#pansexual bisexual debate

[do-you-know-this-queer-character]

Do you know this queer character?

Bean is WLW and uses she/her pronouns!

[hearts401]

meows and runs away

[respectfuldiscourse]

There really shouldn't be new lables for sexualities. I think we should just have hetero, homo, bi and ace. All of these other lables like pan, omni, abro are all bi but with different experiences.

Even the lgbt community can't really tell what's the difference between bi and pan because everyone has their own definition of what bi and pan are. Some say bi is when you only love two genders while pan is when you love all genders. Others say bi is when you love every gender and pan is when you're genderblind. Some say there aren't any differences between bi and pan. Honestly I can go on how there are so many definitions of bi and pan. And I'm just wondering, why? Why the need to create more labels for new sexualities when they are just going to be bi 2.0?

thank you for your submission

[trash-and-trash-accessories]

Okay I may legit be cancelled for the opinions I express in this video because I was around in 2010 when the original Bi/Pan debate was happening right here on this website and the entire thing was basically a combination of biphobia, transphobia, and botched communication.

[puppysdog]

i do wish there was a way i could talk about how i cant trust anyone using the pan label due to the years of transphobic bullshit i got from that side as a bisexual, and how its so normalized and modernized to say pan instead of bi now, especially by big name companies and celebrities, that the transphobia is making a come back because we never were fully able to address the issues with the online resurgence origin of pansexual without being called mean transphobic bisexuals. like it’s heartbreaking and infuriating that these should be my queer siblings but instead i get told that im transphobic for being bi, something thats both my gender AND sexuality, because a more “inclusive” term came around, despite the fact that bisexuality has always been inclusive. I WANT to be in solidarity but how am i supposed to do shit when some 18 year old thinks theyre higher and mightier and the top of the inclusivity chain for using a different label and erasing years upon years of queer history for bisexuals

[blossomdapple]

Remember Victorious? Well here are my queer headcanons for some of the characters 💖✨

The names of all identities are under the cut in case you don’t know all of them:

Tori: bi demigirl Andre: poly demiboy Jade: genderqueer bi Beck: aroflux pan Cat: genderfluid transfem pan Robbie: trans omni Trina: bi Mr. Sikowitz: gay

[sometimesthereishorse]

05/24-2022 🦄 Horse: Bi and Pan Unicorn (I can't think of any funny names)

I'm now also taking unicorn requests! 💕

if you're able to provide a flag for reference that'd be great, but it's not a necessity.

[plantaghost]

Bisexual is ' sexual attraction to two or more genders', Pansexual is 'regardless of gender' meaning gender doesn't factor into the sexual attraction at all.

[urlocalwormtoday]

idk anymore xd

"so many labels! You're so confusing"

Bro out of everybody here I am the one person who knows that the most

I'M CONFUSED ABOUT MY OWN SEXUALITY, I WOULDN'T BLAME YOU FOR BEING CONFUSED TOO??????

Like-

Yeah I like only some boys, yeah I like mainly girls, no I don't feel sexual attraction, am I lesbian? I don't think so, am I straight? Not that either- Pan? Eeeuuummmnaur, that's not it,,

LIKE I DONT EVEN KNOW AND THAT'S THE WORST PART 😭😭

It's like I'm on the fence about it but also not really because I can't decide which side of the fence I want to be on so I'm balancing precariously on it like 90% of the time

[liminalcathag]

you literally shouldn’t look for approval for who you date within the community at large (take input from people you trust obvs but) like. there’s no ‘safe’ kind of attraction free from the ridicule of assholes. LMFAO

assholes are just like that no matter what their relation to the community is 😭

[darkestmindcosplay]

Bisexual. Demisexual. Pansexual. Sapiosexual.Was darf man als Christ und wieso? -Austausch ^ - ^ 

[eeldritchblast]

They’re Not “Playersexual”, You’re Just Biphobic

(I was going to save this until September 23 because I thought that would be an appropriate date, but the Ask I got included in this essay just put me over the edge. So, here it is now. Buckle up.)

Bisexuality/Pansexuality is the attraction to people regardless of gender. About 4% of the USA alone (over 13.6 million people) openly identify as bisexual, according to Gallup’s latest polling. But unfortunately, bi/pan identities are so scary to some folks that they need to make up terms to avoid calling their favourite characters such. Thus, the term “playersexual” was born: a term to describe a game character who is attracted to the player character... regardless of gender.

If that sounds like it’s just a circuitous way of describing a bi/pan character, it’s because it is.

