‘A real lesbian wouldn’t touch a bisexual with a bargepole’: contesting boundaries in the construction of collective identity

Turner, Georgina ORCID: 0000-0003-0825-7081 (2014) ‘A real lesbian wouldn’t touch a bisexual with a bargepole’: contesting boundaries in the construction of collective identity Critical Discourse Studies, 12 (2). pp. 139-162. ISSN 1740-5904, 1740-5912

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Abstract

Drawn from an investigation of the construction of collective identity in DIVA magazine between 1994 and 2004, this article considers the discursive contestation of the boundaries necessarily, though never straightforwardly, erected in the process. Analysing first a selection of articles and second (and more substantially) debates about who ‘we’ are in and between readers' letters, the article focuses on the ‘trouble’ posed by bisexuality in this era. Readers draw on and contest a cluster of interrelated characterisations of bisexuals: as undecided, as a kind of pollutant, and as inadequate facsimiles of ‘real lesbians', as well as more or less open characterisations of ‘us’. These arguments are necessarily managed editorially, and always ‘end’ with calls for acceptance. This does not fully recover the ambiguity with which bisexuality is handled, however, and the article concludes by discussing the dilemma(s) faced by the imagined community.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	collective identity, lesbian, bisexuality, intersubjectivity, membership, discourse, magazines, media
Subjects:	?? H1 ??
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	25 Jun 2015 08:18
Last Modified:	01 Mar 2026 00:50
DOI:	10.1080/17405904.2014.974634
Related Websites:	Author Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/2014702
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• ‘A real lesbian wouldn’t touch a bisexual with a bargepole’: contesting boundaries in the construction of collective identity (deposited 04 Nov 2014 15:56)
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