Bisexual: Difference between revisions
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{{Useful Notes}}
'''Bisexual'''. Almost always used as an adjective (unlike "[[homosexual]]" and "
▲Bisexual. Almost always used as an adjective (unlike "homosexual" and "transsexual", which are often used as nouns), but quite often used as a noun in plural ("bisexuals"). Quite often shortened to "bi" as a slang term.
Let's clear this up now: "bisexual" does ''not'' mean [[Hermaphrodite]]. It also does not mean [[
The actual definition: unlike heterosexuals and homosexuals, who are attracted to ''just'' people of the opposite sex and ''just'' people of the same sex respectively, bisexuals are attracted to people of ''both'' sexes. Note that this does ''not'' mean that bisexuals must be [[For the Love of Many|polyamorous]], with a male partner and a female partner at any given time, any more than somebody who is attracted to people of all hair colours would need to be polyamorous with a partner of each hair colour. Bisexuals don't separate attraction to each sex into two separate drives, but rather their sexual attraction is simply directed towards both halves of the population rather than just one.
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* 5 -- Attracted to the same sex mostly, with some attraction to the opposite sex.
* 6 -- Attracted to the same sex only, and not to the opposite sex at all.
* X -- No sexual attraction whatsoever.
0 is heterosexuality. 6 is homosexuality. 1-5 are ''all'' bisexuality. In fact, some people believe that "true" heterosexuals and homosexuals are much rarer than people think, and that most people are bisexual to at least some degree -- manifestations of this being the tropes [[Even the Guys Want Him]], [[Even the Girls Want Her]] and [[If It's You It's Okay]]. People who are at 1 on the Kinsey scale are sometimes referred to with the neologisms "bicurious" and "heteroflexible".
Something else that probably needs to be said: while bisexuals find both men and women attractive, they do not find ''all'' men and women attractive (any more than straight people find everyone of the opposite sex attractive, for example) and do not as a rule want to screw [[Anything That Moves]]. Bisexuals are attracted to men and to women; ''not'' to children, animals or inanimate objects. This is a particular [[Depraved Bisexual|stereotype]] that ''really'' pisses bi people off.
Some people don't like the term "bisexual" because of its apparent implication that people can only be one of two genders (as the "bi" prefix literally means "two", like bicycle and binoculars). There are many people who identify as being not male or female but somewhere in between (genderqueer), or something entirely different, or even without gender at all (agendered). Additionally, there are intersex people who are biologically somewhere in between male and female. Consequently, many people instead prefer the term "pansexual" -- which is intended to indicate an attraction to ''all'' genders (as opposed to ''both'' genders). Pansexuality is, unlike traditional bisexuality, somewhat closer to the [[Anything That Moves]] stereotype, as "all genders" does really mean that, including intersexual people, transgender people and a whole host of variant gender identities (some of which are new, such as agender, while others are breakoffs from one of the major sexualities, like demisexuality, which is usually a form of heterosexuality that involves a stronger emotional component than usual) besides the usual two sexes. Still, much like with bisexuality pansexuality isn't absolute either, it just means a person may find people with more varied expressions of sex and gender to be attractive. In between bisexuality and pansexuality is polysexuality, which involves attraction to both sexes and some of the variant identities, but not ''all'' of them like with pansexuality. To further complicate things, some of the more modern definitions of bisexuality subsume pansexuality and polysexuality into it; most major bisexual organizations define it as "attraction to two or more genders". Those organizations also consider what was traditionally called "bisexuality" to be "ambiphillia", or ''sexual'' attraction to both biological men and women. Similarly, the sexual components of heterosexuality and/or homosexuality are now termed ''androphillia'' and ''gynephillia'' in these circles.
See [[Bisexuality Tropes]] here.
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