Comment on Growth
Planchette_Phantom@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
To be fair, pansexuality is under the umbrella of bisexuality. What makes it more confusing is that there is no rule saying that bisexuals must only be attracted to 2 genders.
As someone who identifies as pansexual, the distinction i make is that I don’t consider gender when vetting a potential partner, it’s just not a metric that is part of that decision.
Aside from that, your description here is spot on from what I understand at least. Of course gender and sexuality is a social construct so other people may feel differently
bisexual = attracted to all genders pansexual = no gender they are not attracted to
Kinda!
The way I’d personally word it is:
Bisexual = attracted to their own gender and other genders (perhaps not every gender but that depends on the person)
Pansexual = gender is irrelevant
The distinction is mostly semantic as it doesn’t really change much in terms of how we operate in dating.
Counter-anecdote
In my friend group, the bisexuals are very “gender is irrelevant.”
While the “attracted to one specific gender and others” ppl tend me more … “straight, but I’ll suck a dick” (or the inverse “gay, but boobs are super hot”)
The only reason I identify as bi instead of pan is because I like the bi flag more
I switch between them, but I concur, I also prefer the bi flag and I usually just identify as bi for simplicity and not having to explain the difference lol
But is there a rule that says a dog can’t play basketball?
No
We are a go for airbud 12
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RIP Buddy we all love you
Bi-sexual. So attracted to both sexes. Not genders.
Homo> Same Hetero > Different Bi > Attracted to both same and different
So you’re not bilingual if you know multiple languages?
Nope, that’s multilingual or polyglot.
Sure. But if you want to dig that hard into the meaning of the suffix “bi” when used in queer spaces, you’re gonna wear yourself out.
I identify pan because I don’t care what’s between your legs, I like you and want to touch it. But I’m not going to I’m acktually someone for feeling the exact same way but identify bi.
My wife generally says that she’s bi, but if she were coming out today she’s said that she’d probably call herself pan, that just wasn’t really a common term when back when she did come out so she’s spent most of her life calling herself bi, and she just kind of identifies with that label more at this point.
To her, the term bi does kind of imply that someone is attracted only to males or females and would tend to exclude non-binary gender identities (though not necessarily trans people, being MtF or FtM does still kind of line up with a traditional gender binary, a trans man is a man and a trans woman is a woman)
Which doesn’t really describe her, she’d be cool with any identity, which to her is more pan, but again she’s just been calling herself bi for so long it just feels weird to change that, and since she’s off the market at this point it’s a little bit of a moot point anyway since she’s not trying to get in anyone’s pants but mine.
I tend to head canon it as binarysexual and pansexual, just as a way to keep them straight (heh) when running through things in thought
That’s incorrect though. Bisexual means “homo- and heterosexual” as in, “those that share your gender and those that don’t”.
Which is the same as pansexual. But pansexual is a term invented by people who didn’t understand the above.
That’s why I said head canon.
Head canon is where you make shit up for internal entertainment. This being on lemmy, I kinda assumed that even in a science meme community, head canon would be understood. Sorry about that ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I’m dubious if pansexual being invented by people that didn’t understand that though. The word pansexual is usually acknowledged as being derived from pansexualism, which was coined whole by or about Freud (supposedly, I wasn’t alive then to know) to mean that sex and sexuality are a primary motivation in all human existence.
The later term came around back in the seventies, and was being used to mean having no limits on sexuality. I’ve run across people saying they used it as far back as the sixties in that context, but they were dirty hippie potheads, sooo…
In any case, it was in use during at least the late seventies, as it showed up in print in some of the books of the era that were part of the sexual revolution. And it didn’t “just” mean trans inclusive, nor was it used as a direct synonym for bisexual. It very much included things like what gets called polyamory now, group activity, etc. The core usage was that the person calling themselves pansexual was not limiting themselves to the standard paradigm, which is a different thing from being attracted to and/or having hetero and/or homo sexual activity.
I’m not sure exactly when the term got shifted to the increasingly common usage of “trans inclusive sexual orientation”, though I remember running into it as far back as either the late nineties or early oughts.
So, I’m fairly confident that the people back in the sixties or seventies that originated it as something close to an orientation knew that bisexuality existed, and saw pansexual as being something that went beyond it in some way. I’ve definitely never run across any definitive “first use” where the term was defined in print. Not saying it wasn’t, just that none of my reading of the matter back in the day uncovered it, and human sexuality was very present in my mom’s collection of books. Our town library even included books on the subject, though less than what my mom had, and way less than I had access to later on.
With that in mind, if you have run across something definitive regarding the origin of the term either in the seventies sense, or its adoption as trans inclusive, I would absolutely love it if you could guide me to it. Not being snarky, not being contrarian, I’d genuinely enjoy learning more about it because it’s a subject that’s fascinated me since I was old enough to think about sex at all.
This is really interesting and a great contribution to this discussion. I wish whoever was downvoting you would comment to say what they take issue with.
I feel like placing identities into hierarchies always ends up controversial. Like non-binary is technically under transgender because transgender just means your transitioning from your assigned gender to something else; but a lot of non-binary people really don’t like being called transgender instead of non-binary.
At the end of the day, the words meanings are a subjective experience that cannot be directly observed or compared. So functionally all self-identifying terms exist flat relative to each other because there will always be contradictory definitions that you can’t rigidly settle on without ignoring significant groups of people.
…bi means 2.
MajorMajormajormajor@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Doesn’t the name imply only two?
FilthyShrooms@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
No it implies once every other week
Wait
synae@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Well then what’s semisexual?? I’ll never get this figured out
meekah@discuss.tchncs.de 3 weeks ago
that means you like large trucks for hauling commercial goods
BCsven@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Or twice a week?
MajorMajormajormajor@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Shit, that’s the rough life. I’ll take the twice a week definition instead please, Trebek.
bitjunkie@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
That’d be semi-weekly.
bitjunkie@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Too real.
Semjeza@fedinsfw.app 3 weeks ago
The “bi” is for both homosexual and heterosexual relations. Not gender itself.
spinne@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
TIL
Okokimup@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Sure but it can be interpreted as “people who share my gender” and “people who do not share my gender.”
percent@infosec.pub 3 weeks ago
This is off-topic, but… For some reason, that reminded me of a funny exchange I had with someone who was buying a lottery ticket, years ago…
Me: “What are the chances that you’ll win?”
Him, with a heavy southern accent: “50/50. You either win or you don’t.”
Planchette_Phantom@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
That’s because it’s an extremely old term; it merely refers to someone who is attracted to more than one gender.
blargh513@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Ok but did we really need yet another term that is difficult to distinguish from pre-existing terms?
When you have to write an essay to describe it, that should be a clue.
Planchette_Phantom@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Bisexual is the original term. This is common knowledge.
Carnelian@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
A clue to what? That some concepts take more than one second to explain?
bellsfry@thelemmy.club 3 weeks ago
Actually it originally refers to having two sexes. Aka hermaphroditic.
I really hate how the word “sexual” has evolved in meaning into “relating to the activity that evolved to happen between the two main sexes”. We have the perfectly good Greek root “ero” and for some reason we have gradually muddled up the meaning of “sexual”.
anotherspinelessdem@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
It does, but definitive often diverge from the original over time
purplerabbit@piefed.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
A master, and an apprentice.
MajorMajormajormajor@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
Bisithual
jerkface@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
No, every other