I first heard of the term “playersexual” almost a decade ago, from a Dragon Age fan complaining that Dorian was gay and thus it was “unfair” that she couldn’t romance him as female character. This fan said they wished BioWare would go back to Dragon Age II’s model of everyone being “playersexual” for “equality”.

Now, if you’ve actually played DA:2 and you’re not a bigot, you’re probably rolling your eyes just as hard as I did when I first read such a ridiculous statement. Well, prepare for this next one:

“When you make a male Hawke, Anders and Fenris are gay and Merrill is straight. Opposite is true if you make a female Hawke.”

These people are so afraid of bisexuality that they cannot even fathom its existence. They can believe in dragons and magic, but they cannot believe that a character is simply bi/pan. I find this especially hilarious for Anders, considering he had a canonical boyfriend, as confirmed both in-game and in The World of Thedas: Vol. 2 book.

I truly thought we were past this nonsense in 2023. I really, truly thought that. But then Baldur’s Gate 3 was released in full, and suddenly these same fuckers came out of the woodwork to bend over backwards avoiding calling these characters anything except bi/pan.

Note how in the above Ask, the anonymous questioner actually doubles down on avoiding addressing these two characters in particular as bi/pan!

“Playersexual” doesn’t even truly work for the characters of Baldur’s Gate 3 regardless, because the definition is oriented around attraction to the player character… which these characters are not exclusively attracted to. Here are some examples that prove otherwise:

If neither Lae’zel nor Astarion/Gale/Wyll are in a romance with the PC, Lae’zel will say she plans on propositioning one of the men for sex at the night of the tiefling party. She also flirts with Karlach in party banter.

Shadowheart expresses interest in Karlach, (“I like her. She looks like she could throw me over her shoulder and carry me to safety, should the need arise”) as well as Halsin if he leaves the party, (“he may have been misguided, but I liked looking at him.”)

Astarion flirts with nearly everyone in the party, but to just pick two examples: he mentions Wyll is the type of princely figure he used to dream about marrying, and says to Shadowheart “such a grim name for such a beautiful flower”.

Gale used to date Mystra. He also debatably flirts with Astarion by offering him some blood, after Cazador’s battle.

Wyll flirts with Lae’zel in party banter, and also refers to Halsin as a “delight” and “hunk”.

Karlach seems to have a little crush on Jaheira by the way she reacts to meeting her. She also says of Halsin, “everyone in this camp wants to climb that oak”.

Please keep in mind these are just a few examples I’ve picked out from screening through the dialogue, and there’s even more that prove the attraction to different genders these characters have is not related solely to the player. It’s just part of their identities.

In the Ask sent to me above, the anonymous questioner said they “cannot see Karlach as anything except lesbian and Astarion as gay.” This is just as bad as saying they are “playersexual” in my opinion, because yet again it’s erasing their bisexuality/pansexuality. Worse yet, it’s doing it because of the way the characters act. You cannot measure queerness based on actions and appearances being in line or not with queer stereotypes—it’s not a scale! And bi/pan folks are just as queer as lesbian and gay men, by virtue of simply being bi/pan!

All in all, I think this entire “playersexual” debate boils down to the fact that some people still refuse to see bi/pan identities as anything but “discount straight”. And that’s why people are rightfully angry when folks try to further this myth by pretending bi/pan characters don’t actually exist.

[cellgatinbo]

fit's numerous internal debates about his character's orientation (gay? straight? bisexual? pansexual? wariosexual??? 🤔)

[which doesn't even matter bc in the end he still has no rizz 😔]

[dailyspnpolls]

Dean Winchester’s Sexuality

There are multiple different ways that Supernatural is interpreted by its viewers. One aspect that is often debated is Dean’s sexuality as it is presented in the actual context of the show. So, let’s discuss…

This isn’t about headcanon/fanon/etc. This is about canon; what actually happened on our screens.

As always, I am looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

Don’t forget to check the blog for other polls; there’s a new one every day!

[thenightling]

Demisexual and Queer language

There's been some heated "debate" about the word demisexual and if it is necessary.

I admit there are certain words I don't really think are necessary but I sort of like the sound of, like Pansexual.

First, to be clear, Bisexual didn't originally mean "excluding nonbinary and trans." It wasn't a strict attraction to the binary. It wasn't transphobic or nonbinary-phobic. And most self-identified bisexuals, even now, do NOT heed these newly added restrictions.

Bisexual was a third option when, once upon a time, there were only two options.

