Comments

1
DON'T YOU DARE LABEL ME!
2
luv ya, honey.
3
I am going to start calling myself heteronormative cis-gendered non-queer. And everyone else better call me that too, or I'm going to get really offended and huffy about it.
4
I've been wondering this--what does the 'LFA' in LGBTQITSLFA mean? I'm pretty sure 'I' is intersexed and 'TS' is two-spirited, but 'LFA' stumps me.
5
As one of those heteronormative cis-gendered etc. people I have to say that while I wish Pan here well I really don't care about his (?) special new category, and it very often seems to me that fancy new designations are ways to acquire the radical street cred of "gay" without actually having to have any of that disgusting gay sex. Which I can see the appeal of, for young people; I too would like to be considered one of the cool gay kids but don't wanna have to touch anybody's willie. But it's all a bit sill- er, ridiculous (no rhyming before 9 AM please).

Transexuals are a bit different because they've actually gone to the trouble of having their bits rearranged, but the rest of us are, as far as I'm concerned, gay or straight. You're gay if you're into touching willies (if you're a boy), and you're straight if you're not. I''m awfully sorry if that sounds antediluvian and retrograde to y'all. But I really don't care. And I find these kinds of gender conversations very boring. Touch whatever you want, and be happy with it, but talking about it is tedious.
6
Leather/Fetish

Asexual
7
The alphabet soup thing long degenerated into worthless self-parody. It's primary use at this point is for young people who have never known a moment of real oppression in their entire lives a chance to feel uppity and put-down-upon. The cis thing is really, truly annoying. It's like white people saying that really, really they're Irish-German-Cherokee-African-American. But not white. Stop. Just fucking stop. You're white. You have blonde hair, blue eyes, and if you go out in the sun without 45 spf sunblock, you will burn like a vampire in 'True Blood.'

White people, straight people - just stop. There's nothing wrong with being white or straight. It doesn't necessarily make you part of the problem. Be an advocate, campaign for civil rights - whatever makes you happy and lets you sleep at night. But please, stop thinking you have to be something other than what you actually are in order to make a difference.
8
When even you can't stop laughing at your own growing acronym, you know there's a problem.

Seriously, how do you even say it in a spoken conversation? And why, if we don't use the precise latest term, are we considered insensitive, horrible, etc.?

I don't even understand the gay-lesbian divide. Just call everyone queer and be done with it.
9
@5 Fyi, you don't actually have to have your bits rearranged to be trans but I see your point. Even without the bits rearranging there's a lot more effort that goes into being trans (for the most part.)
10
@6 - holy shit, Leather/Fetish is an accepted part of the alphabet soup? Well what about Furries then? I DEMAND furries be included!
11
I'm going retro. From now on, I demand to be called a "confirmed bachelor". Although, as always, I will accept Beacon Hill Housewife. Or Mrs. Vel-DuRay
12
How did "leather/fetish" get in there? I know that it's a big community (one that I'm tangentially a part of), but how did it become a separate sexual identity? I would think a fetish is secondary to an identity. What am I not getting?

And which ALNM?
13
I know I might get clobbered for this, but is "Leather/Fetish" an identity? Doesn't this sort of fall under the what-people-do instead of the what-people-are?
14
As someone who likes women, men, and transgender folks, I'm perfectly fine with identifying as bisexual. I see no reason to necessarily identify as pansexual just for the sake of saying "Oh hey, I like humans." Bisexual works fine in my opinion.
15
Non-humans are next in the never ending freak show they call sexual identity politics.
16
Whoa there Fnarf @5. While I totally agree that we don't need to proliferate the alphabet soup, you seem to be cutting out a basic category. I like boys and girls. Are you saying that I must round in one direction, or can we keep the B as a useful designation?
17
I don't mind new identities or labels if upon hearing them it's pretty clear what they mean, e.g. asexual, pansexual,
18
Obviously my fetish is to parrot previous comments. Sorry #12
19
Oh god could everyone just read this, please? tl;dr 'bisexual' has NOTHING TO DO WITH binary gender - the 'bi' refers to exhibiting both homosexual and heterosexual behaviour, and, yeah, having sex with people of your gender and also people of different genders pretty much covers all the bases, no?

