9 research outputs found

    Is bisexuality invisible? A review of sexualities scholarship 1970–2015

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    This article provides a review of sexualities scholarship within the social sciences between 1970 and 2015. It takes an innovative approach by focusing on the way in which bisexuality is addressed in this body of literature. The article reveals the marginalisation, under-representation and invisibility of bisexuality within and across the social sciences in relation to both bisexual experience and identity. Reasons for this varied across the different eras, including the heterosexist nature of the literature, the impact of gay and lesbian-focused identity politics, and queer deconstructionism. In addition, patterns of bisexual erasure and invisibility were uneven, with some scholarship taking inclusive approaches or criticising prejudice against bisexuality. The initial findings of the review were enriched by critical commentary from key relevant sociologists and political scientists. The article concludes that future sexualities scholarship could be enhanced by greater consideration of bisexuality

    Pride and Prejudice: Legalizing Compulsory Heterosexuality in New York's Annual St. Patrick's Day Parades

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    This article discusses the successful legal exclusion of Irish lesbians and gays from the St. Patrick's Day parade in New York and explores the ideologies of nation-space and public space that underpin this exclusion. It argues that the progression through urban space of the marches enforces compulsory heterosexuality, through actual and semiotic exclusion. Irish American nationalism can be read as illustrative of the heterosexualization of nationalism. It was the unquestioned assumption that being homosexual is antithetical to being Irish that provided the fundamental premise from which it was logically and successfully argued in U.S. courts: that the Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization is a violent, obscene enemy bent on the destruction of Irish ethnicity and Irish communities. By contrast, the article holds up the parades in Cork and Dublin as designated inclusive and multicultural events, the nation-space of the Irish Republic economically liberated and wishing to communicate modernity to its citizens
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