I'll be completely honest, both the topics of bisexuality and pansexuality confuse me really badly. I know this sounds really bad, but I'm just confused a bit. What really is pansexuality?
From what I understand, bisexuality is an attraction to two genders, while pansexuality is someone who can be attracted to anyone despite their gender. This article about the topic may help: Fuck Yeah! Bisexuals! • Pansexuality VS Bisexuality
By definition, bi means liking two genders, which most assume to be male and female. While pan means liking all genders, which can be male, female, or any of the non-binary gender identities. So sometimes with these definitions, you can assume that a pan person would be more willing to date a non-binary person than a bi person. But of course, that's not always the case. A lot of bi people would be willing to date a non-binary person. For some people, they use pan and bi interchangeably. But other people are firm in that they're two different ones. But pan means different things to different people. For some people, pan focuses more on being genderblind and mot paying attention to someone's gender at all. To other people, they focus more on being open to nonbinary people. Some pan people are more attracred to certain genders, while not being against any. I am pan and I love women and feminine people, but I am willing to date men and masculine people too.
...um no. Bisexuality is not limited to two genders/sexes. Basically, pansexuality is a subset of bisexuality where you're gender blind or whatever.
If you're referring to how I explained both, I'm sorry if how I explained it. I didn't mean to cause offense. I was just going by literal definitions, since bi means two and pan means all. Of course, there are plenty of bi people who are attracted to other genders than just male and female. It mainly just depebds on the individual person. Because both bisexuality and pansexuality mean different things to different people.
I think pansexual people don't see the person's gender, "genderblind". They just see the person and they're attracted to them. Meanwhile, bisexual people do see the person's gender, and they're attracted to that gender, which, to bisexual people, is most likely male & female. Omnisexuality is similar to bisexuality, except they're attracted to all genders, not just male and female.
I actually swap between the two myself. I do think they can be interchangeable, if you are attracted to all genders, but pansexuality puts more emphasis on the fact that gender isn't a binary and you could definitely be attracted to non-binary people? This could be way off, of course.
Thanks for the article! And thanks guys for helping. I think I get it now, pan sexuality is a subcategory of bisexuality in which the person described does not take gender as a way to see if your attracted to someone.
I really don't know. Whenever I ask people I always get a different answer. When I first heard the term I thought it meant they would have sex with anything (not trying to offend anyone) and I thought dang do they have sex with doughnuts? And this one girl also thought it meant that and she thought they had sex with animals and apparently rocks.
Bisexual- Two or more (Possible attraction to non-binary) Pansexual- All (Definite attraction to non-binary) That's basically it. A Pansexual could easily identify as Bisexual, too. There's a lot of horrible stereotypes and things that say Pansexual is "wanting to have sex with everything, even animals, corpses and inanimate objects" and it's not at all true. It's a disgusting thing that people say to make people feel bad for identifying as Pan instead of Bi. Because apparently, calling yourself Pansexual is about being a special snowflake. It's not. It's a word that doesn't carry as much stigma as Bisexual, but still fits a person's sexuality well, of not, more accurately. And apparently, calling yourself Bisexual is being greedy or confused. People can be real assholes :/ ---------- Post added 3rd Jan 2016 at 06:33 PM ---------- Exactly
No, actually this is an excellently posed question. People shouldn't have to worry about offending other people by asking a question. Your question was posed in a matter-of-fact "I don't know what this is" kind of a way. You didn't say you don't know what it is and then bring a bunch of harmful stereotypes to the table like many other people do when they ask these sorts of questions. I don't really want to provide answers so much as other things to think about, because I don't feel comfortable defining other people's sexualities for them. When I have to identify, I tell people outside the LGBT community that I'm bisexual. I tell people inside the LGBT community that I'm pansexual. The biggest difference is that pansexuals are more generally assumed safe romantic picks for transgender people. But even that statement needs to be qualified. Bisexuality does not imply a refusal to date trans people, and it does not imply a denial of trans people's gender. However, some bisexuals are trans exclusive and do hold to normative gender presentations. (They might say things like, "I could date a trans man because I could date a woman," or "why would I date a feminine man when I could date a woman?," which are both problematic for various reasons.) However, I mention it for completeness. Many bisexuals, like me, would love to date genderqueer and trans people, and many bisexuals themselves are trans or genderqueer. There is apparently still a raging debate about whether pansexuality is a "trans positive bisexuality," with the direct corollary being that bisexuals are shitty people. While this is not a productive conversation, it is going on, and I just wanted to make everyone aware of it. What I think is most important is that we maintain courtesy towards other people in how they want to identify their sexuality.
Sorry, if this is, rude in anyway, but i thought it's kind of funny, because it's what i thought it meant at first. my sense of humor, isn't the best, so again. sorry if i offended anyone.