Bisexual Victimisation
Allison Cipriano on sexual violence, sexual identity, and sexual health
Allison Cipriano has a Masters of Arts in social psychology and is currently a social psychology PhD student at the University of Nebraksa-Lincoln, with a concentration in women’s and gender studies.
3 things you wish everyone knew about bisexuality?
Bisexuality is a legitimate sexual identity
Bisexuality people are not inherently non-monogamous
Bisexual people, particularly bisexual women, experience sexual violence at extremely high rates
Why are you interested in research on bisexuality?
I have been interested in work on bisexual identity since I read Lisa Diamond’s work on sexual fluidity and sexual identity development years ago. I was conducting research on the differences in experiences of sexual violence and barriers to help-seeking between heterosexual and LGBTQ+ college student survivors, and I realized that our LGBTQ+ samples often predominantly consisted of bisexual women.
“The existing research clearly demonstrates that bisexual women experience sexual violence at rates significantly higher than women of other sexual identities… what is less clear is why bisexual women experience such disproportionate levels of sexual violence and what protective factors might mitigate the effects of such experiences.”
I am primarily interested in answering these questions.
What does your research explore?
My research is informed by social psychological and feminist theory and my primary research areas include sexual violence, sexual identity, and sexual health with an emphasis on the experiences of queer women. Currently my dissertation research is focused on the sexual violence and identity experiences of women attracted to more than one gender (bisexual, pansexual, fluid, and queer women).
How do you define bisexuality?
I define bisexuality as attraction to more than one gender.
What bi research would you like people to know about?
Some excellent articles related to my own work include:
Bedera & Nordemeyer’s (2020) article “An inherently masculine practice: Understanding the sexual victimization of queer women”
Flanders, Anderson, Tarasoff, & Robinson’s (2019) article “Bisexual stigma, sexual violence, and sexual health among bisexual and other plurisexual women: A cross-sectional survey study”
Canan and colleagues’ (2019) article “Differences in lesbian, bisexual, and heterosexual women’s experiences of sexual assault and rape in a national U.S. sample”
Dyar & London’s (2018) article “Bipositive events: Associations with proximal stressors, bisexual identity, and mental health among bisexual cisgender women”
Johnson & Grove’s (2017) article “Why us? Toward an understanding of bisexual women’s vulnerability for and negative consequences of sexual violence”
Getting more personal…
Are you bi? Yes
Does being bisexual change how you approach your research?
II can’t be sure how I would approach my research if I was not bisexual, but I do think being bisexual provides me with some insight into the types of experiences my research participants share with me.