardus "Gert" Hekma (24 September 1951 – 19 April 2022) was a Dutch anthropologist and sociologist, known for his research and publications, and public statements about (homo)sexuality. He taught gay and lesbian studies at the Faculty of S ...
, the term ''bisexual'' was used in Dutch for the first time in 1877, to refer to a hermaphrodite who had their sexual career as both a heterosexual woman and a heterosexual man. Later, the term bisexuality is used to represent both the double sexual-object choice and
androgyny
Androgyny is the possession of both masculine and feminine characteristics. Androgyny may be expressed with regard to biological sex, gender identity, or gender expression.
When ''androgyny'' refers to mixed biological sex characteristics in ...
. Since the 19th century, bisexuality became a term with at least three different yet interconnected meanings. In the field of biology and anatomy, it referred to biological organisms that are sexually undifferentiated between male and female. By the early 20th century, in the field of psychology, bisexuality is used to describe a combination of
masculinity and
femininity
Femininity (also called womanliness) is a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles generally associated with women and girls. Femininity can be understood as socially constructed, and there is also some evidence that some behaviors considered f ...
in people psychologically instead of biologically.
In the late 20th century, particularly since the AIDS epidemic, bisexuality is seen as sexual attraction to both male and female. Therefore, the contemporary history of bisexuality involved many intellectual, conceptual and sociocultural changes.
Freudian theory
In 1905,
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts ...
presented his theory of
psychosexual development
In Freudian psychology, psychosexual development is a central element of the psychoanalytic sexual drive theory. Freud believed that personality developed through a series of childhood stages in which pleasure seeking energies from the child b ...
in ''
Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality
''Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality'' (german: Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie), sometimes titled ''Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex'', is a 1905 work by Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, in which the author advance ...
''. In the book, he wished to demonstrate that bisexuality was the baseline sexual orientation for humans. Freud established his theory on a biological development basis that children in the pregenital phase do not differentiate between female and male sexes, but believe that both parents have the same reproductive powers and identical genitalia. When children reach the
phallic stage
In Freudian psychoanalysis, the phallic stage is the third stage of psychosexual development, spanning the ages of three to six years, wherein the infant's libido (desire) centers upon their genitalia as the erogenous zone. When children become ...
, their gender identity becomes stable, and heterosexuality is the gradual result of the repression of an initial bisexuality. According to Freud, during the phallic stage, children develop an
Oedipus complex
The Oedipus complex (also spelled Œdipus complex) is an idea in psychoanalytic theory. The complex is an ostensibly universal phase in the life of a young boy in which, to try to immediately satisfy basic desires, he unconsciously wishes to hav ...
where they have an unconscious sexual attraction for the parent of the opposite gender and feel jealousy towards the parent of the same gender. This situation transforms later into unconscious transference and conscious identification with the hated parent, providing a structural model which appeases sexual impulse towards the parent ascribed to the same sex by also provoking a fear of castration by the parent of the opposite sex to appease sexual impulses.
[Myers, David G. (2008). ''Psychology''. New York: Worth.] Carl Jung
Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Jung's work has been influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, phi ...
criticized the notion of bisexuality lying at the basis for psychic life, and the fact that Freud did not according to him give an adequate description of the female child. In 1913 he proposed the
Electra complex
In neo-Freudian psychology, the Electra complex, as proposed by Carl Jung in his ''Theory of Psychoanalysis'', is a girl's psychosexual competition with her mother for possession of her father. In the course of her psychosexual development, the ...
. Freud rejected this suggestion.
Kinsey reports
In 1948, American biologist
Alfred C. Kinsey
Alfred Charles Kinsey (; June 23, 1894 – August 25, 1956) was an American sexologist, biologist, and professor of entomology and zoology who, in 1947, founded the Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana University, ...
