I’m sure for some people, saying they’re bisexual feels less scary than making a statement that they’re gay.
For me, it’s not really an issue because I’m someone who believes being bisexual is actually a thing. It’s not made up. It’s not a lack of decision. It’s not being greedy or numerous other ignorant things I’ve heard at this point.
For a bisexual, it’s not about gender. That’s not the deciding factor for who they’re attracted to.
True Blood actress Anna Paquin spells out what her sexuality means to her, in Zooey magazine
cam
I’m glad she didn’t use that phony B.S. line of “It’s all about whats inside” that some bisexuals use.
Everybody I’ve heard say that invariably was dating somebody hot and I would think, MY, how lucky you were that the person with the great “Insides” just happened to be smoking hot on the outside.
As for Paquin, she seems nice and straight forward in interviews, good for her.
SFGreek
Glad she said all that, including that it’s not the deciding factor (though even some bisexuals can have phases where they prefer a specific gender), and not that they see “beyond” gender.
cam
@SFGreek:
Yeah, I like her attitude of “This is me, ok next question.” lol
Gauthier
@HUH?: Troll, kindly clamber back under your bridge or at least, go blow your smegma-flavored mouthfarts on blogs that are in more dire need of twelve-year old pseudo-reactionary bigot douchenozzles than this one. You are a dying breed. People like you need to be effectively ridiculed and hen forgotten about. And this is what we’ll do. We’ll call you out on your laughable attempts at riling people up that can’t even see you or acknowledge your sad existence, and then go about our day. So I repeat; dear trollop, either go drown yourself in a swampy mire deep in the woods where no-one will find you, or spend your time more worthily and actually contribute something to society by spreading love, awareness and understanding. You’re welcome.
HUH?
@Gauthier: TL;DR
Belize
@HUH?: “Well, I wouldn’t call you an asshole, but yeah, you probably do suck.”
Charlie probably does. Jealous and bitter? Is that the reason behind the trolling, baby?
Belize
@HUH?: “TL;DR”
Translation: “I’ve been put in my place. Time to pretend like I don’t care.”
HUH?
@Belize: No, actually it means Too Long, Didn’t Read. I’m guessing you’re all about 300 years old.
Keith
Good for her, welcome to the LGBT family. 🙂 Hasn’t she been out for awhile?
FYI queerty pansexual is just another term for being bisexual.
JayKay
“Pansexual” just means “I’m bisexual, but saying that doesn’t make me sound precious and unique enough.”
cam
@JayKay: LOL!!!!!!!!!! Love it!
Rob
I’m bisexual and I agree with you JayKay. Pansexual is just another term for being bisexual and I’ve noticed that people who identify as pansexual have major issues with their bisexuality, have internalised biphobia, and want to avoid saying to people “I’m bisexual.”
I also have noticed that pansexual identified people will claim that they are attracted to trans people and that bisexuals somehow are not, and that pansexuals go beyond gender. This is not true at all since many bisexuals myself included are attracted to trans people and for many bisexuals the gender of a partner who you’re in a relationship with comes secondary.
kouros
Pansexual is not exactly the same as bisexual evn though a pansexual person can identify as bisexual. Pansexual means you don’t care regardless of gender and sex which I hope you all remember are not the same thing. I for example am bisexual, i would go out with a girl but i wouldn’t really go out with an androgynous girl that doesn’t identify as female, and i am not really attracted to transgendered or gender queer people. I have a bisexual friend who on the the other hand her last girlfriend was transgendered so i guess it was her last boyfriend.
kouros
lol forgot to finish, my bisexual friend identifies as pansexual
Cam
@kouros:
No, actually your description is wrong.
Bisexuals are attracted to men and women. There is NOTHING that says they may not be attracted to a certain type of woman or a certain type of men.
Pansexual is just a desperate attempt by some people to try and be unique and just makes them sound sad an insecure.
I don’t like guys that are taller than me and prefer brunettes to blonde….I guess I’m not “Gay”. I must be Monosexual. (Eye Roll)
jason
A lot of you fail to distinguish between men and women when it comes to sexuality – and bisexuality.
Women use their sexuality as a marketing ploy. They, therefore, advertise their sexuality in order to get attention. This includes saying they’re bisexual when in fact they are not truly bisexual. They use the concept of “I’m a bisexual female” in order to titillate sleazy straight guys, who are the main buyers of their sexuality.
