Pansexuality
Have you noticed how it's recently become fashionable to define as a pansexual?
I was told that a pansexual is somebody who could potentially be attracted to anybody, regardless of their gender or orientation. At first this confused me because I thought 'bisexual' pretty much had that covered. So I investigated further.
The definitions in conventional web dictionaries did little to help my confusion but after a little research I came to the conclusion that pansexuals reject the description 'bisexual' because they reject the implication that there are two distinct genders and prefer a term that's more inclusive of trans and gender fluid people. If I am mistaken can somebody please correct me?
Whilst I respect that this is a very valid sexuality, I think 'bisexual' better describes me as I am primarily attracted to very feminine women and very masculine men, although I suppose technically, I am open to finding love wherever it may present itself...
No no no! I will not take on an identity that involves renaming my blog! Darn these technicalities.
15 comments:
My only problem with the word “pansexual” is that it conjures up images of people humping saucepans :/
Bisexual means you're atracted to both men and women.
Pansexual means you'd shag a polar bear if the opportunity arose.
Well, yep, I should say that having searched around, I also found the pansexual definition more comfortable to me than the mere bisexual or gay.
Maybe it's due to a cultural fact than a fashionable moment
Actually, pansexual is used, as you say, by those who disagree with the notion that there are *only* two genders.
Best example I can think of is if one happens accross a very good looking and feminine male-to-female transexual. A good example I guess is someone like Calpernia Addams (http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g277/tguinn/calpernia.jpg), who aside from having a penis is for all intents, arguments and the like a woman.
People use the term pansexual because they assign their attraction to transgenedered people outside of a 2-point spectrum of gender.
Personally, I think bisexual has it covered.
Hi Richard,
I agree with yo somehow, however I feel the term "pansexual" more related to a mental/psicological way to understand sexuality as a consequence of intellectual attraction (so Roland is not that far from the truth).
My physical sexual arousment is very low in case of a "pure body" picture, for example, while it's much more evident when a picture rappresents a situation when my mind brings me obsure desideres or simply hestical beauty (which does not really match which I consider sexy or attractive).
B6x75 is right about the intellectual part - it'd have to be a realy sexy/smart polar bear, obviously.
I've heard the term "omnisexual" as well. Since I am open to fucking men, women, transgender, more than one person at a time, and werewolves, I'd say I'm pansexual.
For me, pansexual does feel too much like a dodge - avoiding dealing with biphobia by coming up with another word for the same thing. And that has worked so well in tackling other prejudices hasn't it?
Does it matter what other people call themselves? I mean, really now. If you're bi, good for you. I've always said I'm bi, but may decide to call myself pan in the future. Why? Because bisexual people have a bad name for not being able to be monogamous, or NEEDING both genders to be happy, which is not the case. Rather than being divisive, which bi insinuates, pan suggests a more open-minded sexuality. I think it should ultimately be up to each individual to decide what this means for them though. For example, I just looked up "pansexual" and in urban dictionary it states someone who is attracted to male, female, transvestite, and transexual, as well as turner's sundrome and another syndrome starting with a k, where there is either only one x chromosome or y chromosome. Frankly, I could be attracted to a male or female, as well as anything inbetween. But a syndrome? If you ask me, that is almost insulting. No, I don't think that falls under the category of pansexual. Not for me, at least. I am attracted to human form. No offense to anyone with a syndrome, but I simply would not look at you sexually. When I say human form, I mean regular human form, no matter what genitals you have.
My understanding is that a pansexual person is someone who is attracted to people irrespective of their sex. In other words, their sexual attraction works as if there were not two separate sexes but just one group: people. I've read that pansexual attraction also includes people who are outside the traditional gender boundaries, such as transexuals, which I think makes sense given the definition.
While this may lead a pansexual to reject the idea of two genders, pansexuality itself is not a matter of what concepts a person acknowledges but how their sexual attraction works. It's a sexual orientation. Having said that, if someone wants to define themselves as pansexual for other reasons, it's OK by me.
I met a person once who had never heard the term pansexual, but as he struggled to describe his sexual orientation, he seemed to be talking about pansexuality as distinct from bisexuality.
For Pansexuality (Theory and Philosophy please see: http://www.pansexuality.it
Are we going to have to change the name of the LGBT Society to LGBTP Society now?!
NSsoc (Not Straight Society) would just about cover it. There'd be no need to keep changing the name every time somebody coined a new sexuality.
NSSoc wouldn't include the T strand.
Please read my blog about this at:
http://binetusa.blogspot.com/2009/04/we-are-all-somewhere-between-straight.html
(I am too lazy to re-type the points I made in that post)
After I posted that blog, we discussed all this at the Creating Change Conference in Dallas in February of this year. There is an even newer word, pomosexual, for post-modern sexual. I pointed out that pansexual is a bit of a priviledged word, because the high-school age working-class kids that I was fighting side-by-side with on YouTube in the fight against euroboy:
http://binetusa.blogspot.com/2009/05/from-sublime-to-ridiculous.html
had never heard of the word "pansexual," which came out of college queer theory classes. One of the things gay people who hate us throw at us is that we can't even decide what to call ourselves, and on the Internet people need one thing to look up. I, personally, although I am attracted to all genders, so technically I am pansexual, use the word bisexual for two reasons: because I am one of those older bisexuals who had to fight my whole life to claim the word, and because I think it's just plain easier.
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