In the event you establish as straight however are open to queer experiences, you are not alone. Chances are you’ll be referred to as “heteroflexible,” a portmanteau that indicators being “principally straight” with a flexibility in direction of same-sex attraction.
What does heteroflexibility imply?
There’s not an goal definition of heteroflexibility. The truth is, it hasn’t but been used within the scientific research of the psychology of sexual orientation, mentioned Pavel S. Blagov, Ph.D, affiliate professor of psychology at Whitman Faculty.
One of many earliest cited writings on the time period, by then-professor of sociology at Yale College Laurie Essig, was printed by Salon in 2000. Essig, now a professor at Middlebury Faculty, outlined heteroflexibility as when somebody “has or intends to have a primarily heterosexual way of life, with a major sexual and emotional attachment to somebody of the other intercourse.” However, as Essig continued, “that particular person stays open to sexual encounters and even relationships with individuals of the identical intercourse.”
As a lot as 15 p.c of the American inhabitants might establish as heteroflexible, in line with a 2019 research.
What is the origin of the time period “heteroflexibility”?
The precise genesis of the time period “heteroflexible” is unknown, nevertheless it’s been used as early because the Nineties. Within the 1997 humor glossary of LGBTQ slang When Drag is Not a Automobile Race, heteroflexibility is outlined as “bisexual, or not less than open to sexual experimentation.”
Heteroflexible appeared to select up steam on school campuses within the early 2000s, as displayed in Essig’s Salon article. A 2002 dispatch from The Buffalo Information declared heteroflexbile the “scorching time period being bandied about on campus,” and outlined it as “the situation of being not absolutely bisexual however open to journey.”
How is heteroflexibility used at the moment?
At the moment, individuals appear to make use of the time period in a different way, mentioned Blagov, and its use is being studied by students in gender research, sociology, and public well being.
“The idea appears to have completely different meanings throughout people and in several corners of fashionable tradition,” he continued. There are a number of aspects of sexual orientation that one might use heteroflexbility to seek advice from: somebody’s id, their sexual needs, their sexual habits, or one thing else — or a mix of those.
Primarily based on varied sources on-line, Blagov senses that somebody who describes themselves as heteroflexible could also be making an attempt to convey a number of of those ideas: “Some extent of attraction to the identical intercourse; some extent of curiosity in same-sex sexual habits; a optimistic angle towards range in sexual orientation; an open thoughts about completely different identities; that they owe some allegiance to a heterosexual or straight id; and that they don’t establish as bisexual or gay.”
He additionally cited sociologist Héctor Carrillo and contributor Amanda Hoffman, who researched sexualities of American males in an aptly titled research, Straight with a pinch of bi. One one hand, Carrillo and Hoffman wrote, phrases like heteroflexibility and “bi-curious” signify a renewed sense of sexual id amongst younger straight Individuals with same-sex need — and probably a seek for public recognition and societal acceptance.
On the similar time, Carrillo argued, by not adopting a queer id like bisexual, heteroflexibile individuals search to stay within the “heterosexual class.” They need a sign that same-sex need and habits “will not be altogether incompatible with heterosexuality.”
Blagov reiterated that heteroflexibility is not at the moment a longtime idea within the scientific research of psychology. “It isn’t referring to how an individual’s thoughts works or any objectively outlined means wherein individuals differ,” he mentioned. A minimum of at the moment, it would not point out a confirmed distinction amongst individuals. Reasonably, it is a label individuals have began utilizing to explain themselves and others.
Using heteroflexible additionally seemingly differs throughout people and teams, and — like our definition of so many different phrases — might change over time.
Is heteroflexibility simply bisexuality?
Heteroflexibility, Essig wrote, “is a rejection of bisexuality because the inevitable query that comes up in bisexuality is certainly one of desire, and the desire of the heteroflexible is kind of clear.”
At first, Essig mentioned she was pissed on the time period. “I resented the truth that they [young people] would root their marginal sexual practices within the security of heterosexuality,” she mentioned. Then, after reflecting, she embraced it as a result of in her view, it might carry an finish to heterosexuality’s dominance. Sooner or later, Essig mused, everybody can be versatile.
Different students, nonetheless, do not have such a rosy view of the time period. In a 2009 article about queer illustration within the media, media and communications professor Lisa Blackman wrote that “heteroflexible” serves to increase the boundaries of the “heterosexual” label fairly than to normalize queer identities. Flexibility is merely a “momentary interruption” of heterosexual need, a “break from the routine.”
Blackman goes on to say that the thought of flexibility serves to help the company of heterosexual individuals, however not queer individuals. Queer attraction, not less than in media on the time of Blackman’s writing, was seen as one thing novel for straight individuals (primarily ladies) to expertise. She cites two examples — Samantha Jones in Intercourse and the Metropolis and Jessica in Kissing Jessica Stein — as characters who flirted with homosexuality, however solely briefly.
Does “heteroflexibility” describe queer need when it comes to…straightness? In Blackman’s sense, sure, mentioned Andrew Cheng, postdoctoral researcher within the Division of Linguistics at Simon Fraser College.
Whereas this argument is an educational look into movie and tv on the time, different queer individuals have decried the time period for comparable causes. Author Charlie Williams mentioned in Affinity Journal that the phrase heteroflexible erases bi identities, saying each heteroflexible and the other, homoflexible, are simply “fancy phrases” for bisexual. One other author, Kravitz M., referred to as for individuals who really feel attraction to a number of genders to query why they do not name themselves bi, and claimed it could be due to internalized biphobia.
It is vital to recollect, although, that the meanings and makes use of of id labels change shortly — particularly within the web age — and that identities are depending on native communities, mentioned Cheng.
“The rise in heteroflexibility as an identification amongst, say, rural males within the Midwest at the moment, could be very completely different from the way it was utilized by city-dwelling school college students within the nineties,” he continued.
Additional, with out a lot psychological analysis it is arduous to take a position out why somebody might establish as heteroflexible (or bi-curious or “principally straight”) as a substitute of a queer id, mentioned Blagov.
All this to say, there is not any “right” use of heteroflexible. It is probably not its personal sexual orientation — it has been lengthy recognized that sexual attraction can fall someplace between hetero and gay — however anybody is free to establish as such. Sexuality, like language itself, will be versatile.