, who was himself bisexual, published two books on human sexual behaviors,
Sexual Behavior in the Human Male
The Kinsey Reports are two scholarly books on human sexual behavior, ''Sexual Behavior in the Human Male'' (1948) and ''Sexual Behavior in the Human Female'' (1953), written by Alfred Kinsey, Wardell Pomeroy, Clyde Martin, and (for ''Sexual Behavi ...
and
Sexual Behavior in the Human Female
The Kinsey Reports are two scholarly books on human sexual behavior, ''Sexual Behavior in the Human Male'' (1948) and ''Sexual Behavior in the Human Female'' (1953), written by Alfred Kinsey, Wardell Pomeroy, Clyde Martin, and (for ''Sexual Behav ...
, which are widely known as the "Kinsey reports". Kinsey and his team conducted 1,600 interviews with people about their sexual histories.
Kinsey rejected the notion of a clear-cut line between different sexualities. Instead of assigning people to different categories of sexualities, Kinsey and his colleagues developed a seven-level Kinsey scale. The scale considered people between K=1 and K=5 as "ambisexual" or "bisexual". According to the Kinsey Institute, the books Kinsey published sold nearly a million copies around the world and were influential in revolutionizing the public perception of sexuality.
Their research found that 11.6% of white males in United States (ages 20–35) had about equal heterosexual and homosexual experience/response throughout their adult lives, and that 7% of single females (ages 20–35) and 4% of previously married females (ages 20–35) had about equal heterosexual and homosexual experience/response for this period of their lives. As a result of this research, the earlier meanings of the word "bisexual" were largely displaced by the meaning of being attracted to both sexes. However, Kinsey himself disliked the use of the term bisexual to describe individuals who engage in sexual activity with both sexes, preferring to use "bisexual" in its original, biological sense as
hermaphroditic
In reproductive biology, a hermaphrodite () is an organism that has both kinds of reproductive organs and can produce both gametes associated with male and female sexes.
Many taxonomic groups of animals (mostly invertebrates) do not have s ...
, and saying, "Until it is demonstrated
hat
A hat is a head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorporate mecha ...
taste in a sexual relation is dependent upon the individual containing within his
icanatomy both male and female structures, or male and female physiological capacities, it is unfortunate to call such individuals bisexual".
In the United States
1850 to 1950
![Bessie_Smith_(1936)_by_Carl_Van_Vechten](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d0/Bessie_Smith_%281936%29_by_Carl_Van_Vechten.jpg)
The first English-language use of the word "bisexual", in the sense of being sexually attracted to both women and men, was by the American neurologist
Charles Gilbert Chaddock
Charles Gilbert Chaddock (November 14, 1861 – July 20, 1936) was an American neurologist, psychiatrist, and translator. He is remembered for describing the Chaddock reflex and is credited with the coinage of the terms ''bisexuality'', ''hetero ...
in his 1892 translation of the same term used in the same way in the 7th edition of
Krafft-Ebing
Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing (full name Richard Fridolin Joseph Freiherr Krafft von Festenberg auf Frohnberg, genannt von Ebing; 14 August 1840 – 22 December 1902) was a German psychiatrist and author of the foundational work '' Psychopath ...
's seminal work ''
Psychopathia Sexualis
''Psychopathia Sexualis: eine Klinisch-Forensische Studie'' (''Sexual Psychopathy: A Clinical-Forensic Study'', also known as ''Psychopathia Sexualis, with Especial Reference to the Antipathetic Sexual Instinct: A Medico-forensic Study'') is an ...
''. Prior to Krafft-Ebing, "bisexual" was usually used to mean having both female and male parts as in
hermaphroditic
In reproductive biology, a hermaphrodite () is an organism that has both kinds of reproductive organs and can produce both gametes associated with male and female sexes.
Many taxonomic groups of animals (mostly invertebrates) do not have s ...
or
monoicous
Monoicy () is a sexual system in haploid plants (mainly bryophytes) where both sperm and eggs are produced on the same gametophyte, in contrast with dioicy, where each gametophyte produces only sperm or eggs but never both.Crandall-Stotler, B.J ...
plants, or to mean inclusive of both males and females as in the sense of
mixed-sex education.
