bisexual en · ADJ
Pronunciation
- /baɪˈsɛk.ʃʊ.əl/ (Received-Pronunciation)
- (Southern-England) audio
- /-sjʊ(ə)l/ (Received-Pronunciation)
- /baɪˈsɛk.ʃ(ʊ)l/ (Received-Pronunciation)
- /baɪˈsɛk.ʃ(əw).əl/ (General-American)
Etymology
From bi- + -sexual, via the French bisexuel (bi-, sexuel). Attested since 1792 as a synonym in botany for "hermaphroditic" ("having male and female parts"). First used of sexuality in Richard von Krafft-Ebing's 1886 Psychopathia Sexualis (in German) and Charles Gilbert Chaddock's 1892 English translation thereof, due to the theory that people were naturally attracted to the opposite sex and so the brain or mind of a person attracted to "both" sexes (or to the same sex) must be partly of another sex and thus "hermaphroditic".
Meanings
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(of humans or other animals) Sexually attracted to both opposite-sex and same-sex individuals. (Compare pansexual.)
Pakistani transgender activist Hina Baloch has sparked a massive online debate after claiming in a viral video that 80% of Pakistan is gay and the remaining 20% are bisexual. Speaking in an interview with the Queer Global YouTube channel, Baloch described homosexuality in Pakistan as an open secret suppressed by religion, culture, and family honour. She argued that social pressure forces most Pakistanis to deny or conceal their true sexual orientation.
2026 April 4, India Today Global, “80% Of Pakistanis are gay, says Trans Activist Hina Baloch In An Interview”, in Youtube Video Description:Skirt Club caters to bisexual or bicurious women. No men are allowed, but women with all levels of experience in same-sex sexuality, from bicurious to fully lesbian, are welcomed.
2016 October 7, Juliet Bennett Rylah, “Skirt Club Is a Sex Club for the Casually Bisexual Modern Woman”, in VICE:
- Having both male and female parts, characteristics, or functions. ▸ Of flowers: having both pollen and seeds.
- Having both male and female parts, characteristics, or functions. ▸ Of sporophytes: having both male and female organs.
- Having both male and female parts, characteristics, or functions. ▸ Of gametophytes: producing both eggs and sperm.
- Having both male and female parts, characteristics, or functions. ▸ Of fungi: producing both the "female" ascogonium and the "male" antheridium.
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(rare) Having both male and female parts, characteristics, or functions. ▸ Hermaphroditic/intersex, being both male and female, or alternating between being male and being female.
To say that Loki is bisexual means that he readily alternates between the male and female sexes, becoming female at will or as needed.
2004, Lois Bragg, Oedipus Borealis: The Aberrant Body in Old Icelandic Myth and Saga, →ISBN:Among the arguments put forth for Ishtar's hermaphroditic or bisexual character is the practice of transvestism in religious rites associated with her (e.g. Harris 2000: 170; Groneberg 1986: 39).
2013, Zainab Bahrani, Women of Babylon: Gender and Representation in Mesopotamia, →ISBN:Midrash and Zohar present Adam as hermaphroditic or bisexual.
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Having both male and female parts, characteristics, or functions. ▸ Androgynous.
The bisexual name, such as Marion and Carol (and Evelyn and Vivian in England), is frequently a source of annoyance and embarrassment to the letter writer, who, if he does not know his ambiguously named correspondent personally […]
1947, Louise Pound, Kemp Malone, Arthur Garfield Kennedy, William Cabell Greet, American Speech:The Bionic Woman of the television serial of the seventies, though she wears ordinary dress most of the time, has the bisexual name of Jamie Summers.
2013, Marina Warner, Joan of Arc: The Image of Female Heroism, Oxford University Press, USA, →ISBN, page 307:And although Stevens introduces Nanzia Nunzio as a woman, the inflections of the bisexual name and the symbolism implicit in the messenger's characteristics suggest that the "contemplated spouse" is something more than a woman.
1984, The Wallace Stevens Journal:At the desk, he completed the registration card, signing his name Jean Cable and giving a New York address. He did not know for sure that he was being pursued, but if so, he knew his pursuers would check new registrations around the city. The bisexual name would give them one more obstacle […]
1976, Frank V. Fowlkes, The Peruvian Contracts: A Novel, Putnam Publishing Group, →ISBN, page 128:On August 16, in Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minnesota, Michael McConnell alone applied for a marriage license for himself and Baker, under his new adoptive name. The "bisexual name of Pat […]"
2005, Minnesota Law Review, volume 89, number 6, page 1762:Consider the identity play of the French artist who gave herself the bisexual name of Claude Cahun (1894–1954).
2003, Efrat Tseëlon, Masquerade and Identities: Essays on Gender, Sexuality and Marginality, Routledge, →ISBN, page 59:
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Having two distinct sexes, male and female (as contrasted with unisexual or hermaphroditic).
