A review by btlitell
Bi: The Hidden Culture, History, and Science of Bisexuality by Julia Shaw

challenging emotional informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

5.0

Once again, I picked up a nonfiction book and have proved my rule of "I so rarely read nonfiction" while I also enjoyed the read, learned a lot, and immediately bought the paperback. Actually, to be correct, I purchased the paperback before the audiobook finished, so that may speak more to this book than anything else I could say about it.

We need deeds not words.

Read. This. Book.

It doesn't matter what your identity is, how you fit into the puzzle of humanity, or anything else. Read it. There is so much to learn within these pages that I think everyone would benefit from it.

There are some tough parts. One in particular brought tears to my eyes while I was driving to work (a highway on ramp is not the best place to get teary-eyed, but it's not the worst place I suppose).

As a friend of mine, a Black gay man in his sixties, recently told me when we were discussing his life during the AIDS crisis, “I have whole phonebooks of people I lost.” He said it so matter-of-factly. Every time I think of this conversation a profound sadness overcomes me. The unfairness of it, the tragedy. When I meet gay people now, and specifically gay men who are old enough to have been teenagers or adults through the 1980s and the 1990s, I have an immediate sense of respect. It’s possible that this is a similar feeling that others get when they meet a war veteran. Many of our queer elders fought for their lives, and for our rights, and only some survived to tell the tale.

As a veteran, this correlation struck me as so profound, because I often see older vets while I'm at the VA and wonder how they are holding up. I hadn't previously made the connection that that same feeling not only can exist in other social groups but so strongly does that it's that impactful.

To exclude bisexuality from discussions of history, culture, or science is to belittle the human capacity for love and attraction. It also means that people with bisexual desires are often left abandoned in their search for a place in the world.