Polysexual is an orientation on the multisexual spectrum referring to someone who is attracted to more than two genders, but not all. The most common ways in which this can be phrased or described are:
- Being attracted to three or more genders, but not all
- Being attracted to many genders, but not all
A common misconception is that polysexual refers to someone who is attracted to exactly three genders, however, this is not the case as polysexual individuals could be attracted to a wide amount, so long as it is over two and not all. For example, someone who identifies as polysexual could be attracted to all genders but men, or they could be attracted to demiboys, men, and neutrois individuals. Both would fit the definition of polysexual if the individual wished to use the term.
Not everybody who experiences attraction to more than two, but not all, genders has to use the term polysexual. Other terms such as bisexual, being a more broad term, could be used. As well as this, more specific terms such as quintsexual (attraction to exactly five genders), could be used.
Modifiers[]
> Polyromantic is the romantic counterpart (other forms of attraction can also be substituted)
History & Coining[]
It seems to me unknown who coined polysexual originally.
The prefix poly- comes from the Greek prefix polus, meaning "many".
Flags[]
The first polysexual flag was created by user Samlin on Tumblr in 2012. It was made with the bisexual and pansexual flags in mind, and it has three stripes. The pink stripe represents attraction to women, green represents attraction to non-binary individuals, and blue represents attraction to men.