Pansexuality (n): is sexual or romantic attraction to someone without regard to their sex or gender. It can also be called omnisexuality or being gender-blind. The most important characteristic is that a pansexual person is not restricted by being attracted to one gender or the other.
What’s The Difference Between Pansexual And Bi?
A bisexual person can be attracted to a man or a woman. A pansexual person rejects the gender binary to begin with. They may be attracted to men, women, and non-binary people.
Who Can A Pansexual Person Date?
- Someone of their own gender
- Someone of the opposite gender
- Someone who has no gender
- Someone who is trans
- Someone who is cis
- Someone who is gay
- Someone who is straight
- Someone who is not pansexual
- Literally whoever they want!
What Is It Like To Date A Pansexual Person?
“I am a gay male while my partner’s pansexual. He is the absolute man of my dreams, he understands and loves me so unconditionally and we share a happy relationship together.
However, whenever he shares his desires and fantasies with me of things that goes beyond what I have the capacity to do for him, I feel heartache. I feel like I cannot fully “inhabit his heart,” and that these attractions are closed-off areas which I can never truly reach nor satisfy. Whenever we are intimate, I cannot help but to mull over these thoughts, and it makes me feel distant and sad.
He asks me what’s wrong, but I am reluctant to share with him my jealousy. The last thing I want is for him to feel bad about his own sexuality.
Am I prejudiced to think this way? I understand pansexual individuals have a hard time in society and the last thing I want to do is to perpetuate any more prejudice towards them. I just cannot help but to feel like I cannot be everything for him.” — Anon
“Chances are many of us have dated bi/pansexual people and not realized it. Not everyone is out, or maybe they haven’t come to terms with how they feel. It seems like a lot of guys feel like they can’t explore their feelings for the same sex without being stigmatized. I can’t imagine dating him will be any different from dating a straight guy.” — Anon
“My fiance is about to marry a pansexual lady (me) I’d like to think it’s a lot like being with anyone else. I’m completely on the monogamy boat. Same rules apply as a “straight” relationship. I don’t walk around flirting with everyone, making lewd or sexual comments about others. It’s like a normal relationship. Totally weird, right? :D” — Anon
“But as much as I wanted to be cool with it, and as much as he wanted to make holistic sense of his own life choices, we couldn’t pretend the past hadn’t happened. Soon, the nuances of sexual history became major issues. And by nuances, what I really mean is butt stuff.
“Would you ever consider doing me, instead of me always doing you?” Matt asked.
“I don’t know,” I said, taken aback. “I’ve never done that before.”
“Can’t you just get a strap-on and try it?”” — From “IT HAPPENED TO ME: I Dated a Pansexual Porn Star”
“I’m out as pansexual to my fiancé.
His favorite part about it is that we can discuss hot actresses together while watching movies. I’ve teased him before about his man crush on David Tennant; I’d probably make a comment to the effect of “HA! I KNEW IT!”
Bi and pan people are no more likely to cheat than straight people or gay people. Cheating is a huge deal-breaker for me and I’d never dream of doing it. Being pansexual just means I have more chances to find somebody attractive.
Attraction does not mean you’ll cheat. It just means you think someone is hot. There’s a vast world of difference there.” — Addison R
“The relationship with the person was more pertinent than their history. Fidelity is far more important for me.” — David B
“I’ve been dating a pansexual man for over four years, and it pretty much just means that gender of any kind doesn’t matter to him.” — geekitygeek
“My girlfriend is pansexual. Everyone, regardless of sexual orientation, has preferences and fantasies. Some of them might be met and some of them might not. It doesn’t mean that they’re missing out on anything.” — Aspen
“Anne was quite upfront with me about that on our very first date. The fact of the matter, as in any serious relationship, was that she chose me. She wanted to be with me. Not with another man, not with a woman, with me.
Being pansexual or bisexual doesn’t mean the person is going to be cheating on you. It doesn’t mean there can’t be a meaningful monogamous relationship.
