Bisexual Meaning: What It Is, and What Bi People Are Tired of Explaining

It is among the most-searched identity terms in South Africa, and also among the most persistently misunderstood — frequently by people who consider themselves entirely progressive.

The definition, updated

The old formulation was “attracted to men and women”, and it has a real problem: it implies exactly two genders and excludes non-binary people.

Bi communities revised this themselves, long before the current argument about it started. The widely used modern definition, associated with the activist Robyn Ochs, is attraction to people of your own gender and to people of other genders — not necessarily at the same time, not necessarily in the same way, and not necessarily to the same degree.

It is worth knowing that revision happened, because a great deal of the bi-versus-pan argument online is conducted against a definition that bi people stopped using decades ago.

Four myths, and why they persist

“It’s a phase”

The most common and the most corrosive, largely because it comes from both directions — straight people treating it as a stop on the way to gay, and gay people treating it as a stop on the way to out. Some people do move through bi as a label. That tells you nothing whatsoever about the people who do not.

“They must be 50/50”

Almost nobody is. Attraction is usually lopsided and frequently moves across a lifetime. Uneven does not mean fake.

“They’ll cheat”

This one deserves naming plainly because it does real damage in dating. Being attracted to more than one gender says nothing at all about somebody’s honesty. The reasoning — more possible attractions therefore less trustworthy — would equally imply that straight men cannot be faithful because most of the world is women.

“They’re only bi for attention”

Aimed disproportionately at bi women, and it manages to be insulting in two directions at once: it dismisses her orientation, and it assumes her sexuality exists for an audience.

Bi erasure

The specific way bisexuality gets made invisible: people recategorise a bi person based on whoever they happen to be with.

A bi woman dating a man is read as straight. The same woman, a year later, dating a woman, is read as a lesbian. She has not changed. Only the observer’s assumption has.

The practical consequence is that many bi people spend their lives being invisible in both directions — not out enough for one community, not straight enough for the other. It is a significant part of why bi people report worse mental-health outcomes than either gay or straight populations in a number of studies.

Bisexual, pansexual, or neither

Plenty of people use two of these interchangeably about themselves depending on context and audience. That is not indecision; it is choosing the word that communicates best to whoever is listening.

Bisexuality in the lifestyle

Bi people are heavily represented in lifestyle spaces, and the reason is fairly practical: it is one of the few environments where attraction to more than one gender is entirely unremarkable and requires no announcement.

It is also where a specific double standard becomes visible. Bisexuality in women is broadly accepted and often actively sought in swinging circles, while bisexuality in men is treated with markedly more suspicion. Bi men in the lifestyle consistently report having far fewer options and more caution to navigate — a distinction that has no defensible basis and which better circles have started to challenge.

If you are bi and considering the lifestyle: be as clear on your profile as you are comfortable being. It filters efficiently in both directions, and the people worth meeting are the ones who read it and simply carry on.