NAVIGATING GENDERED DIFFERENCE AND (HETERO)SEXUALISED SUBJECTIVITY

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Introduction

In this qualitative study I set out to explore the discourses that construct the gendered and sexualised subjectivities of a group of South African women who identify as bisexual. In societies where heterosexuality remains normative, those who claim sexual identities that do not maintain the presumed “natural” relationship between sex, gender and sexuality are often considered unintelligible (Butler, 1990). It is this rupture from heteronormativity and its consequences that the current study will explore. In conducting the study I assume a poststructuralist feminist approach and use a discourse analytic framework for the analysis of the texts resulting from interviews with selfPidentified bisexual women. This chapter begins with a brief note on the role of language in constructing categories of identity such as “bisexual”. This is followed by an introduction to the academic and personal contexts within which the research question was formulated. I then provide the aims and objectives that guided the study and conclude the chapter with an outline of the structure of the dissertation.

Language and identity

In assuming a poststructuralist position in this study, I resist universalising tendencies in research that posit categories such as bisexuality as fixed and essentialised. A poststructuralist approach to language and subjectivity is critical of the reification of categories of identity. Instead, subjectivity is regarded as fragmented and in flux (Weedon, 1987). Categories of sexuality are socially constructed and do not reflect an inherent fixed nature of individuals. While I value such resistance to the reification of categories of identity, I also support the need to (cautiously) draw on such categories in a manner that is always provisional, in order to allow for increased visibility of bisexuality in research accounts. Consistent with this position, I am not concerned with identifying “real” bisexual women in this study, nor to depict a totalising account of bisexual experiences. Instead this study is concerned with how meanings around bisexuality are created and negotiated, and how such meanings position participants who selfPidentify as bisexual.

Locating the study

In this section I consider the academic context in which the current study is located. I briefly describe how bisexuality is positioned in research conducted in different academic domains that oftraditional psychological and social science research; the field of LGBTI psychology and queer studies; and finally the emerging subfield of bisexuality studies. Through this brief contextualisation, I highlight a number of oversights in the research landscape. I conclude with a consideration of my personal context, as it informs the current study.

Essentialist treatment of sex, gender and sexuality

In this section I consider theories of sex, gender and sexuality as inherent essences, drawn on to posit different sexual “types”. I also consider social constructionist challenges to such essentialist treatment.

