Defining bisexuality

- 70s -

* "Explaining her bisexuality, she said, “I believe you fall in love with the person and not the sex.” "

– JoAnne Mitchell, “An Advance of Sisterhood,” in The Lesbian Tide, Volume 2, Issue 5, December, 1972 (p. 11, p. 31)

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* “Kate Millet concluded her December, 1974 talk: by lauding "the very wealth and humanity of bisexuality itself: for to exclude from one's love any entire group of human beings because of class, age, or race or religion, or sex, is surely to be poorer - deeply and systematically poorer.”

- "The Bisexual Movement's Beginnings in the 70s", Stephen Donaldson, part of the book Bisexual Politics: Theories, Queries and Visions, edited by Naomi Tucket, 1995 (this in particular refers to 1974)

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* “Historian Martin Duberman (now head of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies at the City University of New York) took note in 1974 of the new visibility of bisexuality (he said that in 1973 he had written in his personal journal, "Bisexuals seem to be popping up all over.") and insightfully declared, "It's easier, I believe, for exclusive heterosexuals to tolerate (and that's the word) exclusive homosexuals than those who, rejecting exclusivity, sleep with people not genders ....

To suggest, as practicing bisexuals do, that each of us may contain within ourselves all those supposed diametric opposites we've been taught to divide humanity into is to suggest that we might not know ourselves as well as we like to pretend.”

- "The Bisexual Movement's Beginnings in the 70s", Stephen Donaldson, part of the book Bisexual Politics: Theories, Queries and Visions, edited by Naomi Tucket, 1995 (this in particular refers to 1974)

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* “Margaret Mead in her Redbook magazine column wrote an article titled ‘Bisexuality: What’s It All About?’ in which she cited examples of bisexuality from the distant past as well as recent times, commenting that writers, artists, and musicians especially ‘cultivated bisexuality out of a delight with personality, regardless of race or class or sex.’ ”

- Janet Bode, “From Myth to Maturation,” part of the book View From Another Closet: Exploring Bisexuality in Women, 1976

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* “Being bisexual does not mean they have sexual relations with both sexes but that they are capable of meaningful and intimate involvement with a person regardless of gender.”

- Janet Bode, “The Pressure Cooker,” part of the book View From Another Closet: Exploring Bisexuality in Women, 1976

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* “[John] reacted emotionally to both sexes with equal intensity. ‘I love people, regardless of their gender,’ he told me.”

- Charlotte Wolff, “Early Influences,” Bisexuality, a Study, 1979

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- 80s -

* “Bisexuality, however, is a valid sexual experience. While many gays have experienced bisexuality as a stage in reaching their present identity, this should not invalidate the experience of people for whom sexual & affectional desire is not limited by gender. For in fact many bisexuals experience lesbianism or homosexuality as a stage in reaching their sexual identification.”

- Megan Morrison, “What We Are Doing,” Bi Women: the newsletter of the Boston Bisexual Women's Network, 1984

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* “In the midst of whatever hardships we [bisexuals] had encountered, this day we worked with each other to preserve our gift of loving people for who they are regardless of gender.”

- Elissa M., “Bi Conference,” Bi Women: the newsletter of the Boston Bisexual Women’s Network, 1985

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* "I believe most of us will end up acknowledging that we love certain people or, perhaps, certain kinds of people, and that gender need not to be a significant category, though for some of us it may be"

- Ruth Hubbard, “There Is No ‘Natural’ Human Sexuality, Bi Women: the Newsletter of Boston Bisexual Women's Network, 1986

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* "I am bisexual because I am drawn to particular people regardless of gender"

- Lani Ka'ahumanu, "The Bisexual Community: Are We Visible Yet?", 1987

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* “To be bisexual is to have the potential to be open emotionally and sexually to people as people, regardless of their gender.”

- Office Pink Publishing, “Introduction,” Bisexual Lives, 1988

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* “We made signs and slashes. My favorite read, ‘When it’s love in all its splendor, it doesn’t matter what the gender.’”

- Beth Reba Weise, “Being There and Being Bi: The National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights,” Bi Women: the Newsletter of Boston Bisexual Women's Network, 1988

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- 90s -

- 1990 to 1994 -

* “Do not assume that bisexuality is binary or duogamous in nature [...] In fact, don’t assume that there are only two genders.”

