LGBTAitp - Part Thirteen

[Alanzeign]

Is there a true distinction between bisexuality and pansexuality? I mean, if we're just talking labels and everyone fits into one more or less generically but has their individual point on the spectrum then I suppose I don't care. What I don't understand is if people can be attracted to both "accepted genders" how can you be not attracted to someone that is an inbetween gender or possibly an intersex.

I understand there's more than just physical attraction, but I was always under the impression that love is not something that is divided by sexual activity, and that sex is something separate in itself. I can love men and women equally, but I am not bisexual. I'm gay, so for me it is largely a physical response that determines this (honestly, it is entirely phsyical). How can you be physically attracted to both men and women, but not a socially constructed gender that is inbetween? I mean, if personality is a criteria (which it certainly is for me) I understand a little bit, but what does sexuality have to do with personality?

I don't mean to be offensive, in fact, I have a close friend that would probably explain it well and knock me on the head if I asked but she's far away. It just seems strange to me that an actual distinction exists rather than a perceived and biased, perhaps political statement.

[golentan]

I spent all night wishing for a hug that nobody gave me.

[Mystic Muse]

*Internet hug*

It's not great but it's all I can do.

[golentan]

Sigh. I just have a giant sweaty mancrush on half of my theater group. And I have no idea which if any of them might return it. And then I see some of them giving each other backrubs and nobody gives me a backrub and I could really use a backrub and why can't I stop staring in the dressing room I'm not even doing it deliberately and nobody else has noticed but it makes me feel like one of the really creepy stereotypes from 50s anti-gay propaganda and holy cow that guy is built like a puma and I just want him to pounce on me...

RAAAAAGH!!! Why does sexuality have to be so confusing?

[Coidzor]

It would seem that your current issue is mostly in regards to how well you know them and what terms you're on with them with a fair bit of raw animal lust, which doesn't really seem confusing so much as just vexing.

[golentan]

It's confusing because... I don't know why, it just is. I never expect lust, so it always weirds me out and leaves me puzzled. And it's compounded by confusion over what degree of touching is acceptable, because damn it I want to find a cuddle pile and never leave it regardless of whether sexuality is ever involved.

[Vaynor]

My main problem with pansexuality is when it's used in an "oh, I'm attracted to people and perthonalitieth, not thextheth", which I find nonsensical. Thus the lisping.
...It makes more sense when I do it out loud. Anyway, as a "more accurate" terminological alternative with the same definition I'm fine with the concept.

This is extremely offensive. Have you actually met someone who behaves like this? Anyways, it's a difficult concept to understand so they may have just explained it badly. You're misunderstanding the concept as well. The idea is that the genitals a person has is an irrelevant piece of information when determining their attractiveness, everything else is still in play (appearance, personality, hobbies, etc.). It may be a more accurate term for most people who consider themselves bisexual, but the terms are definitively different in an important way.

[Worira]

I have heard multiple people use almost that exact wording in these threads, yes.

[Rawhide]

You see, to me, there's absolutely no difference between bisexual and pansexual.

Not because pansexual doesn't exist. But because, for me, bisexual has always included what everyone describes pansexual to be.

[Caustic Soda]

My own problem with the word "pansexual" is that it makes me associate to someone who can be attracted to anything, Jack Harkness-style, rather than someone who can be attracted to anyone, which is how I understand it to be meant. But eh, I also have an irrational hatred for the word "queer", even f I don't feel any such hatred for people who fall outside established social norms wrt. gender and/or sexuality *shrug*

[Anethiel]

Maybe we could parallel boolean algebra and label people who are attracted to cis-male and cis-female people only as "xbisexuals", as in "exclusive bisexuals", which would mean "attracted to masculine exclusive-OR feminine traits", opposed to "bisexuals" which would mean "attracted to masculine inclusive-OR feminine traits".

[Asta Kask]

This is extremely offensive. Have you actually met someone who behaves like this?

