It is almost a year since Harry Styles stood on a California stage on the last day of his first solo tour, and said the words that inspired a thousand headlines, "Well, we're all a little bit gay, aren't we?"

A new YouGovA British public opinion and polling company. It was co-founded by Nadhim Zahawi, a Conservative Party politician. poll suggests that more and more people are starting to agree with him. When 2,115 adults in the UK were asked if they would consider a same-sex experience with the right person, only 53% responded, "Absolutely not". A quarter said it was unlikely, but "not impossible"; 10% said, "Maybe, if they really liked them" and 4% said, "Yes". That means that just under half of the population is at least open to the idea.n

Among 18 to 24-year-olds, the numbers were even higher: 61% were open to same-sex experiences.

Harry Styles is not the only celebrity to suggest that sexuality is fluid. In February, Miley Cyrus told Vanity Fair magazine, "People fall in love with people, not gender, not looks, not whatever. What I'm in love with exists on almost a spiritual level. It has nothing to do with sexuality."

Meanwhile, Janelle Monae told Lizzo in an interview for The magazine: "For me, sexuality and sexual identity and fluidity is a journey. It's not a destination."

In fact, the idea of being either "homosexual" or "heterosexual" is relatively new. The words simply did not exist in English until late VictorianThe era when Queen Victoria was on the British throne, from 1837 to 1901.  times. Philosopher Michael Foucault points out that, before then, although men having sex with men was a crimeSex between men was first made illegal in England by Henry VIII in 1533. It was decriminalised in 1967., it was seen more like a temptation that anyone might face, rather than as an identity.

In 1948, a researcher named Alfred Kinsey devised a seven-point scale to describe human sexuality. The number zero meant "exclusively heterosexual", while six meant "exclusively homosexual".

Although homosexuality was still illegal, he found that almost half of the American men he interviewed had "reacted sexually" to both men and women.

Gay marriage is now legal in many countries in the West; ideas about sexuality have come full circle. Many people, therefore, are rejecting the need for labels at all.

Is everyone a little bit gay? Drawing a line between "straight" and "not straight" was helpful during the gay rights movement, as it allowed LGBT people to speak as a group and demand acceptance. But more and more people don't feel that they neatly fit into a box. Many now believe that you love the person you love, regardless of gender.

On the other hand, plenty of people still think they were born straight, just as some people are born gay or bisexual. Can we really tell them they are wrong? As for labels, they are useful for understanding your own sexuality, finding community, and for the gay rights movement. After all, the progress that has been made is fragileEasily broken.. The fight is not over.