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duncanwrites · 4 years

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All the books I read in 2019, reviewed in 2 sentences or less.

The annual tradition returns! These are all the books I read in the last year, and how I felt about them in two sentences or less.

Blue Mars - Kim Stanley Robinson: This was the final book of the science fiction trilogy that exploded my brain at the end of 2018, and the after-shocks lasted well into 2019. These books capture something essential about the relationship between place and politics that you can only do with science fiction.

Bark - Lorrie Moore: A thoroughly uneven book of short stories - when they were good, they were great, when they were bad, they were bumbling takes on the domestic side of the war on terror.

Farewell to Arms - Ernest Hemingway: Maybe it's just my mood in the forsaken year of 2019, but I just have no tolerance any more for works of art that aestheticize the degradation of the human spirit. This book made me feel near constant disgust.

Mrs. Dalloway - Virginia Woolf: In contrast, I think you can create works of art that dignify people even in their darkest moments, and offer a bridge into the experience of others that can be a passage into becoming a better person. It's always nice to read a book for a second time and realize you can keep reading it again for years to come.

The Asshole Survival Guide - Robert I. Sutton: We all have assholes that we have to work with, and sometimes it's necessary to have some external validation that it's not all your fault, and that establishing distance between yourself and said assholes is a good idea.

My Invented Country - Isabelle Allende: It took me until the very end of this book to realize there was a different memoir by Allende that I meant to read instead. This one was not so great.

Catch-22 - Joseph Heller: Gonzo literary comfort food.

The Golem and the Jinni - Helene Wecker: I found this book charming enough, but it never totally wowed me at any particular point. I think it showed that the concept of two magical creatures from different cultural contexts meeting in turn of the century New York is an interesting thought experiment, but a struggle to land as a full narrative.

Kafka on the Shore - Haruki Murakami: Prior to this, the only Murakami I had read was What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, and it's safe to say that did not properly prepare me for the surreal darkness of Kafka on the Shore, which seems to never stop going deeper into the abyss.

God Save Texas - Lawrence Wright: There are very few books about modern Texas that don't try to valorize it, or douse it with excessive nostalgia, and this is one of them. A politically-astute, funny meander through the state as it is, not as it might have once been, or never was.

M Train - Patti Smith: Patti Smith is obviously a genius, but this one didn't leave a great mark on me. Worth revisiting some other time, I think, since it's my girlfriend's favorite book.

Working - Robert Caro: I am shamefully still putting off my years-old plan to read Robert Caro's LBJ series, and finish his book on Robert Moses. In the meantime, this is a thoughtful reflection on how and why to tell stories about power.

Feel Free - Zadie Smith: I love Zadie Smith, and if you haven't read her non-fiction essays, you are missing out on some of her most exciting and moving writing. This is her second collection of essays, and you can tell how much the decade since the first has taken its toll - so many more of the pieces are about fear and frustrations, and the language is much wearier, even while it is still penetrating and beautiful.

The Telling - Ursula K. Le Guin: A slim, late novel from one of the best to ever do it, this book projects the sense of engrossing calm that reminds me most of all of listening to a story well-told - not incidentally, an experience that is a key theme of the plot itself.

Stories of Your Life and Others - Ted Chiang: On the other hand, the short stories in this book all came off as one note thought experiments that failed to build compelling worlds.

The Overstory - Richard Powers: Not just my favorite book of the year, but also one of my favorite ever, The Overstory is the book I talked the most about, and told the most people to read in 2019. The best way to explain it ('it's a book about people who become obsessed with trees') really undersells things, because it's also about forest ecology, generations of trauma, the terror and clarity of radical thought, and a soul-splitting vision of hope. It receives the coveted 3rd sentence in the review, because I just need to emphasize again that you should read this book.

The Flamethrowers - Rachel Kushner: Maybe it was the fate of any book that I read after The Overstory, but The Flamethrowers left me feeling cold. It wandered off into too many fanciful-seeming plot arcs that didn't develop all the characters to the depth they needed.

What is Populism? - Jan-Werner Müller: I re-read this book because I wanted to revisit his ideas about the strengths and weaknesses of populists ahead of the next election, and whether there is ever a version of populism suitable for the left agenda. I finished worried, and skeptical, respectively, on those two points.

The Great Derangement - Amitav Ghosh: I don't read many books about climate change - I find there are very few things that I really feel like need saying in the face of the obvious and overwhelming - but I'm glad I made time for this one, which focuses on both the global north-south dynamics of the issue, and the inability of storytelling to capture the problem in full. It's profoundly difficult to sum up in two sentences, but it's worth a full read.

There, There - Tommy Orange: I think this novel asks too much of characters that are too thin to hold what they are made to bear. Too busy at the same time as it's too ordered to be fully credible.

The Slynx - Tatyana Tolstaya: I somehow convinced myself that I had read this surreal post-apocalyptic novel set in Russia 100 years after nuclear winter, but not only had I not read it, I haven't read anything like it before. A wide-ranging nightmare about authority, literacy, and the power of fear, set in its own vernacular and kaleidoscopic distortions of our authoritarian world today.

The Iliad - Homer: I wanted to re-read The Iliad because I find the idea of a hero felled by a single, discrete flaw to be a fascinating allegory, not realizing that Achilles' fatal flaw is not his heel but his anger.

Ecology of a Cracker Childhood - Janisse Ray: There isn't much widely-read nature writing about the US South, and I think Janisse Ray's book dignifies and mourns the overlooked parts of the country that may not be wilderness but still contain bits of natural grace.

Sundiver and Startide Rising - David Brin: These two novels follow the same premise of humanity entering a universe of intelligent life as the only species to reach consciousness without patronage of, and servitude to, an elder species, and the power struggle that ensues. Sadly, the premise writes a check the execution can't cash, and while the first book, leaner and more focused, is solid, the second is over-long and distracted from what made the first fascinating.