It’s very similar to their clothing. Just look at how women have adopted revealing clothing whereas their boyfriends or husbands are often dressed much more conservatively. Go to any cocktail function. Why is it that the women are often revealing their cleavage etc whereas the men are dressed very conservatively. It’s an interestingly unequal choice that women are making.
Don’t ever fall for the notion that female sexuality is genuine. It’s largely fake. Male sexuality is much more honest when it comes to bisexuality.
brian
I have met women who made up their bisexuality in order to please the strictly straight guy they were going out with. Sad. I think these women absolutely do make up their sexuality. It’s similar to how they fake their orgasms in order to please the man they’re with.
Memo to gay and bi men: never allow a woman to control a discussion on sexuality. Women will talk about it from their perspective without any regard for the male perspective. Women will talk about bisexuality from the point of selling their sexuality to a third party male, which is completely the opposite of what men do. Men generally don’t sell their sexuality to a third party.
Rob
Kourous, that’s nice. I’d gladly date an androgynous woman as well as a feminine woman. I tend to be attracted to masculine/hyper masculine men.
Cam is correct about how pansexual is just another term for being bisexual. I even met one guy in college who wasn’t LGBT at all but is completely hetero and he claimed he was pansexual. I asked him what type of men and women he liked and he told me how he’s only sexually attracted to women, and that didn’t include Trans women.
I know a lot of gay men who have their certain type of man and it doesn’t make them stop being gay just because they’re not sexually attracted to other types of men. It’s the same thing with bisexuals who have their certain type(s) of men and women.
Drew
Brian, I’m sure that Jason will agree with you about women. 😉
brian
The only genuine sexuality comes from men because, for men, sex is sex. It is an end in itself.
In contrast, women use sex as a means to an end. Women use sex to get something that is not about sex. Number on the credit card, some favor from the man they’re with…it’s all in the mix.
I know it’s not PC but I’m sick of PC when it affects our rights as men. Women don’t own the concept of bisexuality, and nor should they be allowed to. Women should not be allowed to distort the concept of bisexuality.
kouros
@Cam: @Rob: Um I hope you guys have read a dictionary or something i mean no offense but since nobody seemed to understand what i was talking about lets make it simple. Yes Bisexuality means the capacity to be Sexually attracted to men and women. Therefore that implies that bisexuality depends on the SEX of the person. Cam, to your claim that “there is nothing that says…” I agree with you there is nowhere anywhere in the world that says that your sexual options are limited, whether you are straight, gay, bi etc. If you understand the fact that sexuality is fluid a.k.a. the kinsey scale, than you understand that you can be straight and hook up with a same gender person as well as being gay and hooking up with different gender person. Defining a sexuality does not mean that we are “Abiding” by a certain set of rules or anything, it just means that we are classifying ourselves to the most accurate sexual description. (I think its totally stupid we have to define sexuality first of all but thats another story). Pansexuality means is the same as bisexuality in regards to sexuality but it is a little more inclusive, since it is your attraction not being limited by the GENDER of a person. Do you understand the definition now? The definition for Bisexuality only speaks of SEX, for Pansexuality is SEX AND GENDER. It was my mistake to simplify gender queer to the amount of masculinity or femininity of a person. Pansexuals can be attracted to INTERSEX people or people who don’t Identify as MALE or FEMALE, maybe a transexual.
jason
Female bisexuality is a form of submission to men. It’s no surprise that straight men are the biggest promoters and defenders of female bisexuality.
Okama
I think that we bisexuals are so widely misunderstood because our sexual orientation is kind of out of the range of understanding for both heteros and gays and lesbians. The best way I have found to explain it is like this: imagine that you’re a lesbian (or maybe you are), and you’re attracted to women with long hair. Does that make you a ‘long-hair-sexual’? No, of course it doesn’t. As far as I can tell (though I don’t have any personal experience) for both straight and gay people, gender is a ‘higher’ issue than something like long hair. What defines bisexuals is that we put gender in the same category as hair length. Therefore, it’s entirely possible that, just like that lesbian might date women with long hair exclusively, and yet feel free to date a woman with short hair, a bisexual man might prefer men, but wouldn’t bat an eyelash at dating a woman; I’m pretty sure that’s what was going on with Cynthia Nixon. As for pansexuality, the way people define it generally fits with the above description, but I can’t say for sure whether there are people who are truly only attracted to men or women, or if all bisexuals are pansexuals. I definitely think there are also gay people, especially teenagers, who say they are bisexuals when they first come out of the closet, because that’s easier for them. Personally, I’m happy that my own identity can help a tortured teen accept herself.