- The Bisexual Manifesto, 1990

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* “Bisexual usually also implies that relations with gender minorities are possible.”

* “Many objections have been raised to the use of [“bisexual”], the most common being that it emphasizes two things that, paradoxically, bisexuals are the least likely to be involved with: the dualistic separation of male and female in society, and the physical implications of the suffix ‘-sexual’.”

- Bisexuality: a Reader and Sourcebook, Thomas Geller, 1990

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* “Bisexuality works to subvert the gender system and everything it upholds because it is not based on gender… Bisexuality subverts gender; bisexual liberation also depends on the subversion of gender categories.”

- Karin Baker and Helen Harrison, “Letters,” Bi Women: the Newsletter of Boston Bisexual Women's Network, 1990

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* “I tell them, whether or not I use the word ‘bisexual,’ that I am proud of being able to express my feelings toward a person, regardless of gender, in whatever way I desire.”

- Naomi Tucker, “What’s in a Name?”, part of the book Bi Any Other Name, 1991

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* “In the late sixties and early seventies I was awakening to all the possibilities of my life. I fell in love with people, not genders.”

- Loraine Hutchins, part of the book Bi Any Other Name, 1991

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* “Bisexual? My vocabulary had never included that word. Not knowing what bisexual was, I put the ad aside for several months. When I happened to notice the ad again, something told me to check it out. My life was changed forever — I finally found a description for those old feelings deep down inside me. Perhaps if I had had a gay experience earlier in life I would

have gone in a different direction, but I'll never know.

I do know that after I began discovering others who felt loving and erotic feelings for people rather than a specific gender, I could never go back.”

- Nate Brown, “A Gift to Myself”, part of the book Bi Any Other Name, 1991

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* “Some women who call themselves ‘bisexual’ insist that the gender of their lover is irrelevant to them, that they do not choose lovers on the basis of gender.”

- Marilyn Murphy, “Thinking About Bisexuality,” Bi Women: the Newsletter of Boston Bisexual Women's Network, 1991

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* “Results supported the hypothesis that gender is not a critical variable in sexual attraction in bisexual individuals. Personality or physical dimensions not related to gender and interaction style were the salient characteristics on which preferred sexual partners were chosen, and there was minimal grid distance between preferred male and preferred female partners. These data support the argument that, for some bisexual individuals, sexual attraction is not gender-linked. […] …the dimensions which maximally separate most preferred sexual partners are not gender-based in seven of the nine grids”

- M. W. Ross, J. P. Paul, “Beyond Gender: The Basis of Sexual Attraction in Bisexual Men and Women”, 1992

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* “Bisexuals fall in love with a person, not a gender”

- A bisexual’s survey response in Closer to Home: Bisexuality and Feminism, Weise, 1992

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* “[S]ome bisexuals say they are blind to the gender of their potential lovers and that they love people as people… For the first group, a dichotomy of genders between which to choose doesn’t seem to exist[.]”

- Kathleen Bennett, “Feminist Bisexuality, a Both/And Option for an Either/Or World,” Closer to Home: Bisexuality and Feminism, 1992

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* “To be bisexual is to have the potential to be open emotionally and sexually to people as people, regardless of their gender”

- Sex and Sexuality: A Thematic Dictionary of Quotations, 1993

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* “The expressed desires of [female bisexual] respondents differed in many cases from their experience. 37 respondents preferred women as sexual partners; 9 preferred men. 21 women had no preference, and 35 said they preferred sex with particular individuals, regardless of gender.”

- Sue George, “Living as bisexual,” Women and Bisexuality, 1993

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- 1995 -

* “The bisexual community should be a place where lines are erased. Bisexuality dismisses, disproves, and defies dichotomies. It connotes a loss of rigidity and absolutes. It is an inclusive term.”

- “Essay for the Inclusion of Transsexuals”, Martin-Damon, K., part of the book Bisexual Politics: Theories, Queries and Visions, edited by Naomi Tucket, 1995

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* “Part of the transgressivity of bisexuality is that it says love knows no gender. Such gender subversion is something many people find threatening about bisexuality.”

- “Fluid Desire: Race, HIV / AIDS, and Bisexual Politic