Book summary “Bisexuality in Europe”: summary

Introduction

You live in a society that divides sexual desire into two neat categories. When you experience attraction to multiple genders, this binary framework fails to capture your daily reality. You find yourself caught between rigid expectations that demand a choice between heterosexuality and homosexuality.

Emiel Maliepaard and the contributors to Bisexuality in Europe map out the complex continental landscape of plurisexual lives. The book brings together scattered European research to examine how structural mononormativity shapes your romantic choices, legal status, and cultural visibility. You discover how bisexual individuals navigate institutional neglect, religious dogmas, and everyday erasure.

The book addresses several central questions across its chapters:

• How does Anglo-American dominance in queer studies obscure European bisexual realities?
• What hurdles do bisexual asylum seekers face in Western legal systems?
• How do grassroots movements build communities without stable funding?
• In what ways does compulsory monogamy limit bifeminist politics?
• How do breakups and relationship shifts reshape your bisexual identity over time?

1. Bisexuality Research in Europe

Academic literature on bisexuality has long been dominated by Anglo-American scholarship, prompting European researchers to bring together scattered continental insights.

You often encounter a distinct gap when you look for European perspectives in queer studies. Most available theories stem from the United States or the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom shows high institutionalization of bisexuality research. Entities like the Open University drive academic output alongside dedicated policy documents.

Continental European research is often published in native languages:

• Dutch
• German
• Finnish
• Swedish

These linguistic barriers create significant obstacles to cross-national discourse. Researchers published The Bisexuality Report in 2012 at the Open University together with a number of bisexual activists.

Historical Meanings

Late nineteenth and early twentieth-century sexologists initially used bisexuality to describe primordial hermaphroditism as the earliest form of human existence. The second meaning described people possessing both masculine and feminine traits, known as psychical hermaphroditism. Richard von Krafft-Ebing conceptualized psychosexual hermaphroditism as the first phase of sexual inversion. Sigmund Freud understood bisexuality as the starting point of all human desire. Finally, academics conceptualized it as a sexual desire and orientation.

Key Frameworks

Austrian-born psychiatrist Fritz Klein expanded the understanding of bisexuality as an authentic identity. He developed the Klein Sexual Orientation Grid (KSOG) and founded the American Institute of Bisexuality.

Fritz Klein expanded the Kinsey Scale by adding a time factor and evaluating multiple dimensions beyond mere sexual attraction. His grid encompasses:

• sexual behavior
• sexual fantasies
• lifestyle
• emotional preference
• social preference
• self-identification

Fritz Klein published The Bisexual Option in 1993 and founded the American Institute of Bisexuality alongside its flagship publication, the Journal of Bisexuality.

2. Sexual Citizenship and Asylum

Bisexuality challenges dominant mononormative frameworks of sexual citizenship due to open non-monogamy, sexual fluidity, and queer approaches. Reformist homonormative approaches focus exclusively on stable, monogamous same-sex couples. They fail to accommodate bisexual multiplicity.

Bisexual asylum seekers experience severe bi-erasure and mononormative legal rejections within Western immigration systems and support networks.

Asylum Process Dynamics

Bisexual asylum seekers experience bi-erasure not only in heteronormative society. They face the same exclusion within LGBT activist and legal support networks. Advisors, lawyers, and activists often act as coaxers, coachers and coercers who suspect applicants of lying. These groups enforce a binary understanding of sexuality.

Legal Decisions

Immigration tribunals and case officers routinely reject bisexual asylum claims based on binegative belief systems. They misinterpret past opposite-sex relationships as proof that you are not genuinely homosexual. Case officers operate on the assumption that sexual orientation fits a binary of straight or gay.

In the United Kingdom, Orashia Edwards had his asylum claim challenged when the Home Office claimed his two-year relationship with his boyfriend was a sham. The authorities noted he had previously been married to a woman. In the United States, an immigration judge decided Ray Fuller could not be bisexual after noting a past marriage to a woman. The judge ignored physical attacks suffered due to a same-sex relationship.

