[Ads-l] heteroflexible (May 1999)

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Nice work Dave, Emily, and Ben. Congratulations to Paul McFedries.
Here are two citations from a bit later in 1997 to illustrate where
the word was circulating.

Year: 1997 Copyright
Book Title: The Smart Girl's Guide to College: A Serious Book Written
by Women in College to Help You Make the Perfect College Choice
Editor: Christina Page
Chapter 13: liberal or conservative
Section: Crunchy by Thea Joselow
Start Page 107, Quote Page 109
Publisher: The Noonday Press: A Division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York
Database: Internet Archive

[Begin excerpt]
At lunch, I pushed aside a handful of leaflets protesting against the
meat industry and the objectification of women, to make enough room
for my garden burger, locally grown salad, and recycled napkins. My
friends and I discussed how there is a word for everything and
terminology for every variation on every possible life-style. Our
prime examples were the different words used for various sexual
preferences; there’s heterosexual, bisexual, questioning, omnisexual,
asexual, and (my personal favorite) hetero-flexible.
[End excerpt]

The magazine Flare "Features Canadian and international fashions
available in Canada. Regular columns include relationships, health,
celebrity and culture." Flare used an instance without a hyphen.

Date: February 1997
Periodical: Flare
Article: Next Up
Author: Sara Waxman
Quote Page 18 and 19
Publisher: St. Joseph Communications, Toronto, Canada
Database: ProQuest

[Begin excerpt]
If it's February ... Sara says: It's for the two of us.
We'll fulfill our fantasies and play those cool and moody,
heartbreak-hotel, heteroflexible blues.
[End excerpt]

On Fri, Jun 26, 2026 at 1:13 PM Ben Zimmer
<00001aae0710f4b7-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:
>
> On his Word Spy site, Paul McFedries dates this to 1996:
>
> ---
> https://wordspy.com/words/heteroflexible/
> "If Michael Jackson wanted me as a boyfriend, I'd go with him as long as I
> could scam enough money from him," the hetero-flexible Joey told me.
> --Frank Owen, "Rebels without a lease," The Village Voice, May 07, 1996
> ---
>
> --bgz
>
> On Fri, Jun 26, 2026 at 12:05 PM dave at wilton.net <dave at wilton.net> wrote:
>
> >
> > Not in the OED.
> >
> > Rook. “Jumped the Gun re: Cancel Watch.” Usenet: soc.bi, 16 May 1999. [
> > https://groups.google.com/g/soc.bi/c/edDWC6b_wIY/m/1u-bmRUN2yMJ ](
> > https://groups.google.com/g/soc.bi/c/edDWC6b_wIY/m/1u-bmRUN2yMJ )
> >
> > "Yes, it's a disgusting state of affairs, and the female bisexuality that
> > het society is open too is largely fantasy and has little to do with any bi
> > folk. The bi male, by comparison, is simply a traitor to both the het
> > patriarchy and the gay patriarchy. Consider media portrayals of
> > bisexuality—there are far more portrayals of bi or heteroflexible females
> > than bi males, and bi female characters are far more likely to be presented
> > sympathetically than bi male characters are."
> >
> >
> >
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org