Under any label, openly bisexual people were rare in early American life. One notable exception was the openly bisexual poet
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Edna St. Vincent Millay (February 22, 1892 – October 19, 1950) was an American lyrical poet and playwright. Millay was a renowned social figure and noted feminist in New York City during the Roaring Twenties and beyond. She wrote much of he ...
, who received the
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
The Pulitzer Prize for Poetry is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes awarded annually for Letters, Drama, and Music. It was first presented in 1922, and is given for a distinguished volume of original verse by an American author, published ...
for ''The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver'' in 1923.
[Pulitzer site](_blank)
Retrieved December 9, 2010 Furthermore, the poet
Walt Whitman
Walter Whitman (; May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among ...
is usually described by biographers as either
bisexual or
homosexual in his feelings and attractions.
Early film, being a cutting-edge medium, also provided opportunity for bisexuality to be expressed. In 1914 the first documented appearance of bisexual characters (female and male) in an American motion picture occurred in ''
A Florida Enchantment
''A Florida Enchantment'' (1914) is a silent film directed by Sidney Drew and released by the Vitagraph studio. The feature-length comedy/fantasy was shot in and around St. Augustine, Florida, where its story is set. It is notable for its cross-dre ...
'', by
Sidney Drew
Mr. & Mrs. Sidney Drew were an American comedy team on stage and screen. The team initially consisted of Sidney Drew (August 28, 1863 – April 9, 1919) and his first wife Gladys Rankin (October 8, 1870 – January 9, 1914). After Gladys died in 19 ...
.
However, due to the censorship legally required by the
Hays Code
The Motion Picture Production Code was a set of industry guidelines for the self-censorship of content that was applied to most motion pictures released by major studios in the United States from 1934 to 1968. It is also popularly known as the ...
, the word bisexual could not be mentioned and almost no bisexual characters appeared in American film from 1934 until 1968.
1960s
LGBT political activism became more prominent in this decade. The first public protests for equal rights for gay and lesbian people were staged at governmental offices and historic landmarks in New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C., between 1965 and 1969.
[LGBT Civil Rights, UW Madison](_blank)
. Housing.wisc.edu (1969-06-28). Retrieved on 2010-11-30. In D.C., protesters picketed in front of the White House, Pentagon, and the U.S. Civil Service Commission.
Two of the protesters at the second White House picket, Judith "J.D." Kuch and Kris "Gene" Kleeberg, identified themselves as bisexual.
In 1966 the Student Homophile League at New York University and Columbia University was founded by
Stephen Donaldson (aka Donny the Punk), a bisexual activist. Columbia University officially recognized this group in 1967 and it became the official first gay student group college in the United States to be officially recognized by a university.
Activism on behalf of bisexuals in particular also began to grow, especially in San Francisco. Still in San Francisco, in 1967 Frank Esposito and Margo Rila founded one of the earliest organizations for bisexuals, the Sexual Freedom League.
In 1969 protests erupted during a police raid at the Stonewall bar. Police raids were frequent in gay bars, and people grew tired of being controlled and harassed by the police. The protesters were bar patrons and some of them were bisexuals. These events are known as The
Stonewall Rebellion
The Stonewall riots (also known as the Stonewall uprising, Stonewall rebellion, or simply Stonewall) were a series of spontaneous protests by members of the LGBT community#Terminology, gay community in response to a police raid that began in t ...
and are usually accepted as a milestone marking the beginning of the
LGBT rights movement
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) movements are social movements that advocate for LGBT people in society. Some focus on equal rights, such as the ongoing movement for same-sex marriage, while others focus on liberation, as in the ...
.
In commemoration of this, the next year the first
LGBT pride march was held.
