Pronunciation | pænsɛkʃuæləti |
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Etymology | Ancient Greek: πᾶν, romanized: pan, meaning "all" |
Definition | Sexual or romantic attraction to people regardless of gender |
Classification | Sexual identity |
Parent category | Plurisexuality |
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Flag name | Pansexual pride flag |
Meaning | Pink, yellow and blue respectively representing attraction to women, non-binary people and men |
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Pansexuality is sexual, romantic, or emotional attraction towards people of all genders, or regardless of their sex or gender identity. [1] [2] Pansexual people might refer to themselves as gender-blind, asserting that gender and sex are not determining factors in their romantic or sexual attraction to others. [3] [4]
Pansexuality is sometimes considered a sexual orientation in its own right or, at other times, as a branch of bisexuality (since attraction to all genders falls under the category of attraction to people of the same gender and different genders [5] ) to indicate a lack of gender preference. [2] [6] [7] While pansexual people are open to relationships with people who do not identify as strictly men or women, and pansexuality therefore explicitly rejects the gender binary in terms of the chosen etymology, [2] [8] this is by no means a feature which is exclusive to pansexuality and can also be found in broad definitions of homosexuality, bisexuality and the asexual spectrum.
Pansexuality is also sometimes called omnisexuality. [9] [10] [11] Omnisexuality may be used to describe those "attracted to people of all genders across the gender spectrum", and pansexuality may be used to describe the same people, or those attracted to people "regardless of gender". [12] The prefix pan- comes from the Ancient Greek πᾶν (pan), meaning "all, every".
In 1878, Machado de Assis, a renowned Brazilian writer of the 19th century, made one of the first known uses to date in Portuguese of the term "omnisexual" for his criticism of the novel "O Primo de Basílio" by Eça de Queirós. The review was published in the newspaper of the time, "O Cruzeiro", which, on April 16, 1878, featured a review signed by Eleazar, the pseudonym of Machado de Assis, on the cover of the newspaper. [13] Machado de Assis classified the naturalism and lack of sexual filter present in the novel as “reminiscences and allusions of an eroticism that Proudhon would call omnisexual and omnimod”. [14] [15]
Early individuals who displayed pansexual tendencies include John Wilmot [16] and Friedrich Schiller. [17] Although later attributed to Shulamith Firestone, [18] the hybrid words pansexual and pansexualism were first attested in 1914 (spelled pan-sexualism), coined by opponents of Sigmund Freud [19] to denote the idea "that the sex instinct plays the primary part in all human activity, mental and physical". [20] [lower-alpha 1] The term was translated to German as Pansexualismus in Freud's work Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego. [22]
The word pansexual is attested as a term for a variety of attraction, alongside omnisexual (coming from the Latin omnis , "all") and the earlier bisexual, by the 1970s. [23] Bi Any Other Name states that "pansexual people have been actively involved in the bisexual community since the 1970s." [24] The term pansexuality emerged as a term for a sexual identity or sexual orientation in the 1990s, "to describe desires that already existed for many people". [25] [12] Social psychologist Nikki Hayfield states that the term saw early use in BDSM communities. [12]
In 2010, the pansexual flag was posted on a Tumblr blog to represent the pansexual community. [26] It was designed by Jasper Varney. [27] The colors are intended to represent attraction and gender spectrum, with cyan for attraction to men, pink for attraction to women, and yellow for attraction to non-binary people. [28]
Variations on pansexual are beginning to appear in surveys, e.g., panqueer, which combines pansexual with queer, has been used by participants in a study on non-medical impacts of COVID-19. [29]
A literal dictionary definition of bisexuality , due to the prefix bi- , is sexual or romantic attraction to two sexes (males and females), to two genders (men and women), [10] [30] or attraction to both people of the same gender and different genders. [5]
Pansexuality, however, composed with the prefix pan- , is the sexual attraction to a person of any sex or gender. Using these definitions, pansexuality is defined differently by explicitly including people who are intersex or outside the gender binary. [2] [10]
Volume 2 of Cavendish's Sex and Society states that "although the term's literal meaning can be interpreted as 'attracted to everything,' people who identify as pansexual do not usually include paraphilias, such as bestiality, pedophilia, and necrophilia, in their definition" and that they "stress that the term pansexuality describes only consensual adult sexual behaviors." [2]
