Richard Dunphy

Some writers have even argued that it may be possible to wean sex offenders away from their criminal activities through the use of pornography - with pornography acting as a substitute for sexual acts rather than a stimulant. This ties in with the argument that the pro-censorship lobby fails to distinguish between fantasy and reality, and to recognise that many people - including feminists! - can behave in perfectly decent, moral and non-abusive ways whilst enjoying `politically incorrect_ sexual fantasies. The assumption that fantasy leads to crimes of abuse is both highly contentious and inevitably seems to __riminalise_ sexual fantasy. Moreover, the argument that exposure to pornography causes men to act in a violent or abusive way towards women is surely undermined by even a casual look at human history and at the contemporary world.

The different strategies and visions of __eformists_ and __adicals_ are not the only subject of major debate within lesbian, gay, bisexual and queer politics. The fact is that only a tiny minority of non-heterosexuals are involved in any sort of political activism. Various writers and activists have noted with rising alarm an almost mass depoliticisation of lesbian and gay communities in the 1990s. The crass commercialism of the gay scene and the rise of the so-called pink pound and of __ifestyle_ as a signifier of sexual identity (and human worth) has allowed huge profits to be reaped. Playing on the insecurities of people sells __ackages_ which can include everything from __ay apartments_ to __ay holidays_ and __ay clothes_ to designer drugs.

[Bisexuality] is seen as threatening the homosexual/heterosexual and male/female dichotomies, or binarisms, which underpin our gender and sexual identities to such a large extent. In the case of the first three stereotypes, there is a refusal even to acknowledge the existence of bisexuality. It is simply wished out of existence. You can either be homosexual or heterosexual but anything else is just a phase, just playacting, not real. As Udis-Kessler argues [__hallenging the Stereotypes_, in Rose and Stevens (eds), Bisexual Horizons: Politics, Histories, Lives. 1996. London: Lawrence and Wishart, pp. 45-57], this reflects an ideology of essentialism which dismisses the idea that sexuality may be fluid, not fixed, and that its forms can change over a person__ lifetime. This ideology assumes that there is a __rue_ sexuality which we are working our way towards and that bisexuality is not really __rue_ or __erious_ because it is a transition towards that other state_ As Udis-Kessler points out, transitions are not a rehearsal for life. Life is a series of transitions: points of arrival become new points of departure, and vice versa. So why should we assume that the way we experienced our sexuality ten or twenty years ago is necessarily less __rue_ or important than the way we experience it now, or that the way we experience it now will necessarily be the same in ten or twenty years time? Obviously this applies not only to bisexuality, but it is an argument which those - including some lesbian and gay activists - who accuse bisexuality of being a sort of __alse consciousness_ seldom get to grips with_ lesbians and gay men, anxious to create safe spaces where they are not subject to homophobic rejection or oppression, may (consciously or unconsciously) seek to exclude bisexuals[_].Unfortunately, as soon as this happens, as with every oppressed or stigmatised group, it can lead to others being oppressed or stigmatised in turn.

[A]t least since the late nineteenth century when the primary role in categorising sexual behaviour and naming what is __ormal_ and what is __erverse_ passed, in most industrial societies, from the religious to the medical and scientific professions, we have lived with the notion of distinct categories of people labelled __omosexual_ and __eterosexual_. (The category __omosexual_ was coined by the Viennese writer Karol Benkert in 1869, __eterosexual_ emerging somewhat later.) Since that time, new discourses have tried to establish the male __omosexual_ as a distinct type of person - as opposed to same-sex attraction or same-sex acts being seen as a potential in everyone. As Peter Tatchell [__t__ Just a Phase: Why Homosexuality is Doomed_, in Simpson (ed.), Anti-Gay, London: Cassell. 1996] puts it, __rior to that time _ there were only homosexual acts, not homosexual people _ [For] the medieval Catholic Church _ homosexuality was not _ the special sin of a unique class of people but a dangerous temptation to which any mortal might succumb. This doctrine implicitly conceded the attractiveness of same-sex desire, and unwittingly acknowledged its pervasive, universal potential

Knowing what causes differentiation in human skin pigmentation, fascinating though that is, does not furnish a satisfactory explanation for the phenomenon of racism. Similarly, the biological explanation for why one person is right-handed whilst another is left-handed, is of less interest than why, even recently, being left-handed was considered such a stigma (_).Do we need to know what __auses_ homosexuality or heterosexuality? (_)Would the discovery of a genetic basis to sexual attraction finally undermine discrimination against non-heterosexual people by establishing that variations of sexual orientation are all equally rooted in nature? Or would it furnish powerful homophobic forces with a new weapon in their drive to undermine and remove the rights of non-heterosexual people, perhaps even the right to life itself? The infamous remarks of a senior religious leader (a former Chief Rabbi) in the UK a few years ago that, if a gay gene could be discovered, he would consider it morally acceptable to test pregnant women and offer them the option of aborting any foetus likely to develop into a non-heterosexual person - homophobic extermination in the womb - indicate that the huge moral and cultural debates around sexuality and human identity will not be solved either way by the biological sciences alone