Invisibility Of Bisexuality In Society

One factor that has been extensively theorized to be relevant to bisexual mental health is the invisibility of bisexuality in society. In his seminal writing on this topic, Kenji Yoshino described the “epistemic contract of bisexual erasure,” wherein both heterosexual and gay/lesbian communities are invested in maintaining the “monosexual presumption” which is the assumption that all individuals are either heterosexual or gay/lesbian, and therefore bisexuality does not exist. Yoshino goes on to explain that both heterosexual and gay/lesbian people benefit from bisexual erasure, because both are invested in fixed identity categories, in which bisexuality cannot exist. He adds that bisexuals are often perceived to be promiscuous and polyamorous, …show more content…
Per his example, if you see a couple that is of the same gender, you may assume they are gay/lesbian just as easily as you may assume a male and female couple is straight. Short of knowing the couple personally, there is no way to know if one or both partners (in either couple) are bisexual. Some of the more intentionals reasons given by Burleson as to why bisexuals are excluded from these communities are: bisexuals can choose to present themselves as gay and avoid the homophobia and exercise “heterosexual privilege”, bisexuals may conflict with the possibility of a gene causing homosexuality, and that bisexuals are seen as impending homosexuals. To further explain the last reason given, many people who identify as gay or lesbian considered themselves to be bisexual before eventually identifying as only being attracted to one gender. This is a way of intentionally erasing bisexuals – claiming that it is just a matter of time before they “truly” identify themselves, despite the fact that many bisexuals solely identify as bisexual for their entire lives. Consequently, there is a bias against bisexuals from the rest of the queer communities that because bisexuals just have not made up their minds yet, they are only straight and experimenting. These tensions between the lesbian and gay communities with bisexuals, Burleson argues, is the worst problem. He …show more content…
Granted, this difference in mental health reported does not guarantee there exists actual worsened mental health over time. Ideally, this review would have compared several papers that solely assess bisexual mental health and split those at 2008. However, research on just bisexual mental health has all been published in very recent years. Therefore, I am using research that, at best, is comparing bisexual mental health to the mental health of others. I am only able to look at the mental health of bisexuals relative to others and that significantly dilutes any trends. Additionally, the populations considered were not followed over time. Mental illness is not perfectly consistent throughout life, so surveying participants only at one moment in time leaves out a significant part of their story. Because of these inconsistencies and weaknesses in the reviewed literature, it is entirely possible that the aggregate mental health of bisexuals has not changed at all. Rather, reports of mental health are getting stronger with their analysis and specificity, which can make it appear that there is a difference in the mental health