Brenda Howard
Brenda Howard (December 24, 1946 – June 28, 2005) was an American bisexual rights activist and sex-positive feminist. The Brenda Howard Memorial Award is named for her.
Biography
Howard was born in the Bronx, New York City and grew up in S ...
, a bisexual activist coordinated the first LGBT Pride march and later became celebrated as the ''"Mother of Pride"''. She came up with the idea for organising events over one week around Pride Day which later generated the annual LGBT Pride celebrations that are now held around the world every June.
[Channel 13/WNET Out! 2007: Women In the Movement](_blank)
[The Gay Pride Issue: Picking Apart The Origin of Pride](_blank)
Brenda Howard, with the bisexual activist
Robert A. Martin (aka Donny the Punk) and gay activist
L. Craig Schoonmaker
LGBT pride (also known as gay pride or simply pride) is the promotion of the self-affirmation, dignity, equality, and increased visibility of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people as a social group. Pride, as opposed to s ...
were instrumental in disseminating the word "Pride" for these festivities.
[Dynes, Wayne R]
Pride (trope), Homolexis
Tom Limoncelli
Tom Limoncelli (born December 2, 1968) is an American system administrator, author, and speaker.
A system administrator and network engineer since 1987, he speaks at conferences around the world on topics ranging from firewall security to time ...
, another bisexual activist, later said "The next time someone asks you why LGBT Pride marches exist or why
GBTPride Month is June tell them 'A bisexual woman named Brenda Howard thought it should be.
[In Memoriam – Brenda Howard](_blank)
/ref>
1970s
Bisexuals became more prominent in the media in the 1970s. In New York City, Don Fass founded the National Bisexual Liberation group in 1972, which issued ''The Bisexual Expression'', most likely the earliest bisexual newsletter. In 1973 bisexual activist Woody Glenn was interviewed by a radio show of the National Organization for Women
The National Organization for Women (NOW) is an American feminist organization. Founded in 1966, it is legally a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization. The organization consists of 550 chapters in all 50 U.S. states and in Washington, D.C. It ...
on WICC in Bridgeport, Connecticut. In 1974, both ''Newsweek
''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely ...
'' and ''Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...
'' ran stories on "bisexual chic", bringing bisexuality to mainstream attention as never before. In 1976 the landmark book ''View from Another Closet: Exploring Bisexuality in Women'', by Janet Bode, was published. In a September 1976 interview with ''Playboy
''Playboy'' is an American men's Lifestyle magazine, lifestyle and entertainment magazine, formerly in print and currently online. It was founded in Chicago in 1953, by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from H ...
'', androgynous glam rock
Glam rock is a style of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom in the early 1970s and was performed by musicians who wore outrageous costumes, makeup, and hairstyles, particularly platform shoes and glitter. Glam artists drew on diver ...
musician and pop star David Bowie
David Robert Jones (8 January 194710 January 2016), known professionally as David Bowie ( ), was an English singer-songwriter and actor. A leading figure in the music industry, he is regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the ...
discussed being bisexual; his wife, Angie Bowie, was also public in her assertions of her bisexuality during this time.
Bisexuals were also important contributors to the larger LGBT rights movement. In 1972, Bill Beasley, who was a bisexual activist in the Civil Rights Movement
The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement throughout the Unite ...
and well as the LGBT movement, was organized the first Gay Pride March in Los Angeles. He was also active with the Gay Liberation Front
Gay Liberation Front (GLF) was the name of several gay liberation groups, the first of which was formed in New York City in 1969, immediately after the Stonewall riots. Similar organizations also formed in the UK and Canada. The GLF provided a ...
. In Dade County, Florida, in 1977 the psychologist Alan Rockway, who was bisexual, was the co-author of a county ordinance that banned discrimination in areas of housing, employment, and public accommodation based on sexual orientation
Sexual orientation is an enduring pattern of romantic or sexual attraction (or a combination of these) to persons of the opposite sex or gender, the same sex or gender, or to both sexes or more than one gender. These attractions are generall ...
