In the 1860s, writer Karl
Maria Kertbeny first invented the term homosexual,
and later coined heterosexual as its opposite. The term entered
the psychiatric lexicon in the 1880s and 1890s thanks to Richard von
Krafft-Ebing's adoption of it in Psychopathia
Sexualis. One prominent American doctor used the term for
patients who would be called bisexual today, and many American laymen
continued to use it that way, along with the more euphemistic
"ambidextrous," well into the 1920's. In psychiatric
circles, though, the term was well established by 1915 when Sigmund
Freud used it in a revised edition of his Three Essays on the Theory
of Sexuality as a synonym for "normal" sexuality, sexual
desire directed toward members of the opposite sex.
The
heterosexual/homosexual/bisexual/transsexual distinctions as they have
been used by doctors and sexologists in the 20th Century are beginning
to weaken as doctors and sex professionals share a growing awareness of
the fluidity of an individual's sexuality.