Oh, I have. The same person told me that I was really bisexual, I just hadn't met the right man. And the same applied to everyone. Imperialistic pansexuality... *shrug* Pansexuals can be jerks just like everybody else.

It would be interesting to know to what degree this is a reaction to the tendency among some people to pretend bisexuality doesn't exist. Thesis - antithesis - hysterics...

[Eleanor_Rigby]

Is there a true distinction between bisexuality and pansexuality? *snip*

I've not seen anybody respond to this directly so I'll have a go. I'll stress first that I'm not an expert though.

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If you think of the genders as sandwiches (bear with me here, please) say male is a peanut butter sandwich and female is a jelly sandwich then an intersex or trans person might be interpreted as a peanut butter and jelly sandwich... so a bisexual who wouldn't fall under the label of pansexual would be someone who likes peanut butter sarnies and jelly ones, but isn't keen on the two combined in various ratios (some would argue that's silly because everyone is a mix of the two gender traits and so that would be ruling out anyone but that's kind of splitting hairs: straight people do exist and so do gay people, so it follows that similar "distinctions" would probably occur even amongst bisexuals which is a pretty diverse group anyway what with some having roughly equal levels of attraction to both genders and others having a bias, etc).

Was that in any way helpful or just plain offensive? It's kind of a difficult area, trying to describe somebody else's way of thinking/feeling, particularly if it's almost pure guesswork.

My own problem with the word "pansexual" is that it makes me associate to someone who can be attracted to anything, Jack Harkness-style, rather than someone who can be attracted to anyone, which is how I understand it to be meant. But eh, I also have an irrational hatred for the word "queer", even f I don't feel any such hatred for people who fall outside established social norms wrt. gender and/or sexuality *shrug*

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Cap'n Harkness is indeed one of the reasons I don't care to describe myself as pansexual - it's a bit like how somebody on a phobias thread here explained they were xenophobic: the automatic assumptions people make when they here the word are quite far from the actual meaning of the word, so I'd probably want to explain it before using the word.
I don't know what the general consensus on Captain Jack/Torchwood is on these threads, personally I enjoyed his appearances on Doctor Who but found Torchwood generally to just be a bit... awkward. It sent a lot of messages that it probably didn't mean to that were less than helpful. Chiefly it tended towards helping the assumption that bisexual/pansexual = rampant slut.
I believe the actual handle Russell T. Davies prefers for Harkness though is "omnisexual" which deliberately encompasses other species.

Oh, I have. The same person told me that I was really bisexual, I just hadn't met the right man. And the same applied to everyone. Imperialistic pansexuality... *shrug* Pansexuals can be jerks just like everybody else.

It would be interesting to know to what degree this is a reaction to the tendency among some people to pretend bisexuality doesn't exist. Thesis - antithesis - hysterics...

I think I've looked in on threads with posts like these, possibly even this specific thread it's kind of déjà vu-esque anyhow. This wasn't Murphy's Law, was it? The Janine/Lloyd thing could have brought something like that up. Personally I'm inclined to think that this sort of reaction is just a consequence of it being difficult to understand something you yourself don't feel. I've gone through phases where I've thought "surely everyone must be at least a little bit bisexual" just because I am and didn't even really realise it so... I can sympathise with it but I think when I thought that I was mostly wrong. At the very least it's not something to push because it has a little bit too much in common with anti-gay arguments and that's not a direction I want to go down.

Which kind of reminds me of the time my Dad and I were watching "Born and Bred" and they did a storyline where a married guy turned out to be gay and my Dad just kept saying: "But just because he loves that man doesn't mean he's gay - he could be bisexual, so he should try harder with his wife because she loves him!" I had to explain to him a couple of times just how that really didn't work...
Assuming that everyone has the potential to love everyone can lead you down some awkward paths. (I don't think my dad was being an idiot thinking this because his upbringing means that his understanding of LGBT+ is very minimal, I did think it was something worth trying to explain to him though) The episode ended with the two gay characters eloping and the "beard" was still upset but had been talked round a bit - it's a "Sunday night viewing" show, the loose ends are usually all tied up terribly nicely

Oh and I don't remember if I mentioned it, but I'm totally with the people who struggle to understand how families like those of unosarta's buddies can do things like they do. I tend to just think that if his friend came out to her family they'd eventually come round to realising that there's nothing wrong with pansexuality. It saddens me when I realise that things just aren't always that fair in the real world.

