Hey there, Internet, my name's Luxander and today we're going to be
delving into the difference between bisexual and pansexual. I've noticed that
there's a bit of confusion on this topic about why you would call yourself
pansexual when bisexual is an available term, especially for those of you who've
been following me from Jimmy's channel, "Mr. Atheist." Jimmy and I both identify
as pansexual so I kind of wanted to talk about what the reasons for that are and
like how it's different from being bi. There's also a couple more obscure terms
that I want to be covering in this video as well but we'll get to that in a
minute. But because there's so much nuance on this topic--this is a pretty
high-level discussion--I might not have the most perfect explanations for things
and a lot of these labels are really personal to people, so they might mean
something different to an individual. I'm just gonna try to give like an overview
of what they tend to mean. So bisexual is kind of the most common
term that we have for people who are attracted to people of more than one
gender. It's kind of a misconception though that bi means "men and women."
That's not what most people nowadays mean when they say that they're bisexual.
There may be some people who identify as bi who exclusively mean, "I am attracted
to both men and women and no one outside of that," but I think that that's kind of
not common anymore. The way that I've heard it explained is that bi in this
case when you're using the bi, it means two thing, means "I'm attracted to the
same gender as me and other genders." The term bisexual is not meant to be
exclusionary towards trans people or nonbinary folks. Again, there might be
some people who do mean it that way but overall bisexuality as a concept is not
transphobic. And since bisexual is the term that has existed more historically
like people grew up with the term bisexual and it's the more common word
in the lexicon, it's also kind of become an umbrella term for all of these
different ways that you can be attracted to more than one gender. Now that I've
mentioned that it's kind of an umbrella term, I want to bring up this meme which
is Hannibal Buress on the Eric Andre show which has been memed into probably
one of the most lovely memes on this topic that I've ever seen. I smiled real
big when I saw it. For those of you who are just listening, it's two screenshots,
in the top screenshot there is all four of the flags for bisexual, omnisexual,
pansexual, and polysexual. And in the bottom image there's some text overlay
that says "these broadly overlap but the distinction matters to some people and
that's okay." I also bring this up because it's going to be relevant in a moment as
I delve into the omnisexual and polysexual labels, but first! Let's
talk about pansexual. When I was young, I first started identifying as pansexual
because I mistakenly believed that bi was exclusionary to trans people, but as
we've just discussed that is not a correct interpretation so, like, this is
what pansexual actually means. Pan refers to being attracted to people of any
gender sort of regardless of their gender. A lot of the time you'll see
memes that say "hearts not parts" because it's more about the person that you're
attracted to rather than it being about their gender. Essentially, it means that
gender doesn't play a significant role in your attraction to people, you're
attracted to the person and their gender might be like part of them as a human
being but it's not the thing you're focused in on. And some people, when they
say they're bisexual mean something closer to what the definition of
pansexual is, but again, this term has historical meaning--bisexual--there is a
existing bisexual community throughout like the 70s and 80s and so people grew
up with that. It's a politically significant term for a lot of them, but
ultimately it's okay for people to identify with whatever label they feel
is best for them. It doesn't matter exactly what the specific words mean
because a lot of this has broad overlap but again those distinctions matter to
people and that's what's important. I will say for me personally despite the
fact that I've identified as pan since like ten years ago, the whole "hearts not
parts" thing always kind of felt weird to me because, to me, the person's gender *is*
a motivating factor in my attraction to them, it just so happens that it doesn't
matter what their gender is, I'm attracted to people of any gender, but
like, yes, parts, please parts. Which I think is a good segue into one of the
other terms that we're gonna be discussing today. I think that I may have
actually found a more accurate identity label today. As with everything, this is
still a learning and growing process, even for me after like 10 years of
identifying as pansexual, I may have found a more specific label that more
accurately represents how I actually feel. This term is omnisexual, which is
actually--it's got a lot of overlap with pansexual, but some of the things that I
was reading indicated that that distinction that I have of like, oh, no,
your gender is part of why I'm attracted to you. I enjoy the parts associated with
you. So omnisexual seems to basically mean that you're attracted to people of
any gender but their gender *is* a factor in how and why you're attracted to them.
It just so happens that you can be attracted to anyone of any gender, but
it's not irrelevant, or it's not "regardless of their gender"
in the way that pansexual is, but again these two labels are really close to
each other. So yeah, I think that I'm omnisexual but I'm probably still going to
use the label pansexual because, as with people who identify with bisexual, pan is
becoming a more understood term and it's more useful when I'm communicating. And
the fact that communication is a two-way street is why I have not gone back to
identifying as bisexual--I did when I was younger--because to me it seems like when
you are communicating with someone, if they're someone outside of the community,
if you say bi what people are mostly going to hear is "I'm attracted to men
and women" and I don't want to give that impression.
So I've stuck with pansexual throughout the years because it just seems like
it's a way of communicating that I am attracted to anyone of any gender and
that it's not creating this false idea of a binary within people's minds when I
say it. And the last term that I want to discuss is polysexual. This is not the
same as polyamorous. Polyamorous is when you have a relationship style that
includes having multiple relationships at varying degrees of intimacy with more
than one person, but that's not an orientation label that we're talking
about right now. Polysexual just means that you're attracted to two or more
genders but this might not mean the same thing that it means to the other
identity labels. Like a polysexual person might be attracted to women and
nonbinary people. So they're attracted to two or more genders but it's not like,
regardless of gender and it's not men and women. So as you can see, a lot of
these labels have some kind of overlapping meanings but there are a lot
of very high-level nuanced distinctions between them and I hope that me talking
through the different reasons that I identify with certain labels and not
other ones can make you kind of understand why people may choose to get
a little bit more specific with their identity labels rather than just going
for the more broad general umbrella label of bisexual.
So just to recap, bisexual means that you're attracted to the same gender as
you and other genders. Pansexual means that you're attracted to people
regardless of their gender. Omnisexual means that you are attracted to people
of any gender but that their gender *is* a factor for you. And polysexual means
you're attracted to two or more genders and it's not exactly the same definition
as the other terms that we've discussed. I hope that's clarified things for you
somewhat. If you have any additional questions feel free to leave them for me
in the comments or if you have any corrections that you want to let me know
about you can also feel free to let me know in the comments. I really appreciate
you watching, again, I hope this helped somewhat. If you liked this
video please give me pretty-pretty analytics to look at and comments to
read. Find me on Patreon, subscribe to this channel, ring the bell for
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