I think this sounds good to you because you are overestimating the intellectual capability of the general populous. Frankly, I think this is liable to simply confuse people. When people get confused, they feel overwhelmed, and when they feel overwhelmed they stop listening entirely. Making things more semantically challenging is hardly the way to go to clarify the stereotypes, IMHO.

Yes, the bisexual = slut/kinky/etc equivalence is not a good one.

I was kind of coming at things from the other direction – that if talking about gender preference, using a word which had those extra implications would just reinforce the slut/kinky/etc misconception.

But you’re right: using pansexual alongside bisexual to, as it were, take the weight of the people who are some or all of bi, kinky, sluts, whatever, and who want to acknowledge that when talking about their sexuality – that’s an idea that sounds good :)

Dov

Thank you for coming back with this!

The ideas you demontrate about pansexuality referring to sexualitities interested in ranges of activities as well as genders, etc, is a part of the word that I’ve been subliminally aware of but not able to articluate very well.

I would not personally choose to confine the word strictly to a conversation about gender preferences, although gender is very much at the front of my mind these days and so takes a front seat for many of my thought processes. Very much as you said, I like the idea of a word that broadens the definitions of sexuality. I mean, you know, sadist. That’s a very good example of a broadening of sexual experience.

So you are right. There is an issue in claiming that pansexuality is solely about gender preferences. Clearly it has a wider scope than that. And I should be more specific, when using it to describe myself, that I don’t use the word only in reference to gender, rather than doing so unconsciously.

I also like the idea of a word that encompasses activity. That, to me, is neat.

In essence, thank you. That was a very important point that I definitely didn’t make.

G suggested that given that there’s already a tendency for people to equate “bisexual” with “kinky” & a bunch of other stuff, using, as an alternative to “bisexual”, a word which explicitly has those other implications might be suboptimal.

I would say that although bisexual often becomes culturally subtexted as having a meaning closer to what I currently understand as pansexual, that’s not necessarily a good thing. It seems to me that the very subtext being referred to here is part of the common misconception that all bisexual people are kinky, or sluts. Perhaps having a word which explicitly handles those implications will allow some of them to be off-loaded from “bisexual.” After all, it is hardly fair to assume that a bisexual person is kinky. Perhaps that change will enable people to actually treat biseuxality as a declaration of gender preference, instead of subtexting it as a definition of activity preference.

I was talking to my partner G about this, and he pointed out that Merriam-Webster defines pansexual as “exhibiting or implying many forms of sexual expression” – so not just who one does things with, but what one does.

The OED says “2. That encompasses all kinds of sexuality; not limited or inhibited in sexual choice with regards to gender or practice.”, with a 1974 usage example from the Observer referring to bestiality & incest (! Other usage examples are more standard).

(& on a side-note, thank you for prompting me to discover that I finally have online access to the OED again – my local library has access-by-library-card-from-home subscription, which is awesome.)

G suggested that given that there’s already a tendency for people to equate “bisexual” with “kinky” & a bunch of other stuff, using, as an alternative to “bisexual”, a word which explicitly has those other implications might be suboptimal.

i.e. that at the least there may be an issue about claiming pansexual as being solely about gender preference (or lack of!), if we would prefer to disengage that from other preferences & activities. Which I think I would, myself.

Of course, that’s not to say that as a word or identity it’s a bad one :) In fact, I am inclined to like it more (for myself, I mean) when taking the non-gender aspects into account – partly because I am interested in broadening definitions of “sexuality” in the sense of sexual behaviour & what is/isn’t sexual.

And certainly in terms of evoking discussion about gender, sexuality, attraction, & so on, you’re already doing pretty well by it :)

Having read your later post, I’m interested by May’s idea of bi as ends of a spectrum – which wasn’t one which had explicitly occurred to me before but which does seem to make sense.

Well, you know. We love you. Thank you for this.

Jen~<3

I’ve hated the word “bisexual” for a long time, as binary notions of gender tend to piss me off.

Great post, as always.

This is pretty much exactly how I had always thought of bisexuality. I think it’s usually the way the word is used, as well.

As I will write about two posts from now, I spent a ton of time over the weekend with a group of very gender-fluid people. A lot of what we talked about, and a lot of what I’ve been thinking about involved the idea of the binary of gender. Not only do I like to use words specifically, but I like to use words that reflect the way I think personally. I don’t think that switching these words really changes that part of my identity; it simply makes more sense to me.

I don’t find any problem whatsoever in using the word “bisexual” as you’ve described it, as long as you and your listener agree on the definition. However, I do think that the cultural instict to make gender into a necessary binary is an issue, even for me. I also think that language is power, and language spreads awareness. Saying I’m pansexual doesn’t change who I want to fuck or how I fuck them, but it starts a conversation (like the one we’re having now) that I think is interesting, and worth having.

Although I like the word “queer,” I find it to be too nonspecific. That is actually a big part of its appeal for many folks, but not something I’m willing to take on when describing myself.

I think the bisexual community and the pansexual community are probably a lot of the same people. I would still consider us part of that community together, no matter what word you chose to use.