Bisexual Identity: An In-depth Interview Study

This research takes bisexual identity as the theme. The main purpose is to discuss the characteristic and type of bisexuality systematically, the factors that affect bisexual identity, and the main stage of bisexual identity. Researcher tries to raise the social concerns to the marginal groups by making the bisexuals "speak out", so that the public could learn more about bisexuality.In order to get the interpretive understanding to the bisexuals’internal experience deeply, the depth interview was chose from the qualitative research. Based as the "purposive sampling", intensive sampling and snowball sampling were adopted as the specific strategy and method. There are8bisexuals are chosen to be the objects of the research. Each of them was interviewed in depth3times (about90minutes one time). With each interviewee’s permission, a tape-recording facility was used in every conversation. After interviews, all tape-recorded sound was transcribed into texts which were then processed by open coding, constant comparison method, and combine with the method of category analysis and scenario analysis.The main conclusions are drawn as follows:(1)Based on the previous definitions of bisexuality, the research expounds the characteristic of bisexuality systematically:bisexuals can be attracted by any genders, the attraction involves romantic aspect and sexual behavior, however, the sexual preference of individual could be different; bisexuality reflects the continuity and fluidity of sexual orientation in humans.(2)Bisexual identity is a complicate progress of social construction that is surely influenced by family, school, personal experience, and cultural attitudes. The main factors are drawn as follows:the family environment and education affect the gender identity and emotional expression of children; school environment and peer relationship effect one’s sexual orientation initially; the key events of personal experience lead to the exploration of one’s sexual orientation and sexual behavior in adulthood is the necessary condition of bisexual identity; the cultural attitude (discrimination and prejudice) towards bisexuals results in biphobia so that the bisexuals should suffer from the denying, misunderstanding and stigmatization by the public.(3)The progress of bisexual identity will last lifetime. It involves4stages: questioning reality, inventing identity, maintaining identity, transforming adversity.