I have yet to hear a definition for 'pansexual' that isn't biphobic. Anyone got one? Because every time I ask, it seems like I hear something about how bisexuals are, like, totally promiscuous, or totally down on trans people, or totally lying about their orientation, or something else that bears no relation to what the adult bisexual community is. It's almost like these kids have no contact with that community and are believing all the biphobic portrayals they see on TV and are consciously trying to distance themselves from those portrayals.
20
@13: No worries. #10 got there before both of us.
21
@11: how does 'friend of Dorothy L Sayers' sound? ;)
22
You forgot "F." For "fruitcake."
23
How about just 'LGBTE?" Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Etc.?

You can only spend so much time pursuing edge cases.
24
@8 Seriously, how do you even say it in a spoken conversation?
'the blt community'
- dina martina
25
Should we include our sexual identity after our names like MD or PhD?
26
@7 - The "cis" designation isn't in any way a creation of the people to whom that label is applied (the literal 99%+ of humanity who aren't intersex and don't call themselves trans)

For better or worse, "white" is a designation that white people themselves created and gave meaning to. "Cisgendered" is a neologism invented by therapists and activists to describe such an enormous majority of humanity that nothing meaningful can be said about it collectively outside of trans issues.
27
I like to keep things simple. To me, gender is binary. You either produce ovum or sperm. I recognize that there are some accidents of nature where that gets confused, but an accident of such miniscule frequency does merit a being declared a new gender. Just a mutant.

Now after that, what you care to do to get off (or not get off) is your buisness. If people want to invent a new word so they can feel empowered just because they found a new orgasm tool, that is also there buisness. Don't expect me to care or use it though. If a person is planning on entering such communities or is wondering if there are other people like them, (or found another reason to care) then I would suggest learning the nomenclature.

Getting upset over word usage like this would be like some tennis player freaking out because some un-initiated called his backhand a forehand. Take a chill pill and keep enjoying your sport, Tennis-Dude.
28
Funny thing: I never thought I'd miss being called a faggot.
29
I am also still a little confused about "queer." My friend came out to me as "queer" recently as this was the conversation:
Her: I'm queer - do you know what that is?

Me: Not sure, actually - I saw a documentary recently and in that, it seemed the people who identified as queer meant it as a gender thing - that they didn't identify as a particular gender.

Her: Hah! No, that's not it at all. It means that I don't want to have sex with people because of anything physical. I'm not attracted to their sex organs or breasts or whatever - I am attracted to them because of who they are as people and how I feel about them on an emotional level.

-----------------

Now, I can't personally imagine not having a physical response - I always thought that "demonstrating our love" thing was fake, but apparently not! So I am still working on wrapping my head around that.
30
Exactly, as usual Dan. I like the way you put it
31
@16, whatever. To me you're "gay" if you're currently or recently touching your own gender's bits, or want to. Whether you're concurrently touching the opposite as well is uninteresting. B, G, go for it -- you're just talking, though, not doing. And it's very tiresome talk; while I'm sure that YOU are very interested indeed in what you'd like to get up to and with whom you'd like to get up to it, other people are just trying to get on and off the bus here.

Which is to say that I am quite familiar with the argument around the B-word, from both perspectives, and I welcome you and your concerns and your struggle over identity and all the rest; and you can call yourself whatever you like. But it's not a conversation I want to be in on. Civil rights, yes, absolutely, but (and this is the part that drives bisexuals crazy, I know) there are no civil rights oppressions for bisexuals per se, only gay people.

Whatever happened to "polymorphous perverse", by the way?
32
pan- means "all", so I don't see how it implies dating only humans. In fact, it makes me think of this sculpture of the god Pan (NSFW):
File:MuseoArchNapoliGSpancapra3122.jpg">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MuseoA…
33
Thank you, Dan. I was thinking basically the same thing - I'm happily labeled as gay, queer also does it for me, and as long as people don't ask me "who's the woman" (or beat the shit out of me/fire me/etc) I'm a happy little cock gobbler
34
This may well be the result of the proliferation of queer studies. As necessary as that is, academics need to make their mark somehow, and subdividing groups ever further and coining new terms is how they do it.
35
I must also add that I find "pansexual" too broad a term.

The root "pan" means "all". Now, surely there are some things that "pansexuals" aren't into. Like trees, foetuses, or cats (not trying to be limiting or insulting here, just wondering).
36
The more you use obscure references to define yourself (pan-, cis-) the more you need to be open to questioning. I would have no idea what a cis-gendered pansexual is, and it would be reasonable to ask the follow up question on who that person dates. If I described myself as Jewslim, it would be fair to ask whether I prayed to Muhammed or otherwise.

