Bi-sexulaity currently taking a kicking over at the Guardigan

I came away with the feeling that it's just a youth attempt to rebrand sex in a way that suggests they invented it, and distance it from anything indulged in by their unfashionable old parents.

This sums it up for me.

If DH does most of the cooking and wears pink shirts, and I'm a bolshy feminist who wears black all the time and earns more, are we in a queer relationship?

Reallyboring, see, I get that this kind of micro-labelling comes from a good place, a place where people are dealing with a culture presenting things a certain way that isn't how they individually experience the world. I think it's totally good to find a way to not feel like an oddball and be reassured that your sexuality is fine as it is.

That's one of the reasons I'm so incredibly grateful for the societal shift to be so accepting of LGB sexualities, and yes, to be able to define something, names are useful.

The problem we have here is that this thing which can so therapeutic has become a target for people to appropriate for whatever strange validation they feel, like the people who say, without any steps towards diagnosis and just because it marks them out, "I'm a little bit OCD" or " I'm a little bit autistic".

You welcomed the label because it made sense of something and therefore you felt less 'set apart'. The people collecting these labels like pin badges on an 80's denim jacket are doing so because it makes them 'set apart' and ever so special. Complete opposite of what you're describing.

The author of the piece is the same person who wrote that victim-blaming Cologne piece

She also attended a Woman's Place UK meeting and did quite a balanced piece (by Guardian standards) so not all bad.

Oh good, I think I’m queer then, and in a pan relationship. That’s a relief to know. As by current Stonewall definitions I’m trans (cruelly assigned female at birth despite my now being clearly competent with power tools and liking colour blue)

And DH used some of my hairspray this morning. So that’s definitely him being Special and gender fabulous.
No more boring old hetero for us!

Reallyboringnamechange - That all sounds perfectly ordinary and normal to me. I have no idea why it needs a 'demi' label.

It sounds like a very belittling label to me, like you are only half the ticket

I am just waiting for the redefinition of standard heterosexual relationships

Oh that’s easy, as long as the male partner has long hair or wears make up and/or the female partner has short hair or wears waistcoats then what you have is a queer relationship, none of that boring non-woke heterosexuality.

In defence of Demi.

I’ve namechanged for this as there are details here that I’ve never told a living soul other than my husband and therapist. I first came across the term demisexual in the early 2000s during a course of therapy. Until that point, I had grown up with a difficult attitude to sex. It’s hard to describe, it wasn’t a revulsion and not quite a phobia but I just knew I had no interest or desire to ever have penetrative intercourse. I avoided relationships so that the issue wouldn’t come up but then I met my husband. I feel deeply, madly in love with this man and for the first time in my life wanted to experience intimacy. Whenever we tried I was hit with feelings of panic about what we were doing and severe vaginismus set in. I was in a really low place for a few years, hating my body and my brain. Eventually I plucked up the courage to seek help. Hearing the word demisexual was a revelation to me; not because I wanted to be labelled but because it meant there were enough others like me that someone had coined a name for us. Over time we explored my feelings about my body, sex and DH and the desire to share an experience with him that I couldn’t even bring myself to consider in other circumstances. Slowly my wellbeing improved and yes, now DH and I have a healthy sex life but I still have no desire to experience it with anyone else. Upthread someone mentioned a name of someone who looks like they would be great in bed. That kind of thinking is just alien to me. I’m not sure I’ve described it properly. I know demisexual always gets a laugh around these part and mainly because it has been appropriated by the snowflake generation who need a label for their perfectly normal, loving relationship. I don’t describe myself as demi in public. I’m not exactly ashamed, I just see myself, a human being, as so much more than that label – but it does have its uses in certain healthcare settings.

I know a couple who describe themselves as demi and talk at great length about how proud they are to have entered into a demi relationship. Both also talk about all the wild sex and one night stands they had before settling down into this demi relationship. You have no idea how often I want to scream at them that the word they are looking for is “monogamous” . That perfectly fine terminology already exists for couples who don’t feel the need to sleep around.