The definition of pansexuality can encourage the belief that it is the only sexual identity that covers individuals who do not cleanly fit into the categories of male or man, or female or woman. [1] [8] [10] However, bisexual-identified people and scholars may object to the notion that bisexuality means sexual attraction to only two genders, arguing that since bisexual is not simply about attraction to two sexes and encompasses attraction to different genders as well, it includes attraction to more than two genders. [10] [31] Gender is considered more complex than the state of one's sex, as gender includes genetic, hormonal, environmental and social factors. [2] Furthermore, the term bisexual is sometimes defined as the romantic or sexual attraction to multiple genders. [10] The Bisexual Resource Center, for example, defines bisexuality as "an umbrella term for people who recognize and honor their potential for sexual and emotional attraction to more than one gender", [32] while the American Institute of Bisexuality states that the term bisexual "is an open and inclusive term for many kinds of people with same-sex and different-sex attractions" [33] and that "the scientific classification bisexual only addresses the physical, biological sex of the people involved, not the gender-presentation." [31]
Scholar Shiri Eisner states that terms such as pansexual, omnisexual, polysexual , queer , etc. are being used in place of the term bisexual because "bisexuality, it's been claimed, is a gender binary, and therefore oppressive, word" and that "the great debate is being perpetuated and developed by bisexual-identified transgender and genderqueer people on the one hand, and non-bi-identified transgender and genderqueer people on the other." Eisner argues that "the allegations of binarism have little to do with bisexuality's actual attributes or bisexual people's behavior in real life" and that the allegations are a political method to keep the bisexual and transgender movements separated, because of those who believe that bisexuality ignores or erases the visibility of transgender and genderqueer people. [10]
The American Institute of Bisexuality argues that "terms like pansexual, polysexual, omnisexual, and ambisexual also describe a person with homosexual and heterosexual attractions, and therefore people with those labels are also bisexual" and that "by replacing the prefix bi – (two, both) with pan- (all), poly- (many), omni- (all), ambi- (both, and implying ambiguity in this case), people who adopt these labels seek to clearly express the fact that gender does not factor into their own sexuality", but "this does not mean, however, that people who identify as bisexual are fixated on gender." [33] The institute believes that the idea that identifying as bisexual reinforces a false gender binary "has its roots in the anti-science, anti-Enlightenment philosophy that has ironically found a home within many Queer Studies departments at universities across the Anglophone world", and that, "while it is true that our society's language and terminology do not necessarily reflect the full spectrum of human gender diversity, that is hardly the fault of people who choose to identify as bi. ... The Latin prefix bi- does indeed indicate two or both, however the 'both' indicated in the word bisexual are merely homosexual (lit. same sex) and heterosexual (lit. different sex)." The institute argues that heterosexuality and homosexuality, by contrast, "are defined by the boundary of two sexes/genders. Given those fundamental facts, any criticism of bisexuality as reinforcing a gender binary is misplaced. Over time, our society's concept of human sex and gender may well change." [31]
Bisexuals frequently struggle with myths and misconceptions about the definition of bisexuality, such as the idea that bisexuality conforms to the gender binary (thereby excluding attraction to nonbinary individuals), or excludes attraction to trans people in general. This sometimes creates tension between bisexuals and pansexuals, as pansexuals often see themselves as being more inclusive to a wider array of genders. [34] A 2022 study by the Journal of Bisexuality suggests that the majority of women who identify as pansexual or queer defined bisexuality as limited to attraction to cisgender men and women and critiqued bisexuality as reinforcing the traditional gender binary. However, bisexual women defined bisexuality as attraction to two or more, or "similar or dissimilar", genders, described bisexuality as inclusive of attractions to all genders, and reported negative psychological outcomes as a result of the debate around bisexual gender inclusivity. [35]
In another study, Ashley Green noted that pansexual participants sought to authenticate their identity as pansexual by juxtaposing it with bisexuality, often speaking of bisexuality as being inferior to pansexuality, most notably because they felt it excluded individuals who did not identify within the gender binary, some expressing very negative feelings toward bisexual individuals and positioning "pansexuality as being the superior identity as a result of its inclusivity, demonizing bisexual individuals as being transphobic if they do not identify as pansexual once they are informed that there is a 'better' identity". Green notes that this does not account for the large percentage of transgender and nonbinary individuals who also identify as bisexual, and characterizes these participants as contributing to a long history of biphobia. While some participants spoke favorably of bisexuality, describing the recognition of the validity of pansexuality as being contingent on the recognition of the validity of bisexuality, Green concludes by saying "In borrowing narratives that they are familiar with, the pansexual individuals interviewed in this study reinforced an essentialist understanding of identity despite their attempts to deconstruct gender binaries". [36]
A 2017 study published in the Journal of Bisexuality found that when bisexuals and pansexuals described gender and defined bisexuality, "there were no differences in how pansexual and bisexual people ... discussed sex or gender", and that the findings "do not support the stereotype that bisexual people endorse a binary view of gender while pansexual people do not." [37]
