So those who know me and/or have followed me for a long time know that I’m bisexual. I have been ever since I can remember, though, due to being suppressed in every way inside of my mother’s fanatically religious household, I had no idea what the awkward moments between some of my female friends actually were until I was in my 20s. That is a little sad to think about, looking back and wondering if they might have had some interest too, and then wondering what my life might have been like had even one of those crushes been mutual and more forward than I. However, this is how my life turned out, and I’m grateful for the path it set me on, despite the speed bumps (in the forms of people as well as events) that slowed me down along the way. No one can change their past so it only makes sense to accept it, make changes in the present, and move on.
Now, what bisexuality means to me is that I don’t have a particular gender to which I’m attracted. I get to know people, and become attracted to them based upon their overall package (personality, looks… everything that makes them who they are). I find things physically appealing about all gender groups outwardly, so really the main deciding factor has more to do with how we click once we get going then anything else. I love people for who they are, essentially, and what’s underneath their clothing has very little to do with it, overall.
What I’ve heard from people when giving this description is, “Oh, then you’re not really Bi, actually. You’re Pansexual.” I wasn’t sure what this meant, initially, and I was put off immediately at having people tell me what my sexual identity should be. Of course, being a card-carrying member of the internet generation, after the initial irritation wore off, I googled the term to see what these people were talking about, and after sifting through a load of uninformative web posts that described Pansexuality by being insulting and hateful toward Bisexuality my opinion of the term and its group was not improved.
For those who are unaware, the Bi flag has three colours: Blue (for male), Pink (for female), and Purple (for everyone in-between). Now, I don’t differentiate whether someone is male, female, or a member of a non-gender-binary in my interests, so I identify with this flag. In the past, I’ve fallen for and dated men, women, trans-individuals, as well as people of many different races, religions, and sexual orientations. The list goes on and on. Most important to this discussion, however, is that I never exclude anyone based on anything related to gender, and never have (whether or not I was aware of it before the age of 21). However, when I read the posts by those ‘explaining’ their Pansexuality, all I could find were insults and exclusions along the lines of: “Basically, Pansexuality is like Bisexuality except more accepting and open-minded.” This is by far the most hypocritical definition I have ever found for anything, and I for one can simply not identify with a group of people who largely and popularly explain themselves in this manner, no matter what the actual definition may be.
Thankfully, there is a Wikipedia page out there that gives an explanation of Pansexuality, which was much more helpful in its content and much less off-base than those who apparently identify with the term, and it gave me more insight into why someone would try to forcibly label me as Pansexual. However, as the term did not come into popular use until around the time of the Hipster generation’s appearance, this is where I start losing interest, to be perfectly honest. Like many terms nowadays, it gained popularity when a bunch of children who wanted to be more popular started using it to describe themselves, trying to make themselves seem different in some ‘new’ way that no one had seen before. So many of these are the same people who take pictures in Native American Tribal Headdresses and doing other things to completely disrespect other people’s cultures, among other things, in the name of internet fame, and will gladly tell anyone who will listen that ’they’ve been doing something longer than you have’ or ’they heard of something before you did’ or other such mundane argumentative tripe that means nothing to the greater, bleeding world. These are the people who will tell anyone who will listen that they suffer from some kind of mental illness, cut themselves, are pansexual, and whatever else they think will get them constant sympathy and/or followers despite the fact that they never have or were.
What irks me about this group of people is that there really are people out there who are suffering from mental illnesses, who self-harm, who do honestly identify as Pansexual, as well as the myriad of other labels and identities out there that a bunch of stupid children are taking and perverting for their own means. You can’t tell the difference, can you? Me neither. And since the popularity of this term was greatly helped along, as well, by the fact that Bisexuality was under attack by both the gay and anti-gay community at the time that it was reintroduced, it makes me very hesitant to want to identify with that group in any sense, whatsoever.
So to those who honestly consider themselves to be Pansexual, who are actually gender-blind like me, and see people for who they are on the inside as well as the outside, I would be glad to find myself in your company. However, I cannot, for all of the reasons stated above, call myself a member of your community, just yet. Instead, I’ll remain proudly Bisexual, and refuse to back down to whiny children who try to force me to call myself by another term.
That’s all I have on that topic for now. Thanks for reading, and have a lovely day!
A Momentary Equilibrium Issue 