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As long as there have been two genders, some people have loved them both. There have been bisexual gods (Zeus), generals (Alexander the Great), writers (Simone de Beauvoir) and comics (Margaret Cho). Freud thought everyone was bisexual as a child, and Kinsey's scale measured bisexuality in adults. But where does The O.C. figure into the annals of bi history? Follow our timeline to find out. — Sarah Harrison
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| Pre-History: As the World Turns |
In the prehistoric bisexual soap opera of ancient Greece, Zeus sires children with his sister, births daughter Athena from his own head and takes the handsome youth Ganymede as a lover. Meanwhile, Zeus' son Apollo has a number of liaisons with both female nymphs and athletic young men.
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612 B.C.: The L Word
Ironically, history's most famous lesbian — Sappho, the poet from Lesbos — was probably bisexual. Early historians fixated on her love affairs with women, but after a long career of canoodling with women, it's believed she fell so in love with a ferryman named Phaon that she jumped off a cliff to end her heartache.
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| 356-323 B.C.: Alexander the Great Bisexual |
One of the most successful military commanders of the ancient world, the King of Macedon is also one of history's most sexually ambiguous. After conquering Persian territories Alexander conquered several of their princesses, while getting some on the side from close male friends and confidants. Colin Farrell commemorated Alexander's antics with bad weaves and worse dialogue in the 2004 Oliver Stone film.
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1190: All the King's Men
Richard the Lionheart of England and Philip II of France spent some nights in the same bed and were, according to a contemporary account, “astonished at the passionate love between them.”
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| 1860: Abraham Lincoln |
Before fathering four children with wife Mary Todd, The Great Emancipator shared a bed for four years and exchanged ambiguously romantic letters with Joshua Speed. Most biographers have dressed Lincoln as perfunctorily heterosexual, but a 2005 biography by C.A. Tripp (a former assistant to Alfred Kinsey) romantically links Abe to at least five other men.
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| 1904: Stairway to Heaven |
Aleister Crowley leaves the Order of the Golden Dawn, a mystical cult, to develop the religious/philosophical system Thelema, which includes a series of religious practices including "sex magick”—the focusing of willpower during orgasm to effect the non-sexual world. He had several lovers (or “fellow sex magick practitioners”) of both sexes and influenced Dr. Timothy Leary, David Bowie, Led Zeppelin and generations of metal heads.
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1905: Freud Makes Bisexuals of Us All
Sigmund Freud publishes Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, considering sexual aberrations, infantile sexuality and the transformation to puberty. He believes that children are constitutionally bisexual — sex preference appears at puberty. |
1906: French-Kissing
Between affairs with men, the author Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette set the precedent for Janet, Madonna and Britney when she scandalized the Moulin Rouge by kissing and miming copulation with her cross-dressed girlfriend.
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| 1914: Bi Any Other Name |
The word "bisexual" first appears in its modern sense in the Journal of American Medical Association: "By nature all human beings are psychically bisexual — capable of loving a person of either sex." The term had previously been used only to refer to hermaphrodism and identification with both genders.
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1921: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf's Sexual Orientation?
Surrealist painter Dora Carrington and her gay best friend, writer Lytton Strachey, fall in love with the same man; Dora marries him but all three go on a honeymoon to Venice. Strachey and Carrington were part of the bisexual, spouse-swapping clique of artists and intelligentsia known as the Bloomsberries — “pairs who had affairs in squares,” according to Dorothy Parker — which included Virginia Woolf, her husband Leonard, E.M. Forster and John Meynard Keynes. |
| 1928: Home to Harlem |
Claude McKay, one of the most openly bisexual artists of the Harlem Renaissance (which also included Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes and Nella Larsen among others) publishes Home to Harlem, in which he explores Harlem's ambivalence about "bulldykers" and "faggoty men."
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1929: Silent Siren
Silent film star Greta Garbo ditches her fiancé, John Gilbert, at the altar. She had several reported same-sex love affairs — her paramours included actress Louise Brooks and socialite Mercedes de Acosta. With her husky, Swedish-accented voice, she made the transition to talking pictures and jet-setting with Aristotle Onassis.
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| 1929: One Eyebrow, Many Lovers |
Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, weds muralist Diego Rivera and lives in a relationship of creativity, angst and extramarital relationships with both men and women.
