Abstract
A number of feminist scholars have argued that dress and appearance can be used to critique the dominant culture and explore alternative subjectivities. Research on non-heterosexual visual identities has explored the role that appearance and clothing practices can play in the construction of individual identities and collective communities. However, bisexual women are largely invisible in these discussions. The minimal existing research suggests that bisexual women are unable to communicate their sexuality through their clothing and appearance. This study explored how bisexual women manage their bodies and appearance in relation to their bisexuality. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 20 self-identified bisexual women and the data were analysed using thematic analysis. The participants reported particular visual aesthetics associated with an embodied lesbian identity; however, they reported no visual image of bisexual women. Nonetheless, despite their lack of access to a distinct visual identity, the women negotiated ways in which to incorporate their bisexual identity into their dress and appearance, and considered their bisexuality an important aspect of their identity, which they would like to be recognised and acknowledged.
Highlights
Dress and appearance has traditionally often been dismissed as existing only to sustain women’s amusement and as a topic not to be taken seriously (Blood, 2005; Bordo, 1993)
The adverts were headed with the words ‘Are you a Bisexual Woman?’ and invited participants to contact the first author via mail, email or telephone if they were potentially willing to participate in a confidential interview about their appearance, and to receive a no obligation information sheet
Three themes related to appearance and are reported here: Visible Lesbians, Invisible Bisexuals and (In)Distinctly Bisexual
Summary
Dress and appearance has traditionally often been dismissed as existing only to sustain women’s amusement and as a topic not to be taken seriously (Blood, 2005; Bordo, 1993). A number of scholars have documented how lesbians have made use of the semiotic codes woven into clothing and adornment to articulate their identities and desires to the wider world (or just to those ‘in the know’), to resist heteronormative constructions of sexuality and gender, to pass as heterosexual, to create communities, and to produce the clothed body as a site of political action and resistance (Clarke & Turner, 2007; Eves, 2004; Authors, 2012; Rothblum, 1994). Bisexual women have been largely overlooked in research on non-heterosexualities and dress and appearance, and little is known about the role of visual identities in the construction of bisexual women’s wider personal and social identities and communities (Clarke & Turner, 2007; Holliday, 1999; Taub, 1999)
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