#iow... generational trauma

[languageroom]

My antenna perked up watching The Newsreader, when Anna Torv's character mentioned her cousin Astrid Männik. It was more than just an Easter egg about the actress' Estonian heritage - Helen talks to her cousin during the Chornobyl disaster on the phone and mentions Astrid's brother in Estonia, which all likely makes Helen's character the child of a WWII refugee to Australia.

[warmbeebosoftbeebo]

Just go with him saying he's pan because that's the label he's using most recently and I think that everyone should just use that because like,,,,,, even though he clearly doesn't give a shit what he is, that's probably the right thing to do and just use what he most recently stated as what he actually is. especially since the definition of pan seems to be closest to what he's described, even before the paper mag interview

*gets into it* I would say he’s bisexual, because bisexual is a sexual orientation (attracted to both sexes) and he obectively is, although I tend to think he has a preference for women (maybe 60/40, plus he is glommed onto Sarah). I would also say he’s pansexual if he’s into that word (as in, idgaf if people use it or not, I’ll call you it if you want) but I see that as an announcement of sexual *preferences* in regards to the personality, fashion sense, self regard, looks, interests, etc of those whom one can be attracted to--or more appropriately, an announcement of a lack of preferences (bc pan means all--if you like all, you don’t particularly prefer one or another, or three, or 7 or so on “types”)--an openness to everyone regardless. 

(This is also seen in the assertion that sexual orientation is defined by gender, or even specifically the gender *identity* of whom you are attracted too. That attraction is based on another’s self-regard, inner feeling, and not on their body, their sex, their secondary sex characteristics. Lots of monosexuals, and even lots of bisexuals, would disagree. It’s kind of a desexualization of sexual attraction and behaviour, as in the adage “hearts not parts”--as if the body is something base and less “woke” or “evolved” than the mind. As if we should be attracted and desire and want and engage in sex acts with our spirits/souls/mind and not the sweaty, wet, warm, muscled, soft, penised or vulvaed, etc body of others. But conversely, this view crops up alongside a very pornographic vision of sexuality eg dom/sub, phallocentric, penetration-centred, etc... so I think it’s more of an expectation on females than males. Eg males are still seen as having firm boundaries most of the time, whereas females are the ones who always must give, be of the mind about our sexuality or be called a dirty bigoted genital fetishist, be “open” and centre others, treat our sexuality as a social service for others especially males. Be the giving, penetrable, bruising flesh there to be hurt by the firm commanding male.) 

I see it as a subset of bisexuality, although I suppose it could be argued that one could be both pansexual and monosexual (aka homosexual or heterosexual) (I’m open to both the argument that pansexual would need to include both sexes--keeping in mind intersex people are classed as one or the other--and the argument that one could like all sorts of people within one sex only).

I think he used pansexual because he sensed the interviewer was pressing him for a label (eg the interviewer had used queer, bisexual soon before, asked him about going to a gay bar), and would say that if omnisexual had been a term used over pansexual, he’d have used that one. Or polysexual. Had pansexual not been en vogue (it is undeniably a popular term amongst under 30s/the social media internet generation, the younger one is the more likely one is to identify as a term that’s not straight/heterosexual or gay/homosexual or bisexual for that matter) he probably would not have used it, and bisexual would have been a likely other option. I don’t think he rejects any of those terms for himself per se (barring “my sexuality is I’m married” being a stumbling block for him re: other labels). Iow, if this were the 1970s, do we think he’d still use pansexual? Would he see himself represented in bisexual just fine? I think he does now on that latter question, and Freudian pyschoanalysis actually coined pansexual (Freud is most infamous for propagating the myth of the vaginal orgasm/vaginal maturity over the silly, immature clitoris, theorizing that girls had penis envy, and bending to backlash against him uncovering father-daughter incest and trauma by coming up with the “seduction theory”--saying daughters fantasized about and lusted after their fathers and had “hysteria” from those fantasies), so would have had that connotation still back then. (Freud was getting raked over the coals, rightfully, by feminists back then because of the influence he still had over sexologists, psychiatrists, etc.)