Am I Heteroflexible? Questioning Your ‘Straightness’ And What It Means for Your Relationship
By Mark Ryan, BACP Accredited Psychotherapist and NCPS Accredited Relationship Therapist
Heteroflexible is a fairly new word for an experience that is not at all new. It describes someone whose attraction runs mostly towards the opposite sex, with some occasional pull towards the same sex that doesn't feel central enough to call bisexual. Sometimes that attraction is so rare, or so specific to one person, that it causes real distress when someone reflects on their sexual identity. In my room this comes up in two quite different ways. Sometimes it's private, someone noticing something in themselves and turning it over alone before they've said a word to anyone. Sometimes it surfaces inside an existing relationship, named out loud for the first time in a session, with a partner hearing it in real time. Both are common. Neither is more valid than the other.
More common than the word suggests
Two misconceptions tend to arrive together. The first is that heteroflexible is a trendy label people reach for to avoid a harder truth about themselves. The second is that it's simply bisexuality wearing a softer name, and the extra word is unnecessary. Neither sits comfortably with the research. Both are a slightly updated version of the reductive trope 'bi now, gay later'. They do nothing to acknowledge the validity of what people feel, and they push people to reflect on it alone, which can be very harmful.
Survey data gives a useful starting point. The 2011 to 2013 National Survey of Family Growth interviewed 9,175 adults aged 18 to 44 across the United States. Of these, 95.1% of men and 92.3% of women said they were heterosexual or straight. Asked about attraction, 92.1% of men and 81.0% of women said they felt attraction only to the opposite sex (Copen, Chandra and Febo Vazquez, 2016). Put side by side, that is a gap of about three percentage points for men and about eleven for women between identifying as straight and reporting attraction only to the opposite sex. The survey cannot tell us who sits inside that gap, and the authors themselves note that attraction and orientation correlate closely but not completely. What it does show, in a national survey and not a niche sample, is that identity and attraction do not always line up neatly.
A later study asked whether heteroflexibility deserves to be treated as a group of its own. The researchers used a statistical method called latent profile analysis, which sorts people by their identity, behaviour and attraction together instead of along a single scale. In a sample of 3,182 people it found four classes, heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual and heteroflexible. The heteroflexible class was made up of people who identify as heterosexual or mostly heterosexual but report moderate same sex behaviour and attraction (Legate and Rogge, 2019). In announcing the work, the university suggested that around 15 percent of the population may identify as heteroflexible, potentially more than gay, lesbian and bisexual people combined, while noting that a larger representative sample is needed before firm conclusions can be drawn (Illinois Institute of Technology, 2020).
That figure should be held loosely. Even so, both studies point the same way. This is not a small, recently invented niche. Identity and attraction can sit apart, and a group of people live between the older categories without a word that fits. Many find it hard to speak openly about this, partly because the available labels leave so little room for it.
Is this just bisexuality with a different name?
This is a live, ongoing debate, and I'm not sure it needs a definitive answer. Some people, including some in the bisexual community, view heteroflexibility with suspicion. The worry is that it lets people claim proximity to queerness while keeping the safety of a straight identity. It can also send an unspoken message that bisexuality is something to avoid if a softer word is available. That concern deserves to be taken seriously and not waved away, and it's a large enough topic to deserve its own space rather than a paragraph here.
A distinction many people I've worked with find useful, and not evasive, is this. Bisexuality typically describes attraction to more than one gender as an ongoing, reasonably balanced part of someone's identity. Heteroflexibility describes something asymmetric, attraction that runs strongly and consistently in one direction with an occasional pull in the other that doesn't feel central enough to reorganise how someone understands themselves. That is not the same claim as 'this is basically heterosexuality'. It's a claim about where the balance sits, made by the person best placed to judge it, which is the person living it.
Why keep the straight label at all
If someone has noticed same sex attraction, why not simply call themselves bisexual and be done with it? For some people, that's exactly the right move, and I'd never talk someone out of a word that fits. For others, heterosexual remains the more accurate description of where most of their attraction sits, and choosing to keep it isn't avoidance so much as precision. This isn't always a comfortable position to hold. In my experience, people who identify as straight while privately carrying some same sex attraction often describe a particular kind of friction, not fully at home in exclusively heterosexual spaces, not straightforwardly welcome in LGBTQ+ ones either. That discomfort is real, and it's a reasonable thing to bring into therapy rather than something to be endured alone in silence.
