My Sexual Preferences Aren’t Restricted by Gender
Does that make me pansexual?
I didn’t grow up in a very interesting place. It’s a small town on the East Coast of Canada where there wasn’t much to do other than drink the weekend away.
And like a lot of places that aren’t terribly interesting, it didn’t expose me to a whole lot of interesting ideas.
I learned about gender through some mixture of sitcoms, teen movies, playground chatter, and overhearing some (usually judgmental) comments from the adults around me.
I was vaguely aware of the existence of trans men or trans women, but I did what everyone else around me (and on television) did - I found a way to fit them into the gender binary. I thought of trans men as simply men and trans women as simply women. (That made me the outlier. Everyone around me insisted that the gender a person was assigned at birth was the one they’d carry to their grave, no matter what.)
I had never even encountered a non-binary conception of gender until I packed up as much of my stuff as I could in my little light blue car and moved out of town to attend university.
But it wasn’t the university that did it. Despite what panicked conservative commentators seem to think happens at liberal arts universities, none of my classes ever touched on gender.
No, if anything it was probably YouTube.
Watching vloggers of every stripe eventually exposed me to people whose gender doesn’t fit neatly on the binary, or whose gender actively subverts it.
I didn’t delve deep into theories of gender or worked my way through head-scratching philosophy papers on the subject (that was more Mr. Austin’s department). I just heard people’s personal stories, learned about their self-understanding, listened to their arguments, and it all just made sense to me.
Labeling My Sexuality
At the same time that I absorbed a rather binary and conservative understanding of gender from my surroundings, I also learned about sex.
Learning about sex was a lot more fun. I mostly did it by watching mainstream satellite dish porn and pulling boys into dark corners at parties. I also discovered an appreciation for tits, a fondness for making out with girls, and a strong desire to do a lot more than that with them.
I wasn’t too concerned with labeling myself - mostly, I just got horny and acted on it - but whenever I was asked to identify my sexuality, I’d call myself bisexual.
The bisexual label came naturally to me. Whereas heterosexuality and homosexuality both implied a lack of attraction to a particular gender, I took bisexuality to simply mean having no gender-based restrictions when it comes to attraction, desire, and potential romantic feelings.
Because of that, I kept the label even after the gender binary melted away and I no longer thought of myself as attracted only to men and women.
Discovering a More Accurate Category
A few days ago, I read a great short post by Kent Leatham.
In it, Kent describes the way his pansexuality gets erased because partnering with anyone (or no one, for that matter) leads people to miscategorize his sexuality. Since that’s something I’m familiar with myself, I decided to read it out loud to Mr. Austin.
When I finished, Mr. Austin asked me a question that made me realize I might identify with the piece more than I realized: “Are you maybe pansexual, too?”
I had never given it serious thought before. It wasn’t my first time hearing the term “pansexual” - that would be those YouTubers again - but it always had an odd ring to me. It sounded vaguely New Age-y, and I’m not one of those Millennials who finds solace and guidance through astrology so the term had little appeal to me.
I just sort of figured it was bisexual people calling themselves by a different term, the way a lot of religious people insist on being called spiritual and a lot of vegans insist they’re only “plant based.”
But between Kent’s article and Mr. Austin’s question, I decided to take the concept seriously and look into it more. And what I discovered is that the label not only has nothing to do with New Age woo-woo but it also described me quite accurately.
The exact definition of pansexuality is contested, but it usually boils down to something like “an attraction to people regardless of their gender.”
That fits me well because I’m not just interested in cis men and cis women. There are plenty of trans, genderqueer, gender non-conforming, and non-binary people out there I’d love to ogle, date, and fuck.
My porn habit reflects this, too. I don’t usually go looking for videos based on the gender of the performers, but I also won’t hesitate to click on something just because it doesn’t fall into a particular gender mold. I want to watch cute people having naughty, consensual fun with each other, no matter how they present or who does or doesn’t have a dick.
Can’t I Be Both?
Despite all this, I still feel comfortable calling myself bisexual. It’s just that now there’s another label I identify with as well. And at least for the time being, I’m going to use both labels depending on the situation or the context.
That’s not because I think they’re interchangeable. There are nuances to them that make an important difference. Pansexuality strongly connotes an attraction to more than two genders in a way that bisexuality simply doesn’t. Yes, people use “bisexuality” that way - and so do I - but it’s hard to ignore the “bi” part of it.
One definition of “bisexual” I come across frequently is an attraction to “two or more genders,” but using it in that way does feel a little bit like calling a giraffe bipedal and saying that I define “bipedalism” as walking on “two or more limbs.”
In general, pansexuality feels more inclusive and that’s a sentiment I can stand behind (and that my sexual preferences fall in line with).
At the same time, it’s a term with some real currency. People know what you mean (even if they don’t really know what you mean) when you call yourself bisexual, and there’s sadly no P in LGBTQIA.
Pansexuality also isn’t a perfect fit for me. So much of the discourse about it seems to revolve around being attracted to people regardless of their gender, seeing beyond gender, or being indifferent to someone’s gender. Well, I’m not indifferent to gender. In fact, I’m really into gender. Every gender has some unique appeal and I appreciate all of it. I’m not attracted to trans or non-binary people despite their gender, their gender is part of the attraction.
I know there’s a category for that, too: omnisexual. But that term has even less traction. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are many people who are familiar with pansexuality but have never even heard of omnisexuality. Besides, when we get this far into it, it starts to feel like we’re splitting hairs. And I don’t want to split hairs - I want to get off.
But the biggest reason I’m not ready to settle on a single label is that there’s just no urgency to it. I don’t need to declare my sexual preferences on dating and hookup apps because I’m not on any dating and hookup apps. I’m a 32-year-old married woman with four young children. On top of that, I have social anxiety and issues with self-image. I’m not actively looking for anyone.
And if I do find someone else to be with, it will only be after forming a bit of a bond with them first. Labels don’t matter as much when you can get to know someone more organically and see what comes of it.
And I can always find the kind of porn I’m looking for by specifying what I want, not who I am.
So, for now, I’ll just use whatever label feels right in the moment, even if it isn’t always the same one.
If you liked this article, you should totally check out the Straight, But… (150th Episode Lovefest) episode of my dirty and intimate sex podcast, Pillow Talk With Emma Austin!