.It was the first LGBT rights ordinance to be voted and achieve success in America. Anita Bryant led an anti-gay campaign called Save Our Children
Save Our Children, Inc. was an American political coalition formed in 1977 in Miami, Florida, to overturn a recently legislated county ordinance that banned discrimination in areas of housing, employment, and public accommodation based on sexua ...
against the ordinance, and Rockway began a boycott of Florida orange juice, which she advertised, in response. A press conference was organized in opposition to Bryant with Del Martin
Dorothy Louise Taliaferro "Del" Martin (May 5, 1921 – August 27, 2008) and Phyllis Ann Lyon (November 10, 1924 – April 9, 2020) were an American lesbian couple known as feminist and gay-rights activists.
Martin and Lyon met in 1950 ...
, Phyllis Lyon and Benjamin Spock
Benjamin McLane Spock (May 2, 1903 – March 15, 1998) was an American pediatrician and left-wing political activist whose book '' Baby and Child Care'' (1946) is one of the best-selling books of the twentieth century, selling 500,000 copies ...
by the San Francisco Bisexual Center. Alexei Guren founded the Gay Teen Task Force in response to Bryant's campaign in Miami. The Florida Citrus Commission canceled her contract as a direct response to this pressure. Also in 1979, Dr. Marvin Colter founded ARETE, a support and social group for bisexuals in Whittier, California, which marched in the 1983 Los Angeles Gay Pride Parade and had a newsletter.
The bisexual movement had its own successes as well. Most notably, in 1972 a Quaker group issued the "Ithaca Statement on Bisexuality" supporting bisexuals. The Statement, which may have been "the first public declaration of the bisexual movement" and "was certainly the first statement on bisexuality issued by an American religious assembly", appeared in the Quaker ''Friends Journal
''Friends Journal'' is a monthly Quaker magazine that combines first-person narrative, reportage, poetry, and news. ''Friends Journal'' began publishing in 1827 and 1844 with the founding of ''The Friend'' (Orthodox, 1827—1955) and ''The Friend ...
'' and '' The Advocate'' in 1972.
In 1976 the San Francisco Bisexual Center was founded by Maggi Rubenstein and Harriet Levi. The community center offered support and counselling to Bay Area bisexuals, and published a newsletter from 1976 to 1984, ''called The Bi Monthly''. It was the longest surviving community center for bisexuals. In 1978, the Klein Sexual Orientation Grid
The Klein Sexual Orientation Grid (KSOG) developed by Fritz Klein attempts to measure sexual orientation by expanding upon the earlier Kinsey scale. Fritz Klein founded the American Institute of Bisexuality in 1998 which is continuing his work b ...
was introduced by Fritz Klein
Fritz Klein (24 November 1888 – 13 December 1945) was an Austrian Nazi doctor and war criminal, hanged for his role in atrocities at Auschwitz concentration camp and Bergen-Belsen concentration camp during the Holocaust.
Early life and edu ...
in ''The Bisexual Option
''The Bisexual Option'' (1978; second edition 1993) is a book by the sex researcher Fritz Klein. It is considered one of the seminal works on bisexuality in the discipline of queer studies.
Summary
The book shows bisexuals that they are not alo ...
''. Bisexual activism also began to spread beyond the coasts; from 1978 to 1979, several Midwestern bisexual groups were created: BI Women Welcome in Minneapolis, One To Five (by Gary Lingen and Scott Bartell for Minneapolis/St.Paul, Minn), BI Ways in Chicago, and The BI Married Men's Group in Detroit.
1980s
In the 1980s AIDS began to affect the LGBT community, and bisexual people took an important role in combating it. San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein
Dianne Goldman Berman Feinstein ( ; born Dianne Emiel Goldman; June 22, 1933) is an American politician who serves as the senior United States senator from California, a seat she has held since 1992. A member of the Democratic Party, she wa ...
appointed David Lourea to a role on her AIDS advisory committee, resulting in the inclusion of bisexual men in official AIDS statistics by the Department of Public Health in San Francisco. Health departments throughout the United States began to recognize bisexual men because of this, whereas before they had mostly only recognized gay men.