[Miscast_Mage]

On the topic of bi/pansexuality, I prefer to think of bisexuality as a number line, a la the Kinsey scale, going from 0 to 6 in one direction, whereas pansexuality add's a second axis, turning it into an xy graph; x being the person's sex, y being the person's gender(I think that may be relative to the person's sex, but I can't remember exactly). I've seen arguments that you could expand that to an xyz graph, but I really can't remember the details to expand upon that, sorry.

So, my date for tomorrow got post-poned 'till wednesday because of mother's day being tomorrow. Argh.

Also, I've been wondering about this for a while, but how does everyone here feel about intergenational dating/relationships? The man I'm seeing is in his mid-thirties; nearly twice my age. Now, personally, this doesn't bother me as I've always prefered and have been with men age thirty and up, but how do others react to this kind of age difference? Does anyone else here have any experience with intergenerational relationships? Any pitfalls I should avoid, both short term and long term relationship-wise? The only thing I've noticed is that it's next to impossible to ask someone on a date because of the added "age difference" to "they might be straight", "they might not be interested", etc.

[Asta Kask]

The question of bisexuality is made more difficult by the obstacles nature throws in our path. For instance, take a man who is only attracted to women, until he reaches age 30. Then he has a 30-years crisis and comes out of it only attracted to other men. Is he now homosexual? Or is he bisexual, because over his life span he has been attracted to men and women?

How attracted to men and women must a man be to count as bisexual? Does he have to want to have sex with them? Is it enough if he draws the line at 'heavy petting'? If he hugs men on a regular basis?

I don't think there are sharp borders here, which shouldn't surprise as in an area as murky as human sexuality. We'll just have to learn to live with a little ambiguity.

[Anethiel]

News related to the topic of supportiveness of families: an Italian Juvenile Court just ruled that a homophobic father has to be conducted away, with the use of force if needed, from his homosexual adolescent son in order to prevent oppression. Crude translation of an Italian article on the matter follows.

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More human rights and protection of gays. Abusive father who insults son conducted away from home

Lecce, March 30th 2011 - The ruling explicitly prohibits any kind of discrimination, even the one from the abusive father that insults with "***" the homosexual adolescent son.
Allowed the use of public enforcement to conduct away from home the violent father for the purpose of protecting the gay boy.
It was established from the Juvenile Court of Milan with a decree on March 25th 2011, relator Gennaro Mastrangelo, who underlined the importance of the closeness of the father to the son in such a complex phase of adolescence as the one in which homosexuality is accepted.

The motivation of the ruling reads, moreover, that the man came to blows with the wife in many occasions and, in one of them, even hurt the boy.
He always declared to his family, among things, that he would never want to leave the habitation for any reason.
The judges, agreeing with the instances of the prosecution asking for a greater protection for the adolescent boy, ruled that, in case of obstinate opposition, the man will be conducted away by force.
According to the Court the measure of removal "while being severely afflictive is the only effective one and has to be put into effect with public enforcement if needed, because the father has not shown any sign of collaboration".
According to Giovanni D'Agata, member and founder of the Thematic Department "Rights Office" of Italy of Values, the ruling aims to repress family abuses and domestic violence against the women too, victim together with the gay son of severe abuses from the husband.

[Lix Lorn]

Well done Italy! Have... a metaphorical hug?
(hugs Italy)

[Skeppio]

Good job, Italy!

[Coidzor]

The question of bisexuality is made more difficult by the obstacles nature throws in our path. For instance, take a man who is only attracted to women, until he reaches age 30. Then he has a 30-years crisis and comes out of it only attracted to other men. Is he now homosexual? Or is he bisexual, because over his life span he has been attracted to men and women?