The second line of inquiry has to do with the ultimate fate of unisexual species. Are they doomed to more rapid extinction than bisexual species? On the assumption that unisexual populations lack genetic variation, most theoretical studies […]
1981, Mosaic, page 4:It is probable, therefore, that hermaphroditism must be regarded as a variation from an earlier condition in which the sexes were separate, and that the hermaphrodites which occasionally appear in normally bisexual species are produced by variations occurring sporadically in the same direction.
1914, Leonard Doncaster, The Determination of Sex, page 120:We also know that bisexual species reproduce during a longer period than hermaphrodite species.
1925, Contributions from the Zoological Laboratory, University of Pennsylvania. Zoological Laboratory, page 204:
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Involving two sexes (particularly with regard to reproduction; contrast parthenogenetic or asexual).
Recall from earlier in this paper that H. longicornis consists of obligatory bisexual diploid races (20+XX 0; 20+X) […] and variance is obscured because of the simultaneous variables of method of reproduction (bisexuality vs. thelytoky) and […]
1983, Entomological Society of America, Bulletin of the Entomological Society of America:But it does not agree with our idea of orthodox sexual reproduction, since many generations may pass without the appearance of males. The reproductive products at such times are purely feminine—that is, eggs which develop without having been fertilized by a male cell, the spermatozoan. We may distinguish this form of reproduction from sexual reproduction, in the restricted sense, or bisexual reproduction, as unisexual or parthenogenetic reproduction.
1913, Kammerer's Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution of 1912, in the Congressional Serial Set, page 425[W]e began by noting the social advantages of bisexual reproduction, showing that bisexual beings are free and equal, and thus capable of entire community and fraternity. Thereafter, we treated the subject of bisexual reproduction more particularly: describing the ovatestis and its functions, showing how separate ovaries and testes were developed from the original ovatestes, and indicating the results of such differentiation, […]. Next, we considered asexual versus sexual reproduction: […]
1913, Francis H. Buzzacott, Mary Isabel Wymore, Bi-sexual Man: Or, Evolution of the Sexes, Life Science Inst, page 72:[…] where the parthenogenetic and bisexual generations do not differ in any character except their manner of reproduction[…]
1908, Science Progress in the Twentieth Century: A Quarterly Journal of Scientific Work & Thought, page 41:
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| most bisexual | Degree=Sup | lexicographic | |
| bi-sexual | alternative | lexicographic | |
| more bisexual | Degree=Cmp | lexicographic |
Antonyms
Deriveds
bisexy · bytesexual · antibisexual · pseudobisexual · bisexual lighting · bisexually · bi-dyke · nonbisexual · lesbigaytrans · bisexualness · BUG · bisexual marriage · lesbigay · bisexuality
Hyponyms
Relateds
anti-bisexual · bisexualize · bisexual person · biromantic · I'm bisexual · bisexualization · heterosexual · bi-curious · metrosexual · bisexualist · homosexual · be bisexual · bisexualism
Synonyms
bi · bi · AC/DC · curious · ambisextrous · hermaphrodite · open-minded · switch-hitting · ambidextrous · perfect (botany: having male and female organs) · flexible · AC/DC · Kinsey 3 · omnifutuent · versatile
Translations (108)
is tvíkynhneigður (sexually attracted to both men and women) · ga déghnéasach (botany: having both male and female organs) · ja 両性愛の (sexually attracted to both men and women) · he ביסקסואלי (sexually attracted to both men and women) · fi biseksuaalinen (sexually attracted to both men and women) · gd dà-mhiannach (sexually attracted to both men and women) · bn উভকামী (sexually attracted to both men and women) · sk bisexuálny (sexually attracted to both men and women) · fa دوجنسگرا (sexually attracted to both men and women) · ia bisexual (sexually attracted to both men and women) · io bisexuala (sexually attracted to both men and women) · uk бісексуа́льний (sexually attracted to both men and women) · ar مزدوج الميل الجنسي (sexually attracted to both men and women) · ro bisexuat (botany: having both male and female organs) · hi उभयलिंगी (sexually attracted to both men and women) · hy երկսեռական (sexually attracted to both men and women) · ja 両性の (botany: having both male and female organs) · he דּוּ מִינִי (botany: having both male and female organs) · ms biseksual (botany: having both male and female organs) · oc bisexual (sexually attracted to both men and women) · tl silahis (sexually attracted to both men and women) · ru бисексуа́льный (sexually attracted to both men and women) · fi kaksineuvoinen (botany: having both male and female organs) · mt mara-raġel (botany: having both male and female organs) · gd dà-sheòrsach (sexually attracted to both men and women) · pl dwupłciowy (botany: having both