Using a queer theoretical and identity-based framework to understand bisexual women’s experiences of coercive control

Despite evidence showing that bisexual women experience higher rates of domestic and family violence than their heterosexual and lesbian counterparts, their experiences have largely been invisibilized in research, mirroring the invisibilization of bisexual identities in larger societal discourse. In this paper, we seek to address this gap through an interrogation of 98 bisexual women’s experiences of coercive control, drawing on a larger qualitative survey on Australians’ experiences of coercive control. Guided by a queer theoretical and identity-based framework, which encourages a focus on bisexual identities rather than bisexual behaviors, this paper examines bisexual women’s experiences of coercive control in their own right, looking at what types of behaviors were experienced, how bisexual women defined and understood coercive control, why they did or did not recognize the behavior as domestic and family violence at the time, and the impacts of coercive control on their lives and wellbeing. The paper serves as a call for meaningful inclusivity of bisexual women’s experiences in domestic and family violence research and provides a lens for which this may be achieved.