Bisexuality – Old Hat?

Once I understood my gender more, which was unassigned, then I understood my sexuality more. I was like, “Oh — that’s why I don’t feel straight and I don’t feel gay. It’s because I’m not”.

Miley Cyrus

Back in mid-2017 I remember thinking my blog was getting a little bland, I decided to spice it up a little and I wrote my first post relative to sexuality. The post was titled; “Heterosexual women have fewer orgasms during sex than anyone else…… Wow!!”. It worked, I think even to this day five and a half years on – (I know, I’ve been boring you with my ramblings for that long!!) – the post generated some of the most responses ever! Based on the response I decided to write more about sexual health, sexuality and gender fluidity. I remember writing about bi-sexuality in that first post and thinking, is this a little too edgy for my, up until that moment, mainly vanilla blog.

Fast forward to today and Bisexual, Queer, Trans relationships are much more openly discussed to the point I’m now thinking; is Bisexuality now a little old fashioned and vanilla in its own right? Back in 2016, Bisexuality seemed to be edgy and almost taboo. Yet here we are, in the day and age of pansexual millennials and I’m noticing a huge change in public labelling, where celebrities and private people alike are choosing the term ‘pansexual’ over ‘bisexual’ now. Recently I signed up to the SL dating app – Thundr, when setting up my profile I had the opportunity to label my sexuality, Bisexual, Demisexual, Pansexual…… honestly, I had to look some of them up! Why and what does this mean for Bisexuals? Is Pansexual just the new term for being Bi? What does this say about society and where we’re headed?

Well, first let me say that this is all just semantics if we want to intellectualize it to death. But let’s just deal with the modern-day lexicon and how it evolves with each new generation to encompass the ideals and values of the current paradigm shift. In this case, it seems that the term “Pansexual” is more inclusive than the term “Bisexual”. Which is obvious by the terms themselves, with the prefix “pan” being derived from Greek meaning “all” and the prefix “Bi” from Latin denoting “doubly, having two”. So, it makes perfect sense that if someone feels that they are attracted to more then just the two binary genders of Cis-female and Cis-male, that they would prefer to use the term “pansexual.” With me so far – maybe not! Some of you may be wondering, what the hell is Cis-male and Cis-female? The answer is trans men and trans women as well as non-gendered individuals. There are probably more options than that, and if I missed some please let me know! But for the purpose of this post, that will have to do for now.

So, we now see more and more celebs using the “non-label” of “pansexuality”. Except that it is a label. Duh! Yes, it’s so inclusive as to almost not exist I suppose. But the word/label still exists and more and more people are identifying with it. The why is sort of simple, as stated above, because they’re just into the person on the inside, not the body. Basically…… right? You know, when someone says they “fall in love with the person and not the gender”…. Usually an attempt to avoid labels however, now that we have “pansexual” it just sort of sums that whole statement up in one easy word.

What does this mean for Bisexuality? Is being “bi” a thing of the past?

Well, in my personal opinion, I do think bisexuality is going to sort of phase out of style for a while. And no, I don’t think Bisexuality is a phase, I just mean, I think we evolve as a society over time and we use new terms as these new terms become more applicable and acceptable in modern times. The term pansexual and the fact that more and more people are using it, makes me hopeful for what that means to the bigger picture. Because what it means is inclusivity, in the way that pansexuality does not exclude any person from the possibility of falling in love with one another, no matter what their sexual orientation may be. For me, it means equality, it means growth and acceptance, as individuals within society open up their hearts to all versions of human, and realize that we really are more than our bodies and that the connection between people really can be on a heart level that transcends physical appearances.

Do you think bisexuality is being replaced by pansexuality? If so, why or why not? Answers on a postcard!

What’s on this week?