Bisexuals in space and geography: more-than-queer?

• Main Author: Emiel Maliepaard
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Geographical Society of Finland 2015-03-01
• Series: Fennia: International Journal of Geography
• Online Access: http://ojs.tsv.fi/index.php/fennia/article/view/46303/14643

Geographies of sexualities mainly focusses on the lived experiences and sexual identity negotiations of gay men and lesbian women in a society based upon binary divisions of sex, gender, and sexualities. This review article wants to consider a more theoretically informed relational approach to understand the creation and sustaining of the binary system, and the everyday lived experience of bisexuals. This article will review contemporary studies on queer space and studies on the intersections of bisexual theory and queer theory. Drawing inspiration from queer theory, speech act theory, and relational geographies, I propose a focus on encounters, language, embodied practices, and embodied experiences to understand the lives of sexual minorities, and bisexuals in particular. While heteronormativity and monosexuality are important factors (or contexts) in the everyday lived experience, they are not all determining for the everyday experiences of people who desire more-than-one gender.