Since only 50% of people are completely heterosexual in their lifetime and only 4% are completely homosexual all their lives, it seems that nearly half (46%) have engaged in both heterosexual and homosexual activities in their lifetimes, or react to people of both genders. The word bisexual can be used to define at least some of these people. Unfortunately the word has never been strictly demarcated.
The word is used to describe real, specific people; the root meaning of the word and the way it is usually applied means that these people have both masculine and feminine traits within their bodies. We object to the use of the term heterosexual and homosexual to describe people, and likewise the above definition is untenable, namely that these "bisexual" people have some kind of organization or endocrine system, or some physical and psychological ability, so that they are partly male, partly female, or both genders.
In biology the meaning of the word is "amphoteric", which is used to describe the individual structure or aggregation of tissues or functions that include both sexes. Some parthenogenous species are entirely female and reproduce as parthen (hatching from unfertilized eggs). In contrast, there are also hermaphroditic species that include both males and females, species that generally reproduce as parthenogenetically through female production, and amphoteric organisms that include both males and females.
The term amphoteric is used to refer to the blastocular structures from which certain vertebrate gonads can develop because of the possibility that these blastocyst structures have the potential to be both sexes and later develop into the ovaries or testicles. Hermaphrodites like earthworms, certain snails, and a very small number of people can be said to be hermaphroditic because they have both ovaries and testicles in the same body. This is the usual use of the term in biology.
On the other hand, when applied to the human sexual aspect, the term denotes the choice of some people to maintain sexual relations with both men and women. The term does not appear only now, and these individuals are called bisexual without certainty that these individuals necessarily possess the anatomy and physiology of both sexes. As a result of its wide dissemination, there is no doubt that the term continues to be used among scholars of human behavior and among the general public.
However, when using this term, it must be understood that it is an imitation of the words heterosexual and homosexual, and as they relate to the gender of the partner, rather than proving that the person known as a bisexual has any structural and organizational problems.
People who do not understand the intersex state in animals confuse the concept of the amphoteric body with the concept of intersex. The term intersex originated originally from Goldschmitt, and has since been used by geneticists and scholars in other fields of biology. If an individual exhibits a secondary sexual trait that resides between a typical male and a typical female, it is confirmed to be intersex.
A single individual who has fused the characteristics of both sexes (i.e., the ovaries and testicles) in itself is called a hermaphroditic body. The secondary sexual characteristics of an individual are to some extent immutable one sex characteristic, and at the same time to some extent have another sex characteristic, and this individual is regarded as a hermaphroditism. An insect head of a male and female inlay will have a typical color of one sex, while the thorax will have a typical color of another sex.
In contrast, intersestrophes are intermediate characteristics between a part or entire structure that is typical of the male or female structure of this species. Take the dancing poison moth studied by Goldschmitt as an example, which is very typical, the female is very large, and the male is very small. Intersex individuals show variations in size between larger females and smaller males. The typical dancing moth is pale yellow in females and white in males. Intersex indicates the various layers and differences between yellow and white. Hermaphrodites may have one wing being yellow and one white, one larger and one smaller; while the intersex wings are centered in size and color.
Although Gold schmitt himself accepted that homosexual men or women are intersex, this conclusion is not well founded. Those who accept this explanation have yet to find specific evidence to assume that a person's sexual partner choices are influenced by some basic physiological ability. Neither studies of hormones nor other physiological abilities of humans and animals have justified this argument. Goldschmitt and others who consider homosexuals to be intersex rely on purely speculative incidence figures that, as the data provided in this chapter indicate, have nothing to do with the facts that have been established.
Some men have the urethra open beneath the surface of the penis. This condition is called hypospadias. The most serious confusion in biological views is due to the identification of these men as intersex, the belief that they have homosexual tendencies. However, investigations of the embryonic development of male penises have shown that hypospadias is nothing more than the failure of the urethra to be closed at the end of normal embryonic development, and has nothing to do with genetically human males or females, nor with human endocrine tissue.
As our cases of hypospadias clearly demonstrate, this deformity has nothing to do with their choice of sexual partner, except, as some ignorant, uneducated people have shown, the determination of the individual's sex is confused, and they are raised from an early age according to opposite genders, dressed and habitually.
As we have pointed out, a true intersex person has genitals of both sexes in the same body. Of course, women with large clitoris are also sometimes referred to as hermaphrodites. The term temporality is used in such women. But unless we know more about the biological basis for this situation, it is uncertain whether the term intersex can be used in such cases.
[This article is excerpted from the book "Male Sexual Behavior" (compiled by Huang Zhongjing, Hainan People's Publishing House, 1989 edition)]