Well, then he's 60 and old enough for the issue to be moot so the issue is pretty much academic by that point as far as the rest of us are concerned.

Combine with the fact that the closest current model we have is that of the closeted gay (possibly in denial) making it to about 30 and only coming out after having gotten married and produced offspring...

The idea is that the genitals a person has is an irrelevant piece of information when determining their attractiveness, everything else is still in play (appearance, personality, hobbies, etc.). It may be a more accurate term for most people who consider themselves bisexual, but the terms are definitively different in an important way.

Which is countered by the bit where the other three main sexuality terms are only expected to cover what sex or sexes one is attracted to with no moral or value judgements about why you're attracted to them, and that it's discriminatory, to say the least, to count trans individuals as either a separate sex unto themselves or two separate sexes based upon MtF vs. FtM, such that bisexuality automatically does not include them.

I'll grant that I've never heard anyone deal with the subject of obviously intersexed individuals in an intellectually satisfying manner.

As I've found it, the language generally chosen to differentiate pansexuals from bisexuals generally leads to perceptions of elitism, and possibly actual elitism, where pansexuals directly or indirectly accuse others of being less than them due to only being attracted to others with their eyes which leads to bad blood for various reasons, regardless of whether it was an intended consequence of the language that was used. Which is problematic, to say the least, in terms of PR.

[Asta Kask]

Well, then he's 60 and old enough for the issue to be moot so the issue is pretty much academic by that point as far as the rest of us are concerned.

Combine with the fact that the closest current model we have is that of the closeted gay (possibly in denial) making it to about 30 and only coming out after having gotten married and produced offspring...

30-years crisis is a Swedish term for the crisis some people have when they reach 30 and discover they haven't conquered the world. It's like a midlife crisis but earlier.

[Coidzor]

30-years crisis is a Swedish term for the crisis some people have when they reach 30 and discover they haven't conquered the world. It's like a midlife crisis but earlier.

Ahh. That did seem like a really long time to have an existential crisis.

[Caustic Soda]

@Eleanor Rigby: Yeah, it seems that there is a tendency to assume that because someone could be attracted to anyone, they must therefore be attracted to everyone. Doesn't really make sens, so I have no idea how to deal with that assumption. I do think that Davies probably doesn't/didn't (is Torchwood still running?) mean it that way, though. i suppsoe the issue with bi-/pansexuality is to find a word that describes being attracted to most/all of the spectrum in a away that is both precise and concise. I haven't the foggiest idea what word you could use, though, so I'd just stick to bisexual myself. then again I'm monosexual, if you can say that, so it's not really my problem I suppose.

On the topic of bi/pansexuality, I prefer to think of bisexuality as a number line, a la the Kinsey scale, going from 0 to 6 in one direction, whereas pansexuality add's a second axis, turning it into an xy graph; x being the person's sex, y being the person's gender(I think that may be relative to the person's sex, but I can't remember exactly).

That makes a good deal of sense. It could also be applicable to monosexual people. Distinguishing between attraction to bears and twinks, for example. (Is twink a slur? and if so, is there a more appropriate word to use?) Of course, it doesn't help much in a conversation, since it'd be time-consuming to stop to draw/pull out a diagram for ones sexuality.

[Miscast_Mage]

That makes a good deal of sense. It could also be applicable to monosexual people. Distinguishing between attraction to bears and twinks, for example. (Is twink a slur? and if so, is there a more appropriate word to use?) Of course, it doesn't help much in a conversation, since it'd be time-consuming to stop to draw/pull out a diagram for ones sexuality.

I don't think twink is a slur, and I know many people who don't treat it as such. I mean, it's just a body type, like bear. The fact that you'd would think it's a slur does fill me with an evil glee, however. And now I want to make graph's, diagrams and illustrations of formulae of my taste in men.