Targeted advertising has me all wrong. I feel attacked. DON'T YOU KNOW I'M PANSEXUAL NOW MUMSNET

Surely the pan bit of pansexual comes from the prefix meaning 'all/every' rather than from the god Pan?

once a woke-approved label has been adopted then one is more able to exercise consent/non-consent

This is the answer. We all need to declare ourselves pansexual (or trans, come to that) and the niche appeal and superiority of it will be dissolved.

The author of the piece is the same person who wrote that victim-blaming Cologne piece. It's probably a bit late now, but we shouldn't give her clicks.

that makes a lot of sense nauticant

As we know, an assumed identity always trumps reality and so my comments are more valid than yours.

Aw, shit, knew I’d forgotten something. I’ve never identified. I just fancied people and then noticed that said people included both men and women.

Another difference I’ve experienced- pansexual people more likely to identify as such. Bisexual people more likely to just be bi (there’s another pun in there somewhere I just...can’t...find it)

Actually, I think you may well have got to the heart of it there, nauticant

I know how crucial it is to my teen wokesters to send out acceptable social signals. Identifying as pansexual is a neat way of transmitting wokeness and deferring accusations of being anything-phobic, projecting a rainbow shield from behind which you can then say, 'nah, thanks.' That actually would explain why people would choose that as an orientation.

It's just another thing co-opted by arguments about gender when in fact gender is irrelevant to sexual identity.

Agree with the PP who have said there are three:
heterosexual
homosexual
bisexual
(maybe 4 if you consider asexual too)

anything else is just additional info.
I'm demisexual (I think that's the right word?) - not attracted to people I don't have an emotional connection to. That doesn't tell you anything about whether I'm attracted to people of the same/other sex.
It's also not part of my identity, it's just a descriptor really.

I have decided to identify as bisexual for the purposes of this thread Metaplasia. As we know, an assumed identity always trumps reality and so my comments are more valid than yours.

It's fun this, isn't it?

MIdgebabe I dunno 🤷🏻‍♀️ I don't claim to be the oracle of bisexual knowledge, just saw the thread and thought I'd offer my thoughts, being a bisexual and all

One neat thing about a pansexual identity is to be able to say to a trans person, "well, see, I would have no problem with sleeping with you because I am not deterred by the equipment you've got, so obviously I'm not transphobic, it's just I don't want to sleep with you as an individual".

As I see it, it seems that once a woke-approved label has been adopted then one is more able to exercise consent/non-consent. It's only those who still insist on flaunting non-approved non-woke identities who don't get to freely choose sexual partners.

This whole thread is one puntasm after another. I approve!

IME pansexual is very much woke bisexual.

Bisexual = gender critical, pansexual = gender inclusive, is another difference I’ve consistently encountered.

Pansexuality does come across to me like trying to one-up bi people with wokeness. But then I’m bi so may be bi-ased, enjoy my awful pun

*don't particularly care. (To my above comment).

That's what happens when you try to type with a toddler on your arm.

I am just waiting for the redefinition of standard heterosexual relationships.

I've just noticed the typo in the title and can't help tittering at the idea of 'bisexul-laity'. Those crazy progressive church congregations!

I was thinking less about looks and more about behaviour and attitudes

Am now thoroughly confused by what my bisexual ex boyfriend thought he was about, as I am 6 foot- if he’s only supposed to fancy dainty, feminine women and strapping men- we were getting it all wrong!

Of course, this was back in prehistoric times, and the kids are so much more enlightened now.

I fear for my 20 year old niece. she’s just come out as bisexual. frankly, the way the discourse is going, I’m amazed it wasn’t straight to pansexual and being pressured to Be Woke between the sheets (maybe only a matter of time...)

The evil bit of me wonders if we can't get a matchmaking session between incel and pansexual groups.

The rest of me just rolls her eyes. If it's safe, sane legal and consensual I particularly care where you stick your genitals.