Tribunals often fail to comprehend plurisexualities as a distinct orientation. Decision-makers view attraction to multiple sexes as equivocation or a lack of commitment. An Australian tribunal rejected a Chinese bisexual man's claim by writing that his bisexuality was equivalent to supporting authoritarianism while claiming to be slightly disposed toward democracy. Asylum adjudicators base credibility judgments on accidental narrative criteria and personal expectations.

• A tribunal rejected a bisexual female applicant from Ukraine because it deemed implausible that she could have made three unsuccessful relationships.
• An adjudicator in Canada doubted an 18-year-old female applicant who was celibate in Canada because she had been sexually active starting at age 14.

3. The Dutch Bisexual Movement

The Dutch bisexual movement relied entirely on grassroots do-it-yourself activism, temporary support spaces, and strategic political lobbying.

Activism Structure

Bisexual people rely on temporary events like conferences and festivals to find safe spaces free from mononormativity. BiCon and BiFest serve as the bisexual equivalent of permanent meeting spaces through multiday workshops, seminars, and parties. In the absence of physical spaces, these temporary events function as homes and bitopias for bisexual people.

The Dutch bisexual movement relied entirely on do-it-yourself activism driven by a tiny core group of volunteers rather than paid staff. National and local organizations typically consisted of about 15 active members handling all governance, leading to high vulnerability and exhaustion. The original LNBi association had approximately 200 members, while the national movement core hovered between 10 to 15 people.

Mike described having a group of several dozen people who came and went, with a few available on call to organize workshops or help with events. BiVak gatherings provided vital spaces for community bonding through such volunteer labor. Bisexual organizations often functioned as temporary support groups where individuals participated for a short period before leaving once empowered. Eveline noted that after their coming out, participants were rarely seen again in the bi group.

Organized bisexual communities maintained a strong overlap with sex-positive spaces, BDSM, and polyamory compared to mainstream gay and lesbian groups. Linda successfully lobbied the COC venue in Nijmegen during the Gobi Autumn Parties to host a mixed-gender darkroom, which drew massive crowds. The LNBi shifted from a membership-based association to a foundation prioritizing political representation and lobbying. Activists achieved a major milestone in December 2011 when bisexual people were explicitly mentioned in COC statutes as a target group alongside gay men and lesbians.

Strategic Recommendations

Emiel Maliepaard offers three core recommendations for future plurisexual organizations based on the historical trajectory of the Dutch movement. The LNBi announced its dissolution in 2019, while a new national organization named Bi+ Nederland was founded later that year.

• Strike a balance between political representation and activities for plurisexual people, keeping bisexual people as the main focus.
• Professionalize and strengthen human resources by increasing the number of structural volunteers to ensure continuity.
• Maintain a clear and positive vision and objectives that embrace the happy bisexual rather than emphasizing marginalization.

4. Monosexual Church Policies

Christian churches maintain a strict binary approach to human sexuality, entirely ignoring plurisexual identities despite shifting demographics among young people. Ecclesiastical organizations cling to binary frameworks such as male/female and gay/straight while secular institutions adapt to embrace sexual minorities.

Christian churches maintain a strict binary dogma and erotophobia that render bisexual Christians invisible and cause severe mental health fallout.

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby spoke of church divisions regarding homosexuality in January 2016 without making any mention of bisexual or transgender Christians. This occurs while 49 per cent of young people in the United Kingdom did not identify as 100 per cent heterosexual according to a YouGov 2015 poll. Another 57 per cent of young people identified as non-100-per-cent heterosexual in a 2017 Ditch the Label report.

Faith Communities

Bisexual Christians frequently experience complete invisibility within religious organizations, driven either by unspoken exclusion or self-censorship. You avoid church worship not due to overt aggression, but because of an unspoken sense of being unwelcome.

Alex Toft's research shows that in more than 80 per cent of cases, it is an unspoken sense of not belonging rather than overt acts of aggression that makes bisexual Christians reluctant to participate. Only one Christian organisation in the whole of the United Kingdom offered a stand-alone pastoral leaflet on bisexuality in prior research. Carol A. Shepherd's research found that 88 per cent of 54 interviewed bisexual Christian participants experienced depressive disorders ranging from generalized anxiety to suicide attempts.

