- Monosexuality
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A monosexual person is someone who is sexually attracted to one sex (or gender) only, monosexuality being the corresponding sexual orientation. A monosexual could be, for example, heterosexual or homosexual.[citation needed]
The term is fairly uncommon, mostly used in discussions of bisexuality to denote everyone other than polysexuals (bisexuals, pansexuals, and polysexuals), 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 sometimes considered derogatory by the people to whom it is applied,[1] though more often used simply as contrast to polysexuality. It is not in common use as a self-label by either straight or gay people.
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, 63% of men and 87% of women are what may now be termed "monosexual" as determined by experiences leading to orgasm.[2] If the term is used to describe emotional response, the proportion is lower for men, 58%.[citation needed]
Freud thought that no one was born monosexual and that it had to be taught by parents or society though most people appear to believe that monosexuals are in fact the majority and identify as such.[citation needed]
Music critic and analyst Fred Maus [3] compares the criticism of Béla Bartók's works for their use of tonality and nontonal methods unique to each piece to the bias towards monosexuality and against bisexuality (see biphobia).
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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.[citation needed] Some in the bisexual community also avoid using the term for this reason.
In the early 1990s a Usenet flame war 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.
Alternative definition
The term "monosexuality" has been used to describe the condition of desiring to have sexual intercourse only with one significant other. By contrast, a polysexual person is someone who desires or fantasizes about sexual relations with more than one partner, whether or not the person actually has such relations.[4] Both monosexuals and polysexuals can be homosexual, bisexual, or heterosexual. The important distinction is whether they desire only one partner or more than one. People seem to be born with a genetic predisposition toward monosexuality, polysexuality, or asexuality.
See also
References
- ^ Hamilton, Alan (2000). Archived August 5, 2007 at the Wayback Machine of "LesBiGay and Transgender Glossary", Bisexual Resource Center.
- ^ (1999). "Prevalence of Homosexuality", The Kinsey Institute. Note that Kinsey does use the term, which did not exist, but that he uses "exclusively homosexual" and "exclusively heterosexual".
- ^ Maus, Fred (2004). "Sexual and Musical Categories", The Pleasure of Modernist Music, p.164. ISBN 1-58046-143-3.
- ^ Christian, Ed (2010). Polysexuality: When One Partner Isn’t Enough: Discovering Your Polysexual Orientation, CreateSpace, 2010, ISBN 1453765174.
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