Lonesome Dove - Larry McMurtry: It took a lifetime of seeing this book (a signed first edition, from an Austin bookstore that has left no digital trace) on my parents' shelf to finally read Lonesome Dove, and it was a fitting welcome back to Texas. McMurtry's characters are fully-grown from the beginning, made of both broad archetypes and fine detail, and the narrative gives them the journey they deserve.

The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt: There are very few novels that convey big ideas in balance with pot-boiler plotting, but this is one of them and my only regret is not reading it sooner. How dare anyone blight this novel with a terrible movie.

The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. Le Guin: What makes this book special is not that it's speculative fiction about a world with unique gender arrangements; that's been done before by many other authors. What makes it special is that it investigates that world with tenderness towards its inhabitants, and an understanding of how gender weaves its way into institutions besides the family or the bedroom

Gun Island - Amitav Ghosh: I had high hopes for Gun Island, but felt it never quite rose above being a thought experiment carrying out his ideas from The Great Derangement.

The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P - Adelle Waldman: Your opinion of this book will probably hinge on how important you think it is to read books about writers in Brooklyn hanging out with other writers in Brooklyn. If you think that's still a useful world to explore, you will like that this book is merciless towards its characters, and startlingly accurate - but if you don't think that's important, you will be frustrated for the same reasons.

How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia - Mohsin Hamid: A gloriously rich experimentation in genre and contemporary global politics - playful, infuriating, and heartwarming, really everything you could hope for from a short novel. This is the second book by Hamid that I've read, and I'm going to set out to read all of them as soon as I can.

#books #book review #book list #2019

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secretsofthemasquerade · 6 years

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Nighthawks’s Kickstarter and interview with author

Hey guys, you might have seen this kickstarter over the past month, as its approaching its deadline I thought I’d interview the main dude for you guys :)

I played the demo that’s available, which isn’t fully representative of the story’s debth (as it was meant to be just a small visual fiction), which displays great attention to art, great voice acting, and quite nicely written characters and unique starting situation.

Overall I really love the concept and I’d like to see this game become a reality, we need down-to-earth games even if they’re not labelled WoD :p

Here’s the link to the kickstarter. You can get the game for just 20 bucks ^^ HURRY though, it ends in FIVE DAYS.

The author, Richard Cobbett, has done lots of work in the past, and the publisher is a solid one too (the publisher’s TechnoBabylon is just life, and Sunless Sea/Skies were made by this author), it’s not his first rodeo and he’s, as he put it in the discord server: “I'm writer, designer, programmer, marketing person, video compositer, UI engineer, community manager and basically everything not involving drawing“. His wording isn’t pretentiously all over the place and “darker than thou”, but it has the right amount of work from hat I could see from the screenshots and the demo.

So here goes! Interview under the cut!

“Who are you, apart from what we know from the Kickstarter?”

I’m Richard Cobbett, and if you know me from anything it’s probably about 20 years of games journalism, including things like PC Gamer’s “Crap Shoot” column and Rock Paper Shotgun’s “The RPG Scrollbars”, or my work on Sunless Sea/Sunless Skies. But I’ve done quite a lot more than that, including the mobile adventure Silent Streets and the space game The Long Journey Home.

So, this is far from my first rodeo. I love cats, hate spiders, and once made a pitch to White Wolf that included the secret goal of making my home town of York a Tremere stronghold. I am entirely serious about this.

“In a few words, for a VtM Audience, what is the premise of Nighthawks' world?”

Vampires exist. You know this, because you’re one of them. But unlike the World of Darkness, the Masquerade has failed. You’ve been exposed, and the world is trying to figure out where to go next. You begin as a penniless vampire in a shitty hotel in the cheapest part of a dying town, and Nighthawks charts your rise from rags to riches as you become part of the new politics.

Things are of course very different from WoD, both to avoid treading on White Wolf’s paws and because of course I wanted the fun of creating my own setting! For starters, Nighthawks is a bit lighter in tone, and more rooted in the problematic elements of being a vampire. Blood tastes foul, being bitten hurts, and the world is at best incredibly suspicious and at worst outright hates you.

Also, vampires don’t secretly run the world. They’re more like cats, in that they’re fiercely individualistic and territorial, with many of them not even having historically known that there were others like them. There’s a few groups here and there that have had some historical sway in the world, such as the Eternal Dynasties that latched onto the great courts of Europe like parasites, and a handful of aristocrats who spread with British colonialism to find Heirs to further refine their bloodlines, but they’re very much in the minority.

The closest equivalent to the Masquerade is that some - not most, though you’re one of the lucky ones - have powers. These are primarily mental rather than breathing fire and turning into bats and so on, like Mesmerise or Corpse-Talking or copying the face of a human for a brief period. Vampire society is doing its best to hide the existence of these for fairly obvious reasons - they’re already distrusted enough! They’re also not skills to just spam at problems, but very expensive aces-in-the-hole to deploy very carefully.

There’s a lot more to say and discover about the world, but in short, it’s something that I think Vampire fans will both enjoy for the parts of the atmosphere it shares, and love exploring for all the cool ways that it tries something a bit different. It’s a game rooted in the social side of vampire life, where a dinner party can be more dangerous than any back-alley rumble, and one where you get to be a direct part of the big decisions that define what it means to be a vampire, versus showing up five hundred years after the Convention of Thorns or whatever already laid out how things work.

It’s also a game designed to let you play whatever character you want - both in terms of things like sexuality and gender, and just background. You’re not restricted to just being JC Denton with fangs. If you want a character who was, say, a hairdresser in their mortal life and who has never been in a fight, that’s just fine. Or, of course, you can be a bruiser. Everyone deserves the chance to be a badass vampire, and a badass vampire that fully represents them.

