Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics

It’s not easy being the silent B in LGBT. Jennifer Baumgardner tries to make it mean something.

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Americans tend to see bisexual women in one of two ways: Either they’re lesbians in denial, or they’re “lesbians until graduation” who sleep with women while they pursue gender studies degrees and then go back to dating men. In Look Both Ways, Jennifer Baumgardner challenges these stereotypes and makes the case that a huge number of women are attracted to and pursue significant relationships with members of both sexes. But because there is no bisexual movement to speak of, many women who date both women and men have a hard time figuring out what it means to be bisexual.

Bisexuality got widespread recognition in the early 1990s, when gay rights groups added the “b” to “lgbt” and Jill Sobule’s “I Kissed a Girl” was all over the radio. That’s when Baumgardner herself first went out with a woman, a coworker at Ms. magazine. She went on to date a man, then Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls, and finally another man, with whom she recently had a baby. Baumgardner mentions many women she’s known who have “looked both ways,” but she doesn’t stray too far beyond the stories of bisexual women who are feminist scholars, activists, or celebrities. She devotes a laudatory chapter to singer-songwriter Ani DiFranco, who felt she’d abandoned her lesbian fans when she married a man, and a section to Anne Heche, lovingly dubbed “The Bad Bisexual” for her closet-smashing yet ultimately cringe-inducing relationship with Ellen DeGeneres.

Baumgardner, coauthor of the feminist primer Manifesta, still makes plenty of astute observations about the intersection of bisexuality and feminism, particularly how bi women bring “gay expectations” of equality, respect, and sexual fulfillment to their relationships with men. “You wouldn’t be with a man who couldn’t talk about his feelings in an informed and subtle way,” one woman tells her, adding, “On just the most obvious level, you would never be with a man who wouldn’t go down on you.”

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate