Jessica Jones’ Kith is my new bisexual favorite

[Warning: minor spoilers for Jessica Jones season 3]

Despite bisexuality’s recent increase in media visibility, bisexual characters are still few and far in between, and looking for positive representations sometimes seems to be a fool’s quest. More often than not, we find bisexuality associated with traits society considers as negative, and used to convey less-than-favorable meanings.

In the rare cases bisexuality is not erased completely, it is most often used to convey characters’ duplicity, indecisiveness, moral ambiguity, and unstable nature. And though there’s much to love about bisexual villains or gray characters (who embody society’s anxiety of bisexuality’s subversive power), only rarely do we find them not just morally complex, but also humanized, not to mention carrying positive and liberatory meanings.

The character of Kith, featured in Jessica Jones’ third and final season, is one such character. Though she receives relatively little screen time, this bi woman of color character shines through as an embodiment of bifeminist values and the symbolic power of women’s bisexuality. Instead of undermining her character or narrative, Kith’s bisexuality underlines her characterization as an intelligent, independent, and resilient woman. Her strength is conveyed through bisexuality.

Ten recommended articles in bisexual theory/studies (including files)

Seeing as my last blog post raised a lot of interest, I figured I’d go ahead and make this amazing field of bisexual theory/studies more accessible for those interested in exploring it. I complied below ten of my favourite articles about this topic (in no particular order) – ones that I found inspirational, influential and exciting. Note that they are just a tiny sample of this huge field, limited not only in scope but also technically (since some very important texts couldn’t be uploaded). This list is neither definitive nor comprehensive – it reflects my taste, associations and limitations in a given moment.

You might notice that most of the writers of these texts are white and cisgender, and that they all write from North American and Western European perspectives. This unfortunate fact reflects an existing set of power relations in academic contexts, and in particular in queer theory and LGBT studies. These fields are both often centered around the experience of white, cisgender, and “western” people, and are written by people from these contexts. Albeit that they have written some awesome shiny theory, this fact should not be ignored and we, as bisexual scholars, should seek to acknowledge and work against it. Much more bisexual research is needed in order to fill in these gaps, and I encourage my readers to join me in doing that.

Also: nothing by Clare Hemmings is on this list and therefore it is flawed. Hemmings wrote the bible and you should read it right now (if you have access to it in any way).

Enjoy!

The myth of myth-busting – YouTube video

This is a lecture that I gave in the annual queer studies conference in Tel Aviv University, “An Other Sex”, in May 2012. In this lecture I talk about how, rather than trying to refute “biphobic myths”, we should try and use them to create a radical bisexual politics. It is based on, but is not identical, to this post. It is also one of the best talks I ever gave.

Language is Hebrew, with ENGLISH and HEBREW SUBTITLES. (To view the subtitles, make sure you have them on by pressing on the leftmost button on the lower right hand corner of the video).

Enjoy! :)

Hot sexy bi babes: media depictions of bisexual women

This is a excerpt from my book Bi: Notes for a Bisexual Revolution. If you like this text, please consider buying a copy.

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The curious case of bisexual women

In an article called Curiouser and Curiouser: the Strange ‘Disappearance’ of Male Bisexuality, British gay journalist Mark Simpson writes about biphobia against bi men, and compares their status to that of bisexual women. “It’s unques­tion­able,” he argues, “that female bisexuality is today much more socially acceptable than male bisexuality, and in fact frequently positively encouraged, both by many voyeuristic men and an equally voyeuristic pop culture.” [This quote is dealt with in greater depth earlier on the chapter]. In this section, I would like to look a bit deeper into this “positive encouragement” and to question whether it really is so positive.