Option B - respond the way you would to an obviously pregnant person. Don't assume anything and ask no questions on the off chance your assumptions aren't true and offensive.
37
I identify as pansexual - have had relationships with boys, currently with a girl. The way I understand it, bisexuals are strongly attracted to both women and to men - as sexual objects and in other ways. For me (as a pansexual), I'm strongly attracted to personality, and gender is pretty irrelevant. And, I need to find the personality attractive in order to be sexually attracted to someone. Of course, there are differences in the bodies and what you can do with them after the fact - but they're all fun.

I'm sure lots of people will say they also are attracted to personality and yet don't identify as pansexual - cool! It's just the way I identify. I don't get insulted when people assume I'm something else (but I do think it's my prerogative to politely inform them). And I organize some events for gay expats here in Yurp, advertise them as LGBT events (not even a Q! whoa!), and no one has complained yet.

So...P exists, no need to put it in the acronym (but we can whittle it down a bit further, too) but no need to jump down our throats for giving a heads' up that we're out here too.

(Like the pun?)
38
Whoops, busted link. Here's that lovely picture of Pan, illustrating one of the many forms of Pan-sexuality:
http://tinyurl.com/4tt3yvr

My apologies. Brain bleach can be found in aisle 9
39
Hey, there isn't a P in there for poly folk either, but you don't see us bitching.. Actually I saw a thread on a poly site where somebody asked if the acronym should be altered for poly, and the almost universal response was "Who the fuck cares? We're going to be with who we're going to be with"
40
@ 29 - Didn't queer mean "differing in some odd way from what is usual or normal", "eccentric, unconventional" or "mildly insane"? And only later came to mean "homosexual"? (all according to Webster)

Me thinks your "queer" friend is indeed queer... but as in "mildly insane".
41
I'm pansexual, as I understand it. I like people, and when I were single I would have sex with people I liked if they were so inclined to have sex with me. I didn't care so much what was between their legs, or if it matched their or my gender identity/ Man, woman, manly woman, womanly man, intersex, damaged by farm implements. I fucked people, not just their junk. But, why identify using a label most people haven't heard of. So I said bi and let it go at that. Bi is a hard enough label to wear, with a good chunk of people believing it doesn't even exist.
42
At this point, might as well just evaluate on a case by case basis.

"Hey. Yeah/No, I would [not] have sex with you."
43
@32 Makes me think of Captain Jack Harkness, who digs pretty much any attractive humanoid, be they masculine, feminine, both, or neither. He's an omnisexual.
44
To describe oneself as "Pansexual", or to say "I'm in to dating HUMANS" kind of implies that there must be a mainstream legitimate sexual identity that identifies with dating non-humans - and isn't that kind of sort of taking us down the road of what got us pissed off at Santorum? So yeah, I think we have to limit the self-sorting obsession.
45
"pan- means "all", so I don't see how it implies dating only human"

Are you going to exlude horse fuckers from the community?
46
Um, considering that "pan" means all, wouldn't it include rapists, pedophiles and beastialists? Maybe people who date "(adult) humans" should find a less inclusive and more accurate word.
47
When I first heard the term pansexual I thought it had something to do with being into really hairy legs and big bushy pubes, which reminds me that I recently saw this described in urban dictionary as "Seattle pantyhose," although I have never personally encountered this with any women in Seattle.
48
"less inclusive"

Less inclusive? Fuck you, that's just a slippery slope to discrimination.
49
People of the future will wonder why we had all these labels. The only relevant question will be, "Do you want to [do this sex or relationship thing] with me?" There's a yes, no, or maybe, but beyond that, why would they care?
50
Does it not occur to any of you "I'm interested in /people/, not their genitals" poseurs that your implication that the rest of us are only interested in the right arrangements of genitals regardless of the human being they're attached to is deeply insulting? Not to mention, you know, utterly incorrect.