MKisNE
It still comes off a little weird when you announce it along with your hetero engagement.
Rob
kouros thanks for proving our point. Pansexual is just another term for being bisexual. As a bisexual man I have been attracted to intersex people and I know other bisexual men and women who are as well.
Peter
MKisNE how is it weird? Your statement reeks of biphobia/bisexual erasure and just shows how ignorant you are about bisexuality. Just because she’s partnered to or married to a man it doesn’t make her hetero.
kouros
@Rob: Rob i still don’t think you understood everything I said or if your just not willing to say fine bisexual is not the same as pansexual. I don’t want to have to do this to you since i am against the imposition of labels to someone else, but by ur acts you are pansexual. mini history lesson, originally there was no term for a man who had sex with men period, Homosexuality and Heterosexuality were coined by psychiatrists to describe men who where highly sexual. After that came the kinsey scale and although it was not meant to give classifications to people but just to show sexuality as a spectrum, people decided to name the middle “bisexual” because they felt the necessity to define it. Later on modern psychologists said it wasn’t inclusive enough because it lacked no binomial gender identities, so they added Pansexual as another category. So here is the thing, if people want to play the “categorize me” game, then the categorize me game includes Pansexuality as similar but different and more specific than bisexuality. Because if as a bisexual man you are saying pansexuals are just being fancy, then you are allowing gay men to do the same to us and say we are just confused and don’t want to say we are gay
Drew
kouros uh yeah. that would still be bisexuality: attraction to both genders. once you start breaking it down to more specific attractions then you’re no longer speaking about orientation. someone who is “pansexual” is bi. period.
Jay
Pansexual is a term that arose in the early 1900s to describe a way of thinking — especially prominent in certain psychoanalytic circles — that sexual instinct plays a part in all human thoughts and activities, even being the most important or only source of real energy in our lives. In fact, its earliest uses, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, were meant as insults directed at those psychoanalysts. Over the years, though, it has come to mean an openness to all sorts of sexual activities and groupings, including ones that society considers even more taboo than same-sex love and there have been serial killers who are described as being pansexual since they had sex with their victims corpses and even animals.
Pansexual is just a safe cop out label for people who are bisexual yet afraid to come out as actually being bisexual.
kouros
@Drew: honestly i won’t write a paragraph a third time, Sex does equal Gender. and yes it is orientation which proves u didnt read what i wrote
@Jay: thank you for so cleverly just going straight to wikipedia it really does help your rhetoric. How is being even MORE diversely sexually oriented a cop out for being bisexual? please refer to some logic. ” mom i like boys, and girls, and intersex people, and transexual people, and gender queer people” yup because that freaking sounds better to your homophobic mom than ” mom i like boys and girls” . P.s. and i hope you at least read the paragraph you copied and pasted because you just said pansexuals are necrophiliacs and enjoy bestiality. Honestly people all it takes is a 2 hour course on the difference between gender and sex and the definition of everything that lies outside of gay and straight.
kouros
@Jay: oh also, p.s. the next time you use the “pansexualism” reference which is your quote “the sexual instinct…” which happens to be a theory of Freud you will be laughed at and mocked mercilessly by psychologists. Lol that is basically his belief that we want to fuck our mothers and our fathers and that we want dick in our mouth when we are little so we suck on things. Honestly very laughable attempt on ur behalf
Jay
Kouros WTF are you going on about? I did not go to wikipedia or copy anything from there. Try taking a class on learning how to read and comprehend what you’re reading. You need it.
Brian
Kouros go back to the ivory tower of pointless queer theory and gender studies that has nothing at all to do with the real world or how human sexuality and gender actually work and are.