What this looks like in the room
Some people bring this to me on their own, working through it before they've decided whether to tell a partner anything at all, and that's a complete and legitimate place to be. Others arrive because it's already surfaced inside the relationship, sometimes deliberately, sometimes almost by accident, an exploration or questioning that lands harder than either of them expected. Where a partner is involved and both are willing, I work with the couple together rather than treating it as one person's private issue to resolve before bringing it to the other. The core task is the same one that runs through every version of this conversation I have. Slow down before either of you decides what this means, and make room for what's true rather than the fastest available story. Often the goal is relational. How can we create a space in the relationship where questions and uncertainty can exist alongside emotional safety and security? The initial impulse for many is to run from uncertainty, but it's not the relationship alarm that it might seem. If everyone in the relationship can create some openness around the topic, they often find they relate to the question more than they had previously been willing to admit.
People who identify as straight while privately carrying some same-sex attraction often describe a particular kind of friction, not fully at home in exclusively heterosexual spaces, not straightforwardly welcome in LGBTQ+ ones either
Whether it settles or shifts varies completely
People often ask whether heteroflexible is a stable identity or a stopping point on the way to somewhere else, gay, bisexual, or back to exclusively straight. In my work it varies, and I haven't seen a dominant pattern in the couples and individuals I've worked with. Some people land here and stay for good, entirely settled. Others use the word for a period and later find something else fits better. Both are normal. Research on how sexual identity moves over time points the same way. I've written elsewhere about Lisa Diamond's long running research on sexual fluidity. She followed 79 lesbian, bisexual and unlabelled women for ten years and found that two thirds changed the identity label they had claimed at the start, and a third changed labels two or more times (Diamond, 2008). The study involved women only, so it cannot tell us about men, but its findings supported the idea that sexual identity can shift for some people and did not support the idea that bisexuality is just a transitional stage. There's no correct amount of time to keep a label, and no requirement to justify keeping or changing one. Self discovery doesn't end because you chose a label in the past.
What it means for the relationship you're already in
Naming this doesn't automatically mean anything has to change. That surprises people. Some couples talk it through once, both feel settled by the conversation, and the relationship carries on exactly as it was, monogamous, secure, unaffected in any practical sense, just with one more honest piece of self knowledge sitting inside it. For other couples, naming it opens a question neither partner had raised before, about whether they want to explore something together, individually, or not at all. Both are common outcomes, and neither is more mature or more evolved than the other. What matters is that the couple establishes which one they're in, rather than assuming.
The determining factor usually isn't the attraction itself. It's what the person wants to do with it. Some people are describing a fact about their inner life with no accompanying wish to act on it at all, in which case the conversation is about being known accurately by a partner, not about changing anything structural. Others are describing something they'd like to explore, whether that's an open conversation about non monogamy, or simply permission to feel and name attraction without acting on it. These are different conversations with different practical implications, and couples do better when they find out early which one they're having rather than assuming the more dramatic version by default. If exploring non monogamy together is on the table, Modern Love, Many Forms covers what that can look like in practice.
Making space for it without turning it into a permanent crisis
Whether this needs revisiting regularly or settles into the background after one honest conversation depends on the couple, and I've seen both work. Some couples do best treating it as a closed chapter once it's been discussed properly, checked in on occasionally, but not held open indefinitely as a live issue. Others find it needs to stay part of an ongoing conversation, particularly if the person's own understanding of their attraction is still developing, or if the couple has decided to explore something together and needs to keep adjusting as they go. If talking about sex and desire openly has always felt difficult in your relationship, that's worth addressing directly too, and I've written separately about why this is often so hard and how therapy helps.