In 1981 the first bisexual group in the United Kingdom, London Bisexual Group, was founded.
The first American bisexual newsletter published at national scale was edited in 1988 by Gary North, and it was called ''Bisexuality: News, Views, and Networking''. In 1989 Cliff Arnesen testified concerning bisexual, lesbian, and gay veterans' issues. He was the first veteran to do so on such issues as well as the first outed LGBT veteran to testify before the Congress about general issues concerning veterans. He testified on May 3, 1989, during formal hearings held before the U.S. House Committee on Veterans Affairs: Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. He also testified before the same Subcommittee on May 16, 1990, as part of an HIV/AIDS panel.
Bisexual people also continued to be active in the larger LGBT movement. The first BiCon UK (a get-together in the United Kingdom for bisexuals, allies and friends) was held in 1984. In 1986 in San Francisco Autumn Courtney (from BiPOL) became co-chair of Lesbian Gay Freedom Day Pride Parade Committee; she was the first openly bisexual person to be elected to this sort of position in the United States.
In 1987 75 bisexuals activists formed a group to march in the first ever nationwide bisexual gathering, the Second National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights
The Second National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights was a large political rally that took place in Washington, D.C., on October 11, 1987. Its success, size, scope, and historical importance have led to it being called, "The Great M ...
. Lani Ka'ahumanu published an article for the march: "The Bisexual Movement: Are We Visible Yet?". It was the first article about bisexuals and the emerging bisexual movement to be published in a national lesbian or gay publication.[http://www.lanikaahumanu.com/OUT%20OUTRAGED.pdf ] The foundation of the North American Bisexual Network (NABN), was evoked during this gathering though not founded until three years later. It would later become BiNet USA
BiNet USA (officially Bi/Net USA, The Bisexual Network of the USA Inc.) was an American national nonprofit bisexual community whose mission was to "facilitate the development of a cohesive network of bisexual communities, promote bisexual visibil ...
. Also in 1987, Barney Frank
Barnett Frank (born March 31, 1940) is a former American politician. He served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts from 1981 to 2013. A Democrat, Frank served as chairman of the House Financial Services Committ ...
became the first U.S. congressman to come out as gay of his own volition; he was inspired in part by the death of Stewart McKinney, a closeted bisexual Republican representative from Connecticut. Barney Frank revealed to ''The Washington Post'' that after McKinney's death there was a debate on whether he was LGBT or not and that he did not want this to happen to him.
1990s
The oldest national bisexuality organization in the United States, BiNet USA
BiNet USA (officially Bi/Net USA, The Bisexual Network of the USA Inc.) was an American national nonprofit bisexual community whose mission was to "facilitate the development of a cohesive network of bisexual communities, promote bisexual visibil ...
(former NAMBN), was founded in 1990. It had its first meeting at the first National Bisexual Conference in America. This first conference was held in San Francisco, and sponsored by BiPOL. Bisexual health was included in the workshops at the conference, and the "NAMES Project" quilt included with bisexual quilt pieces. More than 450 people attended and the mayor of San Francisco declared that June 23, 1990, was the Bisexual Pride Day. The conference also inspired attendees to found the first bisexual group in their hometown, called BiNet Dallas.
The bisexual movement also became more accepted as part of established institutions. In 1990, Susan Carlton offered the first university course on bisexuality in America at UC Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant uni ...
, and in 1991, Sari Dworkin and Ron Fox, two psychologists were the founding co-chairs of the Task Force on Bisexual Issues of Division 44 in the LGBT group of the American Psychological Association
The American Psychological Association (APA) is the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the United States, with over 133,000 members, including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants, and students. It ha ...