Hmm. That was quite a few words, wasn’t it? Sorry. I get excited!

“What are its mechanims and gameplay like? How long do you think it will take for an average player to beat the full game?”

We’re looking at around 15-20 hours for a playthrough, with a ton of replayability. Lots of choices, differences in character builds, cool things to discover… the lot. We’re primarily using text because it allows us to really flesh out the world and add as many stories as possible.

Mechanically, it’s a mix of life-simulation and RPG. It resembles games like Sunless Sea, in that most options are chosen from a list, alongside some gorgeous 4K graphics and voice acting. However, under that is a fierce system of RPG options and life simulation. Every click is a tick of the clock, as you explore the city, improve your character, and get back to safety before sunrise. Rather than the standard critical path of quests, the design is based around Objectives. In the first act, the simplest, your main goal is pretty much just making sure you can pay your hotel room bill. How you go about that is up to you, whether it’s hunting, taking on assignments, investigating rumours and so on. Later chapters of course get more complicated as you have to balance basic survival with dealing with crooked cops and politics.

I’ve posted a lot about the game design and where we’re going with it all in the Kickstarter Updates. Worth checking out! I think V:TM fans will really like it.

“What got you into vampire fiction and vampire games? Why make a game with those themes?”

Firstly, urban fantasy is awesome and it’s depressing that we see so little of it in gaming. Vampires specifically intrigue me as a designer because they offer so many mechanical opportunities - blood, sunlight, etc - and as a writer for the constant dichotomy between power fantasy and personal nightmare.

Nighthawks is very much rooted in exploring that, with some characters who find their undeath a curse, others who find it liberating, and with the player allowed to decide for themselves where they stand. It doesn’t hurt that the individualism of vampires allows you to create some really awesome characters who are fun to hang out with. Our Kickstarter backers immediately connected with the Companion in the demo - Madame Lux, a vampire stage magician with the power to manipulate human sight. She’s just one of many really vibrant characters, including con-artist cult-leader Maze, vampire fangirl bartender Becca, and Inez, a pirate queen from the Golden Age of Piracy struggling to adapt to a world where none of her skills are still in any demand.

Then throw in all the awesome vampire folklore from around the world, and you’ve got a fantastic palette to paint with. Much of the Nighthawks design makes me grin just to think of it, and I think players are going to dig it too.

“Favorite VtMB story part? NPC?”

Well, as a paid-up fan of the Tremere, obviously, Strauss. Good egg. Totally not like that awful LaCroix chap. Other than that, Heather and Tourette are obviously the first ones that everyone thinks of, and with good reason. Grey de Lisle’s voice makes any character awesome, and the Heather sequences were shockingly brutal the first time around. Absolutely amazing writing in those bits.

But I’m probably going to say Deb of Night. I love radio in games as a way of conveying atmosphere, and that’s one of the best one. I don’t know if it’s cool or sad that a few years ago I was in Santa Monica on a press trip, and spent some time wandering around the Pier while listening to Deb’s show. Bit of both?

“Anything you'd need apart from more backers to make sure the game becomes a reality?”

Moral support, really! Game development is a long and often pretty lonely experience, where you never usually know if anyone is going to want what you’re making when you’re done. It’s a real boost to know that so many people are excited by Nighthawks and really want to see it happen. That certainly adds some pressure, but the kind of pressure I think everyone can appreciate!

#nighthawks #vampire games #video games #my first interview lol

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zak-graphicarts · 6 years

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FMP: Evaluation

“A walk is the first thing to do. Learn all kinds, cause walks are about the toughest thing to do right. ”- Ken Harris, legendary animator

The brief, Under the Influence, asks us to discuss what we find interesting and inspiring as artists, and craft an independent project based off these lines of inquiry. Throughout these last two years, I’ve found my interest in Graphic Arts to be animation - a medium that allows us tell stories through whatever lens we want, rendering impossible worlds and breathing life into larger than life characters.

My project, Exquisite Walks, explores the potential of a walk cycle in animation - challenging myself to develop as an artist, and grow as an animator through exploring a range of animation techniques and processes. In animation, a walk helps define a character’s personality - but it’s also one of the first exercises in animation training, as outlined by legendary craftsmen like Richard Williams and Ken Harris, because it requires an understanding of physics, organic movement and acting.

With the FMP, we were to develop our own project that allows us to not only showcase our skills but challenge them. The main problems posed by this would be planning our time properly, and keeping the motivation and drive throughout the project. Finding and sustaining research was an initial challenge, but I made an effort to use primary sources as a way of sustaining ideas and inspiration throughout.

I wanted to tackle more introspective, meaningful questions to evidence a critical thinking on a higher level, and I’ve been able to discuss some of these more heavier topics on my blog. I’ve asked why I want to be a graphic artist, identifying my interests and how surrounding myself with these artistic influences drives me to create something of a high standard, and why I’m always working to develop on my work. I’ve been able to discuss animation as a context, and explore my own personal reasons for choosing the medium, and why it’s so unique, comparing it to other visual art forms. With a project that’s influenced by classic animators such as mine, I felt I needed to discuss the social and political implications of classic animation, addressing the very politically incorrect past of the medium, but more importantly, how the future is looking much brighter in this regard. This was to evidence a critical understanding of the medium at large, to step away from my work and consider those not in the same position as my peers and I; it’s given me a much more educated and critical view on the medium, considering perspectives and ideas other than my own.

Research has played an important role in the development of my ideas and practical experiments throughout my FMP, having had the opportunity to explore a range of sources. This began by visiting the Isle of Dogs exhibition as a way to look at stop motion animation, at an industry standard. It was here that I established my interest in the medium, and this sparked off a line of enquiry into my later stop motion developments and exploration into the claymation works of Aardman Studios.

