Non-fiction book review: Bi (2022) by Julia Shaw.

For today's post I am reviewing Bi by Julia Shaw. This was actually an amazing book to read. It explores everything about bisexuality. What I loved especially was how she started with the origins of bisexuality and who created different ideas which have shaped how bisexuality exists within our current, modern-day society. The other thing I loved was how Julia Shaw emphasised the fact that people in the bi community have faced prejudices. We have faced prejudices from those who are heterosexual AKA straight and gay or lesbian people. It is good that she highlights this. Just because bi+ people are a part of the LGBTQIA+ community, it does not mean we are fully accepted by everyone.

The reason I refer to the community as 'bi+' is to include a multitude of plurisexuals and pluriromantics. These include those who identify as bi, omni, pan or poly for example. Here in the book Shaw mentions other types of plurisexuals. Plurisexuals are just people who have sexual attraction to more than one gender. People in the bi+ community can use bi as an overarching label but have a more specific and niche identity such as omnisexual. This is when someone has sexual attraction to people of all genders but gender is important to them. This is different to pansexuals who are attracted to people regardless of gender. Sometimes a person who is omnisexual might only find they are interested in men for instance.

Back to Julia Shaw's book... Her book takes these prejudices, explaining why they happened and how we can combat them. She looks at how bisexuality might be seen by others who do not identify in this way. She also establishes that some people can face prejudice in more than one way. Examples she includes are being black, transgender and disabled. This was a point that I thought was important to mention. A lot of people know that some groups in society such as bisexuals face prejudice and how their lives can be harder. She examines the roots of hatred and discrimination, pointing out where rights were improved for those who are LGBTQIA+ and where they were weakened. Then there is the impact to bisexual people based on these. One thing that I never realised was how bisexuals were often seen as ‘catching AIDs in the kinky homosexual world and bringing it to the respectable heterosexual world.’¹

To discover that bisexual people were considered as the link or rather bridge between gay and heterosexual people, making people sick is horrible! The biphobia that existed still exists to this day though.

Julia Shaw offers a focus on how there is no way to look bisexual and that people often get seen as heterosexual or gay/lesbian. She questions notions about the way that bisexual people are meant to look, and what they are meant to do. She challenges how people are meant to prove they are bisexual, particularly if they are only dating one person or have only dated people of one type of gender identity. She even includes a debate on whether bisexual people want threesomes. The point is that with everything she illustrates, she does with common sense, clarity and detail; she provides evidence and reason.

For that I love this book a great deal. Shaw never failed to consider an important idea or well-informed argument. Even when there were sections which were a challenge to read because they made me sad, even teary at times, I still acknowledged its true worth. This is a book worthy of any bookshelf and especially an LGBTQIA+ bookshelf. I loved reading the book, with it bringing me endless joy as well as sadness. It is a book that I strongly recommended and am giving this a 10/10.


Until next time,


Thomas (they/them).


Footnotes:

¹ Julia Shaw, Bi, (Canongate, 2022), 52.


Bibliography:

Shaw, Julia. Bi: The hidden, culture, history and science of bisexuality. Canongate, 2022.

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