Traditionally, a community is a socially interconnected group of people living and working in close geographic proximity to each other for example, a small town. However, in contemporary Western societies, high rates of geographic mobility, compartmentalized relationships, and the replacement of social relationships based on factors of birth with relationships based on common interests have rendered this form of community increasingly scarce. For many individuals, the sense of belonging once provided by geographically bounded communities is now provided by other social structures, such as membership organizations and Internet connections. “Make Me a Map” explores the questions of whether bisexual men feel that a bisexual community exists and, if so, what makes it a community; whether they derive a sense of belonging from it; and how it is related to other sexual and political communities. The data are drawn from an international study of the psychological, social, and political experiences of over 900 bisexual men and women, in which respondents described their bisexual communities (or lack thereof) verbally and drew maps of these communities. These verbal responses and maps reveal feelings of both isolation and belonging among bisexual men, a variety of beliefs about what a community is or should be, and a variety of experiences with and perceptions of this bisexual community. Also explored in “Make Me a Map” are bisexual men's perceptions of racial, political, gender, and sexual diversity within their bisexual communities, issues of visibility and self-identification, and the relationships of their bisexual communities to gay and lesbian communities. The analysis concludes with a theoretical consideration of the relationship between individual perceptions of community and the concept of a collective social reality.
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