A Slice of Bi or Into the Frying Pan?

Labels Define, Clarify, Confuse, and Change Over Time.

There’s a joke that bisexual people tell about dating. Being bisexual means you have twice the chance of getting turned down for a date on Friday night. I guess being pansexual means you’ve got a week filled with options for being turned down.

But sometimes, when the stars align, you get lucky. Or fall in love, which is also a form of luck.

But what do the two terms mean and how are they different or the same?

First off, let me tell you what bisexuality is not because that’s exactly what most people think it is. Bisexuality is not an admission of sluttiness, although there are certainly slutty bisexual people. Encountering a person who is bisexual is not a guarantee that you are going to get your dick wet or your pussy licked. While it is hot to fap to the idea of the hot bi babes who let you join in on their otherwise Sapphic sex, the reality is that most bisexual women are sick of being asked to fulfill that particular fantasy.

Conversely, if you’re looking for a romantic relationship with a bisexual person, their dual attractions do not mean partners will be dumped for the “other” sex. Contrary to popular opinion, bisexuals are actually quite choosy. We can even commit. We just like to commit after we’ve had a chance to choose from a full range of options.

Most people think of bisexuality as being sexual desire by a cis-male or cis-female for both cis-males and cis-females. This leaves transmasculine, transfeminine, gender indeterminant, non-binary, agender, and other sexual and gender variants out in the cold. Bisexuality is not so black and white. Human diversity is not so binary.

This, of course, is where bisexuality blurs with pansexuality. But I’m getting ahead of myself, which I’m good at doing.

As envisioned when introduced during the 1940s by zoologist and infamous sexologist Alfred Kinsey, there were absolute extremes in sexual desire (exclusive homosexuality and exclusive heterosexuality), but also a significant and naturally occurring number of people whose sexual desire ranges within the two opposites, aka various forms of bisexuality.

Most everyone has heard about the Kinsey Scale with its number system ranging from 0 to 6. It certainly has merit if not necessarily deep nuance, given that it assumes a finite amount of static desire to be divided between the two sexual poles. It’s inspired several measurement scales with different approaches to determining how many people have bisexual desires, what constitutes a bisexual desire, and other fascinating scientific and sociological factoids.

The important thing is that in 2022 we finally believe in bisexuality. It wasn’t that long ago that gay and lesbian magazines scorned or shunned bisexuality, insisting that it is at best a phase and at worst a cowardly way to enjoy the benefits and not the risks of same-sex attractions. When Anything That Moves came on the scene in 1990, the fight against biphobia had an important voice, however small its readership might have been.

Whatever you may think of its taste in fashion or music (some of which is excellent), the 1990s were important years for the rainbow sexuality community because the acronym grew longer. Instead of merely being gay or lesbian, LGB came into use, thus acknowledging what every bisexual on earth had already known: that such a fantastic beast as a bisexual exists!

Also happening toward the end of the 1990s was a further expansion of the acronym, although one that met with even more resistance. With the inclusion of transgender individuals, it become LGBT, and has only grown from there to include two-spirit, queer, intersex, asexual, and other forms of sexual and gender identity.

Which brings us to pansexuality. With so many flavors of sexuality to choose from, what if you decide you have a penchant for more than two of them? Or what if you don’t care so long as there’s chemistry? What do you call it then? Some say bisexuality is a perfectly acceptable term. Others feel limited by its binary reference points. Once they’ve heard the newer term, those who don’t feel represented by the older one often begin to identify as pansexual.

In time, these terms will change and adapt to the needs of the communities that they serve. It’s what words and people do, regardless of what a certain Florida governor wants us to believe.