Identity plus? Bi-curiosity, sexual adventurism and the boundaries of ‘straight’ sexual practices and identities

Abstract

This article reflects on interview and survey data from a study of non-gay-and-lesbian-identified sex-partiers in New South Wales, Australia, to consider the ways that participants in ‘alternative’ sex sub-cultures (such as BDSM/fetish and swinging) challenge conventional understandings of heterosexual, homosexual and bisexual identity. It seeks to unpack the various meanings that ‘sexual identity’ might hold for those who are both strongly heterosexual and strongly same-sex-attracted. Drawing on queer theorists such as Sara Ahmed (2006) and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (1990, 1994) and Margaret Robinson’s (2013) framework of ‘strategic identity’, it considers the ways that research participants who express strong, simultaneous affiliations with heterosexual, homosexual and bisexual identities might (productively) trouble academic research and sexual health policy frameworks.

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