Plurisexuality

Plurisexuality is an umbrella term for sexual orientations defined by the capacity for attraction (sexual, romantic, or both) to more than one gender. It groups together bisexuality, pansexuality, omnisexuality, and polysexuality as variations on a shared structural feature: none of them restrict attraction to a single gender category, in contrast with monosexual orientations such as heterosexuality and homosexuality (Wikipedia).

The term is used mainly in academic psychology and LGBTQ+ research writing rather than as a common self-identification label. Its advantage over the older phrase "non-monosexual" is grammatical: it names the attraction rather than defining it negatively as an absence. Researchers Renae C. Mitchell, Kyle S. Davis, and M. Paz Galupo used the term in this sense in a 2015 study of the experiences shared (and not shared) by bisexual, pansexual, and other multiple-gender-attracted people, including the distinct prejudice, sometimes called monosexism, that plurisexual people report from both heterosexual and gay/lesbian communities (Mitchell, Davis & Galupo, 2015).

People grouped under the plurisexual umbrella do not necessarily share one label: an individual may identify as bisexual, pansexual, omnisexual, polysexual, queer, or simply "fluid," while researchers cluster these labels together to study common structural features and common experiences of stigma, rather than to argue that the labels are interchangeable.

Examples

Plurisexuality is a research category rather than a personal label, so what it covers is a population, not an experience.

What the term covers. Bisexual, pansexual, omnisexual and polysexual people, plus those who say only "queer" or "fluid": everyone whose attraction is not confined to a single gender. It is used to study what that group has in common: shared structural position, and a distinct prejudice, monosexism, reported from heterosexual and gay or lesbian communities alike.

What the term does not cover. Monosexuality is the paired opposite. It is not a claim that the labels it gathers are interchangeable: researchers cluster them to compare experiences, not to collapse them. Nor is it a relationship structure: attraction to several genders implies nothing about how many partners anyone has. There is no plurisexual flag, because there is no plurisexual community: people use the flag of whichever identity they actually hold.

How the word is used. Academic register, from Latin pluri- ("several"), by analogy with monosexual. Its advantage over the older "non-monosexual" is grammatical: it names the attraction rather than defining it as an absence. The German pairing monosexuell/plurisexuell appears in nineteenth-century sexological debate; the modern English term entered circulation through M. Paz Galupo and colleagues' work from 2015. Clinical and community writing usually says "multisexual" instead.

History

The conceptual distinction behind plurisexual predates the English word by over a century. Historian of sexuality Diederik F. Janssen traces the pairing of German monosexuell (attraction to one sex) against plurisexuell (attraction to multiple sexes) to sexological debate of the late nineteenth century, including an 1896 anonymous rebuttal by jurist and homosexual-rights advocate Eugen Wilhelm, which discussed gradations of sex drive along this axis (Janssen, 2023). The modern English term re-emerged decades later, built on the Latin prefix pluri- ("several, many") by analogy with monosexual, entering wider circulation through sexuality-studies scholarship in the mid-2010s. Mitchell, Davis, and Galupo used it in their 2015 comparison of perceived prejudice among self-identified plurisexual individuals, published in Psychology & Sexuality (Mitchell, Davis & Galupo, 2015), and Galupo developed the concept further in the 2018 book chapter "Plurisexual Identity Labels and the Marking of Bisexual Desire," which examined how bisexual-, pansexual-, queer-, and fluid-identified people select different labels to mark the same underlying attraction to more than one gender depending on social context (Galupo, 2018). Advocacy and mental-health organizations, including The Trevor Project, more often use the parallel lay term multisexual for the same population: bisexual-, pansexual-, and queer-identified people attracted to more than one gender (The Trevor Project). The two terms are generally treated as interchangeable, with "plurisexual" favored in academic literature and "multisexual" more common in clinical and community-facing writing.

Demographics & research

Survey data on plurisexual populations mainly comes from research organized around specific labels rather than the umbrella term. Gallup's 2024 U.S. telephone survey found that 56% of LGBTQ+ adults (about 4.8% of all U.S. adults) identified as bisexual, the single largest sexual-orientation category within the broader LGBTQ+ population and, by extension, the largest plurisexual subgroup (Gallup). In The Trevor Project's national survey of multisexual LGBTQ+ young people, 56% identified specifically as bisexual, 28% as pansexual, and 16% as queer, and this combined population reported markedly higher rates of suicidal ideation and depressive symptoms than their monosexual LGBTQ+ peers (The Trevor Project).

Terminology & related identities

Plurisexuality sits opposite monosexuality in a conceptual pair distinguishing orientations by whether attraction is confined to a single gender. It overlaps substantially with the informal bi+ umbrella, which groups bisexual, pansexual, omnisexual, polysexual, and fluid identities for community and advocacy purposes; the two umbrellas describe largely the same population from different vantage points: bi+ as a matter of shared community, plurisexual as an analytic category used in research. Bisexuality and pansexuality, the two largest plurisexual identities, are distinguished mainly by self-definition rather than a fixed boundary: GLAAD describes bisexuality as the capacity to form enduring attractions to genders like one's own and genders unlike one's own, and pansexuality as one of several terms under that same bi+ umbrella, denoting attraction to any person regardless of gender identity (GLAAD), a distinction many treat as emphasis rather than a hard boundary, and many use the two labels interchangeably. No flag or symbol has been adopted specifically for "plurisexual" as a category; plurisexual people typically use the flag of whichever specific identity (bisexual, pansexual, omnisexual, or polysexual) they hold.

Common misconceptions

GLAAD documents bisexual erasure (questioning or denying bisexuality's legitimacy) as a problem facing plurisexual people specifically, distinct from the discrimination monosexual LGBTQ+ people face. Two misconceptions recur across the plurisexual umbrella: that attraction to more than one gender is a temporary, "experimental" phase rather than a stable orientation, and that plurisexual people are inherently indecisive or incapable of monogamy. GLAAD states that bisexuality is a distinct, legitimate orientation rather than a transitional stage, and that stereotypes casting plurisexual people as unable to commit to one partner are not supported by how plurisexual people themselves describe their relationships (GLAAD).