[Coidzor]

That makes a good deal of sense. It could also be applicable to monosexual people. Distinguishing between attraction to bears and twinks, for example. (Is twink a slur? and if so, is there a more appropriate word to use?)

I've only ever seen it used as a slur or in personal ads full of obscenities, so I'm not sure one way or another, but I am dubious as to whether it's part of polite conversation. And we don't have a separate word for it in those cases, so that raises the question why it's needed here rather than there. Can't recall if there's an appropriate term though.

[Miscast_Mage]

I've only ever seen it used as a slur or in personal ads full of obscenities, so I'm not sure one way or another, but I am dubious as to whether it's part of polite conversation. And we don't have a separate word for it in those cases, so that raises the question why it's needed here rather than there. Can't recall if there's an appropriate term though.

It strikes me as a rather informal term, but not impolite or explicitly offensive. Some guys might take offensive to being called it, sure, but it's like calling someone short/fat/stocky. It's a description of someone; a bodytype. Nothing more. Yes, people use it as an insult sometimes, but they also use things like short/fat/etc when they're not really insults in of themselves.

Also, was just in a gay chatroom there a few minutes ago, one guy starts talking to me, not saying anything other than one word, often mispelled. It sounded suspect, and when I called him out on it, his response(and subsequent responses and when I kept calling him out on his spoosh) was "ur fat". Seriously, at least try and come up with a better insult, idiot. Argh.(for context, I am a heavy guy, and my screen name reflects that.)

[Mina Kobold]

>_>
<_<

What's a Twink? Is it edible? Bears are edible, so I assume so but some people seem to think I shouldn't eat live animals larger than me.

I mean, I get that they may think I mean the big humans but I gotta steal the souls of something from time to time.

...

What are you all looking at me that way for?

[golentan]

>_>
<_<

What's a Twink? Is it edible? Bears are edible, so I assume so but some people seem to think I shouldn't eat live animals larger than me.

I mean, I get that they may think I mean the big humans but I gotta steal the souls of something from time to time.

...

What are you all looking at me that way for?

I understand completely, my friend. I understand completely. *pats*

[Miscast_Mage]

>_>
<_<

What's a Twink? Is it edible? Bears are edible, so I assume so but some people seem to think I shouldn't eat live animals larger than me.

I mean, I get that they may think I mean the big humans but I gotta steal the souls of something from time to time.

...

What are you all looking at me that way for?

...

Keveak; never, ever change.

And yes, a twinkie is edible, but that's A)not what we're talking about, and B)is what we are talking about, but it's too dirty to go into detail.

[Asta Kask]

Twinks are below level cap player characters who have gained the best powerful gear for their level with enhancements such as expensive weapon enchants, leg patches and BoE/BoP greens, blues or epics. Twinks are mainly used in PvP fighting and Battlegrounds. Twinks obtain their items through rare drops, drops off of bosses in instances, rewards from quests that are difficult to complete at their level, and from the Auction House. Twink items on the Auction House can be expensive and twink enchantments can only be performed by high-level characters. Therefore, twinking usually requires significant assistance from high-level alts, friends, and/or guild members. However, there are examples of self-made twinks that generate the necessary gold from Auction House trading or other in-game methods.

[unosarta]

Twinks are below level cap player characters who have gained the best powerful gear for their level with enhancements such as expensive weapon enchants, leg patches and BoE/BoP greens, blues or epics. Twinks are mainly used in PvP fighting and Battlegrounds. Twinks obtain their items through rare drops, drops off of bosses in instances, rewards from quests that are difficult to complete at their level, and from the Auction House. Twink items on the Auction House can be expensive and twink enchantments can only be performed by high-level characters. Therefore, twinking usually requires significant assistance from high-level alts, friends, and/or guild members. However, there are examples of self-made twinks that generate the necessary gold from Auction House trading or other in-game methods.

I went to the latest post in this thread, and when I saw your post, Asta, I thought I went to the wrong thread. It was only to my great amusement that I found out that people were talking about actual twinks. Ah, good times.