Bisexuality and pansexuality (as you’re using the term pansexual) mean and are the exact same thing.
kouros
@Drew: sorry meant to say sex doesn’t equal gender on my last one to you
@Jay: I’m going on about what you wrote, its almost a word for word on wikipedia, and at the end of it the one you “wrote” you say they killers are “pansexual” because they have sex with the corpses or with animals a.k.a necrophelia or bestiality. you are the one that needs the class. If you had any idea what you wrote what i just told you before would make perfect sense. If you respond to me i expect it be intelligent.
@Brian: lol you are my favorite type human Brian, the one that isolates himself in his ignorance and claims that what is academic and outside of his grasp is simply “fake”. A dictionary would have done you the favor of explain they are not the same thing, and even unreliable wikipedia would have. I love when people try to finish an argument with the classical “will give no proof, will only claim you are stupid”
jason
I once met a man who said something to me that has stayed with me since: I’m not straight, I’m not gay, I’m not bi….I’m a personality.
Cam
@kouros: said…
“Pansexuality means is the same as bisexuality in regards to sexuality but it is a little more inclusive, since it is your attraction not being limited by the GENDER of a person. Do you understand the definition now?”
_________________________
You just described bisexuality. It’s sad how desperately people try to attack “Labels” only to turn around and slap a new, ridiculous one on themselves.
kouros
@Cam: Listen I like labels as much as the next person (actually no some people actually seem to appreciate them I don’t). I am not attaching new labels on myself either, in societies standards you can consider me bisexual. Once again just read the 3 different fucken giant paragraphs I have written, you can choose to ignore the fact that i specify the difference comes in regards to GENDER vs SEX. The Definition of Bisexuality is SPECIFIC TO SEX, the definition of PANSEXUALITY EXTENDS TO SEX AND GENDER. I’ll just do the example they showed everybody in high school when it came to categorizing. All Catholics are Christian but not all Christians are Catholic. In the same way all Pansexuals have Bisexual attractions, but not all Bisexuals have Pansexual Attractions. Do you need apples an oranges?
kouros
@jason: See if everybody would just agree to abide by that man’s standards we would all be happy right now.
Geri
@jason: “Female bisexuality is a form of submission to men. It’s no surprise that straight men are the biggest promoters and defenders of female bisexuality.”
Hello Jason. Fancy meeting you here!
Geri
@brian: “I have met women who made up their bisexuality in order to please the strictly straight guy they were going out with. Sad. I think these women absolutely do make up their sexuality. It’s similar to how they fake their orgasms in order to please the man they’re with.
Memo to gay and bi men: never allow a woman to control a discussion on sexuality. Women will talk about it from their perspective without any regard for the male perspective. Women will talk about bisexuality from the point of selling their sexuality to a third party male, which is completely the opposite of what men do. Men generally don’t sell their sexuality to a third party.”
&
“The only genuine sexuality comes from men because, for men, sex is sex. It is an end in itself.
In contrast, women use sex as a means to an end. Women use sex to get something that is not about sex. Number on the credit card, some favor from the man they’re with…it’s all in the mix.
I know it’s not PC but I’m sick of PC when it affects our rights as men. Women don’t own the concept of bisexuality, and nor should they be allowed to. Women should not be allowed to distort the concept of bisexuality.”
The above posts by Brian are both very fine examples of what I am hence forward going to refer to as “jasonism”.
KS
@kouros:
You are an Idiot. Intersex has nothing to do with Pansexuals and transsexuals. It is offensive and it pisses off intersex people. Intersex is not a sexual orientation or a gender Identity. It’s a Medical condition and it pisses off intersex people when you have idiots who try to co-opt the intersex community.
MikeNYC
What this idiot Kouros is saying about being Pansexual is what Drew said how pansexuality is just another word or a subset of bisexuality and not its own orientation.
Hey I’m bisexual but bisexuality is too mainstream and has been since the late 60s and early 70s so I’ll call it pansexual because it’s new and different.
Calling pansexuality for what it is which is bisexuality is not bigotry and it is not the same thing as someone being biphobic, practicing bisexual erasure, or claiming that people can’t be bisexual or that bisexuality does not exist.
Dennis
Despite widespread common belief, pansexuality is actually the new politically correct way to say that the person is bisexual and has an unusual fetish for something. This could be an animal, an inanimate object, a tree, a twelve year old dead corpse of a chimpanzee, etc.