Now when Anne and I ended the relationship nine months later, her next serious relationship happened to be with a woman. And the one after that. And then she met the lover of her life – again a woman – and they’ve been happily married for 22 years (last month).” — Jerald C
“I’ve been involved with another bisexual guy, and it was very interesting to say the least. He has ideas about sex, sexuality and relationships which are very different in some respects from my own, but not in ways which made us incompatible.
He’s also one of those people who’s very profoundly comfortable in his own skin, particularly in the sense of being male. He really likes being a guy, likes everything about that in himself, and likes those same things in other males as well. I think on rare occasion that also just manifests as sexual attraction to certain guys too. He’s also the only person I’ve met who was unabashedly enthusiastic about initially realizing that he was bisexual.
It was his first and only relationship with another guy, mainly because there are very few guys he’s attracted to sexually. He was also really fun to be around while we were going to school together, and we’re still friends and keep in touch.
I respect and understand pansexuality (at least as much as I can without being pansexual myself,) but it involves a perspective on gender which would be fundamentally incompatible with my own, in the context of a sexual relationship. There’s no fault involved there, but gender identity (particularly in a social sense) is too primarily involved in the ways in which I’m attracted to people for me to be comfortable with it being viewed as more trivial by a partner. That’s just me though, because I’m at the very far end of the bisexual-pansexual “scale,” which probably most bisexual people aren’t. (There’s an actual continuum between gender-specific attraction, and attraction regardless of gender, it’s not a binary thing.)” — Chris770
“My girlfriend and I dated for 4+ years, they were really the only person that knew I was trans before I came out publicly. As I started to transition they tried to make it work, but ultimately cut things off. This was about a year ago, and I’ve had a very hard time recovering and rebounding from it, especially since after breaking up they began to identify as pansexual, genderqueer and are now into feminine people. I’m a transwoman so I’m just confused as to why it didn’t work out, I seem to fit the criteria still.” — Juniper41
“I dated a pansexual chick who had identified as, and lived as, a lesbian for 7 years, within the lesbian community of a major city.
When she discovered she was also attracted to men, and fucked one, she told a lesbian friend.
She was ostracized. Her sexual preference is apparently considered awful among serious lesbians, and they treated her like a homosexual man would be in the 50’s.” — the_red_scimitar
“My boyfriend identifies as Pansexual which I’m fine with (because why should I have a problem with that) but most of the time he has a really low sex drive (like he only wants to have sex maybe twice a month) this wouldn’t be a problem except I have a really high sex drive. Some days I feel like I’m pressuring him to have sex which then turn makes me feel shitty for doing it. Is it normal for him to have such a low sex drive? Is it possible that he’s more attracted to men? I’ve talked to him about it but he never really responds, he only apologizes for it, which stresses me out.” — Ihaveaproblemagain
“I identify as pansexual. I’ve been with both men and women and people who do not identify with either of those genders at all. For me personally, it has never made a lot of sense to say “I am only attracted to boys/girls/etc.” because, well, there is no way I will ever be able to meet every single person on earth in order to generalize about that sort of thing.. I am much more interested in what is going on in your brain and heart than what is going on inside of your pants. I’ve been attracted to fem girls, girls who look more masculine and identify with the male gender, boys who look and act more feminine, boys who are extremely masculine.. pansexuality doesn’t really mean that you aren’t concerned about appearance; if I like who you are as a person, and want to date you, chances are that attraction will generalize to your anatomy and gender as well. I’m currently dating a heterosexual boy who prefers androgynous girls and I’ve never been more happy. Different strokes and all that..” — broccolib0b
Are Pansexual People Real?
Yes, pansexual is a real sexual orientation people identify as when they are attracted to people regardless of their gender or sex. This is nothing less “real” about pansexuality than identifying as straight or gay.
Here Is A Firsthand Account Of What It’s Like To Be A Pansexual Person
Pansexuality Is A Completely Legitimate Sexuality by Mackenzie Dare Campbell
I publicly (as public as Facebook gets, at least) came out as pansexual. To fully understand, it’s important to know that I’ve struggled with my sexuality for quite some time. Here’s a quick summary of my almost-daily thoughts: Being attracted to a woman makes me gay, right? Arrgh! That’s so restricting! What if I see a cute guy?! Wait, that means I’m straight, right? But what about non-binary people?! What does that mean?
