This is a question I replied to here. People asked me to post it as text so they could reblog it, so here it is :)Hi, I’ve just recently stumbled upon your blog, needless to say – I love it. I am a bisexual male, and through reading a few of your blog entries on various reports and statistics, I have found that there is a lack of information on bisexual males. I was just wondering what your take is on the issue of the ‘invisibility’ bisexual males, especially in media and scientific findings.Anonymous
Thanks! :)
I feel that the topic of bisexual men is very complex. I’ve been thinking about it quite a bit, by the way, because the next book chapter I’m about to write is about this very topic. Here are a few ideas off the top of my head:
- Bisexual men, and male bisexuality are routinely erased and denied out of existence, making bi men perhaps one of the most closeted populations among LGBT’s. (Note that I mean that people are pushed into the closet as a survival technique and as a way of maintaining relative safety. I do not mean that “bi men are a bunch of closet cases”.)
- The only contexts where males bisexuality does appear in society/media are sex and the medical field (for example, porn, research on sexual behaviour, AIDS and STI research). This means that male bisexuality is perceived as inherently sexual(ized) and as a medical danger.
- Male bisexuality also serves as a venue for racism, since it’s often coupled with reports about men of color “on the down-low”. This means that male bisexuality is also racialized. Bi men of color are perceived again as closet cases, hypersexual and/or infectious. Bisexuality is used as a way to point out imagined “homophobia” in communities of color, since bi men of color are depicted as people who are “too cowardly” to identify as gay. All of these are signs of racism coupled with biphobia.
- I also think bisexuality gives bi men an opportunity to oppose patriarchy, heterosexism and monosexism, and that male bisexuality can be employed in fabulously subversive ways. Specifically I think feminism and male bisexuality have a lot to talk about :)
Hope I helped :)
Charter School Teaching Nahuatl & Danza Faces New Criticism
The LA Times ran a story Sunday on Academia Semillas del Pueblo, a Los Angeles charter school teaching Nahuatl and Danza Azteca as part of its curriculum titled “LAUSD charter elementary with low test scores gets a reprieve.” The article mainly focused on how the school has narrowly avoided closure while setting the goal of making language and culture accessible to its students. However, towards the end, the Times quotes Judicial Watch, an organization that calls itself a “public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption.”
Here’s the quote: “The school ‘is not much more than a training ground for the Mexican reconquista movement, which seeks to conquer the American Southwest — by force or by ballot box — and return it to Mexico,’ concluded Judicial Watch…”
Why give such a misinformed group legitimacy, LA Times? Not only is there no such thing as a “Mexican reconquista movement,” but as pointed out in the article, such rhetoric has led to actual death threats.
Image: Juana de la Cruz Farias, a teacher at Academia Semillas del Pueblo, teaches Nahuatl, an indigenous language of Mexico, to Anthony Rayo.
Photo Credit: Gary Friedman, Los Angeles Times
(Source: moshita)
playin’ with makeup instead of working on my papers
Photos from Wednesday’s I AM Rally at UCI.
Thank you to all who participated. This is not the last time you’ll see us or hear us.
Take notice.All kinds of yes for dis!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
(Source: pehdtsckjmba)
Featured Interview: Jackie Anderson, 69
From The Untitled Black Lesbian Elder Project documentary, by tonia.m.
(Source: pastelfluff)