Horizontal Oppression

Bisexual Christians face horizontal oppression from their LGBT peers within religious settings, who often suppress bisexuality to protect arguments for innate homosexuality. To convince religious institutions to accept homosexuality, gay and lesbian advocates often rely on the premise that sexual orientation is fixed and innate. Reverend Neil Cazares-Thomas noted that bisexual people are viewed as the Achilles heel by lesbian and gay believers because they queer the notion of lesbian or gay identity.

The achievement of same-sex marriage equality has functioned as a double-edged sword that inadvertently reinforces bisexual erasure. Reverend Jeffrey John's book Permanent, Faithful, Stable: Christian Same-Sex Marriage exemplifies the platform of achieving acceptance by proving adherence to monogamous norms. Only 16 out of 44 European countries allow same-sex marriage within certain denominations, 18 years after the Netherlands became the first country in Europe to legalize same-sex marriage.

5. Bifeminist Anti-Monogamy

Bifeminism critiques compulsory monogamy as a socio-legal institution while championing women's erotic autonomy and the right to choose lovers.

Feminist Debates

The critique of monogamy has a long genealogy within feminism. Bifeminism specifically focuses on women's erotic autonomy and resistance to hetero-patriarchal family norms. This perspective critiques compulsory monogamy as a socio-legal institution that subordinates women, regulates their sexuality, and sustains exploitative gender relations.

Bisexual feminists have faced the challenge of a common conflation between bisexuality and non-monogamy. Many bisexual individuals consciously choose polyamorous ways of life as an expression of feminism and female empowerment. Bifeminism developed in constant friction and interaction with lesbian feminism. In the 1970s and 1980s, lesbian feminism held a hegemonic position within radical feminism. Many lesbian feminists viewed bisexuality with hostility or as a cowardly holding onto heterosexual privilege.

George recalled that for some years in the 1970s and 1980s it was very difficult for an active feminist to be open about her bisexuality.

Systemic Critique

Bifeminist ideology centers on the right to sexual choice. You assert that women should be free to choose lovers of any gender and practice non-monogamy without losing feminist legitimacy. Bisexual feminists defended the right to have intimate relations with people of different genders as an expression of personal autonomy.

Alison S. Murray presented a systemic bifeminist critique of compulsory monogamy in 1995. Murray analyzes marriage through the lens of property rights, contract logic, and labor market rationalities. Murray critiques marriage as an institutionalized system of control and exclusive property access to women's bodies and labor. Using an analogy with labor law where exclusivity must be explicitly stated in an employment contract, she questions why exclusivity is treated as the default assumption in sexual relationships.

6. Bisexual Becomings After Breakups

Bisexuality functions as an ongoing process of becoming within relational assemblages, where partner gender steers affective intensities and family reactions.

Drawing on new materialist and Deleuzo-Guattarian frameworks, bisexuality emerges through affective flows, events, and encounters across human and non-human bodies. It does not reside solely as an individual psychological trait or fixed category. You see this transsubjective and intercorporeal process shape daily life. Territorialising forces continuously attempt to fix these flows into stable identities.

Family and Friends

Heterosexual relationships frequently function as happy objects in family assemblages, steering positive affects and parental approval toward mixed-sex couplings. Parents often display visible relief and happiness when their bisexual daughters date or marry men. They view it as an avoidance of a marginalized lesbian lifestyle and a return to conventional heteronormative milestones.

Marja joked that because she has a male partner, two children, a dog, and an estate car, her mother is supremely happy that she did not become a lesbian. Violent parental rejection of non-heterosexual relationships diminishes your vitality, while finding a supportive LGBTIQA+ community restores it. Harsh parental reactions, such as suicide threats upon discovering a same-sex partner, create prolonged personal turmoil and identity distress. Moving to a larger city and connecting with rainbow peer networks enhances your capability to form healthy relationships.

Emma's parents threatened suicide when they found out about her female partner. Years later, after moving to Helsinki and finding a group of rainbow people, her bodily vitality and relational capabilities recovered.

Binary Crossings

Crossing the homo/hetero binary after a breakup can trigger intense skepticism, mourning, and irrational accusations from family members who had previously accepted a same-sex partner. When you transition from a long-term female relationship to dating a man, families may experience a rebound effect. They view the new relationship as a betrayal of previous political commitments to same-sex visibility.