Social psychologist Corey Flanders said the "bisexual umbrella" is a term used to describe a range of sexual identities and communities that express attraction to multiple genders, often grouping together those who identify as bisexual, pansexual, queer, and fluid, as well as other identities. The term faces issues of balancing inclusivity with cohesiveness where, on one hand, the term can bring together many disparate identities and gather their experiences, and on the other, it can lead to too many sub-groupings and exclude those who identify with more than one sexual identity. [38]
The term pansexuality is sometimes used interchangeably with bisexuality, and, similarly, people who identify as bisexual may "feel that gender, biological sex, and sexual orientation should not be a focal point in potential [romantic/sexual] relationships." [2] Additionally, pansexuality is often used in conjunction with bisexuality, which can pose difficulties in studying differences and similarities in experiences between those who identify as pansexual and those who identify as bisexual and not pansexual. [12] In one study analyzing sexual identities described as alternative terms for bisexual or bi-self labels, "half of all bisexual and bisexual-identified respondents also chose alternative self-labels such as queer, pansexual, pansensual,polyfidelitous, ambisexual, polysexual, or personalized identities such as byke or biphilic." [6] In a 2017 study, identifying as pansexual was found to be "most appealing to nonheterosexual women and noncisgender individuals." [39] Polysexuality is similar to pansexuality in definition, meaning "encompassing more than one sexuality", but not necessarily encompassing all sexualities. This is distinct from polyamory, which means more than one intimate relationship at the same time with the knowledge and consent of everyone involved.
Sexual fluidity is different from gender fluidity. Sexual fluidity is a concept that describes how a person's sexual identity may shift, and can shift at any time. [40] The American Institute of Bisexuality stated that the term fluid "expresses the fact that the balance of a person's homosexual and heterosexual attractions exists in a state of flux and changes over time." [33]
Eisner states that "the idea of bisexuality as an umbrella term can emphasize a multiplicity of identities, forms of desire, lived experiences, and politics," and "resist a single standard" of defining bisexual-umbrella identities and communities, including pansexuality and pansexuals. Eisner also says that only those who want to be included under the bisexual umbrella should be included. [41] The term plurisexualities is used by social psychologist Nikki Hayfield over bisexuality as an umbrella term "to capture additional identities relating to attraction to multiple genders", while also referring to specific identities like bisexual, asexual, and pansexual. [12]
In contrast to the idea of a bisexual umbrella, scholars Christopher Belous and Melissa Bauman propose that pansexuality might be considered more of an umbrella term than bisexuality, arguing that because pansexuality is often defined more broadly than bisexuality, bisexuality may exist under the umbrella of "pansexual orientations". They noted that more research is necessary to clarify which of the two terms might be more appropriate as an umbrella term. [42] Scholar Emily Prior questions the use of bisexuality as an umbrella term, noting that "the empirical evidence just isn't there" to determine whether bisexuality can effectively act as an umbrella term. [43] Social psychologist Joye Swan argues that including other orientations under the bisexual umbrella contributes to bisexual invisibility, invisibility for other sexualities, and presumes that "all or most bisexual people agree with being categorized" under the bisexual umbrella. [43]
A 2016 Harris Poll survey of 2,000 US adults commissioned by GLAAD [44] found that among 18-34 year-olds, about two percent self-identify as pansexual [45] and approximately one percent in all other age groups. [46] In 2017, 14% of a sample of 12,000 LGBTQ youth between 13 and 17 years of age declared themselves pansexual in a Human Rights Campaign/University of Connecticut survey. [47] [48]
According to the National Center for Transgender Equality, 25% of American transgender people identify as bisexual. [49] One New Zealand 2019 study of a nationally representative group of bisexual and pansexual participants found that younger, gender-diverse, and Maori people were more likely to self-identify as pansexual compared to bisexual. [50] The 2021 IPSOS survey found that the United States was the country with the highest percentage of pansexual individuals. [51]
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There are two main LGBT awareness periods for pansexual and panromantic people. One of them is the annual Pansexual & Panromantic Awareness Day (24 May), [52] first celebrated in 2015, to promote awareness of and celebrate pansexual and panromantic identities. Another one is the Pansexual Pride Day, celebrated every December 8th. [53] [54]
Romantic orientation, also called affectional orientation, is the classification of the sex or gender which a person experiences romantic attraction towards or is likely to have a romantic relationship with. The term is used alongside the term "sexual orientation", as well as being used alternatively to it, based upon the perspective that sexual attraction is only a single component of a larger concept.
