Invisible lives addressing black male bisexuality in the novels of e. Lynn harris

Journal of Bisexuality

Volumn 2, Issue 1, 2001, Pages 73-90

  Frieden, Lisa ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

African Americans; Bisexual men; Bisexuality; Black literature; E. Lynn Harris; Invisible Life

Indexed keywords

EID: 77955415702     PISSN: 15299716     EISSN: 15299724     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1300/J159v02n01_06     Document Type: Article

References (38)

1. E. Lynn Harris, Invisible Life (1991; New York: Doubleday, 1994), 206. All further references to the novel will be indicated by parenthesis in the text.
2. Although not the main theme, black male bisexuality had previously been represented in a number of novels by black authors, including Wallace Thurman’s Infants of the Spring, James Baldwin’s Another Country, and more subtly, Claude McKay’s Home to Harlem.
3. Martin F. Manalansan IV, “Double Minorities: Latino, Black, and Asian Men Who Have Sex With Men,” The Lives of Lesbians, Gays and Bisexuals, eds. Ritch C. Savin-Williams and Kenneth Cohen (Orlando, FL: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1996), 393. I have found this anthology to be both useful and thorough in its attention to the multiple, connected forces that contribute to the development of human sexualities.
4. Martin F. Manalansan The American Psychiatric Association in 1973 and the American Psychological Association in 1975 declassified homosexuality as a medical illness.
5. Theorists from such diverse camps as Kobena Mercer in race theory, Trin T. Minha in postcolonialist theory, and Linda Singer in feminist theory have discussed how sexual identity is linked to cultural context. For examples of their work, see Mercer’s “Fear of a Black Penis,” Artforum International 32, no. 8 (April 1994): 74;
6. Minha’s Native Woman Other (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989)
7. Minha’s Singer’s Erotic Welfare: Sexual Theory and Politics in the Age of Epidemic (New York: Routledge, 1993).
8. Benjamin B. Bowser, “Black Men and AIDS: Prevention and Black Sexuality,” The American Black Male: His Present Status and His Future, eds. Richard G. Majors and Jacob U. Gordon (Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1994), 121-22.
9. Phillip B. Harper, “Eloquence and Epitaph: Black Nationalism and the Homophobic Impulse in Responses to the Death of Max Robinson,” Writing AIDS: Gay Literature, Language and Analysis, eds. Timothy F. Murphy and Suzanne Poirier (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), 124.
10. For more on homophobia and acceptance in black communities, see, for example, bell hooks, “Homophobia in Black Communities,” Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black (Boston: South End Press, 1989), 120-126
11. Jewelle L. Gomez and Barbara Smith, “Taking the Home Out of Homophobia: Black Lesbian Health,” The Black Women’s Health Book: Speaking for Ourselves, ed. Evelyn C. White (Seattle: Seal Press, 1990), 198-213
12. Amy Gluckman and Betsy Reed, “Where Has Gay Liberation Gone? An Interview with Barbara Smith,” Homo Economics: Capitalism, Community, and Lesbian and Gay Life, eds. Gluckman and Reed (New York: Routledge, 1997), 195-207.
13. Laura B. Randolph, “The Hidden Fear: Black Women, Bisexuals and the AIDS Risk,” Ebony, January 1998: 123.
14. Lynda S. Doll, “Male Bisexuality and AIDS in the United States,” Bisexuality and HIV/AIDS: A Global Perspective, eds. Rob Tielman, Manuel Carballo, and Aart Hendricks (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1991), 33.
15. Joseph Beam’s In the Life: A Black Gay Anthology (Boston: Alyson, 1986)
16. Essex Hemphill’s Brother to Brother: New Writings by Black Gay Men (Boston: Alyson, 1991) provide eloquent descriptions by black gay men of the splits they have experienced between their racial and sexual lives.
17. Lynda S. Doll “Male Bisexuality and AIDS in the United States,” 34.
18. Charles Stewart, “Double Jeopardy: Black, Gay (and Invisible),” New Republic, December 2, 1991: 15.
19. Victoria Brownworth, “Black Out,” The Advocate, August 13, 1992: 80.
20. Victoria Brownworth, The Advocate 80.
21. Steven Corbin, “The Dearth of African-American Gay Fiction,” The Advocate, February 12, 1991: 39.
22. Steven Corbin, “White Men on White Men: The Politics of Publishing and Exclusion,” Lambda Book Report 3, no. 7 (1992): 4. Corbin’s criticism of the racist assumptions about black literature reflect his personal experience and frustrations as a black gay novelist trying to find places willing to publish his work. Although I think he has an important point about the hurdles to publishing black gay novels, I disagree with his easy totalizing of these difficulties to include all black literature. Novels by and about black women have continued to find mass appeal among both black and white audiences, including Terry McMillan’s smash hits Waiting to Exhale and How Stella Got Her Groove Back, both of which were turned into popular Hollywood films. Novels by and about black men, whether gay, straight, or bisexual, have not fared as successfully.
23. Brownworth, “Black Out,” 82.
24. Corbin rightly criticizes several leading anthologies of gay fiction edited by white men, including the early volumes of the Men on Men series, for their failure to include any work by contemporary black gay men, besides the canonized and deceased token, James Baldwin (“White Men on White Men,” 14).
25. Brownworth, “Black Out,” 82.
26. Brownworth, Other Countries, Other Countries: Black Gay Voices; A First Volume (New York: Other Countries, 1988)
27. B. Michael Hunter, ed., Sojourner: Black Gay Voices in the Age of AIDS; Other Countries, Volume 2 (New York: Other Countries, 1993)
28. Assoto Saint, ed., The Road Before Us: 100 Gay Black Poets (New York: Galiens Press, 1991)
29. Bruce Morrow and Charles H. Rowell, eds., Shade: An Anthology of Fiction by Gay Men of African Descent (New York: Avon Books, 1996). Marlon Riggs’s videography includes Ethnic Notions (1986), Tongues Untied (1991), Color Adjustment (1992), and Black Is, Black Ain’t (1994). Isaac Julien’s work includes Looking for Langston (1988) and Young Soul Rebels (1991).
30. Hemphill, “Introduction,” Brother to Brother, 30.
31. Corbin, “White Men on White Men,” 14. Ironically, by labeling Baldwin gay, Corbin ignores the fact that Baldwin was behaviorally bisexual.
32. Recently, though, James Earl Hardy’s B-Boy Blues (Boston: Alyson, 1994) and 2nd Time Around (Los Angeles: Alyson, 1996) have been positioned in a similar way to Harris’s work.
33. E. Lynn Harris, Just As I Am (New York: Doubleday, 1994).
34. Canaan Parker, “Review of Just As I Am,” Lambda Book Report 4, no. 3(1994): 20.
35. Canaan Parker, Lambda Book Report, 20.
36. E. Lynn Harris, And This Too Shall Pass (New York: Doubleday, 1996).
37. E. Lynn Harris, And This Too Shall Pass When it made its debut, And This Too Shall Pass was on The New York Times Book Review’s bestseller list for several weeks.
38. E. Lynn Harris, U.S. popular culture appears unready for frank depictions of bisexuality of any sort, let alone positive portrayals of bisexuals. The popularity of the movie Basic Instinct seems to underscore both the fascination and repulsion that “mainstream” Americans have for even the most normalized and eroticized bisexuality, that of white, wealthy, healthy, young, good-looking women.