My FMP is about exploring the potential of a walk cycle, but within that premise I’ve been able to explore a range of concepts and theories from exquisite corpse to the history of stop motion, the importance of drawing from life and discussed the wider context of animation. I feel that my research pool has been suitably diverse, with me picking from a range of books, websites, films and attending various exhibitions to explore a range of ideas, concepts and perspectives throughout. Most importantly, this project marks the first time I’ve conducted my own artist research, chatting with artists over email about their process, thoughts and getting feedback on my own work too.

Richard Williams has been the most influential to my project as a whole, I think - it’s his teachings in The Animator’s Survival Kit that fuelled my project concept. I’ve explored a range of styles and aesthetics over this FMP, from the loose, expressive and confident observational comics of Sam Elston to the iconic, cut out visual language of Saul Bass, but it’s these quotes that have underpinned my entire creative direction throughout the twelve weeks.

Finally, I think one of the most important research sources was my own short reel of walks. In the early stages of my project, I asked several of my peers to walk in-front of a camera in various ways, and from this reference I was able to draw from observation, sketching not only characters but identifying the actual mechanics of a walk cycle. Instead of copying from William’s reference, I was able to create my own key poses, through a digital rotoscoping process of drawing over each frame of film footage.

Through detailed blog posts, I have been able to present my research and analysis well. I’ve found that a blog is a brilliant way of presenting research, allowing for an in-depth discussion and reflection on concepts, theories and art that is able to evidence more of a critical perspective on the work I’m looking at in a visually pleasing manner.

My research interests and conceptual discussions have evolved and developed over the FMP - I think this is natural and almost necessary for a successful graphic arts project. It shouldn’t be a linear path - we should experiment, develop and grow as artists over the time frame and thus our project should do the same. I feel like I have worked efficiently through each week of the project, experimenting and refining practical outcomes from every session and pulling ideas from these responses and research to inspire new ones.

The diversity of my practical experimentation has been something I’ve put a focus on, exploring a variety of animation techniques and drawing mediums. The project began through stop motion cut out sequences, but since then I’ve explored traditional approaches to the medium, historical techniques such as the zoetrope and my practical experiments into stop motion, producing a puppet and several animations. Additionally to this, I’ve challenged myself to learn new digital processes, specifically Adobe Illustrator, Character Animator and After Effects. From this, I’ve gained and refined skills across a plethora of platforms and processes that will be extremely helpful as I develop as an animator in preparation for higher education.

As a process, building a stop motion puppet was a real challenge, sculpting the head and refining the piece took time and effort but it resulted in a successful outcome. In the learning stages, After Effects was very difficult to grasp, due to the technical concepts and basic mechanics of the software being completely different from everything I’ve used before, but arguably resulted in the most exciting pieces.

I feel like I’ve used my time well to develop a body of work, keeping to a pre-written time plan for the most part and staying on track throughout the entire twelve weeks. I’ve put a focus on organisation throughout this FMP, writing lists and daily plans via digital checklists and following on from the actions described in each blog post.

The strength of my creative decisions lies in the processes I was able to explore, challenging myself to work in 3D producing a stop motion puppet and learning new digital processes. The strength of my creative decisions lies in my understanding of what I’m good at, and what I’m passionate about. I think this plays a large role in the strengths of my FMP- the brief is designed around letting us take the wheel in terms of concept, research and practical work which allowed me to craft a graphic arts project that not only showcases my skills, but challenges myself to grow as an artist using processes and mediums I haven’t explored before.

I feel that my final sequence is a successful and exciting response to the ideas outlined in my project concept. My intention was to explore the potential of the traditional walk cycle in animation, and what this can communicate to the audience, creating my own exquisite corpse - a singular animated outcome with contrasting visual styles and characters. The reel is exactly that: a creative cocktail of animation techniques and styles, with a colourful cast of characters stepping into the next with smooth transitions.

I was able to establish a context successfully with my reel, through a combination of film and audio, producing a sequence that opens the piece showing animator Richard Williams at his desk, discussing the importance of a walk cycle in animation training. With this quick sequence, I’ve established the core concept of my project, and given the audience a clear reason as to why this project exists.

The choices I made when creating the final piece were effective, with the pieces I selected being a handful of my most successful outcomes, with an interesting performance, smooth animation and exciting character design. Whilst my experiments into stop motion were interesting, they didn’t fit within the reel I was assembling. My intention was to have it be purely a showcase of my greatest hits, and removing this sequence evidences my ability to consistently reconsider whilst I’m working: not being afraid of cutting work, in order to produce a final piece that’s up to a higher standard. In terms of presentation, I produced a final edit that successfully establishes a context for my project, and assembled a sequence that features exciting animation, distorted and dream-like audio and an imperfect, retro-inspired soundtrack resulting in an entertaining exquisite corpse.

To get an objective view on the success of my work, I asked a few of my peers for their opinions on my final reel, who mentioned how it’s an exciting demonstration of skill and a celebration of animation, learning the basics of the medium as described by industry professionals. They were able to get a context from my work, which was an important factor in the overall success of my project, to me. Tutor and peer discussion and comparison has been extremely influential to a critical understanding towards my final piece, and my project as a whole. I’ve been able to discuss with my tutor the successes of my project, and most importantly, how to improve and progress. Having a tutor with a history in the animation industry has allowed my work to have a more refined, polished finish thanks to an experience and knowledge that I wouldn’t have otherwise. Speaking with peers about my final piece allowed me to realise the appeal of my work, and fortunately, I’m in a class of students passionate in a range of graphic art specialisms, from graphic design, fashion, architecture and illustration meaning the feedback I’ve received is from a range of creative ideas and perspectives, allowing for more objective comments and criticism.