Pansexual -- because 'bisexual hipster' sounds less flattering.
51
#37 - yeah, usually the first red flag is people trying to say what an orientation they don't identify with themselves 'really means'. I'm sure there are bi people who are 'strongly attracted to both women and to men - as sexual objects and in other ways'. There are also bi people who are not; I mean, I have a fairly infrequent sex drive and am not attracted to people all that often, and have never even considered dating/fucking anyone who I didn't already know as a friend, but I'm bi. I go for both people of my own gender and also people of other genders. Saying 'I'm bisexual' is an easy way to convey that to other human beings, so it's what I go with.

I think #34 may be right about academic influence but perhaps not quite in the way they stated - 'queer theory' is about looking at sexual behaviour/performativity rather than fishing for some essential sexual identity, and when people outline new terms that tends to be what they're after, these days; a description of their behaviour and how it's distinct from the old L, G and B identity categories. I'm not interested in cutting behaviour down into tiny categories because it's too diverse and at the same time too broad - similar behaviours can crop up in people with all kinds of orientations.
52
@50- That last line needs to be turned into a captioned photo meme lol
53
#50 - yes yes YES, and this is why people who ID as 'pansexual' so often come across as biphobic. The subtext tends to sound like 'I don't want to share a letter of the alphabet soup with all you sluts.' And then they describe what they ~truly are~ and, er, it sounds like the same introverted bumbling-around that most of the rest of us do, be we bi, gay or straight.
54
@31: You are missing one of the most important bits of labeling your sexuality -- broadcasting to the world whose naughty bits you want to touch, so the people attached to those naughty bits know to approach you. So, Bi remains an incredibly important and useful category.

I would also make a fine case that labeling oneself pansexual (whatever that means), viziersexual (attracted to the vizier of the ottoman empire), or whatever very specific and nuanced identity that makes them a unique and special snowflake also serves a valuable purpose -- warning people away from the prickly and annoying nutjobs who proclaim themselves to be cis-gendered porcupines trapped in human bodies who happen to be attracted to humans. It's like the bright colors that poisonous caterpillars wear to ward off predators.
55
@31 Fnarf
"it's not a conversation I want to be in on"

Yet here you are and you stopped by this conversation just to say I should call myself something else to boot? It seems you do have a dog in the fight after all.
56
What about equine-sexual?
57
it kind of sound to me as though pansexual is a prentenious way of saying "i like to fuck people whose personalities i find appealing". which sort of implies that all us boring old straight folks like me are just fucking people based entirely on physical appearances and would bang the likes of Glen Beck or Mike Tyson or Mel Gibson or whoever, just so long as they have the opposite business and me.
58
whoops, looks like @50 already covered it my above comment. with a much better closing sentence.
59
@ 39 & 41, I'm that way too, but still am attracted solely to women. What does that make me, I wonder?

@ 55, see if Fnarf comes back at all. If he doesn't, you lose.
60
@59
I'm always happy to indulge anyone who cares about "winning." Well done. You win!
61
@10 Yiff in hell.
I'd have no problem with furries if they'd stop ruining the internet for the rest of us.
@31: "To me you're "gay" if you're currently or recently touching your own gender's bits, or want to."
You're ignoring the possibility of masturbation.
@38: Dem Greeks.
62
@55, I stopped by because Dan specifically wondered what boring old heteronormative cis-gendered etc. people feel. So I said so.

I'm not dismissing bisexuals or pansexuals or whatever you want to call yourselves; I don't find the topic of "calling yourself" particularly enlightening. And to be honest I don't find the topic of whom other people want to fuck particularly interesting either, as long as they're not going to be fucking me.

What interests me, in the sense of social interaction, is who you go around with. That's all I'm going to see, here in this bar or grocery store. For all I know, you're not having sex with anybody, or you're getting together with ten of your friends and banging the shit of Hostess fruit pies in your private time. But if you're going around with a member of the same sex, or what looks to a casual observer like the same sex, that's gay. Opposite? That's straight. Tomorrow will it be different? Fine, then so will the answer.

I guess what I'm really saying is I don't care about the one thing that gender-studies queers care about more than anything: identity. I'll take you each as you come. NOT LITERALLY. And watch those hands, buster.
63
If I'm aroused by flat, round objects, does that make me a pancakesexual? But what if Frisbees kinda do it for me too? Then I must be a discsexual.

I propose that the number of terms/acronymic letters cannot possibly exceed 6. There are only 6 possible significant sexual categories: Straight, Lesbian, Gay, Asexual, Bestial, and "Other." "Other" is an endlessly divisible category arising from some combination of the previous 5. Material- or behavior-based fetishes don't rise to the importance of who or what you want to perform [insert behavior here] on.