What tends to go wrong is neither of these. It's the couple who never explicitly decide which mode they're in, so the topic becomes something that gets mentioned anxiously, then dropped, then raised again months later with all the original tension still attached, because nobody ever agreed on whether this was settled or ongoing. Deciding that together, out loud, is often more useful than the content of the conversation itself. 'Do we consider this discussed, or do we want to keep checking in?' is a question worth asking directly rather than leaving to guesswork.
How partners can start navigating it together
The most useful starting point is usually the most concrete one. Rather than talking in the abstract about what heteroflexibility means, get specific about what the person noticing it is experiencing. Where are they when it comes to understanding themselves? Is this about being accurately known by a partner, with no request attached? Is it curiosity about something they might want to explore, alone in their own head or together as a couple? Is there a specific situation or person involved, or is this general and undirected? Vague conversations produce vague anxiety. Specific ones, even when the specific answer is uncomfortable, tend to produce something workable. If the person who has noticed this is working out how to say it, the free Telling someone something difficult guide from the Resources page can help them prepare the words.
The partner hearing this for the first time benefits from the same advice that applies anywhere in this territory. Notice your own assumptions before reacting to them as fact. A flash of fear that this means the relationship is now at risk is a normal reaction, not a signal that it's true. Separating what you're afraid of from what your partner has said gives both of you room to have the real conversation. That conversation is about specifics, about what if anything either of you wants to change, rather than about the worst case version either of you has already written in your head. If you want the fuller picture of what this looks like from your side, Is My Partner Gay? was written for exactly this moment. And if what you're feeling underneath the fear turns out to be jealousy rather than something else, I've written about that separately too, since understanding it tends to help more than just managing it.
How therapy helps
I'm not in the business of confirming or correcting anyone's label. What I am interested in is making sure the label, whichever one someone chooses, fits their experience rather than performing certainty they don't feel, or avoiding a truth that's harder to sit with. Working out which of the situations above a couple is in, together or acknowledgment only, closed chapter or ongoing conversation, is the kind of clarifying work I do well. In my experience it's often quicker than either partner expects once vague fear gets replaced with a specific, honest conversation.
In practice this covers the three difficulties couples usually bring in. One partner wanting to explore while the other doesn't. A sense of hurt or betrayal that shows up even though nothing has happened. And the pattern of raising it, dropping it, then raising it again months later with all the original tension still attached. All three are common, and none of them means the relationship is in trouble.
The work itself is not unusual or especially unique as therapy goes. The first job is creating a safe enough space to hold the exploring partner's own process without either of you needing to rush it towards a conclusion. Alongside that, I help put some scaffolding around the relationship while you're both still working it out, so uncertainty doesn't have to mean instability. Once that's in place, the couple usually gets to a clearer sense of what any of this means for them specifically, rather than what it's supposed to mean in the abstract. Then we can start to work out where they would like to go from there, and I support them as they explore that.
If you're trying to make sense of this, alone or with a partner, I offer a free 30 minute consultation, in person in London or by video. The free preparation workbooks for individuals and for couples can help you think about what you'd like from it.
About the Author
Mark is a BACP Accredited Psychotherapist and NCPS Accredited Relationship Therapist working in person across central London, from rooms in Pimlico, Kensington, and Angel. He works with couples, individuals, and polycules on relationship issues including jealousy, affairs and betrayals, sex problems, and considered separation. His practice is integrative, sex-positive, and affirming of all relationship structures and identities.
References
Copen, C. E., Chandra, A., & Febo Vazquez, I. (2016). Sexual behavior, sexual attraction, and sexual orientation among adults aged 18 to 44 in the United States. National Health Statistics Reports, 88, 1 to 14. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26766410/
Diamond, L. M. (2008). Female bisexuality from adolescence to adulthood: Results from a 10 year longitudinal study. Developmental Psychology, 44(1), 5 to 14. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18194000/
Illinois Institute of Technology. (2020). New sexual orientation group, heteroflexibles, identified in first of its kind study. News release. https://www.iit.edu/news/new-sexual-orientation-group-heteroflexibles-identified-first-its-kind-study
Legate, N., & Rogge, R. D. (2019). Identifying basic classes of sexual orientation with latent profile analysis: Developing the Multivariate Sexual Orientation Classification System. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 48(5), 1403 to 1422. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-018-1336-y
