this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2023
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Pansexual, polysexual, and omnisexual are all microlabels and are all subsets of bisexual. You don't need more labels than gay, straight, and bi.
Edit: I forgot about asexuals. But I specifically only care about bi subsets. They're dumb, and you only need bi
Here's an unpopular opinion: you don't need any labels at all. You love who you live, you fuck who you fuck, you can advertise what you're looking for if you want to but all this identity business obscures the reality that humans are far more diverse and interesting than the boxes we build for ourselves.
Most people who call themselves straight would fuck someone from their own gender if there weren't cultural expectations against it hammered into them from and early age. Most people who call themselves gay would wander if they found someone they connected with. Very few of us rest at one end of any spectrum or matrix. Most of us are somewhere in the middle, and far more mobile than we might realize.
As a pansexual I feel that Bi and Pan have enough differences to both be justified while the others are micro labels (not invalid, just less useful as labels).
But I recognize I'm drawing that line very conveniently for myself.
Atheism isn't a religion, likewise asexuality is not a sexual orientation, but the lack of one, I say.
What does bi cover that pan doesnβt :-)
If we're splitting hairs, bi should be a sunset of pan.
Also, there is some need for a fourth "none of the above" label...
And here I thought pansexual meant you really like cookware.
Is that really what you thought, or just an attempt at humor? Be honest ;)
I agree. All the little bitty addages don't make sense. You can be bi and still have preferences. Just keep it simple gosh dangit.
I think thereβs value for folks in the community to have the hyper-specific labels. Iβm saying this as a bi person who agrees that pan, Omni, etc are sub categories of bi.
Out of interest, why? Shouldn't it be the other way around, that bi is a subset of pan?
Read the bisexual manifesto. Bi has always included nonbinary people. If you are attracted to all genders, both bisexual and pansexual are valid labels you can choose.
Actually didn't know that, even though I identify as bi lol. Pretty sure my other bi and pan friends didn't know either from the kinds of discussions we've had. But then that's just a bad choice linguistically, no? It's very misleading because you literally have the terms bi and non-bi and you need to read some manifesto to understand that they're not a contradiction. Meanwhile aside from the stupid overdone cookware joke, I think nobody ever questioned the meanings of terms like pan or omni, because they make sense linguistically.
Homosexual is attraction to the same gender; heterosexual is attraction to a different gender. The bi in bisexual is both of these, not attraction to two genders. Think of the bi flag, pink, purple, and blue: what do you think the colors represent? Nonbinary people have always been included in bisexual if you take some time to think about.
I don't doubt your textbook correctness or the historical correctness of this, and maybe I should stress that I am not trying to exclude anyone from the bi term, but at least in my anecdotal experience, these terms are mostly used "wrongly", meaning that there is a lot of confusion. And the meanings of words change as people start using them with different intended meanings.
Therefore, given the premise that we want to simplify things by cleaning up some redundant terms, I would prefer to keep the one whose meaning is intuitively clear to everyone. I just don't see why - given bi, pan and omni all mean the same thing - one should choose the most misunderstood/misused term.
Personally, I would just keep the terms and let people choose whichever they like, I'm just trying to entertain this discussion of choosing to keep only one of them and the pros/cons for each choice.
Not understanding what words mean isn't an unpopular opinion, you're just wrong
Not about the first bit, that's arguable
You definitely DO need more labels than straight, gay, and bi. For example: asexual or sapiosexual, those don't fit into any of the 3 you listed
I guess we found the actual unpopular opinion on this.
Sapiosexual means you have a preference for smart people. Its not a sexuality.
Can't agree more. The microlabels are too much at this point. You do not need mix sexual orientation, which is the sex we are naturally attracted to, with having preferences, which are the qualities we find attractive in a person or a relationship. The two are completely separate.