Whilst the work I’ve managed to produce in my final project is exciting and artistically challenging, there’s a few things that I would change had I more time. I’ve discussed how my project is based around a fundamental exercise in animation training, but I would have liked to use this premise to explore a wider theme and message. This is something that I mentioned on my blog, exploring how I could add a commercial application to my project through encouraging walking in young people. If I did have more time, I would have liked to explore this avenue in more depth, producing an advertisement using the same exquisite corpse technique, but possessing more of a linear narrative working on my ‘Get Walking” storyboard. Producing a promotional piece for a charity, or walking event would have allowed my work to have a greater value - possessing an actual real-world application and thus a place outside of this brief. Not only this, but challenging myself to explore a more diverse breadth of research interests would have given my project more of a critical perspective on graphic arts as a whole, rather than just focusing on animation.

Over my FMP, I’ve been able to explore the potential of a walk cycle in animation, using this premise as an opportunity to develop my skills across a plethora of animation techniques and drawing throughout. Most importantly, I’ve been able to challenge myself to learn and grow as an artist, building a stop motion puppet and learning new intensive digital processes that result in a refined, polished final piece. With all the ideas and concepts I’ve explored over this FMP, it was a challenge to juggle them all, but I feel like I’ve produced a final sequence which is not only a successful response to my initial project concept, but also an exciting body of work showcasing my skills in animation, reflecting the progress I’ve made during these brilliant last two years on the course.

Ext. Graphic Arts Class of 2016-18!

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womens-studies-degree-blog · 7 years

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Bisexuality as Paradox

March 2008

As the struggle to propel the LGBQTTI movement continues, the issue of bisexuality still emerges as the nexus of debate around questions of sexuality, identity and politics. The bisexual political movement seeks to fight the pervasive monosexual paradigm (B. Ross, SOCI 369 lecture, February 12, 2008), which restricts sexual identities to the rigid homosexual/heterosexual dichotomy and underlies much discrimination against bisexuals, otherwise known as biphobia. Before the 1980’s, sociologists trivialized the concept of bisexuality or omitted it from their studies of human sexualities altogether (B. Ross, SOCI 369 lecture, February 12, 2008). According to Becki Ross, recent decades have witnessed the emergence of anti-biphobic activism (SOCI 369 lecture, February 12, 2008), pointing to an increased understanding of bisexuality and a willingness to validate bisexual identities within both academia and everyday lived experience. In this paper I seek to examine the discourses and debates surrounding bisexuality, and the ways in which bisexuals formulate, negotiate and live out their identities. I argue that the discursive construction of bisexuality as a paradox creates both limitations and opportunities for bisexuals at both personal and political levels.

Popular perceptions of bisexuality highlight the discomfort felt by many both homosexual and heterosexual. Colloquial synonyms for bisexuality such as “sitting on the fence” and “batting for both teams” reveal assumptions that bisexuals are confused or undecided individuals who are somehow disloyal to a particular group. In an episode of the popular TV show Friends, Phoebe teaches a group of children about alternative sexual identities with a song. “Sometimes women love women,” she sings. “And sometimes men love men. And then there are bisexuals, but some people say they’re just kidding themselves” (“The One After the Superbowl Part 2”). Carrie Bradshaw of Sex and the City echoes this sentiment when she discovers that her boyfriend is bisexual and states: “I’m not even sure bisexuality exists. I think it’s just a layover on the way to Gaytown” (“Boy, Girl, Boy, Girl”). Queer television characters also express disapproval of bisexuality. An episode of The L Word demonstrates this when Alice, herself a bisexual, witnesses her lesbian friend preparing for a date with a man and proclaims, “Bisexuality is gross. I get it now” (“Losing the Light”).

These popular sentiments reflect academic and political biphobia and have surfaced in my personal experience. As someone who has identified as bisexual in the past but now prefers the term ‘queer,’ I am interested in the causes and practices of biphobia that render bisexuality such a deeply problematic identity category for so many people. When beginning my research for this paper, my girlfriend asked me what topic I had decided on. I told her I was researching bisexuality and she laughed. The lengthy and emotionally-charged debate that ensued secured my belief that biphobia, spurred by misunderstandings and misrepresentations of bisexuality, manifests in complex and contradictory ways. The articles I have chosen to examine thus expand upon this belief and contribute to an informed understanding of the highly contested identity category that is bisexuality.

Jonathan Alexander and Karen Yescavage’s article “Bi Media Visibility—The Pleasure and Pain of Chasing Amy: Analyzing Reactions to Blurred Identities and Sexualities” (2001) examines reactions to the 1997 film Chasing Amy. Because the film portrays purportedly bisexual characters in a positive light and engaged in complex relationships, Alexander and Yescavage (2001) argue that it serves as an important popular culture text for the visibility of bisexual identities (p. 118). Although the main character of the film, Alyssa, identifies as gay, she finds herself attracted to the male protagonist over the course of the story. Thus, the authors believe that the film offers a complex portrayal of fluid sexualities, problematizing the rigid gay/straight dichotomy underlying biphobic discourse (Alexander and Yescavage, 2001, p. 119).

Given this premise, Alexander and Yescavage (2001) explore their respondents’ various positive and negative reactions in attempt to identify key debates surrounding sexual identity. They divide respondents’ reactions into four broad categories. The first category, “Identification with Bi Female Representation (Excitement)” (Alexander and Yescavage, 2001, p. 120), describes those with positive reactions. These respondents felt that Chasing Amy validates their bisexual identity and serves as a “‘coming out’ story about bisexuality” (Alexander and Yescavage, 2001, p. 121). The second category of reactions is “Identification with Lesbian Community Representation (Frustration/Anger/Fear?)” (Alexander and Yescavage, 2001, p. 121). Here, respondents mostly felt that the film “‘is a humorless, dour, dreary dick-fantasy about the kind of cartoon lipstick lesbian that spoiled gen-X men think will fuck them if they just trim their goatees properly’” (Alexander and Yescavage, 2001, p. 122). While some lesbians in this category identified with the hostility sometimes faced by those who sleep with men, they still perceived Chasing Amy in a largely negative light (Alexander and Yescavage, 2001, p. 121).