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1929: Bisexual Intellectuals
Erotic writer Anaïs Nin meets Henry Miller and wife June Miller in Paris; a literary love triangle ensues that will be commemorated in Nin's diary Henry and June. Synopsis: emotionally draining domesticity and missionary sex with husband; champagne, caviar, and dizzying girl-girl infatuation with June; stiff drinks and sex with Henry Miller.
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| 1932: Sapphic Love in the Lincoln Bedroom |
Eleanor Roosevelt begins a life-long friendship with Associated Press reporter Lorena Hickok, who would later write this love note to Roosevelt: "Most clearly I remember your eyes, with a kind of teasing smile in them, and the feeling of that soft spot just northeast of the corner of your mouth against my lips."
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| 1938: The Second Sex, Two of Them |
Women's Studies staple Simone de Beauvoir and lifelong partner Jean-Paul Sartre begin a two-year ménage à trois with seventeen-year-old Bianca Lamblin, a student of de Beauvoir's. The event is fictionalized in She Came to Stay.
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1948: What's Your Number? Alfred Kinsey publishes Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, a study in which he quantified sexual orientation — a combination of experience and psychological reactions — along a six-point scale. |
| 1952: Un-American Sexual Activities |
The McCarran-Walter Immigration Act, drafted to keep Communists, Anarchists and other "subversives" out of the country, is passed. The act also excludes non-citizens "afflicted with psychopathic personality" (read: homosexuals) from admission into the United States. Bisexuals were lumped in with gays.
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1966: "Men, Women, Children, Dogs, Cats, Anything"
Robert Redford plays Natalie Wood's bisexual husband in the film Inside Daisy Clover. At Redford's request, his character was changed from gay to bisexual so that he could play him "as a guy who bats ten ways — men, women, children, dogs, cats, anything — anything that salves his ego."
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| Early 1970s: Rap Groups |
The first bisexual organizations form, including the National Bisexual Liberation Group.
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1970s: David Bowie and Iggy Pop
A rumored love affair accompanies an artistic collaboration. The romance is subsequently denied, but famously depicted in glamophilic indie flick Velvet Goldmine. |
| 1970s: David Bowie and Mick Jagger |
A rumored love affair accompanies an artistic collaboration. The romance is subsequently denied, but famously depicted on shirts sold in Hot Topic stores everywhere.
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| 1972: Walk on the Wild Side |
On his second solo album, Transformer, Lou Reed sings about famous Warhol Factory transvestite Candy Darling and hustler Jackie Curtis. The song's producer: David Bowie — proving that you couldn't be bisexual in the seventies without Bowie's help.
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1972: Life is a Cabaret
In the film version of the musical, Michael York's character tells Sally Bowles (Liza Minnelli), "Fuck Maximilian." "I do," she says. His reply: "So do I."
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| 1973: Homosexuality Depathologized |
The American Psychological Association removes homosexuality from the official list of mental disorders. The APA declares that “homosexuality, per se, implies no impairment in judgement, stability, reliability, or general social or vocational capabilities.” The statement doesn't specifically address bisexuality.
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1976: "She got me so hot at the rifle range"
On Blondie's debut album, Debbie Harry sings lyrics written by her male bandmates without changing the perspective from male to female. Harry later said she enjoyed "lesbian sex as part of her "pretty exotic lifestyle," but was "probably more heterosexual than I am homosexual, or even bisexual." |
| 1978: Kinsey Redux |
Psychiatrist Fritz Klein revises the Kinsey Scale to accommodate changes in sexuality over time. Now widely used, the Klein Sexual Orientation Grid (KSOG) scores respondents between one and seven in the past, present and future.
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1982: Making Love
In this big-budget Hollywood film, a husband (Michael Ontkean) leaves his wife (Charlie's Angels' Kate Jackson) for another man (Harry Hamlin). It features one of the best quasi-pick-up-lines ever: "Do you snore? Does anybody ever get a chance to find out?"
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| 1984: The Enemy Among Us |
Bisexuals are scapegoated for spreading AIDS to the heterosexual community.
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1991: The Dawn of "Sweeps Lesbianism"
On L.A. Law, female attorneys C.J. Lamb (Amanda Donohoe) and Abby Perkins (Michele Greene) share a kiss. Critics herald it as the first lesbian kiss on primetime TV that doesn't result in death or other narrative retribution; however, the storyline is dropped after a follow-up episode, Greene leaves the series at the end of the season and Donohoe departs the next year. |
| 1991: The Sandra Bernhard Experience |
Bernhard debuts on Roseanne as Roseanne's co-worker, becoming one of prime time TV's first regular lesbian characters. In real life, she's bi. "I've had longterm sexual relationships with both men and women," says Bernhard. "If that classifies me as bisexual, then I'm bisexual. I'm very committed to people, so when I'm with somebody, I'm with them."
