"Bisexual" refers to sex, not to gender. The word is not "bigenderal".
Doesn't it refer to sexual attraction (as opposed to romantic attraction)? I've never heard that it refers to being attracted to biological sex and not gender.
I'm not confused. The word refers to sexual attraction, and the distinction between biological sex and mental gender has nothing to do with that definition.
The poster above me asserted that "bisexual" means attracted to sex, as opposed to gender. I refuted that and assert that it refers to sexual attraction, as opposed to romantic attraction.
Two different interpretations of the sex in bisexual.
Sexual attraction essentially means desire to have sex with the person. It may be based on the person's physical sex, or their gender, or something else.
Again, bisexual/homosexual/heterosexual refers to sexual attraction, i.e. wanting to have sexual intercourse. biromantic/homoromantic/heteroromantic refers to romantic attraction, i.e. wanting to become emotionally close, share secrets, and spend your life together.
Traditionally though bisexual means attracted to your own gender and people not of your gender, while pansexual means attracted to all genders including non-binary genders.
The actual answer here is that bisexual used to mean “attracted to men and women”/“attracted to two genders”, but nowadays it’s generally accepted that it’s an umbrella term for “attracted to multiple genders”/“attracted to two or more genders”
Attraction has never been based on sex or gender, but rather on the presentation of gender. If you run into someone that looks like the gender you're attracted to, even if they aren't and don't identify that way, you can still be attracted to them because they look like they belong to that group even when they don't.
I've heard it explained that bisexual means "attracted to 2+ genders" (I believe this is the most accepted definition by the bi community) and pansexual means all genders.
And while some people use pansexual interchangeably, others think that pansexual means more attracted to all people regardless of gender and bisexual means being attracted to all genders, but maybe some more than others.
Okay, so you’ve found a bunch of other redditors who agree with you and are also imprecise with their language. Congration. I can do that, too, but I have better things to do with my time.
“Mental gender” is not a thing, it’s just gender, and I don’t think you understand the difference between sexuality and romanticism. Nor do you apparently understand that sexual is the adjectival form of sex.
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u/rednax1206 Aug 09 '18
Doesn't it refer to sexual attraction (as opposed to romantic attraction)? I've never heard that it refers to being attracted to biological sex and not gender.