Alexander and Yescavage (2001) then identify respondents who felt as though the film affirmed “fluid sexuality and sexual agency” (p. 124). Exploring the concept of fluid sexuality, the authors found that viewers characterized the sexuality of the film’s characters according to their own sexual fluidity; for example, bisexual respondents were more likely to characterize the ambiguous character Banky as bisexual or queer than were heterosexual respondents (Alexander and Yescavage, 2001, p. 127). Finally, Alexander and Yescavage (2001) distinguish reactions of “boredom/bitterness” (p. 127), mostly amongst gay/bi/queer men who felt that Chasing Amy offers a limited and negative snapshot of male sexualities (p. 129). The authors thus conclude that the multiple readings of Chasing Amy, especially within the LGBQ community, reveal the tensions surrounding the formulation of bisexual identities as both a personal validation and a political tool.

Alexander and Yescavage’s study succeeds in accounting for the multiple possible readings of Chasing Amy from a diverse sample in terms of gender and sexual identity. The authors acknowledge the various advantages and disadvantages of bisexual identity politics, allowing their research to raise the following new questions: “Are we fighting to see an identity represented? Or are we fighting for people’s right to love and self determine? And, most provocatively, must the two always be at odds with each other?” (Alexander and Yescavage, 2001, p. 132) These concluding questions reflect the various positions and needs of the LGBQ community.

Alexander and Yescavage accomplish their revelatory findings by using open-ended questionnaires that allow respondents to explain their unique perceptions. This qualitative method thus ensures the validity of their findings regarding the complex ways in which people negotiate sexual identity. However, respondents’ feelings and opinions are filtered through the framework of Chasing Amy as a text. The authors fail to account for the limitations of using this film as a queer text; a more nuanced reading of the movie might reveal heterosexist ideologies underlying the script that need to be problematized when attempting to represent bisexuality. One of the authors, with a background in literary and textual analysis (Alexander and Yescavage, 2001, p. 119), certainly could have acknowledged this. Furthermore, because their sample includes no mention of trans people, Alexander and Yescavage contribute to the general invisibility of trans issues in academic and popular discussions of sexuality. The opinions of trans people who identify as bisexual would have lent even more valuable insight into Hollywood representations of bisexuality. Alexander and Yescavage’s study ultimately explicates the ambivalent feelings many people experience towards the concept of bisexuality as well as possibilities for new ways of identifying.

Christian Klesse’s study “Bisexual Women, Non-Monogamy and Differentialist Anti-Promiscuity Discourses” (2005) examines the experiences of bisexual women in non-monogamous relationships and the challenges they face in a society rife with sexual double standards that render them multiply stigmatized. Seeking to examine discourses, debates and power inequalities surrounding bisexual practices and politics (Klesse, 2005, p. 446), Klesse employs qualitative research methods to inform his research on bisexual women in the United Kingdom.

Klesse (2005) argues that the hegemonic construction of bisexuality as non-monogamous by necessity, while true for many bisexuals, underlies much anti-bisexual discourse (p. 449). He then explains how anti-promiscuity discourses reflect the social policing of female sexuality, particularly that of queer and non-white women (Klesse, 2005, p. 450). Most women in his study feel that sexual double standards usually do not permeate their bisexual community or affect their personal, sexual lives (Klesse, 2005, p. 451); sometimes, bisexual men treat them as promiscuous sexual objects (Klesse, 2005, p. 452). The women of color Klesse (2005) interviewed generally regard race issues as a personal matter of coming out to their community (p. 453). One woman, however, felt that white lesbian culture in the UK promotes racialized norms for sexual identity that exclude women of color (Klesse, 2005, p. 454), offering a more political view of racialized discourse in the bisexual community. Klesse (2005) argues that “the problem that the bisexual movement in the UK is predominantly white is aggravated by the fact that the readiness to confront issues regarding ethnocentrism and racism is not highly evolved in its cultural spaces” (p. 454).

Klesse then goes on to examine biphobia within the lesbian community, highlighting many key debates stemming from the gay liberation movement about the problematic nature of bisexuality. He finds that lesbians often deploy anti-promiscuity discourse, linked with beliefs that sleeping with bisexuals places them at a higher risk of contracting HIV/AIDS, to discriminate against bisexual women both politically and as potential partners (Klesse, 2005, p. 457). Klesse (2005) concludes that bisexual non-monogamous women employ various strategies to assert their sexual agency in the face of hegemonic discourses that discredit their identity (p. 459). He argues that the “the intersecting discourses constitutive of gendered, classed, racialized and sexual differences” (Klesse, 2005, p. 459) shape the varying degrees of danger that different women face in expressing their sexuality.

The article’s greatest strength is its contribution to an academic understanding of how discourse specifically impacts lived experience. Moreover, Klesse’s examination of the complex intersecting forms of oppression illustrates how various social factors contribute to the stigmatization of bisexual non-monogamy. One can then employ this knowledge to combat biphobia. Furthermore, because this political struggle relies on the recognition and validation of bisexual identities, Klesse also succeeds in defining bisexuality on the respondents’ terms. Many academics perpetuate stereotypes of bisexuality as ambiguous or confusing by equating the experiences of research participants who do not identify as bisexual with those of self-identified bisexuals. For Klesse (2005), “self-declared identity and conscious references to bisexuality by [his] research partners provide the basis of [his] discussion of bisexuality” (p. 447). This approach positively contributes to bisexuals’ endeavors to politically organize.

