Affiliation:
1. The University of Texas at San Antonio, USA
2. The University of Southern Mississippi, USA
3. Indiana University, Bloomington, USA
Abstract
This chapter investigates the benefits and costs of using umbrella terms such as plurisexual, bisexual+, or m-spec to describe a diversity of identities, behaviors, and attractions. Language is inherently linked with power and ideology. Through language, political powers and social structures create, maintain, and enforce a social production of identities that are often assumed to be natural. Those who fall under the m-spec umbrella (e.g., bisexual, biromantic, pansexual, panromantic, omnisexual, fluid, and queer people, among many others) challenge the social production of monosexual labels (e.g., straight, gay, lesbian). Despite plurisexuals' disruption of rigid categories, plurisexual students have reported feeling limited by the language available within higher education institutions. The authors explore the limitations of language, enriched by the voices of bi+ undergraduate and graduate student participants from their previous studies, and offer suggestions for serving bi+ students.
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