Bisexual, Pansexual, Polysexual...is it all semantics?

[strixish]

I think that "bisexual" is an accurate diagnosis for me-- in mainstream psychogical terms, it describes my conduct. I identify as queer, though, because I don't accept the gender binary and biological sex doesn't determine the likelihood that I will be interested in someone.

"Pansexual" is only useful for communicating with a small number of people who know what it means. I don't really use it.

[drtalon]

I identify as pansexual. For me, pansexual means being attracted more to personalities than bodies. I forget where I first saw that definition, but it stuck with me.

[Magdlyn]

Originally Posted by strixish

"Pansexual" is only useful for communicating with a small number of people who know what it means.

That's the only kind of people I hang out with.

[ThatGirlInGray]

Reading this article reminded me of this thread, so I had to share!

[JaneQSmythe]

TGIG - thanks for the link!

Originally Posted by RfromRMC

So he says he identified as bisexual and not pansexual because he "likes his men very much manly and his women very much womanly". (His words, not mine.)

Yep, that is why I ID as bi and not pan. I like manly-men and girlie-girls. Not really attracted to androgyny in any gender.

Originally Posted by NovemberRain

When I read an ad from someone saying they're bicurious and looking, my thought is 'I don't wanna be your experiment.' But some girls like to experiment. The first woman I was with only wanted me because I'd not been with a woman before. At the time, I was totally okay with that.

Twenty years after my now-husband pointed out that I am Bi (I didn't realize there was, or needed to be, a word for it) I'm still totally fine with being someone's "experiment". The girls that I am attracted to ID as Bi-Curious, Bi, or Hetero. Of the dozen or so women that I have been with - the vast majority I was their first woman-on-woman encounter. Two have ID'd as Bi before I met them. I have never been with, or been attracted to, someone who ID's as Lesbian (or Pan for that matter - but I know many Lesbians and have never met anyone IRL that IDs as Pan). (Don't know what that says about me...)

JaneQ

ETA:
PS. MsJ ID'd as Bi before I met her, VV was apparently Bi-Curious - and, I recently learned (as of 4 months ago), had asked MrS to keep an eye our for a girl she could "experiment" with - when he got together with me he, apparently, gave her the "heads up" that I could be the one she was looking for (this was before he pointed out to me that I was Bi) - I was, we did, we still do - now she ID's as Bi.

[punkrockmomma]

For myself, the closest I come to attaching any label to my sexual identification is queer. Even that is a tricky one for me...I think of it in a literal, dictionary-esque sense. "Strange or odd from a conventional viewpoint ; unusually different."

Queer tends to be more of a North American term( from what I've found at least), even though I am Canadian I have friends from outside of North America who still find queer to have negative connotations.

I personally love to be a smart ass - and when people ask "What are you?" I say with a big grin, "I'm not straight". They then look at me in a rather confused way, and stop asking questions.....Or I tell them that I'm greedy

[Arrowbound]

Originally Posted by NovemberRain

I meant to include, regarding the above, that I took a lot of flak for that, too. Everyone i met would say, 'so, are you gay?' and I'd say 'no, I'm bi' and they'd say something about being with a woman, and I'd admit to how I hadn't, and then they'd say, 'how do you KNOW?' 'I just know, okay?' Because I did. Still do.

Yeeeeeeeeees. I will forever roll my eyes at everyone who has ever asked me if I'm sure because I haven't had much sexual or romantic experience with women. But frankly I feel how I feel. The End.

Originally Posted by JaneQSmythe

Yep, that is why I ID as bi and not pan. I like manly-men and girlie-girls. Not really attracted to androgyny in any gender.

Same here. I've tried to intellectualize my attraction before and have come to the conclusion that the only women that have ever made me tingle are girly like myself, lol. I don't feel bad about it anymore either, it just is what it is.

[LovingRadiance]

I identify as bi. Never was 'bi curious'.

[Somegeezer]

Originally Posted by punkrockmomma

For myself, the closest I come to attaching any label to my sexual identification is queer. Even that is a tricky one for me...I think of it in a literal, dictionary-esque sense. "Strange or odd from a conventional viewpoint ; unusually different."

Queer tends to be more of a North American term( from what I've found at least), even though I am Canadian I have friends from outside of North America who still find queer to have negative connotations.

I personally love to be a smart ass - and when people ask "What are you?" I say with a big grin, "I'm not straight". They then look at me in a rather confused way, and stop asking questions.....Or I tell them that I'm greedy

Seems a lot of people, in my experience, in America in general, don't like the word queer. I identify as queer myself, becaue of the literal sense of the word, and the entire reason for it being put in LGBTQ. It's there as a means of "and any other non-standard orientation, because adding many more letters would just start to look silly". =P

As for actually over here in England... I hear even gay men and women calling themselves queer. Which is still technically true in the literal sense. So I think it may just be something about the English language being quite literal in English use. You say you're Canadian yourself, which I've noticed use a fair bit of proper English wording, too. So that could be why around you, you seem to find it a regular term, too.

[Magdlyn]

Good article.

Originally Posted by RfromRMC

So he says he identified as bisexual and not pansexual because he "likes his men very much manly and his women very much womanly". (His words, not mine.)

That's kind of transphobic, actually.

My gf is transgender, but very much a woman. More femme than I am (I'm cisgendered, but fall somewhere in between butch and femme). Despite being pre-op, she is "very much womanly," and so are most transwomen I know.

I actually love androgyny and sometimes wish my gf wasn't quite so much of a woman! heh