Bi-curious is a term for a person, usually someone who is a self-identified heterosexual, who is curious or open about engaging in sexual activity with a person whose sex differs from that of their usual sexual partners. The term is sometimes used to describe a broad continuum of sexual orientation between heterosexuality and bisexuality. Such continuums include mostly heterosexual or mostly homosexual, but these can be self-identified without identifying as bisexual. The terms heteroflexible and homoflexible are mainly applied to bi-curious people, though some authors distinguish heteroflexibility and homoflexibility as lacking the "wish to experiment with sexuality" implied by the bi-curious label. It is important when discussing this continuum to conclude that bisexuality is distinct from heterosexuality and homosexuality rather than simply an extension of said sexualities like the labels heteroflexibility and homoflexibility would imply, due to the prominent erasure and assimilation of bisexuality into other identity groups. To sum it up, the difference between bisexual and bicurious is that bisexual people know that they are sexually attracted to both genders based on personal experience. Bicurious people are still maneuvering their way through their sexuality.
LGBT is an initialism that stands for "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender". It may refer to anyone who is non-heterosexual, non-heteroromantic, or non-cisgender, instead of exclusively to people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. A variant, LGBTQ, adds the letter Q for those who identify as queer or are questioning their sexual or gender identity. Another variation, LGBTQ+, adds a plus sign "represents those who are part of the community, but for whom LGBTQ does not accurately capture or reflect their identity". Many further variations of the acronym exist, such as LGBT+, LGBTQIA+, and 2SLGBTQ+. The LGBT label is not universally agreed to by everyone that it is generally intended to include. The variations GLBT and GLBTQ rearrange the letters in the acronym. In use since the late 1980s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for marginalized sexualities and gender identities.
The Kinsey scale, also called the Heterosexual–Homosexual Rating Scale, is used in research to describe a person's sexual orientation based on one's experience or response at a given time. The scale typically ranges from 0, meaning exclusively heterosexual, to a 6, meaning exclusively homosexual. In both the male and female volumes of the Kinsey Reports, an additional grade, listed as "X", indicated "no socio-sexual contacts or reactions" (asexuality). The reports were first published in Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) by Alfred Kinsey, Wardell Pomeroy, and others, and were also prominent in the complementary work Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953).
Femme is a term traditionally used to describe a lesbian woman who exhibits a feminine identity or gender presentation. While commonly viewed as a lesbian term, alternate meanings of the word also exist with some non-lesbian individuals using the word, notably some gay men and bisexuals. Some non-binary and transgender individuals also identify as lesbians using this term.
Biphobia is aversion toward bisexuality or people who are identified or perceived as being bisexual. Similarly to homophobia, it refers to hatred and prejudice specifically against those identified or perceived as being in the bisexual community. It can take the form of denial that bisexuality is a genuine sexual orientation, or of negative stereotypes about people who are bisexual. Other forms of biphobia include bisexual erasure.
Sexual identity refers to one's self-perception in terms of romantic or sexual attraction towards others, though not mutually exclusive, and can be different to romantic identity. Sexual identity may also refer to sexual orientation identity, which is when people identify or dis-identify with a sexual orientation or choose not to identify with a sexual orientation. Sexual identity and sexual behavior are closely related to sexual orientation, but they are distinguished, with identity referring to an individual's conception of themselves, behavior referring to actual sexual acts performed by the individual, and sexual orientation referring to romantic or sexual attractions toward persons of the opposite sex or gender, the same sex or gender, to both sexes or more than one gender, or to no one.