Laura's family reacted with deep confusion and suspicion when she began dating a man after separating from her female spouse Heli. Her sister even absurdly suspected the new male partner of being a paedophile. Friendship circles rooted in queer or feminist spaces can experience severe rifts and exclusions when a bisexual member begins dating a cisgender man. These networks can turn exclusionary if members view dating a man as a political betrayal, leading to social isolation for you.

Pia lost her best friend and stopped attending group gatherings because her best friend's girlfriend openly disapproved of Pia marrying a man named Martti.

7. Epistemic Injustice and Visibility

Bisexual individuals face pervasive binegative myths, epistemic injustice, and a lack of visual identity that contribute to their broader cultural erasure.

Epistemic Injustice

Bisexual women face binegative assumptions that frame them as hyper-sexual, untrustworthy, and incapable of maintaining a monogamous relationship. Within a binary sexuality framework, bisexuality is viewed as an unstable hybrid state causing internal psychological conflict. Because you refuse gendered exclusivity, onlookers stereotype you as bed-hopping, promiscuous, and bound to cheat. In Eliason's research, 75 per cent of participants preferred not to date a person who identified as bisexual due to fidelity concerns.

Entering a monogamous relationship causes your non-normative sexual identity to be marginalized. When you date a man, onlookers assume you are heterosexual and dismiss your bisexuality as a phase. When you date a woman, the wider lesbian community pressures you to adopt a strict lesbian identity.

Bisexuality suffers from distinct forms of epistemic injustice that deny you the conceptual tools to articulate your lived realities. Miranda Fricker's framework of testimonial injustice, hermeneutical injustice, and wilful hermeneutic ignorance explains how dominant monosexual structures invalidate plurisexual experiences.

Valerio was told by a gay self-help group coordinator that bisexuality is merely a phase and does not exist. This symbolic violence caused him to internalize bi-erasure for 15 years.

Visual Invisibility

Bisexual and pansexual people lack a distinct visual identity or look. In a study by Davila et al. (2019), 70.7 per cent of participants identified as bisexual, 12.9 per cent identified as pansexual, and 11.1 per cent identified as queer. Furthermore, 57.6 per cent reported trying to make their sexuality visible through visual displays. Unlike gay individuals who historically developed shared appearance norms, research shows no distinctive bisexual look. Bisexual women typically use specific appearance norms:

• borrow lesbian styles;
• adopt androgynous looks;
• embrace alternative or gothic aesthetics.

None of these make bisexuality uniquely readable. You are forced to rely on direct verbal statements to overcome this cultural erasure and invisibility.

10 Key Ideas

1. Early sexologists initially used bisexuality to describe primordial hermaphroditism and psychical hermaphroditism before Fritz Klein expanded it into an authentic identity with the Klein Sexual Orientation Grid.
2. Bisexual asylum seekers experience severe bi-erasure and mononormative legal rejections within Western immigration systems because case officers routinely misinterpret past opposite-sex relationships as proof that applicants are not genuinely homosexual.
3. The Dutch bisexual movement relied entirely on grassroots do-it-yourself activism, temporary support spaces like BiCon and BiFest, and strategic political lobbying to overcome structural vulnerabilities.
4. Christian churches maintain a strict binary dogma and erotophobia that render bisexual Christians invisible and cause severe mental health fallout, including high rates of depressive disorders.
5. Bifeminism critiques compulsory monogamy as a socio-legal institution while championing women's erotic autonomy, non-monogamy, and the right to choose lovers without losing feminist legitimacy.
6. Bisexuality functions as an ongoing process of becoming within relational assemblages where partner gender steers affective intensities, family reactions, and occasional identity scrutiny.
7. Bisexual individuals face pervasive binegative myths that frame them as hyper-sexual, untrustworthy, and bound to cheat on their partners.
8. Bisexual Christians face horizontal oppression from their LGBT peers within religious settings who suppress bisexuality to protect arguments for innate, monosexual homosexuality.
9. Bisexuality suffers from epistemic injustice and wilful hermeneutic ignorance that deny individuals the conceptual tools and language to articulate their plurisexual lived realities.
10. Bisexual and pansexual people lack a distinct visual identity or look and must rely on direct verbal statements or borrow alternative aesthetics to overcome cultural erasure.