Any time you identify as direct however they are open to queer encounters, you’re not alone. You are known as

“heteroflexible,”


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a portmanteau that signals getting “mostly direct” with a flexiwith other bility towards same-sex interest.

How much does heteroflexibility imply?

There is not a goal definition of heteroflexibility. Indeed, this hasn’t but been included in the scientific study with the therapy of sexual direction, said Pavel S. Blagov, Ph.D, relate teacher of psychology at Whitman College.

Among very first reported writings from the phase, by then-professor of sociology at Yale University Laurie Essig, ended up being printed by Salon in 2000. Essig, now a professor at Middlebury university,

identified heteroflexibility


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as an individual “has or intends to have a mostly heterosexual way of life, with a major intimate and mental accessory to some one associated with the opposite gender.” But, as Essig persisted, “that individual remains prepared for intimate activities and even relationships with persons of the identical intercourse.”

Up to

15 per cent associated with the American populace


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may identify as heteroflexible, relating to a 2019 research.

What is the beginning associated with the phrase “heteroflexibility”?

The actual genesis associated with the term “heteroflexible” is actually unfamiliar, but it is been made use of as soon as the 1990s. In 1997 wit glossary of LGBTQ slang


Whenever Drag is certainly not a Car Race


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, heteroflexibility is defined as “bisexual, or perhaps open to intimate testing.”

Heteroflexible seemed to get steam on university campuses during the early 2000s, as demonstrated in Essig’s Salon post. A 2002 dispatch from


The Buffalo News


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announced heteroflexbile


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the “hot phrase being bandied about on university,” and explained it “the health of being not totally bisexual but available to adventure.”

Just how is actually heteroflexibility utilized now?

Today, men and women seem to make use of the phase differently, said Blagov, and its own use has been studied by scholars in gender researches, sociology, and general public wellness.

“the idea seemingly have different meanings across individuals plus in various sides of popular culture,” he carried on. There are lots of facets of sexual orientation that one may make use of heteroflexbility to refer to: somebody’s identification, their particular intimate desires, their own intimate conduct, or something like that different — or a variety of these.

According to numerous options on the internet, Blagov sensory faculties that someone which describes by themselves as heteroflexible may be wanting to communicate more than one of these principles: “some extent of appeal on the same sex; some amount of interest in same-sex intimate behavior; a confident attitude toward range in sexual direction; an unbarred mind about different identities; that they are obligated to pay some allegiance to a heterosexual or straight identity; and they dont recognize as bisexual or homosexual.”

The guy in addition cited sociologist Héctor Carrillo and contributor Amanda Hoffman, who researched sexualities of United states guys in an appropriately titled research,

Right with a pinch of bi


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. One-one hand, Carrillo and Hoffman published, conditions like heteroflexibility and “bi-curious” express a restored sense of sexual identification among young right People in america with same-sex need — and possibly a research community recognition and social acceptance.

Concurrently, Carrillo contended, by perhaps not adopting a queer identity like bisexual, heteroflexibile individuals attempt to stay in the “heterosexual classification.” They want an indication that same-sex desire and conduct “are maybe not completely incompatible with heterosexuality.”

Blagov reiterated that heteroflexibility actually at this time an established principle when you look at the study of therapy. “It is really not talking about just how an individual’s brain works or any rationally identified method by which men and women differ,” he mentioned. No less than at this time, it generally does not suggest a well-known difference among men and women. Rather, it is a label folks have started making use of to spell it out themselves and others.

Making use of heteroflexible also likely varies across individuals and teams, and — like the definition of numerous some other terms — may change-over time.

Is heteroflexibility just bisexuality?

Heteroflexibility, Essig had written


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, “is a getting rejected of bisexuality because inescapable question which comes upwards in bisexuality is among choice, and the inclination regarding the heteroflexible is fairly clear.”

At first, Essig said she was actually pissed at term. “we resented that they [young individuals] would root their particular limited sexual techniques inside the security of heterosexuality,” she said. Subsequently, after reflecting, she accepted it because inside her view, it might deliver an end to heterosexuality’s dominance. As time goes by, Essig mused, every person would-be versatile.

Various other scholars, but don’t possess such a rosy view of the word. In a 2009 post about

queer representation inside the mass media


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, mass media and marketing and sales communications professor Lisa Blackman wrote that “heteroflexible” assists to grow the boundaries for the “heterosexual” label in place of to normalize queer identities. Flexibility is just a “temporary interruption” of heterosexual desire, a “break through the regimen.”

Blackman continues on to state that the thought of versatility acts to aid the agency of heterosexual people, but not queer men and women. Queer attraction, at the very least in news in the course of Blackman’s writing, ended up being considered something unique for right individuals (chiefly ladies) to achieve. She cites two examples — Samantha Jones in

Intercourse as well as the City

and Jessica in

Kissing Jessica Stein

— as characters just who flirted with homosexuality, but only temporarily.

Really does “heteroflexibility” describe queer need in terms of…straightness? In Blackman’s feeling, yes, stated Andrew Cheng, postdoctoral specialist within the division of Linguistics at Simon Fraser University.

While this argument is actually an academic explore movie and television at that time, other queer men and women have decried the definition of for comparable factors. Blogger Charlie Williams stated in
Affinity Magazine your word heteroflexible erases bi identities

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, claiming both heteroflexible and also the reverse, homoflexible, are “fancy terms” for bisexual. Another creator, Kravitz M., called for people that believe attraction to several sexes to
concern the reason why they do not phone by themselves bi

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, and advertised it may be caused by internalized biphobia.

You’ll want to bear in mind, though, that the definitions and utilizes of identity tags alter quickly — particularly in the world-wide-web age — which identities tend to be determined by neighborhood communities, stated Cheng.

“The rise in heteroflexibility as a recognition among, state, outlying guys in the Midwest these days, might be very different from how it was utilized by city-dwelling students inside the nineties,” he persisted.

More, with very little psychological study it’s hard to take a position down why somebody may determine as heteroflexible (or bi-curious or “mostly right”) in the place of a queer identification, stated Blagov.

All this work to express, there isn’t any “correct” using heteroflexible. May possibly not end up being its own sexual positioning — it’s been very long identified that

intimate interest can fall somewhere between hetero and homosexual


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— but any person is free to determine therefore. Sexuality, like language it self, can be versatile.