Lawton, S. J. (2024) Bisexual Masculinities in the Context of Intimacy, Prejudice and Identity Negotiation. 16th Conference of the European Sociological Association Tension, Trust and Transformation, Porto, Portugal, 27-30 Aug 2024. (Accepted for Publication)
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Abstract
Bisexual men stand at the intersection of competing heteronormative, masculinist and homonormative discourses. Prejudices arising from media discourses of the AIDS crisis have an enduring impact on bisexual men's relationships today: stereotyping bisexual men as promiscuous, hypersexual and necessarily nonmonogamous. Large scale attitudinal studies have shown that bisexual men tended to be rated worse than most other sexual minorities, including bisexual women, gay men and lesbians. This paper draws on 17 qualitative semi-structured interviews with bisexual men and their partners, analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis, allowing for the interplay between participants and researcher. Bisexual men's intimate relationships are examined, including how relationships are formed under heteronormative constraints, in the face of double discrimination from both straight and queer social spheres, as well as how identities are formed and negotiated within relationships. Additionally, this paper examines how bisexual individuals and their partners negotiate the family and the couple norm, whilst negotiating ethical nonmonogamy, sometimes for the first time. Results from this qualitative study show that there are general lacunas of understanding that persist about bisexuality, and that bisexual identities emerge in contested spaces. Bisexual men's intimate relationships were sites of safety, transformation and experimentation, whereas familial relationships were often fraught with tension. The author also distinguishes between homophobic prejudice that bisexual men face, which were often perpetrated by unknown people in public spaces, with binegative prejudice which was often faced in more intimate settings, and founded less on violence than epistemic injustices. The author concludes by situating bisexual men's masculinities in the broader landscape of sexual politics in the 21st century, complicating claims of uncritical 'inclusive masculinity' and against rising social conservatism towards LGBTQ+ people.
| Item Type: | Conference or Workshop Item |
|---|---|
| Keywords: | Bisexuality, Intimacy, Identity |
| Status: | Accepted for Publication |
| Refereed: | Yes |
| Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: | Lawton, Dr Sam |
| Authors: | Lawton, S. J. |
| College/School: | College of Social Sciences > School of Social and Political Sciences > Sociology Anthropology and Applied Social Sciences |
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