Bisexuality 101: How do you define bisexuality?

August 15, 9:20 PMBisexuality ExaminerMike Szymanski

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The hibiscus is the perfect bisexual flower

    The word “bisexual” was created by botanists, and about 90 percent of all flowering plants have bi characteristics of both a male stamen and a female pistil. The hibiscus flowers are bi and in the early morning the female parts stick out beyond the stamens to be pollinated from some other plant, and if it doesn't happen, it curls up. Papayas have three sex types, male, female and bisexual. The bi plants are best for home growing. In the botany world, a flower with male and female parts, like an orchid, is considered “perfect.” And, maybe the biggest surprise, is that one special plant is famous for changing from male to hermaphroditic to female before becoming parthenocarpic, which means “virgin.”  That's the cucumber. 

    Curious as to why so many people avoid calling themselves bisexual?  Perhaps because no one can agree on a clear-cut definition of the damn word. Here are a few pathetic stabs from various sources of the word, which will only confuse you further.

    The Webster's Unabridged Dictionary in 2009 and the Merriam-Webster Online Edition still call us hermaphrodites, listing the primary definition of bisexual as “possessing characters of both sexes” and “of both sexes, combining male and female organs in one individual.”

    At least Webster’s didn’t liken us to foliage, like the biological definition for “bisexual” from Brooklyn Botanic Garden in 2003: “Having both stamens (male parts) and pistils (female parts); a perfect flower.”

    Well, we are perfect flowers…but still.

    Though Freud said all people were born bisexual until culture and society forced them to choose, goofy psychologists today, (like those who wrote the latest definition of the word for the Gale Encyclopedia of Psychology), still expect us to be doing both sexes at all times: “Sexual orientation defined as sexual involvement with members of both sexes concurrently within the period of one year."

    But what if we had sex with a different gender on day 366? Aw, come on. Can’t the rules be bent just a little?

    Hmm, maybe the religious right can give us some insight: “Bisexual by definition means promiscuous, having relations with both male and female.” – Republican Senator Don Nickles, 1996.

    Senator Nickles, you know, we’re not all promiscuous. Just you.

    Other religious leaders think we’re just gay as hell, especially later in life. Just ask the former pope. “The bisexual term suggests a sort of equivalence for people between homosexuality and heterosexuality, but the homosexual tendency actually predominates (or does so with the passage of time). The individual sometimes presents himself as bisexual for fear of being regarded as homosexual,” said John Paul II in the Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family in 1997.

    Hey, it’s not our fault all those gay people lie.

    Let’s give those goofy psychologists another try. Try the latest definition from the American Psychological Association: “Bisexual persons can experience sexual, emotional and affectional attraction to both their own sex and the opposite sex."

    Much better. Did some queer write this one? Sounds like Dr. Phil to me.

    Surely, BiNet USA, the only national bisexual organization in the country will have a better explanation: “Bisexuals can choose to be open to the full range of possibilities, but our bisexuality is the potential, not the requirement, for involvement with more than one gender. Some bisexual people choose to be in committed monogamous relationships; some choose other forms of relationships and commitments. Heterosexual and homosexual people also make these choices.”

  Let’s try the former bi magazine Anything That Moves:

   "Bisexuality is a whole, fluid identity. Do not assume that bisexuality is binary or duogamous in nature: that we have 'two' sides or that we must be involved simultaneously with both genders to be fulfilled human beings. In fact, don't assume that there are only two genders. Do not mistake our fluidity for confusion, irresponsibility, or an inability to commit."

    Er, duo-whagamous?


    Then again, maybe definitions are cultural, at least they are according to Dr. Ruth’s Encyclopedia of Sex: “While persons who engage in bisexual behavior may describe themselves as bisexual, many identify themselves as heterosexual or homosexual – particularly African-American and Latino bisexual men and African-American women."

    Here’s the best definition from a small bi group in Milwaukee: “The potential for physical, romantic or emotional attraction to more than one gender.”
 

But, then,  again, the world should just adopt the ultimate definition of the word…

Bisexual: (noun, adj.) the most evolved sexual orientation on the planet that many dishonest straight and gay people hesitate to label themselves because mainstream society, their friends, and the world at large deny its obvious existence.

Some of the above is excerpted from The Bisexual's Guide to the Universe: Quips, Tips & LIsts from those Who Go Both Ways by Nicole Kristal and Mike Szymanski
 

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