. In 1997, bisexual activist and psychologist Pat Ashbrook produced for the first time a national model for LGBT support groups within the Veterans Administration hospital.
Bisexual literature became more prominent in the 1990s. In 1991, the Bay Area Bisexual Network began publishing ''Anything That Moves: Beyond The Myths Of Bisexuality'', founded by Karla Rossi, who was the managing editor of the editorial collective until 1993. It was the first national bisexual quarterly magazine.1991 also saw the publication of one of the seminal books in the history of the modern bisexual rights movement, ''Bi Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out'', an anthology edited by Loraine Hutchins and Lani Ka'ahumanu. After this anthology was forced to compete (and lost) in the Lambda Literary Awards under the category Lesbian Anthology, and in 2005, ''Directed by Desire: Collected Poems'' a posthumous collection of the bisexual Jamaican American writer June Jordan, June Jordan's work had to compete (and won) in the category "Lesbian Poetry", BiNet USA
BiNet USA (officially Bi/Net USA, The Bisexual Network of the USA Inc.) was an American national nonprofit bisexual community whose mission was to "facilitate the development of a cohesive network of bisexual communities, promote bisexual visibil ...
led the bisexual community in a multi-year campaign eventually resulting in the addition of a Bisexual category, starting with the 2006 Awards. In 1995, Harvard Shakespeare professor Marjorie Garber made the academic case for bisexuality with her book ''Vice Versa: Bisexuality and the Eroticism of Everyday Life'', in which she argued that most people would be bisexual if not for "repression, religion, repugnance, denial, laziness, shyness, lack of opportunity, premature specialization, a failure of imagination, or a life already full to the brim with erotic experiences, albeit with only one person, or only one gender." ''Bi Community News'' began publishing as a monthly print journal in the UK in 1995. In 1997, bisexual activist Dr. Fritz Klein
Fritz Klein (24 November 1888 – 13 December 1945) was an Austrian Nazi doctor and war criminal, hanged for his role in atrocities at Auschwitz concentration camp and Bergen-Belsen concentration camp during the Holocaust.
Early life and edu ...
founded the first academic journal on bisexuality: ''Journal of Bisexuality''. However, other media proved more mixed in terms of representing bisexuals. In 1990, a film with a relationship between two bisexual women, called ''Henry and June'', became the first film to receive the NC-17 rating from the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). In 1993, bisexual activist Sheela Lambert wrote, produced, and hosted the first television series not only for bisexuals but made by bisexuals, called ''Bisexual Network''.
Regional organizations in the bisexual movement also began to have more impact. Between 1992 and 1993 several "first" annual regional bisexual conference took place in Minnesota, Florida and Seattle: Bisexual Empowerment Conference: A Uniting, Supportive Experience (usually called BECAUSE) was the first in 1992, followed by First Annual Southeast Regional Bisexual Conference.
Minnesota also changed its State Civil Rights Law, obtaining the most progressive civil rights protections for LGBT people in the country. The bisexual community in Minnesota's lobbied with LGBT groups to obtain this. Also in 1992 the First Annual Southeast Regional Bisexual Conference was organized, then in 1993 the first Northwest regional conference in Seattle. In the UK, BiPhoria was formed in 1994, the oldest bi organisation in the UK today.
In 1993 the March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation took place and is considered an important moment for bisexuality rights in the USA. As a result of lobbying by BiPOL (San Francisco), openly bisexual people took leadership roles in the local and regional organization, and the word "bisexual" was included in the name of the March for the first time. Lani Ka'ahumanu spoke at the rally, and over 1,000 people marched with the bisexual group. Coinciding with the March in Washington, DC, 600 people attended the Second National Conference Celebrating Bisexuality held with the help of the Alliance of Multicultural Bisexuals, BiNet USA
BiNet USA (officially Bi/Net USA, The Bisexual Network of the USA Inc.) was an American national nonprofit bisexual community whose mission was to "facilitate the development of a cohesive network of bisexual communities, promote bisexual visibil ...