Sexuality is determined by four things: the person’s chromosomes, internal sex organs, external sex organs, and psyche. Bisexuality covers all of the area here seeing as sexuality is on a continuum and not simply classified as a binary stagnant thing. Some may argue hermaphrodites, pseudo-hermaphrodites, and other intersex people don’t fit into one gender group. However, they consist of male and female sexual organs and also combinations of X and Y chromosomes. Regarding people that are transgendered, they are biologically of one sex regardless of how they manipulate their body through procedures or hormones.
jason
Geri,
Well, the truth is the truth. Don’t deny that women fake their bisexuality in order to titillate and please sleazy straight guys.
jason
The word “bisexual” is unfortunate because it suggests that one’s attractions are divided equally between men and women. On the contrary, I would say that the vast majority of bisexuals are attracted more to one gender than the other.
Boyd
Jason is correct. Although there are a lot of bisexuals who are pretty equally attracted to both genders both sexually and romantically.
There are a whole shit load of latent bisexuals masquerading around as gay men because they are ignorant of the fact that bisexual doesn’t only mean an equal attraction to both genders or they’re too scared to admit it because they’ve invested so much of their time and energy cultivating a gay identity, and some have experienced biphobia and bisexual erasure from gay men and lesbians who claim that they are LGBT allies, for sexual freedom, and for LGBT equality when they’re bigoted hypocrites.
There are some gay men who are highly bigoted towards bisexual men. Just like there are some lesbians who dislike bisexual women and trans women. These factors are also reasons why men and women who are bisexual yet call themselves gay or lesbian do not want to come out.
The dirty little secret that never gets addressed in the so called “gay” world is the fact that many gay men do go through a second coming out and re-identify as bisexual. These men may still overwhelmingly prefer men, but their orientation and identity are not exclusively towards men. And how their attraction to both sexes manifests differently as well.
It’s always weird to be corrected by someone (e.g., kouros) who is wrong in their knowledge of a subject. I’ve found that if you dare to even allude to someone not being not quite “gay” (in other words bisexual) then you get the typical apoplectic reaction–oh no, no, no, he’s gay, he’s definitely gay, absolutely, no question about it, and on and on and on. So many gay men are so fucking bi-phobic it’s unreal–and it’s usually because they don’t understand the concept in the first place and they’ve made no attempt to do so.
Geri
@jason:Re: “Well, the truth is the truth. Don’t deny that women fake their bisexuality in order to titillate and please sleazy straight guys.”
Jason,
Sweeping generalisations are not the truth.
It is true that some women {NB: SOME WOMEN} do engage in same sex sexual activities primarily in order to please and sexually arouse a man(singular) or men in general.
Does this mean that: “Female bisexuality is a form of submission to men”?
No.
It means that in some cases female bisexual behaviour can be a form of submission to a man or men. However some people enjoy being submissive don’t they? Very much so in fact.
It is also a Fact that many (not all) professional dominatrixes offer a “Forced-Bi” service to their male clientele.
Does this mean that: “Male bisexuality is a form of submission to women”?
No.
But what it does certainly mean is that some men want their bisexuality to be an act of submission to a woman. And that some men need a woman’s approval (or apparent approval) before they can actively explore their same-sex desires with another man.
Max the Communist
I’m a bi woman and my bisexuality is a form of submission toward men. Of course, it’s also a form of submission toward women (or trans or genderqueer) because I’m just a big old bi bottom no matter what genitalia you got.
And jason?–you got bi woman envy. Don’t worry, honey, I’ll share my bi boyfriend’s booty with you.
Max the Communist
PS–I love you Anna Paquin.
jason
Boyd,
I definitely agree with your statement that there are a lot of latent bisexually oriented men on the gay scene who identify as gay because they are so caught up in the scene.
Of course, you have to remember that those who market to gay men don’t want male bisexuality in the mix To these marketeers, gay is a brand that must not be sullied by the bisexual male concept. This branding approach to the concept of male sexuality helps to promote bi-phobia.
I would say that 50% of gay-identifying men are actually bisexually oriented. I would say that 90% of straight-identifying men are bisexually oriented.
jason
Geri,
You’re conflating sexual orientation with sexual fetish. You cite examples that have more to do with fetish than orientation.
I simply point to the ugly reality that women use the concept of the female bisexual orientation as a ploy to market themselves to straight-identifying men. It’s a total distortion of human sexual orientation.
