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Bisexual Healing
CRINGING IS OFTEN a sign of unfinished political business," according to feminist author Jennifer Baumgardner.
She should know. Since 2002, Baumgardner has been spearheading the confessional "I had an abortion" campaign-most recently captured in the documentary film Speak Out: I Had an Abortion (www.speakoutfilms.com)-and in her new book, Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics, she's tackling a topic that makes both straights and gays wince: the explosion of young women experimenting with bisexuality.
"The label bi sounds bad," writes Baumgardner, "because at least in some ways, bisexuals are an unliberated, invisible and disparaged social group." And yet, she notes, according to Alfred Kinsey's famous studies (and a more informal survey of Nerve.com personals), more than 30 percent of women have had or seek same-sex encounters. In the past decade, they have become nearly de rigueur on liberal arts campuses, inspiring the disparaging acronym "LUG" (Lesbian Until Graduation). Why?
Porn-inspired dorm fantasies aside, the rise in bisexual experimentation among young women, Baumgardner argues, is indicative of their desire for equality in romantic partnerships-and they bring these "gay expectations" back to their encounters with men. Not just lusting after "anything that moves," as the stereotype goes, young women who "look both ways" are interested in romance, in being understood completely and treated as full people. Bisexuality, writes Baumgardner, is as much about "crazy, overwhelming, cue-the-orchestra love" as it is about "hot, messy, cue the Led-Zepplin-record sex."
Many of Baumgardner's theories are drawn from her own experiences, both as an openly bisexual woman and as a feminist writer who noted the rise of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender activism on college campuses while on previous book tours with writing partner Amy Richards. Though she shares the values of the larger "queer" culture, she eschews the term itself, noting that younger activists tend to use it, but she isn't comfortable doing so. In Look Both Ways she tells her own story, and reexamines the stories of both contemporary and second-wave feminists who have had relationships with both women and men. For Baumgardner, life narratives are key to understanding and defining one's bisexuality. She argues that a person's sexual identity is formed from cumulative sexual experiences and attractions, rather than who is one's partner at any given time.