Klesse’s relatively small, mostly white sample is limiting; although he attempts to address issues of racial discrimination, a larger sample of non-white participants would have expanded this topic. Similarly, the study would benefit from a larger sample to further illuminate the diversity of experiences with bisexual non-monogamy.

Finally, although Klesse acknowledges that he researches bisexual non-monogamous men elsewhere, an integration of the knowledge gleaned from that study would prove useful here; because he examines sexual double standards in this article, a comparison with bisexual non-monogamous men’s experiences would further explicate this issue. Nonetheless, Klesse’s study serves as an important source of understanding about the constructions of bisexual non-monogamy that found biphobic discourses and the ways in which these discourses bear negatively on the lives of bisexual non-monogamous women.

The article “Bisexuals at Midlife: Commitment, Salience, and Identity” (2001), by Douglas Pryor, Martin Weinberg and Colin Williams, discusses a life-course study of bisexual men and women in San Francisco. Following interviews conducted in 1983 and 1988, the authors present their findings about the same respondents’ experiences in 1996. The study seeks to determine the effects of time and aging on the identities, practices and sexualities of bisexuals, accounting for changing social factors such as the AIDS crisis and the queer movement. Pryor, Weinberg and Williams (2001) employ face-to-face in-depth interviews and closed-end questionnaires (p. 185) to examine changes and similarities across time in respondents’ sexual involvement and direction, ties with the bisexual community, and self-identity. Finally, the authors wish to consider some of the limitations of a constructionist approach. According to them, “a focus on flux is a much-needed corrective, but this does not eliminate the need to examine the degree to which sexual-preference identities can exhibit coherence and stability” (Pryor et al., 2001, p. 182).

In regards to sexual involvement, Pryor, Weinberg and Williams (2001) found that sexual activity had decreased for most respondents and that they attributed this decrease to general aging factors such as health problems, menopause, and a decrease in energy (p. 188). Women were more likely to feel less sexually attractive as they aged, while one man found that “as you get older you get status as a ‘daddy’ and younger men find you attractive” (Pryor et al., 2001, p. 190).

Because of decreased sexual activity overall and a common fear of AIDS, respondents had become less bisexually active than in previous years, with half of them currently monosexually active (Pryor et al., 2001, p. 191). Those who now engaged in exclusively heterosexual behavior attributed the change to factors such as decreased exposure to queer communities, pressures to conform to heteronormative expectations of family and “settling down,” and fear of AIDS (Pryor et al., 2001, p. 193). Those who now solely practiced homosexual behavior largely cited the decrease of bisexual communities as a reason for pursuing specifically homosexual relations (Pryor et al., 2001, p. 194). While women found same-sex encounters more difficult to pursue, men found them easier (Pryor et al., 2001, p. 194); conversely, fear of contracting HIV/AIDS from men encouraged both men and women to seek female partners.

Pryor, Weinberg and Williams’ third important finding was the overall decrease in bisexual community involvement. All respondents significantly decreased their involvement for various reasons: respondents settled into monogamous relationships and families, some moved away from urban centers, several bisexual centers closed down, and the young queer movement largely replaced the bisexual movement of the respondents’ generation (Pryor et al., 2001, pp. 196-8). The middle-aged bisexuals admired the young queer movement, believing that it promotes inclusiveness and solidarity (Pryor et al., 2001, p. 197).

Finally, Pryor, Weinberg and Williams (2001) probe the pivotal question of sexual identity and find that four-fifths of the sample still identified as bisexual in mid-life (p. 199). According to the authors, this finding demonstrates that “the bisexual identity can be stable and that people who self-define as bisexual are not necessarily ‘in transition’ toward another sexual preference identity” (Pryor et al., 2001, p. 199). For the most part, respondents felt more secure about their sexual identity as they aged; although many now behaved monosexually, their continuing attraction to both sexes affirmed their bisexuality (Pryor et al., 2001, p. 200). Some respondents now identified as queer, one identified as “intersexed gay,” and some rejected labeling altogether (Pryor et al., 2001, p. 201).

Pryor, Weinberg and Williams (2001) conclude that the identity category of bisexuality is fluid, sex-positive and inclusive, and can be determined by factors such as attraction and not necessarily practice (p. 202). The stability of the bisexual identity over the course of respondents’ lives challenges postmodern, constructionist queer theory; “the respondents did not experience themselves as fragmented or incoherent but rather as being grounded in one body that exists over time” (Pryor et al., 2001, p. 205). This study thus validates the experiences of bisexuals who rely on the label as the truest descriptor of their identities.

The life-course approach of this qualitative research provides much-needed insight on sexual identity formation. Because bisexuals are often perceived as undecided or confused, the study of middle-aged bisexuals who consistently maintain their identities as such proves a valuable source to debunk this myth. Pryor, Weinberg and Williams’ diverse sample of men, women and trans people further informs an in-depth understanding of lived bisexuality.

Unfortunately, all participants of this study are white, middle-class people and the authors fail to account for race and class. Because sexuality, gender and age intersect with race and class in inextricable ways, Pryor, Weinberg and Williams could have contributed to understandings of bisexuality more significantly with an exploration of these issues. Finally, the glaring flaw of this study is its sample source; members of a Bisexual Center in 1983, the bisexuals depicted here fail to represent the identity negotiations and experiences of the many bisexuals who remain alone in their identification. A similar life-course study of bisexuals uninvolved with bisexual communities or urban centers would further expand our understanding of bisexual identity politics.

