Bi-sexulaity currently taking a kicking over at the Guardigan

[Bebstar123]

www.theguardian.com/society/2019/feb/14/the-pansexual-revolution-how-sexual-fluidity-became-mainstream#comments

"Nick, a 22-year-old physics and philosophy masters student at the University of York, initially thought he was bisexual as a teenager, but also now feels “pansexual” better fits his view that attraction isn’t really about gender. “I just find characteristics generally about people attractive"... a bi person might find tall guys attractive, and short girls. But he tends to fancy tall people, regardless of whether they are male or female.

As a bi sexual female who thinks gender is social BS, I had been under the impression that bisexuality related to both sex attraction. Apparently not, thanks random 22 year old bloke, thanks for sorting that out for me.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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!

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.

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.

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?

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.

It’s co-opting therapy speak across the board, isn’t it? The way all the youngsters these days say they’re “triggered” when really they are just reacting negatively.

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?

You know what? Under the current regime, I think you probably are!

I actually think the need to have a demo label at all is sad. (Not that you are sad but that it’s needed in the first place).
It implies that the norm is to want to have sex with people who you are not emotionally connected with and I just don’t think that’s true.
We live in a very pornified culture idea that everyone is up for it all the time is rammed down our throats, when actually I think it’s really frightening that ‘wants to feel an emotional connection to their sexual partner’ is considered an orientation.
I am so glad I’m not a young woman now, I really feel their boundaries are being eroded by stealth.

Whoops sorry, obviously I meant Demi label and not demo label.

All this business of labels, creating identity groups, arranging the groups + labels to define in-people and out-people, and all the rest, is as old as the hills. As such there's nothing wrong with it.

The problem comes when it leads to certain groups being able to control the behaviour of others, to force them to do things they otherwise would not choose to do, to compel speech, and to effectively create an outlaw* when someone disagrees with an ideology. And then, astonishingly have elements of this put into statute law of the UK.

• original sense of the word, where someone who is out-with the law who can be acted on with impunity and cannot expect protection by agents of the law

The demi label is the weirdest of all.

Mum, dad, sit down. I've got something to tell you. I'm not like the other girls. I only want to have sex with people I really like.

Do you still love me?

reflectant

Jazz Bass. Much sexier and curvier (rubs thighs)

It’s co-opting therapy speak across the board, isn’t it? The way all the youngsters these days say they’re “triggered” when really they are just reacting negatively.

If you read the comments, one of the people featured in the article is there “happy to answer any questions”, but when people don’t agree with what he’s saying he calls it “oppressive” .

I agree Calvinsman I was thinking along the same lines, it implies that everyone else is keen to hook up with people where there's no emotional attachment.

It's creating a "veh special" label for something that is a very ordinary experience for most people (see also, "Non-binary").

Thirty years ago youth aligned itself into precise and finely delineated tribes by music and associated clothes. To the outsider, much of the music sounded the same and most of the clothes were distinguished by insignificant details.

Now it’s similiarly minor concerns over who does what with their genitals and why. Otherwise not much has changed: to da yoof it is all terribly important, but to the outsider it seems all rather Jesuitical.

Devil's advocate. Demi is actually a very smart, survival tactic for the majority of people who don't want to perpetually (or ever) shag about. Ditto asexuals. You're not a bigot if you have your own bona fide label shield.

I am looking forward to being old and seeing this generation morph into their parents and what their own kids have up their sleeves to vex them.

I actually appreciate ReallyBoring's perspective. Sex is so personal and people are so reluctant to speak honestly that we kind of assume that it's a fairly universal experience - everyone wants it, everyone who has access to it has it 3 times a week and enjoys it - so it's good to understand the ways in which people vary from this perceived norm. And if having a label helps people quietly understand their own sexuality and feel positive about it, then that's the upside of the new sexual tribalism.

Surely the pan bit of pansexual comes from the prefix meaning 'all/every' rather than from the god Pan?
That's what I always thought - "I'm pansexual, I shag absolutely anything. BTW, that dog of yours looks rather cute...." But oogle tells me that it merely means "I shag anything that's human, adult, consenting and alive".
In which case, all I'll do is shrug and say "So bloody what?"

Arghhh. That should be Google.