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1991: "The magazine for card-carrying bisexuals"
The first national bisexual magazine, Anything That Moves, launches. It folds in 2004. |
| 1992: David Bowie and Iman |
Marriage to a female Somali supermodel cements Bowie's image as bi, not gay. But the two did meet on a blind date set up by their mutual hairdresser.
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| 1992: Madonna Publishes Sex |
Within just a few pages, Madge can be seen walking side-by-side with a naked Vanilla Ice and making out with supermodel Naomi Campbell.
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| 1992: A Saturday Night to Remember |
Nirvana members Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic kiss on national television.
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1994: Woulda, Coulda
In an Advocate cover story, Kurt Cobain says he's a bisexual who hasn't had gay sex. The following year, at the height of the Britpop explosion, Suede star Brett Anderson says the same thing about himself.
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| 1994: A Little Confusing |
On My So-Called Life, Angela Chase describes Enrique "Ricky" Vasquez as "bi" to her parents after her mother admits she finds Ricky "a little confusing." Mom's response: "What? He's what? Do you hear the terms she's throwing around?"
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| 1995-6:Issue of the Moment |
A glut of books and magazine articles on bisexuality appear. Newsweek runs a cover story. Marjorie Garber publishes the much-quoted Vice Versa: Bisexuality and the Eroticism of Everyday Life.
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1995: Sexual Personae
Not one to be late to a semantic party, Camille Paglia says, "Bisexuality should be the universal norm." |
1997: Call Her Crazy
Anne Heche says of her girlfriend, Ellen DeGeneres: "I became oblivious to everything the second I saw Ellen. I'd never been attracted to a woman before. I mean, I loved women, but not at all physically. Within seconds of meeting Ellen, I had my hands on her." They break up three years later; Heche marries a male cameraman in 2001. |
| 1997: Bisexuality is Passé |
Carol Queen popularizes the term "pomosexual" — a fusion of the words postmodern and sexual — to describe "erotic reality beyond the boundaries of gender, separatism, and essentialist notions of sexual orientation."
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| 1998: Out of Range |
Folk rocker and queer icon Ani DiFranco marries her sound engineer, Andrew Gilchrist. Although Ani's songs are mostly bisexual, her lesbian fan base takes the relationship personally.
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2000: Margaret Cho's Epiphany
The comedian says that after identifying as straight, gay and bisexual, she realizes she's "just slutty. Where's my parade?" |
2000: The Switching Hour
Buffy the Vampire Slayer's longtime best friend Willow (Alyson Hannigan) leaves her high school boyfriend for a girl she meets at college. Willow and Tara's relationship turns long-term, but the issue of bisexuality is never addressed; Willow is simply "gay now." |
2002: Crofting Over
Angelina Jolie becomes the poster girl for the now-acceptable trend of girls saying “I'd do her.” |
| 2002: The End Is Nigh |
In The End of Gay (and The Death of Heterosexuality), Bert Archer claims that we're moving past definite identifiers like straight, bi and gay.
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| 2003: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Sodomy |
In Lawrence v. Texas, the U.S. Supreme Court rules six-to-three against state prohibition of sodomy, finally making it legal for bisexual men (and women with dildos) to have it both ways.
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2003: Unlike a Virgin
A tuxedoed Madonna tongue-kisses Britney Spears at the Video Music Awards. Afterward, Britney gushes, "This is something I've dreamt about since I was a little girl. I cannot believe this just like freakin' happened. I am on a major high right now.”
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2004: Peachy Keen
Electropunk star Peaches sings, “I don't have to make the choice / I like girls and I like boys.” |
2005: Mischa Barton Kisses Girls
Previously one-half of the first teenage lesbian kiss on TV in the quickly canceled Once and Again, Mischa Barton plays a fully bisexual character on the past season of The O.C., further complicating the show's already incestuous girlfriend-sharing.
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| 2005: Gay or Nay |
The New York Times publishes a study by a controversial researcher, which casts dispersion on the existence of male bisexuality. The article's headline insinuates that men who swing both ways are really "gay, straight or lying."
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| Compiled by Sarah Harrison, Sarah Crichton, Skye Tyler, Andy Duncan, David Diehl and Gwynne Watkins. |
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