male and female organs) · pt bissexual (sexually attracted to both men and women) · sh bȉseksuālan (sexually attracted to both men and women) · it bisessuale (sexually attracted to both men and women) · is tvíkynhneigð (sexually attracted to both men and women) · pl biseksualny (sexually attracted to both men and women) · gd dà-ghnèitheach (sexually attracted to both men and women) · uk гермафроди́тний (botany: having both male and female organs) · el αμφιφυλόφιλος (sexually attracted to both men and women) · it ermafrodita (botany: having both male and female organs) · fr bisexué (botany: having both male and female organs) · sh би̏сексуа̄лан (sexually attracted to both men and women) · yue 兩性 /两性 (sexually attracted to both men and women) · ms dwiseksual (botany: having both male and female organs) · nrf bisexuel (sexually attracted to both men and women) · he דּוּ מִינִי (sexually attracted to both men and women) · hi उभयलैंगिक (sexually attracted to both men and women) · fo tvíkyndur (sexually attracted to both men and women) · sv bisexuell (sexually attracted to both men and women) · pt bissexuado (botany: having both male and female organs) · sq i dygjinishëm (sexually attracted to both men and women) · oc bisexuala (sexually attracted to both men and women) · pl biseksualny (botany: having both male and female organs) · ca bisexual (sexually attracted to both men and women) · it bisessuale (botany: having both male and female organs) · ar زهرة خنثى (botany: having both male and female organs) · uk двостате́вий (botany: having both male and female organs) · ga déghnéasach (sexually attracted to both men and women) · mt bisesswali (botany: having both male and female organs) · et biseksuaalne (sexually attracted to both men and women) · io bisexua (botany: having both male and female organs) · bg би́сексуа́лен (sexually attracted to both men and women) · is tvíkynhneigt (sexually attracted to both men and women) · no bifil (sexually attracted to both men and women) · de zweigeschlechtlich (botany: having both male and female organs) · ms biseksual (sexually attracted to both men and women) · nl tweeslachtig (botany: having both male and female organs) · de bisexuell (botany: having both male and female organs) · de zweigeschlechtig (botany: having both male and female organs) · ko 양성애 (sexually attracted to both men and women) · az ikicinsli (sexually attracted to both men and women) · ko 량성의 (botany: having both male and female organs) · ms biseks (botany: having both male and female organs) · ja バイセクシュアルな (sexually attracted to both men and women) · ht biseksyèl (sexually attracted to both men and women) · ru двупо́лый (botany: having both male and female organs) · is tvíkynja (botany: having both male and female organs) · sk obojpohlavný (botany: having both male and female organs) · cy deurywiol (sexually attracted to both men and women) · cmn 雙性的 /双性的 (botany: having both male and female organs) · yue 雙性戀 /双性恋 (sexually attracted to both men and women) · ms dwiseksual (sexually attracted to both men and women) · ms dwijantina (sexually attracted to both men and women) · mt bisesswali (sexually attracted to both men and women) · sv tvåkönad (botany: having both male and female organs) · ko 양성의 (botany: having both male and female organs) · gl bisexual (sexually attracted to both men and women) · cmn 兩性的 /两性的 (botany: having both male and female organs) · nl biseksueel (sexually attracted to both men and women) · ms dwijantina (botany: having both male and female organs) · ro bisexual (sexually attracted to both men and women) · cs bisexuální (sexually attracted to both men and women) · es bisexual (sexually attracted to both men and women) · ka ბისექსუალი (sexually attracted to both men and women) · ms biseks (sexually attracted to both men and women) · ms dwiseks (botany: having both male and female organs) · ja 両性的な (botany: having both male and female organs) · ms dwiseks (sexually attracted to both men and women) · cmn 雙性戀的 /双性恋的 (sexually attracted to both men and women) · la bisexuālis (sexually attracted to both men and women) · fr bisexuel (sexually attracted to both men and women) · mi hōkakarua (sexually attracted to both men and women) · fo tvíkynjaður (botany: having both male and female organs) · tr biseksüel (sexually attracted to both men and women) · tg дуҷинсгаро (sexually attracted to both men and women) · de bisexuell (sexually attracted to both men and women) · be двухпо́лы (botany: having both male and female organs) · eo ambaŭseksema (sexually attracted to both men and women) · tl duhansariin (botany: having both male and female organs) · bg двупо́лов (botany: having both male and female organs) · mr उभयलैंगिक (sexually attracted to both men and women) · hu biszexuális (sexually attracted to both men and women) · id biseksual (sexually attracted to both men and women)
wikipedia: Psychopathia Sexualis · wikipedia: Richard von Krafft-Ebing · wikipedia: Otto Weininger · wikipedia: Havelock Ellis · wikipedia: Robert John Thornton · wikipedia: Charles Gilbert Chaddock · wikipedia: Palisot de Beauvois