Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics

“Baumgardner's voice remains as compelling as ever, not only because she writes with the candor of your closest friend, but because she herself appears to be learning and questioning along with the reader.” —Fiorella Valdesolo, Nylon

“Baumgardner is generally thoughtful and honest, with a refreshing sense of humor about herself and her politics. . . . Baumgardner's prose, at its best, is warm, unpretentious and funny . . . And as a memoirist, she is impressively willing to make herself vulnerable. . . . Her arguments for sexual complexity and openness are compelling, as are her claims that bisexual experiences can supply a kind of stereoscopic vision.”— Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow, Salon

“A necessary read for those looking to expand their understanding of both bisexuality and the contributions of Third Wave feminism.”—Rebecca Walker, Bookforum

“Revealing, smart, titillating . . . Look Both Ways [cuts] straight to the heart of many young women’s fraught relationship to both feminism and their own femininity.” —Jessica Clark, In These Times

“Baumgardner's voice remains as compelling as ever, not only because she writes with the candor of your closest friend, but because she herself appears to be learning and questioning along with the reader.” —Fiorella Valdesolo, Nylon

“Baumgardner is generally thoughtful and honest, with a refreshing sense of humor about herself and her politics. . . . Baumgardner's prose, at its best, is warm, unpretentious and funny . . . And as a memoirist, she is impressively willing to make herself vulnerable. . . . Her arguments for sexual complexity and openness are compelling, as are her claims that bisexual experiences can supply a kind of stereoscopic vision.”— Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow, Salon

Publishers Weekly

Sometimes confused but ultimately insightful, this cultural study pries open that ambiguous can of worms called "sexual choice" and looks at it with eyes wide open. Baumgardner, coauthor of the "third wave feminist" Manifesta, discovered her own bisexuality shortly after graduating from college, when she unexpectedly fell in love with a "girlie girl" co-worker at Ms. magazine, which was, significantly, the first place she "truly saw women without men as being successes, not failures." Her story of how she explored her "urge toward bisexuality as a means to figuring out how to have a satisfying, truly equal and truly intimate relationship" weaves a personal thread through the book. In between, she evokes the heady days of second-wave feminism, lauds Ani DiFranco as the quintessential bisexual of her generation and analyzes the TV heroine Buffy the Vampire Slayer as a powerful, vulnerable, tragic, feminist superhero. Baumgardner controversially argues that bisexuality, especially in younger women, is more widespread than we think, and that recognizing this "could harness the multiplicity of attraction that Kinsey described" and "lead to better relationships, both political and sexual, between men and women." Her insistence that bisexuality has the potential to further the goals of feminism and gay rights challenges the limitations of "gay" and "straight." (Feb.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Jennifer Baumgardner, co-author of Manifesta and Grassroots, frequently writes and lectures on feminism, activism, and popular culture for magazines and on college campuses around the country.