The findings gleaned from these three studies illustrate how, as a phenomenon, bisexuality finds itself subject to discourses constructing it as a paradox. The paradoxical nature of bisexuality then creates obstacles and opportunities for bisexuals that they negotiate throughout their lived experiences. In The History of Sexuality (1980), Michel Foucault explains how the discursive construction of human sexuality serves as a tool for dominant forces to exercise power over individuals through moral regulation (p. 32). When various religious, medical and moral discourses of the nineteenth century constructed “deviant” sexualities as abnormal and the homosexual as a species, “the machinery of power…established [this whole alien strain] as a raison d’être and a natural order of disorder” (Foucault, 1980, p. 44). The widely accepted heterosexual/homosexual divide existing today reflects the naturalization of these categories of sexuality and reveals the source of confusion surrounding bisexuality.

Today we see the pathologization and discrediting of bisexuals operating in a similar fashion to that of the homosexual during the nineteenth century. Klesse’s examination of anti-promiscuity discourse reveals how bisexuals must combat arguments historically used to oppress women and homosexuals. This conundrum raises the question of the power of naming, and whether or not the term ‘bisexual’ helps or hinders the goal of subverting sexual binaries. Alyssa of Chasing Amy never calls herself a bisexual, yet respondents of Alexander and Yescavage’s study identified with her sexual fluidity. Those who did not expressed outrage at her disloyalty to the gay identity. These findings highlight the paradox of bisexuality whereby claiming the identity undermines the goal of sexual fluidity while the failure to name it creates confusion and invisibility.

In “Ambiguous Identity in an Unambiguous Sex/Gender Structure: The Case of Bisexual Women” (1996), Amber Ault offers one potential solution to the paradox: queer/nonqueer or bisexual/monosexual divisions, she argues, can “displace the hetero/homo binary” (p. 461). According to Ault (1996), these new configurations might “offer prospects for the redistribution of privilege” (p. 461). Indeed, some middle-aged bisexuals in Pryor, Weinberg and Williams’ study now identified with the more inclusive queer movement. Most respondents, however, continued to claim a bisexual identity. For these men and women, identifying and organizing as bisexuals proved validating and useful both politically and personally. As Klesse acknowledges when he defines bisexuality by the individual’s choice to self-identify, we can no longer question the existence or validity of a sexual identity claimed by so many like those in Pryor, Weinberg and Williams’ article, even as we navigate the many questions and debates surrounding it.

The research I have presented in this paper raises new questions to probe in future research on bisexuality. The varied responses to the film Chasing Amy described in Alexander and Yescavage’s study led me to wonder how audiences would react to the film had it been about a gay man falling for a straight woman. This hypothetical scenario, paired with the different responses from lesbians, gay men and bisexual women and men, highlights questions of gender intersecting with issues of sexuality. In the same Sex and the City episode mentioned earlier, Carrie remarks, “I did the ‘date the bisexual guy’ thing in college, but in the end, they all ended up with men.” Samantha responds, “So did the bisexual women” (“Boy, Girl, Boy, Girl”). This popular stereotype illustrates gendered assumptions regarding bisexuality. Similarly, Klesse’s research reveals sexual double standards that stigmatize bisexual men and women differently. Pryor, Weinberg and Williams’ study of middle-aged bisexuals challenges these gendered constructions in various ways. Thus, future research might explicitly examine the multiple intersections of gender and sexuality to better understand how both are socially constructed and consequently shape perceptions of bisexuality.

None of the articles I have included in my research explicitly deal with issues of race. Although studies of the implications of bisexuality for racialized identities exist, I would further examine this intersection within the context of questions raised by the articles I draw from here. Firstly, I question the reasons for the large absence of non-white respondents from these studies. Secondly, Klesse briefly mentions his respondents’ tendency to read issues of race on a personal, rather than political, level. Given that bisexuality exists as an ambiguous hybrid of a hegemonic dualism, the study of hybrid racial identities as analogous and related to bisexuality might answer important questions regarding race, sexuality and power.

After a tearful and convoluted discussion, my girlfriend and I finally resolved our dispute. Although we discovered a conceptual common ground on which to make peace, we now jokingly refer to one another as the bisexual and the biphobic lesbian. This tentative resolution mirrors the ambivalent position that bisexuality occupies in theoretical, social and political realms. The very occurrence of our argument, however, suggests that bisexuality will continue to problematize and therefore enrich current understandings of human sexuality by virtue of its paradoxical ambivalence.

References

Alexander, J. & Yescavage, K. (2001). Bi Media Visibility—The Pleasure and Pain of Chasing Amy: Analyzing Reactions to Blurred Identities and Sexualities. Journal of Bisexuality, 1(4), 116-135.

Ault, A. (1996). Ambiguous Identity in an Unambiguous Sex/Gender Structure: The case of bisexual women. Sociological Quarterly, 37(3), 449-463.

Bicks, J. (Writer). & Thomas, P. (Director). (2000). Boy, Girl, Boy, Girl. [Television series episode]. In J. Bicks, C. Chupack, M. P. King, & J. Melfi (Executive Producers), Sex and the City. Home Box Office (HBO).

Crane, D. & Kauffman, M. (Writers). & Lembeck, M. (Director). (1996). The One After the Superbowl: Part 2. [Television series episode]. In K. Bright, D. Crane & M. Kauffman (Executive Producers), Friends. Warner Bros. Television.

Foucault, M. (1980). The History of Sexuality, Volume I. New York: Vintage Books.

Klesse, C. (2005). Bisexual Women, Non-Monogamy and Differentialist Anti-Promiscuity Discourses. Sexualities, 8(4), 445-464.

Pryor, D. W., Weinberg, M. S., & Williams, C. J. (2001). Bisexuals at Midlife: Commitment, Salience, and Identity. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 30(2), 180-208.

Troche, R. (Writer & Director). (2006). Losing the Light. [Television series episode]. In I. Chaiken & R. Lam (Executive Producers), The L Word. Hollywood: Showtime Networks Inc.

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