What am I? Who am I?
You may be thinking something along the lines of, “Dude, chill. Just say you’re bi or something.” That crossed my mind (and added to my struggle), but it just didn’t seem to fit.
When I made my true identity public, I was finally able to put all of my thoughts and feelings about love, romance, sex, and my confusing desires into words: I’m pansexual. And in all honesty, I do and don’t understand why this is such a hard concept for so many people to grasp. Yes, I understand that not everyone will be attracted to people of the same gender, but I also don’t understand why it’s hard for someone to understand love that knows no boundaries.
Why is it hard to understand that I will love someone regardless of gender? I’ve only really told this to a few people, but when I look at someone, I don’t see a biological sex or gender. I’m not ignoring their sexual and gender identities, I just don’t base my attraction on either of those. I just see a person, a soul, a spirit.
So, what is pansexuality? Pansexuality is “the capability of attraction to others regardless of their gender identity or biological sex. A pansexual could be open to someone who is male, female, transgender, intersex, or agendered/genderqueer.”
Again, you may be thinking, “Sooo… You’re bi?” No. There’s a distinction between bisexuality and pansexuality: “People who self-identify as pansexual do so with purpose, to express that they are able to be attracted to various gender and sexual identities, whether they fall within the gender binary or not.”
Alright, so I’ve figured out who I am and I’ve just told everyone I know. Now what? As you can imagine, waiting to see how people would respond was probably the most tense and terrifying moment of my life. Yeah, that didn’t last long.
I was met with so much support and positivity. I received so many comments and messages that were filled with love, support, and kindness. I had an unexpected number of people tell me that my message was inspiring, but honestly, I thought all of their kind words were so much more inspiring than I could ever be. Okay, so this sounds like a great coming out experience, right? Well, it gets better!
While I was in the car with my mother the next day, she asked if I felt better now that I’m out, to which I responded, “Yes!” (Actually, I said something like, “I guess,” but I really wanted to shout at her and tell her how happy and appreciative I was.) She then told me that she had always known I wasn’t straight.
If that didn’t surprise me enough, she continued to tell me that my entire family, some friends, and friends of the family had always suspected it, too. Of course this made me extremely happy (I found it quite hilarious, honestly), but now I have to wonder… Did I make it that obvious? I wish someone had told me sooner. I wouldn’t have had to struggle and be so confused for all these years.
All joking aside, I’ve had such a wonderful coming out experience, and I truly wish that everyone could have such an inspiring and easy experience. I know that’s not the case, but I do so long for a world that isn’t filled with prejudice and hate.
I want everyone to feel accepted and loved, and I hope that we can eventually all live in a harmonious world in which heterosexuality isn’t assumed. Every single comment and message I received was so empowering, but one specific comment has stayed in my mind, and I think it will always stay with me:
“I’m sorry we live in a world where our sexuality is assumed and expected, and where something that should be a non-issue requires a ‘coming out.’ I’m sorry that friends and family and loving strangers and acquaintances have to say things like, ‘You’re brave,’ and, ‘I admire your courage,’ just because we love a certain way.
I’m sorry we have to worry about how our friends and loved ones will interpret and accept this very personal, very particular, very important part of our identities. But I’m happy there are people who see and understand. And in a world where acceptance isn’t ever guaranteed, it’s always nice to see someone say, ‘This is all of me.’ Much love for your openness.”
This comment is such a perfect summary of the world we live in and the struggles that those of us in the LGBTQIA+ community face on a daily basis. It also sums up every single thing that I hope to see change in my lifetime.
I hope that by sharing my entire, true self with the world, maybe I can help stop some of the negativity and hate surrounding those of us who don’t fit into our heteronormative surroundings. I also hope that my story can inspire some of you to find and accept your true selves and maybe even to share your true selves with the world. If you do, I hope you’re met with as much kindness and love as I have been.
In the words of Ingrid Nilsen, always remember to “give yourself your best chance.”
