Monosexuality

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - Cite This Source

A monosexual is someone who is sexually attracted to one sex (or gender) only, monosexuality being the corresponding sexual orientation. A monosexual can be either heterosexual or homosexual.

The term is fairly uncommon, mostly used in discussions of bisexuality to denote everyone other than bisexuals/pansexuals (with the exception of asexuals, who are not sexually attracted to any gender). It was likely adopted in place of unisexual, which is already used in biology and would produce confusion. It is often considered derogatory by the people to whom it is applied, and is not in common use as a self-label by either heterosexuals or homosexuals.

The proportion of people who fit into the category depends on how one uses the word. If the term is used to mean exclusively monosexual in behavior, then according to Alfred Kinsey's controversial studies, 67% of men and 87-90% of women are monosexual. If the term is used to describe emotional response, the proportion is lower for men, 58%.

Freud thought that children were born polymorphously perverse and had to be taught what he considered normal stages of heterosexual development by parents or society.

Controversy

Among those gay men and lesbians who are familiar with this term, it is widely considered to be an ideologically loaded word intended to privilege bisexuality over other sexual orientations. Some in the bisexual community also avoid using the term for this reason. In the early 1990s a Usenet flamewar raged for many months on the groups soc.bi and soc.motss over whether this term was heterophobic/homophobic, or whether it was simply the justified bisexual response to a frequently biphobic gay and lesbian culture.

See also

• Biphobia
• Kinsey Reports
• Monosexism

Notes

References

• Maus, Fred (2004). "Sexual and Musical Categories", The Pleasure of Modernist Music. ISBN 1-58046-143-3.

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia © 2001-2006 Wikipedia contributors (Disclaimer)
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Last updated on Monday January 07, 2008 at 09:03:34 PST (GMT -0800)
View this article at Wikipedia.org - Edit this article at Wikipedia.org - Donate to the Wikimedia Foundation