, and the Bisexual Resource Center. It was the largest Bisexual Conference ever held at the time.
Several important surveys concerning bisexuality were conducted around this time. In 1993, Ron Fox wrote the first large scale academic study on bisexual identity, and maintained an exhaustive bibliography on bi research. Also in 1993, ''The Janus Report on Sexual Behavior'' showed that 5 percent of men and 3 percent of women considered themselves bisexual. In 1995 BiNet USA
BiNet USA (officially Bi/Net USA, The Bisexual Network of the USA Inc.) was an American national nonprofit bisexual community whose mission was to "facilitate the development of a cohesive network of bisexual communities, promote bisexual visibil ...
Bisexual Youth Initiative, Fayetteville, N.C., developed a national LGBT youth survey, which was published and sent to communities, to improve services to bisexual youth.
In 1992, Colorado voters approved by initiative an amendment to the Colorado state constitution (Amendment 2) that would have prevented any city, town, or county in the state from taking any legislative, executive, or judicial action to recognize bisexuals or gay people as a protected class.
This led to the 1996 Supreme Court Case ''Romer v. Evans'', in which the Court ruled in a 6–3 decision that the state constitutional amendment in Colorado preventing protected status based upon bisexuality or homosexuality did not satisfy the Equal Protection Clause.[ The majority opinion in ''Romer'' stated that the amendment lacked "a rational relationship to legitimate state interests", and the dissent stated that the majority "evidently agrees that 'rational basis'—the normal test for compliance with the Equal Protection Clause—is the governing standard".] The state constitutional amendment failed rational basis review.
The concept of bisexual pride became more widespread in the late 1990s. At an LGBT PrideFest in Connecticut in 1997, Evelyn Mantilla came out as America's first openly bisexual state official. The next year, the Bisexual Pride flag was designed by Michael Page (it was unveiled on December 5, 1998 ), and in 1999 the first Celebrate Bisexuality Day took place. It was organized by Gigi Raven Wilbur, Wendy Curry and Michael Page, and became an interrnational event held every year on September 23.
In France
In France, there is little research or documentation specifically related to bisexuality. One of the leading works is Catherine Deschamps' 2002 study entitled ''Le miroir bisexuel''.
In 1995 a group of four women, including Catherine Deschamps, from the ACT UP-Paris, Act Up-Paris movement or from lesbian associations met at the Centre gay et lesbien (CGL) in Paris to work on an article on bisexuality for the newspaper ''Le 3 Keller''. In the wake of this, they created a mixed group at the CGL, and in 1997 Bi'Cause, the first bisexual association in France, was founded from this group.
In Switzerland
French-speaking Switzerland
In Switzerland, Stéphanie Pache founded Infobi - Antenne bisexuelle ''romande'' in Lausanne in 1997, the first bisexual association in French-speaking Switzerland. A feminist activist and involved in the LGBT movement, she was aware of her bisexuality and looked for resources and books on the issue in Switzerland, but found nothing except a book by sexologist Charlotte Wolff published in 1980. She founded a bi-group within the Vogay association, which was created on 1 July 1996 in Lausanne.
The association 360 in Geneva created in 1998 also responds to the need of LGBTIQ people with the wish to have a perspective of openness integrated in its statutes to tackle for the problem with a monolith perception of gay and lesbian identities. The newspaper ''360°'' was created at the same time. Within this association, the bi discussion group was founded, which later became the Bipan group in 2021. The group organised its first public conference on 9 October 2013 entitled "''Un soupçon de liberté: la bisexualité décomplexée''" at the Maison des Associations in Geneva, inviting ''Karl Mengel'', author of the book ''Pour et contre la bisexualité - Libre traité d'ambivalence érotique''" published by Musardines in 2009.
References
{{reflist, 30em
Bisexuality