Purpose

The Italian sociological scientific community has shown a limited interest in issues related to bisexuality. The purpose of this paper is to fill the knowledge gap on the subject, showing data of an empirical research conducted online on the Italian bisexual community.

Design/methodology/approach

The article is based on a mixed methods online survey on Italian bisexual people, which included 218 interviews. The questionnaire was made up of closed and open-ended questions, to investigate their behaviours, habits and lifestyles.

Findings

Social pressure and lack of understanding by others sometimes make difficult for bisexual people to show themselves openly for what they are, especially in some contexts, such as the word of work. From a sociological point of view, one can argue that one of the tools when bisexual people face the stigma related to bisexuality is to control, often in an obsessive way, the information they provide about themselves, carefully evaluating the contexts in which they can free themselves and the time when they must expose themselves in line with the expectations of the heteronormative society.

Research limitations/implications

The non-probabilistic sample limits the external validity of the findings. There are also critical elements that characterise social research when transposed online: first, the profiles of the respondents not always are verifiable; second, the digital divide excludes some groups that cannot access the web or involves an over-representation of those who are more familiar with technologies.

Originality/value

The work presented is the first Italian sociological study aimed at deepening the “invisible B” phenomenon of the LGBT acronym in a systematic way. Nowadays bisexuality remains under-researched in social sciences and overall in sociology. Putting “bisexuality” at the centre of the sociological attention appears important to provide serious and scientifically valid data and information useful both to develop the knowledge on this identity category and to contain forms of discrimination and prejudice.

中文翻译：

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在当代意大利是双性恋：在污名和渴望可见之间

目的

意大利社会科学界对与双性恋有关的问题表现出了有限的兴趣。本文的目的是填补有关该主题的知识空白，显示在线进行的有关意大利双性恋社区的实证研究数据。

设计/方法/方法

这篇文章基于对意大利双性恋者的混合方法在线调查，其中包括218次访谈。问卷由封闭式和开放式问题组成，以调查他们的行为，习惯和生活方式。

发现

社会压力和他人的缺乏理解有时使双性恋者很难公开展示自己的本性，尤其是在某些情况下，例如工作词汇。从社会学的角度来看，可以认为当双性恋者面对与双性恋有关的污名化时，工具之一是控制他们通常提供的有关自己的信息，并仔细评估他们可以自由活动的环境。自己以及他们必须符合异规范社会的期望的时间。

研究局限/意义

非概率样本限制了调查结果的外部有效性。当在线进行社会研究时，社会研究还具有一些关键因素：首先，受访者的个人资料并不总是可验证的；其次，数字鸿沟排除了一些无法访问网络的群体，或者涉及了对技术更熟悉的群体的过多代表。

创意/价值

提出的工作是意大利的第一项社会学研究，旨在以系统的方式加深LGBT首字母缩略词的“隐形B”现象。如今，双性恋在社会科学和整个社会学领域仍处于研究不足的状态。将“双性恋”放在社会学关注的中心对于提供严肃和科学有效的数据和信息，对于发展关于这一身份类别的知识并包含歧视和偏见的形式而言似乎很重要。