Non-heterosexual is a word for a sexual orientation or sexual identity that is not heterosexual. The term helps define the "concept of what is the norm and how a particular group is different from that norm". Non-heterosexual is used in feminist and gender studies fields as well as general academic literature to help differentiate between sexual identities chosen, prescribed and simply assumed, with varying understanding of implications of those sexual identities. The term is similar to queer, though less politically charged and more clinical; queer generally refers to being non-normative and non-heterosexual. Some view the term as being contentious and pejorative as it "labels people against the perceived norm of heterosexuality, thus reinforcing heteronormativity". Still, others say non-heterosexual is the only term useful to maintaining coherence in research and suggest it "highlights a shortcoming in our language around sexual identity"; for instance, its use can enable bisexual erasure.
LGBT culture is a culture shared by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer individuals. It is sometimes referred to as queer culture, while the term gay culture may be used to mean either "LGBT culture" or homosexual culture specifically.
Sexual attraction to transgender people has been the subject of scientific study and social commentary. Psychologists have researched sexual attraction toward trans women, trans men, cross dressers, non-binary people, and a combination of these. Publications in the field of transgender studies have investigated the attraction transgender individuals can feel for each other. The people who feel this attraction to transgender people name their attraction in different ways.
The bisexual community, also known as the bi+, m-spec, bisexual/pansexual, or bi/pan/fluid community, includes members of the LGBT community who identify as bisexual, pansexual, omnisexual, polysexual and sexually fluid. As opposed to hetero- or homosexual people, people in the bisexual community experience attraction to more than one gender.
A pride flag is any flag that represents a segment or part of the LGBT community. Pride in this case refers to the notion of LGBT pride. The terms LGBT flag and queer flag are often used interchangeably.
Bisexual erasure, also called bisexual invisibility, is the tendency to ignore, remove, falsify, or re-explain evidence of bisexuality in history, academia, the news media, and other primary sources.
The questioning of one's sexual orientation, sexual identity, gender, or all three is a process of exploration by people who may be unsure, still exploring, or concerned about applying a social label to themselves for various reasons. The letter "Q" is sometimes added to the end of the acronym LGBT ; the "Q" can refer to either queer or questioning.
Bisexuality is a romantic or sexual attraction or behavior toward both males and females, to more than one gender, or to both people of the same gender and different genders. It may also be defined to include romantic or sexual attraction to people regardless of their sex or gender identity, which is also known as pansexuality.
The pansexual flag is a pink, yellow and cyan flag, designed as a symbol for the pansexual community to increase its visibility and recognition, and distinguish itself from bisexuality.
The following outline offers an overview and guide to LGBT topics.
LGBT erasure refers to the tendency to intentionally or unintentionally remove LGBT groups or people from record, or downplay their significance, which includes lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people. This erasure can be found in a number of written and oral texts, including popular and scholarly texts.
The portrayals of pansexuality in the media reflect existing societal attitudes towards pansexuality and current media portrayals. Although pansexual characters are not often characters in mass media, they have appeared in various films, TV series, literature, video games, graphic art, and webcomics, sometimes embodying certain tropes in cinema and fantasy. Musicians, actors, and other public personalities have also, in recent years, come out as pansexual, and are focused on with this page.
Plurisexuality or multisexuality is a term used to describe individuals who are attracted to multiple genders. This includes certain sexual identities such as pansexuality, bisexuality, omnisexuality, and polysexuality, falling under the umbrella of non-monosexuality, which encompasses all sexualities that are not exclusively heterosexual or homosexual. It's also referred as multiple-gender attraction (MGA). Plurisexual individuals may experience sexual attraction to people of different genders, which can include but is not limited to men, women, non-binary, genderqueer, and other gender identities. Plurisexuality can be fluid and may vary from person to person. Abrosexual, for example, can be used to describe when one's experience changes in their attractions over time.
There are many other identity labels that could fall under the wider umbrella of bisexuality, such as pansexual, omnisexual, biromantic, or fluid (Eisner, 2013).
Alternative types of sexual orientation include those documented by Queen (1997): 'omnisexual', (attracted to multiple genders), and 'pansexual', a term coined by Firestone (1970) to mean diverse, unbounded desire.
Sexual orientation by age group (...) Pansexual 2% [age group 18-34], 1% [35-51], 1% [52-71], 1% [72+]