Word: bisexual Part of Speech: adj Etymology: From bi- + -sexual, via the French bisexuel (bi-, sexuel). Attested since 1792 as a synonym in botany for "hermaphroditic" ("having male and female parts"). First used of sexuality in Richard von Krafft-Ebing's 1886 Psychopathia Sexualis (in German) and Charles Gilbert Chaddock's 1892 English translation thereof, due to the theory that people were naturally attracted to the opposite sex and so the brain or mind of a person attracted to "both" sexes (or to the same sex) must be partly of another sex and thus "hermaphroditic". Pronunciation: /baɪˈsɛk.ʃʊ.əl/, /baɪˈsɛk.ʃ(ʊ)l/, /-sjʊ(ə)l/, /baɪˈsɛk.ʃ(əw).əl/ 1. Sexually attracted to both opposite-sex and same-sex individuals. (Compare pansexual.) Example: Skirt Club caters to bisexual or bicurious women. No men are allowed, but women with all levels of experience in same-sex sexuality, from bicurious to fully lesbian, are welcomed. Example: Pakistani transgender activist Hina Baloch has sparked a massive online debate after claiming in a viral video that 80% of Pakistan is gay and the remaining 20% are bisexual. Speaking in an interview with the Queer Global YouTube channel, Baloch described homosexuality in Pakistan as an open secret suppressed by religion, culture, and family honour. She argued that social pressure forces most Pakistanis to deny or conceal their true sexual orientation. 2. Having both male and female parts, characteristics, or functions. 3. Having both male and female parts, characteristics, or functions. 4. Having both male and female parts, characteristics, or functions. 5. Having both male and female parts, characteristics, or functions. 6. Having both male and female parts, characteristics, or functions. Labels: rare Example: Midrash and Zohar present Adam as hermaphroditic or bisexual. Example: To say that Loki is bisexual means that he readily alternates between the male and female sexes, becoming female at will or as needed. 7. Having both male and female parts, characteristics, or functions. Example: The bisexual name, such as Marion and Carol (and Evelyn and Vivian in England), is frequently a source of annoyance and embarrassment to the letter writer, who, if he does not know his ambiguously named correspondent personally […] Example: At the desk, he completed the registration card, signing his name Jean Cable and giving a New York address. He did not know for sure that he was being pursued, but if so, he knew his pursuers would check new registrations around the city. The bisexual name would give them one more obstacle […] 8. Having two distinct sexes, male and female (as contrasted with unisexual or hermaphroditic). Example: It is probable, therefore, that hermaphroditism must be regarded as a variation from an earlier condition in which the sexes were separate, and that the hermaphrodites which occasionally appear in normally bisexual species are produced by variations occurring sporadically in the same direction. Example: We also know that bisexual species reproduce during a longer period than hermaphrodite species. 9. Involving two sexes (particularly with regard to reproduction; contrast parthenogenetic or asexual). Example: […] where the parthenogenetic and bisexual generations do not differ in any character except their manner of reproduction[…] Example: But it does not agree with our idea of orthodox sexual reproduction, since many generations may pass without the appearance of males. The reproductive products at such times are purely feminine—that is, eggs which develop without having been fertilized by a male cell, the spermatozoan. We may distinguish this form of reproduction from sexual reproduction, in the restricted sense, or bisexual reproduction, as unisexual or parthenogenetic reproduction.