Women in Relationships with Bisexual Men: Bi Men by Women

269 Pages·2016·3.586 MB·English

by  Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli

Women in Relationships with Bisexual Men

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Women in Relationships with Bisexual Men
Bi Men By Women
Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli
co-researched with Sara Lubowitz
LEXINGTON BOOKS
Lanham • Boulder • New York • London

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Published by Lexington Books
An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
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Copyright © 2016 by Lexington Books
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage
and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Control Number: 2015952401
ISBN: 978-0-7391-3457-3 (cloth : alk. paper)
eISBN: 978-0-7391-3459-7
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—
Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Printed in the United States of America

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From Maria:
To Mr and Mrs Queer…
from Mardi Gras to Sublime Point…
he was the Dancing Queen and the English Patient
she was the Lilith and the Naomi (no me, name me, know me)
I thank you all
From Sara:
To my late mother Susan Thomas for the love she gave me from the time I was born to the time that she died. She
made me, me. Thanks Mum.
And to Mark, you know why.
And to my two girls who are great

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Contents
Acknowledgments
PART I: INTRODUCTION
1 “Outside Belonging”: An Introduction to the Women, their Men, and the Research
2 “Border Women and Their Border Men”: Some Theories, Definitions, and Debates Framing the
Research
3 “You know, the old Kinsey scale”: Women Talk about their Partners’ Bisexualities
4 “I Have A Sexuality Too”: Women Discussing their Own Sexualities
PART II: THE JOURNEYS
5 “Starting Out Knowing”: Negotiating the Beginning of the Relationship
6 “Changing Course Midstream”: From Closet to Confrontation
7 “We’ve Arrived Where We Started and Know the Place for the First Time”: Women Reflecting on
‘Staying the Course’ or ‘Splitting Up’
PART III: MAPPING THE LANDSCAPE
8 “New Rules, No Rules, Old Rules or Our Rules”: Women Designing MOREs with their Partners
9 “The Problem Is That He’s A Man, Not That He’s Bisexual”: Women Discussing Masculinity, Misogyny,
Privilege, and Power
10 “What Do We Tell The Kids?”: Women Talk about Bisexual Fathers
11 “Spreading Disease With the Greatest of Ease”: Negotiating Sexual Health Issues
PART IV: BORDER DWELLING AS OUTSIDERS BELONGING
12 “Minute by Minute Maneuvering”: Navigating the Heteroworld
13 “Ewww, Girl Germs”: Women’s Experiences and Perceptions of Homonormativity
14 “The Priest Told Him to Marry Me and He’d Go Straight”: Bordering Religion and Spirituality in
MOREs
15 “It’s A Matter of Family Honor and Shame”: Negotiating Ethnic and Racial Identities and Community
Codes
16 “When Your Relationship Isn’t Recognized by Relationship Services”: Misrepresentations and Erasures in
Health Services
PART V: NOT JUST BELONGING BUT BLOOMING IN THE BORDERLANDS
17 “A Door that hasn’t been Opened”: Women’s Final Words for Future Women
References
Index
About the Author