Late into the 90s (and even now) there are still some gay folk who think bisexuality is a myth and you have to be attracted to one or the other, men or women, but cannot be potentially attracted to all genders / either gender.

For a lot of bisexuals the term means attraction to your own gender and all other genders. And that's what the "bi" actually means. I only like the term pansexual because of its connection to the Greek Pan.

There was even the weird stigma and notion that bisexual meant you were horny for everyone. Into the 2000s you saw this in pop culture even with beloved characters like Jack Harkness in Doctor Who and as recently as the AMC Interview with The Vampire TV show version of Lestat, where bisexual felt like code for "Horny for everything" and even physically abusive and dominating. Odd that the 90s movie depiction of Lestat felt less... negative-stereotype-y.

Anyway, for a lot of older Queer folk "bisexual" was still a new term as recently as the 90s. When David Bowie came out as bisexual in 1972 a reporter mistakenly took that to mean he had the sex organs of a man and a woman. (Source: the 1993 book "Bowie: In his own words.")

Bowie was so stigmatized by America's obsession with him being bisexual that he walked back into the closet until the mid-2000s when he came back out and admitted he had only gone back into the closet because he was sick of American reporters asking him about it. And he admitted it felt like no other country did that, just America.

And when Vincent Price's daughter found out that her father had been bisexual she ran to Roddy McDowall and confronted him by asking "Why didn't you tell me my father was bisexual?" and Roddy responded with "We didn't know the word. How can you deny something when you don't know the word?"

Based on Roddy McDowall's response about Vincent Price, there are probably a lot of older and historic Queer folk who were actually bisexual but the moment they had any same-sex attraction the title of "homosexual" was pinned to them.

Language evolves for a reason. The acceptance of the idea that someone could be attracted to more than one gender is why we have the word bisexual. Demisexual has always existed, we just didn't have a term for it. Yes, there are a lot of new terms in the LGBTQAI+ spectrum. And change can be scary. This is why a lot of folk have started to positively use the term Queer, to keep things simple while also taking back a word some used to slur-like capacity. The 1963 novel The Man who fell to Earth by Walter Tevis had a line "He walked like a queer." and in the 1970s that line was changed to "He walked like a homosexual." I half-imagine that if Walter Tevis was still alive he would acknowledge the character Nathan Bryce's internalized homophobia (the character whose internal monologue uses the description) or drop the description entirely but it is interesting to note that the original wording would be more accepted today than back in 1963 when it was first published.

[madame-mortician]

Since Tiffany and Chucky were added to DBD, I wanted to go through which characters are canonically LGBTQ+ just for funsies.

David King - David King is the first official, original LGBTQ+ character, identifying as a gay man. This is a major part of his tome lore, and so far he is the only canon gay man.

Freddy Krueger - This one is only half-canon, mostly because this is remake Freddy and not the original, but Freddy Krueger is bisexual, with a preference for women. Whether remake Freddy is also bisexual is up for debate, but nobody said he wasn't...

Pinhead - Pinhead is one of the queerest characters in horror, being written by a gay man and being originally genderless. Technically speaking, Pinhead doesn't have any labels, but is 100% queer, with an attraction to all genders and being genderless, mostly due to their bodily modifications rendering them "sexless" (Clive Barker's words not mine.)

Tiffany Valentine - Tiffany Valentine is canonically bisexual, with an attraction to various men and women. She is romantically involved with Chucky mostly, but is completely fine with him being in a female body, and is attracted to Nica, another woman. If anything, it seems like she has a preference for women despite being primarily with Chucky most of the time.

Charles Lee Ray - Chucky is also bisexual, openly stating he goes both ways, and gladly being romantically involved with both men and women, though again he is mostly involved with Tiffany.

Sadako Yamamura - In the original novel of Ringu, Sadako was intersex. It’s hard to tell if the Sadako in game is based off of the 90s film or the novel, but I believe it takes things from both so make of that what you will.

Susie Lavoie - In the prequel Legion comic, it's confirmed one of her crushes is a female, meaning she is WLW.

Cheryl Mason - Whilst not 100% confirmed, it is heavily implied that Cheryl is attracted to women, whether she is a lesbian or simply bisexual is up for debate. An alternate version of Cheryl (the one from Shattered Memories) is WLW and is hypersexual, but whether this applies to the normal Cheryl or not is again, up for debate.

The Look-See - This creature from Crypt TV is canonically pansexual.

The Birch - This creature from Crypt TV is canonically transgender.

The Mordeo - This creature from Crypt TV is canonically genderqueer.