Dual Attraction: Understanding Bisexuality

From Publishers Weekly
Based on an in-depth study of bisexuals in San Francisco conducted by the authors from 1983 to 1988, this clearly written, enlightening report suggests that sexual preference is much less fixed then is generally assumed. Most of the interviewees established a heterosexual identity first, then "added on" same-sex relationships. Few of the subjects were stereotypically bisexual, i.e., equally attracted to both sexes. On the contrary, many frequently changed their mix of same- and opposite-sex partners. The AIDS epidemic, show the authors, had a decisive impact on formerly monogamous bisexuals, with men moving in a heterosexual direction and women in a homosexual direction in an attempt to protect themselves from the virus. The bisexual respondents felt that homosexuals were just as prejudiced and negative toward them as were heterosexuals. Weinberg and Williams are professors of sociology at Indiana University, Pryor is an associate professor of sociology at Wake Forest University in North Carolina. First serial to Mirabella. Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
Indiana University sociologists Weinberg and Williams (coauthors, Male Homosexuals, 1974), along with Pryor (Wake Forest), offer ``the first major study of bisexuality.'' Working from the Kinsey thesis that sexual orientation is a choice rather than biologically determined, their study has implications for all sexual behavior. From interviews conducted at the Bisexual Center in San Francisco between 1983 and 1985, the authors concluded that all sexuality is fluid, complex, and socially structured, shaped by initial sexual encounters and altered by later opportunities. Hedonistically motivated, bisexuals, mostly male, self-identify in their late 20s--or, more technically, they either ``fail to unlearn'' or they ``rediscover'' pleasure in the same as well as in the opposite sex: they ``disconnect gender and sexual pleasure.'' In their surveys of behavior, mating rituals, communal ties, marriages, jealousy, and ``outing,'' the authors reveal a group of people who, unlike the homosexuals they have been identified with, have developed no life styles, many believing they are merely ``in transition.'' All of those who participated in the study (about 150) appear self-involved, sexually preoccupied, socially experimental individuals who objectify sex partners and feel that their range of sexual experience makes them superior. This very range, along with promiscuity and swinging, accounts for their rejection by both homosexuals and heterosexuals, who blame them for introducing AIDS into their community. Although their potential for sexuality is greater because of the varieties of sexual pairings they prefer, their numbers are nonetheless declining, their status, according to the authors, resembling that of homosexuals in the Sixties. Drawing conclusions from a small and idiosyncratic community, and assuming the unfashionable, politically dangerous position that sexual orientation is a choice, this study is, at best, a first. The prestige of Oxford and the panache of Mirabella may help it overcome a dry, flaccid style, narrow focus, incomplete theorizing, and outdated methods. (First serial to Mirabella) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Book Description
NOTE: AUTHORS WANT THE FOLLOWING LINE IN ALL CATALOG AND ADVERTISING COPY: Based on extensive research on gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and heterosexuals, Dual Attraction provides the first major study of bisexuality.


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Based on 10 years of in-depth interviews and surveys, this full-length portrait of bisexual Americans covers everything from the ways people become bisexual to the kinds of sexual activities they engage in to the methods used to balance their same- and opposite-sex relationships. 150 tables.


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