this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2026
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That's because it's an extremely old term; it merely refers to someone who is attracted to more than one gender.
Ok but did we really need yet another term that is difficult to distinguish from pre-existing terms?
When you have to write an essay to describe it, that should be a clue.
Bisexual is the original term.
A clue to what? That some concepts take more than one second to explain?
Actually it originally refers to having two sexes. Aka hermaphroditic.
I really hate how the word “sexual” has evolved in meaning into “relating to the activity that evolved to happen between the two main sexes”. We have the perfectly good Greek root “ero” and for some reason we have gradually muddled up the meaning of “sexual”.
In plants*
It could also be applied to animals meaning something that nowadays would be described as “intersex”.
I just think this meaning makes much more sense than “being attracted to two (later multiple) sexes”. If about sexuality and not sex, “bisexual” should just mean “with sexuality related to the number two” based on the etymology.
I think what you're stuck on is the scientific use of a word and a social use of a word can have different meanings. And depending on context the scientific use can differ.
In the case of bisexual, the term was likely used because the preference was for both genitals, since only 2 genders existed to science at that point. Also the term was coined by psychologists in 1890.
Well the modern usage of “bisexual” regarding sexual orientation has also found its way into science, evidenced by the lack of prominent scientific synonyms
Which again is irritating because scientific terminology shouldn’t be this lax
I think “bisexual” only references two sexes because it was created to describe a phenomenon related to sexual reproduction which evolved to occur between two main sexes; the term was unrelated to gender
The modern usage is because scientists used it, not the other way around. It was initially used by psychiatrists.
..thats even worse 💀