Bi Lives: Bisexual Women Tell Their Stories

This was an interesting book, though a bit outdated since it was published in 1999. Kata Orndorff presents 18 interviews she did with bi women about their lives before and after coming out as bi. There is an interesting cross section of younger and older women, disabled, normal weight and those that identified as fat, etc. Unfortunately there are no African American women in the book since as Orndorff says right at the beginning, they did not want their stories told.She asks pretty much the same questions to all the women, family background, when did you become aware of your sexuality, sexual experiences with both men and women, how do your family and friends handle the knowledge your bisexual, if in fact they know, etc. She also asks if they are feminists, how they get along with the lesbians they know (are they accepted, shunned, etc), and do bisexuals have any political say or influence. What makes this book interesting is most of the women came of age during the 70s and 80s so they were there for the sexual revolution as well as the AIDS crisis. This definitely had an impact on their lives, probably an impact we don't see today.Most of the women she interview were from the San Francisco Bay area so there really isn't a cross section of the country represented here. Because of that you see a lot of SF's radical influence and openness. Reading about women from the south or midwest would have been interesting because there would have been a much different collection of ideas I think.All in all its a good book, mostly from an historical perspective because it shows bisexuals coming into their own and becoming more open about their sexuality. I definitely recommend it since there isn't a lot of books about bisexuals on the market.

There is a brief history of bisexuality and a nice introduction to the stories as well as the personal story of the interviewer. Some stories are far better than others. They're mostly written by caucasian women since people of colour did not want to have their stories included. It would've been nice to read about bisexuality from diverse women, but I could relate to a couple of people's stories. There are some mistakes in some places, but I still understood what they said. I appreciate their honesty and courage. In addition, there are important tips about having safe sex towards the end of the book, which is helpful to me. I recommend this book to people who are struggling with their sexuality as well as people who enjoy reading.

The stories are really good and has opened my eyes, significantly.I'll say, though... There are a lot of typos and other grammatical errors.

I was curious about the topic of this book. I found the book personal, informative and easy to read. I really liked it. In my opinion it was very well written.

In "Bi Lives: Bisexual Women Tell Their Stories ", Kata Orndoff interviews a diverse group of bisexual women about their sexual identities and experiences, challenging the bigotry and myths perpetuated by both the radical right and sadly enough, certain elements of cultural feminism. How does biphobia manifest itself in the lives of bisexual women? Just as bi men have been scapegoated for transmitting hiv/aids into the female heterosexual population, bisexual women have been similarly blamed for bringing hiv/aids into the lesbian community (an insidious variation of the 1970's idea of bisexual women contaminating the lesbian community with "male energy".) Moreover, bisexual women are often told that they are actually confused lesbians (or confused heterosexuals), that they are lesbians trying to maintain some level of heterosexual privilege, that they are anti-feminist for sleeping with men, or that their bisexuality is an expression of "false consciousness" which could be overcome with the proper lesbian feminist indoctrination. As independent female sexuality is generally demonized in our sexist, erotophobic society, bisexual women are furthermore simply dismissed or pathologized. For feminists, lgbt activists, bi-curious individuals, and bisexual allies interested in issues of female sexual autonomy, this is an interesting text. Especially useful are the safer sex guidelines provided by Robyn Ochs. That said, I do wish that Orndoff would have interviewed at least one bisexual transgendered woman, but despite this oversight, this is anyway a compelling and informative sociological study.

I enjoyed this book quite a bit. The questions were a bit repetative, but that wasnt necessarily Bad, as the reader gets to see how different each woman's answers were. Id definitely recommend this, not just for glb individuals but for heterosexual people that would like to learn about some bisexual perspectives.

I can so connect with this book. I would recommend it for any one who is still hiding away and questioning themselves.