Dedication
Acknowledgements
Abstract
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION AND RATIONALE
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Language and identity
1.3 Locating the study
1.3.1 The monosexual assumption and bisexual invisibility
1.3.2 Bisexual practice and HIV risk: The threat of “bisexual infectors”
1.3.3 Bisexuality in the context of LGBTI psychology and queer studies
1.3.4 The emerging field of bisexuality studies
1.3.5 A note on context: Sexual rights and hate crimes
1.3.6 Researching bisexuality: The politics of selfPdisclosure
1.4 Aims and objectives of the study
1.5 Outline of the dissertation
CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Postmodernism and the turn to language
2.2.1 The crisis of representation
2.2.2 Reality as socially constructed
2.2.3 AntiPfoundationalism
2.2.4 Fragmenting the subject
2.3 Derridean deconstruction
2.3.1 Différance
2.3.2 Supplementarity
2.3.3 The subversive potential of undecidables
2.4 Foucault’s theory of discourse
2.4.1 Discourse and power
2.4.2 Disciplinary technology
2.4.2.1 Surveillance and technologies of the self
2.4.2.2 Pastoral power
2.4.2.3 BioPpower
2.4.2. Liberalism
2.5 Feminist engagement with poststructuralism
2.6 Poststructuralism and the possibilities for feminist resistance
2.7 Conclusion
CHAPTER 3: SEX, GENDERS AND SEXUALITIES
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Essentialist treatment of sex, gender and sexuality
3.2.1 Sex, gender and the biological imperative
3.2.2 Fixing sexuality: The creation of sexual “types”
3.2.3 Sexuality or sexualities? Early social constructionist critiques
3.3 Deconstructing sex, gender and sexuality
3.3.1 Butler’s deconstructive critique
3.3.2 Butler’s genderPasPperformative thesis
3.3.3 Performativity and regulative discourses
3.3.4 Butler’s citational politics
3.3.5 Distinguishing between performance and performativity
3.4. Theories of sexualities in the context of political activism
3.5 Theorising female sexuality
3.6 Sexuality and embodiment
3.7 Conclusion
CHAPTER 4: CONSTRUCTIONS OF FEMALE BISEXUALITY
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Historical accounts of bisexuality
4.2.1 Bisexuality in classical Greece and Rome
4.2.2 The influence of religious discourses on sexual ethics
4.3 Bisexuality in psychological discourse
4.3.1 Psychoanalytical accounts of bisexuality as pathology
4.3.2 The inconceivability of bisexuality
4.3.3 Challenges to psychoPmedical discourses of bisexuality
4.3.4 Affirmative approaches to bisexuality
4.4 Constructions of female bisexuality in public discourses
4.4.1 The cultural unintelligibility of bisexuality
4.4.2 Constructions of bisexual chic
4.4.3 Bisexuality as associated with promiscuity
4.4.4 The eroticisation of female bisexuality
4.4.5 Bisexuality as a threat to lesbian politics
4.4.6 Bisexuality as a strategy to retain heterosexual privilege
4.5 Retrieving bisexuality from invisibility and invalidation
4.5.1 Evoking a queer/nonPqueer binary
4.5.2 Evoking a bisexuality/monosexuality binary
4.5.3 Reclaiming the deviant and transgressive
4.6 The potential of bisexuality to subvert the logic of binaries
4.7 Conclusion
CHAPTER 5: THE RESEARCH PROCESS
5.1 Introduction
5.2 The research questions
5.3 Recruiting participants
5.3.1 Identifying participants through my social network
5.3.2 Enlisting LGBTI organisations to identify participants
5.3.3 Description of the final sample
5.4 Interviewing
5.4.1 Power and positioning in interviews
5.4.2 Negotiating insider/outsider positions
5.4.3 The interview guide
5.4.4 The research contexts
5.4.5 Transcription of the interviews
5.5 The discourse analysis
5.5.1 A deconstructive discourse analysis
5.5.2 “Steps” in the process of analysis
5.5.3 Reflections on the process of analysis
5.6 Quality and rigour in discourse analysis
5.6.1 Grounding research in existing work
5.6.2 Optimising internal coherence
5.6.3 Sensitivity to participants’ interpretations
5.6.4 Including aspects of investigator triangulation
5.6.5 Assuming a reflexive approach
5.6.6 Creating opportunities for reader evaluation
5.7 Ethical considerations in the study
5.8 Summary
CHAPTER 6: NAVIGATING GENDERED DIFFERENCE AND (HETERO)SEXUALISED SUBJECTIVITY
6.1 Introduction
6.2 The participants
6.3 The discourse analysis
6.4 Sexuality as identity
6.4.1 “And then the last thing is that you’re bi”: The intersectionality of identity
6.4.2 PostPapartheid South Africa and a resistance to identity politics
6.5 Discourses of gendered difference
6.5.1 “Gender is a random criterion for me”: Rejecting gendered difference
6.5.2 Romantic androgyny: Attraction to a person, not a gender
6.5.3 “I have to give him a chance to be a man”: Relationships with men as gendered
6.5.4 “It’s easier to freePstyle with a woman”: Relationships with women as sites of resistance
6.6 Bisexuality and a butch/femme dichotomy
6.6.1 Heterosexism and the traditional female beauty ideal
6.6.2 The constitutive outside: Evoking the butch dyke
6.6.3 “People will judge you”: Policing the boundaries around butch and femme
6.7 Heteronormativity and bisexuality
6.7.1 “You have this image readyPmade”: Marriage and family discourse as familiar
6.7.2 “You’re always up against a husband and children”: Bisexuality as competing with
marriage and family discourse
6.7.3 “It isn’t any kind of option for having a good life”: Bisexuality as incompatible with marriage and family discourse
6.7.4 “Family is important to me”: Rearticulating marriage and family discourse
6.8 Summary
CHAPTER 7: DISMISSAL, DELEGITIMATION AND RE^APPROPRIATION OF BISEXUALITY
7.1 Introduction
7.2 The unintelligibility of bisexuality
7.2.1 An inability to construe sexual desire as “going both ways”
7.2.2 “Was that a phase?” Bisexuality as indecision
7.2.3 The incitement to choose
7.3 Delegitimising discourses
7.3.1 The hotPbiPbabe: Bisexuality as an eroticised heterosexual male fantasy
7.3.2 “You’ve gotta have both”: Bisexuality as equated with promiscuity
7.4 Silencing discourses
7.4.1 SamePsex sexuality as unPAfrican
7.4.2 SamePsex sexuality as sin
7.5 Normalising discourses
7.5.1 “A little bit of bisexuality exists in all of us”: Claiming a universal bisexual poten
7.5.2 “I don’t think it’s a choice”: Bisexuality as biologically predetermined
7.6 Conclusion
CHAPTER 8: CONCLUDING DISCUSSION
8.1 Introduction
8.2 Summary of the findings
8.2.1 Sexuality as identity
8.2.2 Discourses of gendered difference
8.2.3 Bisexuality and a butch/femme dichotomy
8.2.4 Heteronormativity and bisexuality
8.2.5 The unintelligibility of bisexuality
8.2.6 Delegitimising discourses
8.2.7 Silencing discourses
8.2.8 Normalising discourses
8.3 Troubling the norm? Bisexuality’s challenge to binary categories
8.3.1 Bisexual erasure in support of the heterosexual/homosexual binary
8.3.2 Gender rebels or gender troublemakers? The slow bending of norms
8.4 Limits of the study and suggestions for future research
8.5 Conclusion