Bi Lives

A collection of 18 in-depth interviews with a wide range of bisexual women of different races, ages, and economic classes involved in a very wide variety of lifestyles.

Whether you are openly bisexual, still figuring things out or just interested in learning more about bisexuality, Bi the Way is your essential guide to understanding and embracing bisexuality. With first-hand accounts from bi advocates, it includes practical tips and guidance on topics including dating, sex, biphobia, bi-erasure, coming out, activism and gender identity, demystifying a community that is often erased or overlooked. Rallying, honest and powerfully written, this must-read book is a manifesto for bisexual people everywhere and will empower you to live your most authentic bisexual life.

“I am part of the generation that came of age when Bi Any Other Name was already in print. This groundbreaking anthology gave me the language, courage and sense of community I needed as a young queer woman.” —Daisy Hernández, A Cup of Water Under My Bed The 25th Anniversary Edition Bi Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out first debuted in 1991. This groundbreaking book helped catalyze a national movement for bisexual identity, justice and equality. Often dubbed “the bisexual bible,” Bi Any Other Name was on Lambda Book Review’s Top 100 GLBT Books of the 20th century and became a beloved reference text in many classrooms, doctors’ offices, libraries, and pulpits. A 2007 Mandarin translation was published in Taiwan. The new 2015 introduction of this book updates readers to the enormous changes the past quarter century has brought – for bi people, the larger society and the sexual rights and liberation movement of which we are a part. When did you know? How did you come out? What was your experience? The coming out stories in this book speak to the many ways bisexuals embrace realities outside rigid either/or categories throughout the passage of our lives. Everyday stories of women, men, transgender bisexuals, teenagers to octogenarians, from many different cultures and family arrangements. The fierce truth of these lives made visible puts a check on bisexual erasure, exposing the binary constructions of gay/straight and male/female as oversimplifications that reduce spectrums to mere opposites. Caught between the mainstream culture’s persistent discounting of bisexuality, the sensationalizing characterizations presented in media, and the sexual liberation movement’s continual disregard of bisexuality as a serious identity, bisexual people are often not seen or heard when they speak out. There is a vital need for these earnest voices to be heard in the new century. Enormous cultural changes have occurred in the past 25 years, yes, but understanding bisexualities has just begun.

"The Zoomer generation has created a postidentity revolution by expressing their substantially complicated understanding of bisexuality, which includes sexual, romantic, and gender fluidity; pansexuality; genderqueer and gender non-binary identities; and a host of other ways of experiencing and describing sexual, romantic, and gender aspects of the self."--

A World War II veteran and Hollywood gas station attendant describes how his good looks and open bisexuality culminated in liaisons with numerous celebrities, providing a chronicle of Hollywood's sexual underground in the 1940s and 1950s.

"A groundbreaking exploration of bisexual politics by a revolutionary thinker" (Publishers Weekly) provides the missing piece of the puzzle for readers who identify as bisexual Depicted as duplicitous, traitorous, and promiscuous, bisexuality has long been suspected, marginalized, and rejected by both straight and gay communities alike. Bi takes a long overdue, comprehensive look at bisexual politics, from the issues surrounding biphobia/monosexism, feminism, and transgenderism to the practice of labeling those who identify as bi as either "too bisexual" (promiscuous and incapable of fidelity) or "not bisexual enough" (not actively engaging romantically or sexually with people of at least two different genders). In this forward-thinking and eye-opening book, feminist bisexual and genderqueer activist Shiri Eisner takes readers on a journey through the many aspects of the meanings and politics of bisexuality, specifically highlighting how bisexuality can open up new and exciting ways of challenging social convention. Informed by feminist, transgender, and queer theory, as well as politics and activism, Bi is a radical manifesto for a group that has been too frequently silenced, erased, and denied -- and a starting point from which to launch a bisexual revolution.