They like a taste of the rainbow.
We’ve come more than a half-century away from the sexual revolution — and well beyond gay, straight or bisexual orientations, as individuals continue to explore the scope of their sexuality.
And one increasingly mainstream section of the sex spectrum has emerged: heteroflexibility. Not to be confused with bisexuality, in which people are equally attracted to men and women, heteroflexible folks predominantly identify as straight, but sometimes engage in whoopee with people of the same sex, according to Verywell Mind.
A study shows a major jump in people identifying as heteroflexible, which speaks to “the growing awareness that sexuality is complex.” zinkevych – stock.adobe.comFeeld, a dating app for those seeking alternative relationship structures, recently released its annual Raw report, providing a look at the preferences that shape contemporary intimacy. According to the findings, heteroflexibility is the fastest-growing sexuality, with the number of practitioners skyrocketing by 193% over the past year.
It is estimated that a staggering 15% of the US population — that’s 50 to 55 million Americans — now identifies as heteroflexible.
“We’re seeing a surge in people exploring connection and playfulness in authentic, fluid ways, redefining what it means to be seen and to connect in 2025,” said Dina Mohammad-Laity, Feeld’s VP of data.
Of the heteroflexibles, two-thirds are millennials (born between the early 1980s and 1996), 18% are Gen Z (people born between 1997 and 2012) and 15.5% are Gen X (individuals born between 1965 and 1980).
Heteroflexibility is an umbrella term that can cover a lot of sexualities, ranging from people who are bicurious to someone who has simply been in a threesome with a member of the same sex. Pixel-Shot – stock.adobe.com
Meanwhile, Berlin was the most heteroflexible city in the world, per the study, while New York City had the fastest-growing bisexual population, with an increase of 161%.
One caveat, per sexperts, is that the term is subjective and, for lack of a better word, flexible.
The category encompasses a wide variety of people: those who are straight but have enjoyed being with someone of the same sex, heterosexuals who’ve felt same-sex attraction on occasion and people who are bicurious.
It can even apply to a woman who was in a relationship with a man but was open to a threesome that involved another woman.
In fact, some have accused heteroflexibles of treading on bisexual and pansexual territory and even contributing to their erasure.
Luke Brunning, lecturer in applied ethics at the University of Leeds, explained that evolving identities illuminated by the study “speak to the growing awareness that sexuality is complex.”
“If anything, it would be surprising if people were never sexually curious about people of their own sex or gender, or if attraction worked in neat and predictable ways,” he told Feeld.