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Acknowledgments
This book would not have been possible without the women who lived and loved, laughed and cried, and then
laughed and cried again as they opened their hearts and minds and their worlds to us. In particular, we honour
the women who have died since the project, including Alice and her partner Paul, Brenda and Soulla
(pseudonyms), and Brenda’s partner Edward (pseudonym).
We also wish to honour the supportive bisexual men in these women’s lives, and send our heartfelt hope for
peace and consolation to those men who wreaked havoc in women’s lives. We know the world which forced
you to hurt yourself, and thus hurt those who loved you, and we hope this book is a step in shifting that
devastating heteropatriarchal and biphobic framework.
Our huge thanks and respect to Fritz Klein (1932–2006) who initiated, inspired, and encouraged so many of
us with his intellect, wit and passion. We wish you were alive to read this book as one of many legacies to your
work.
Other Australian colleagues who have supported us with their conversation, research and activism include
Graham McKay, Kirsten McLean, Wayne Roberts, Glen Vassallo, and Michael Wynter. We also send our
appreciation and admiration to all the Bisexual Groups in the world, and their leaders such as Meg John
Barker, Sheela Lambert, Robyn Ochs and Ron Suresha, whose activism and passion have nourished us along
this journey.
To the patient and unwaveringly supportive publishers at Lexington Books, who allowed deadlines to come
and go: Michael Sisskin, Jana Hodges-Kluck, Joseph Parry, and Brighid Stone. And to Anita Singh and crew
at Deanta Global Publishing Services for patiently and meticulously checking the text, creating the index and
converting the manuscript into a book!
Maria also wishes to thank Adrian Kelly from Transcripts Plus, Agnes Lichtor and Rebecca Sion for
sensitive transcription of the interviews. And to Rob Chiarolli for patiently doing fiddly manuscript
formatting. Finally, to Dr. Elyse Warner, who took the time to cast the last editorial/pruning eye over this
manuscript. Your fresh approach was the last much needed pit-stop!
A special thank you goes to Bryan Mooney who discovered Edward Burne-Jones’ “Garden of Pan” with
Maria at the National Gallery of Victoria.
Maria sends huge bacis to her family and friends, her family of friends, and her friends in family; to all her
loved ones for patience, love, support, food and fun.
This project was begun with a Deakin University Faculty Grant at a time when Australian universities had
not increasingly become corporatized technocratic Kafkaesque places. This book has increasingly been slowed
down over the years and much of it was written between midnight and 3am when those hours could not be
found during the day. I thank those leaders and colleagues in my university and others who have had the
courage and conviction to maintain the focus on education, not on bureaucratisation. In particular, I wish to
honor Teresa Capetola, Professor Raewyn Connell, Matthew Ebden, Dr. Jess Heerde, Shalika Hegde,
Professor Wayne Martino, Professor Baden Offord and Professor Bob Pease. I also wish to honour my PhD
students, past and present, for the challenges, camaraderie and passion to make academia socially useful.
Finally, as this book enters its final stages of launching into the world to hopefully do some queering good,
Maria is mourning the death of David Bowie (1947–2016). She sends her deep love and gratitude to her
“sexy-smart starman” who landed in her life in 1972 when she was a 12 year-old alien, queering/clearing her
vision of genders, sexualities, colonialism and cultures, and initiating a lifelong “loving the alien” in herself and
others.
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Part I
INTRODUCTION
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Chapter 1
“Outside Belonging”
An Introduction to the Women, their Men, and the Research
This is the first time I’ve been able to talk to anybody. I need to do this . . . and the prospect of having a
whole lot of information about other women who have been in similar situations is really great for me.
(Gerry)
Having lived with Gennaro I see all the little nastiness that he faces, the confusions in the world, all
these preconceptions that people have. I notice that it really cuts him, like badly. Whatever I can do to
prevent that I am wanting to do. (Lizz)
I think it’s important to acknowledge what I’ve gone through. My journey was a very painful experience
on lots of levels. (Nirupa)
The above quotes are from three out of 78 Australian women who participated in this research project,
having been or currently in a relationship with a bisexual man. They provide a small but powerful insight into
the many reasons why women wanted to participate in this project, as well as giving us a glimpse into lives,
intimacies, relationships and families that span the gamut from extremely oppressive to extremely liberating.
The women are culturally and geographically diverse, ranging from the ages of 19 to 65. They are in
monogamous, open, and polyamorous relationships with bisexual-identifying and/or bisexual-behaving men.
Some of these women are mothers, some are grandmothers. Some identify as bisexual or lesbian, some as
heterosexual, while others refuse to categorize their own sexualities. Some women entered the relationship
never imagining their partners would one day ‘come out’ or be ‘found out’ to be bisexual, and thus began
mapping a terrain they found alien and terrifying. Some women entered the relationship knowing their
partners were bisexual and began to navigate their journey through both exhilarating and exhausting territory.
Indeed, a partner’s ‘disclosure’ or ‘discovery’ raised issues of closeting and coming out for the women
themselves in relation to ‘who to tell’ such as their children, families, friends, and work colleagues. For other
women, being in a relationship with a bisexual man meant navigating a route through sometimes converging,
sometimes conflicting communities, such as straight friendships, gay communities, and ethnic and religious
communities.
In this book, some women express much anger and grief over having their lives turned upside down by the
betrayal and deception of their husbands. Other women feel strong and confident, adamantly stating that they
would never be in a relationship with a heterosexual man after having experienced greater emotional depth,
sexual intimacy, and equitable gender relations with a bisexual man. Indeed, some women are not concerned
with the way their partners perform their sexuality, but are very concerned if their partners perform their
masculinity in traditional patriarchal or misogynist ways. Some women found their own sexualities and
femininities shutting down or being repressed and dismissed, while others found their sexualities and
femininities flourishing and freed to explore and expand.
Some women found themselves dealing with STIs and HIV/AIDS, and/or a range of mental and emotional
health issues, and subsequent associations with a range of health and counselling services. Other women were
already living with chronic illnesses and disabilities. And there were some women who described themselves as
physically, emotionally and mentally healthy and happy with their lives and relationships.
Given the above overview of the range of women’s experiences and perspectives, Probyn’s term, “outside
belonging” or “inbetween categories of specificity” (1996: 9), is applicable to the women in our research and
their bisexual male partners. These relationships provide insights into the border existences, boundary
demarcations, devastating oppressions, exhilarating affirmations, and innovative negotiations of the women
and their partners in order to construct or dismantle, maintain or regain healthy sexual, emotional, and social
relationships. Their mixed-orientation relationships will from now on be abbreviated as MOREs in this book
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