Megs
@JayKay: I’ve used pansexual because it doesn;t imply that gender is a either or situation like the BI in bisexual implies. Bi means two and i feeling that gender is more c of a continuum and since ive been attracted to and in relationships with people are all along that continuum pansexual just feels more truthful to me. I’m sure there are some peole ho use the term to be pretentious, but for me pan just seems more closely related to how i feel about my sexuality.
Geri
@jason:
Jason,
I find it hignly amusing that a man who has just said: “I would say that 50% of gay-identifying men are actually bisexually oriented. I would say that 90% of straight-identifying men are bisexually oriented.”
wouuld then carry on to imply that a man who pays a woman money to “force” him to have sex with another man isn’t “bisexually oriented” – he just has a “sexual fetish”.
kouros
@Megs: Thank you for saying it to them in a way that maybe they will understand.
@Boyd: while i agree with your overall statement if not most of it regarding bisexuality, it seems that you didnt understand my statement or just read bits of it which i don’t blame you for. I have absolutely no biphobia and what you said about me does not apply as i identify as a bisexual man. Secondly what I was correcting them about was something I actually have knowledge about and their arguments back were always stereotypes of pansexual people and assumptions as well as opinions not once facts. While i don’t believe in categorization of sexuality since it forces people into a niche, as you somewhat alluded about gay men being biphobic, I defended pansexuality because the statements made against it are the same gay man have used a million times against my bisexuality. Here are some and see if u can find them above when they are referencing pansexuality being fake ” there is no such thing as bisexual you just want to feel special”, ” you are saying you are bisexual because you are afraid of coming out as gay”, ” “you are not bisexual, you just had a fetish for women”, “bisexuality is the same as gay, its just a subset”. And the funniest thing is about it that the people above don’t hear themselves saying is that it is the same thing we have hear homophobic saying about us, that somehow we OURSELVES don’t know OUR OWN sexuality and that they somehow understand OUR sexuality better than we do ourselves. Like I said before I don’t stand against ur argument i quite agree with it so if your replying to me I hope its not a missenterpratation of what i said.
As to everyone else I stopped replying to, I did it because i find sick and appalling that you would use the same lies the homophobic crowd has used against us for so long. Saying pansexuals like having sex with corpses, and animals, and i don’t know what else you said. You have no foundation for such statements and it is the same thing the ultra conservative agenda says about the lgbt community when they say we are going to molest their children, and they say passing gay marriage is will lead to beastiality and such lies.
kouros
@jason: while I applaud the fact that you want to defend bisexuality you can’t do it one-sidedly and with false statistics because that allows people to attack bisexuality with false statistics too. First of all yes there definitely is a lot of bi closet cases in the gay scene, either for their own will or because the gay scene promotes so hard the idea that there is no such thing as bisexuality. About your statistics it would be proper to use kinsey stats which don’t quote me on but were 15% males are strictly heterosexual, 15%(or 13) strictly homosexual, and the rest lies in the middle i.e. bisexuality with various degrees.
Now where i disagree with you is with female bisexuality. Your view is very sexists, but thats normal since we live in a patriarchy. It is not that females use bisexuality as a means but the fact is that male dominated society frowns less upon female than male bisexuality and it encourages it. Ive seen many cases were females are forced by frat boys to make out simply to be let in to a party and sometimes even to be let out. Society is very much male dominated where they still have the capacity to tell women what to do. On the other side of the coin you have Japan where male bisexuality is whats encouraged. Females in Japan have a liking for seeing 2 “Straight” boys engage in sexaul acts, tune in to female oriented animes and most animes, and you will see such cases were the male is unafraid to engage with other men just because girls like that. One anime that explains this phenomenon is “Ouran Host Club”, Ranma 1/2, Sakura Card Captor, and many others. Even in the case of sailor moon where there is a lesbian couple, they never show attraction to each other as females, but only do it when they are both pretending to be men.
My point is female bisexuality exists, scientific proof of it exists, statistics exists, and studies prove it. Interestingly enough you will find neuro science studies that show female bisexuality is more static than male bisexuality, meaning that in women their attraction towards men and women stays very much the same through out their life time, while in bisexual men it is more fluid and it goes from higher attraction to men than women at points, at other times equal attraction, and at other points higher attraction for women than men.