Thoughts?
64
I'm a psychesexual. I am not attracted to anything as vulgar as somebody's genitals, nor am I attracted to something as mundane as a personality (sorry, Pansexuals!). I am attracted to a person's soul. I'm happy to answer questions about my enlightenment, but I refuse to be called straight or gay or bi or pansexual or anything but psychesexual, and I reserve the right to get testy if you don't immediately comprehend and accept my sexual identity.

Also, I'm only attracted to women's souls, and I don't believe that Pansexuals exist. I think "Pansexuals" are bi people who are afraid to come out of the bi closet and have latched on to Pansexuality as a baby step toward acceptance. Thank you.
65
@ 63 - You forgot "mineral" and "vegetal".

Some people like to rub themselves against rocks, and I heard Martin Luther was quite fond of trees.
66
@54 I'm still laughing at "cis-gendered porcupines"!
67
I'm pretty sure that Annie Sprinkle has been calling herself pansexual since the early 90s. And masturbating to clouds.
68
As far as I was aware, "queer" simply meant "not straight, and there's no need for you to know more than that unless you want to date me."
69
@27, you are confusing gender with sex. Sex is the biologic construct. Of course, even sex is not binary (hermaphrodites). But it's much closer to binary than gender.
70
@64: Goddammit, now you've got me involuntarily making a card game out of this.

It's called Orgy. You draw cards that have characters on them, with attributes like "pansexual" and "cis-gendered" and you have to try to group cards into compatible orgy-groups. Bigger orgies are worth more points.
71
@23 sort of beat me to it. I think we could get along with LGBT*, LGBTetc, or LGBTQ where queer takes into account everything not specifically L, G, B, or T. That works in print, but as for the spoken word, when referring to the community of non-straights, queer works for me. LGBT could also become the shorthand for the rest of the alphabet soup. Even LGBTQ seems to go on for longer than most people would speak.

I also don't care whether it's LGBT or GLBT. We could get lost forever worrying about how to order the letters to reflect the percentage or importance of folks in each letter.
Also, proscribing language rarely works. Language is fluid and majority rules. The queer community needs to offer something simple to guide our language the way we'd like to see it go, or suffer with what the straights come up with.
72
Fnarf @31. I totally agree with you about the tedium over endless identity-politic hair splitting. However, leaving all of the angry-bi bullshit aside, the B is usefull.

I don't need to struggle over identity, or have others validate my blah blah blah. I find those types as tiresome as you. But when asked, "bisexual" is the simplest shorthand to clarify to whom I am available for doing-not-talking.
73
There are probably more Furs than there are "true" Pansexuals in the world. Fur rights now and forever!
74
Hey, the B is very useful. If somebody wants a threesome or moresome, you gotta know if the participants want to handle multiple types of genitals or not.

Otherwise, eh. I'm bi, queer, whatever. I don't have much need to identify myself except in threads exactly like this. In my ordinary life, I'm either fucking you or I'm not. If you want me for my junk or my brain, doesn't really matter so long as you know what to do with said junk.
75
@23 Brilliant!

> How about just 'LGBTE?" Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Etc.?

I really like the idea of LGBTE, and may just start using it.

I have dated straight men, bi men, bi women, and a lesbian trans-woman with a lovely penis. I have dated a few people 10 years younger than me (I'm in my 40s, so 10 yrs under isn't inappropriately young), but one of my current loves is 20 years older than me. It may not be an orientation, by strict definition, but I am naturally inclined to a polyamorous lovestyle and a D/s lifestyle. I've tried monogamy and tried vanilla, and both reduced my libido to nill. So, while I'm all over the map orientation-wise, I *do* have preferences.

I usually say I'm Bi around most monogamous or monogamish, heteronormative cis-gendered non-queer folks, because they know basically wtf it means. (And I think they deserve to get acronymed like the rest of us, so I'll go with MHCN.)

I usually default to Queer around folks who are anything other than MHCN just so I don't have to get fussed at by my hyper-PC friends for being binary. I include poly-folk and kinksters in the group I ID as Queer to, because where I live, IMHO, PHCNs and the kink/BDSM community tend to be pretty LGBTE-friendly. (Ack! Acronym overload!)

Someone told me once that my particularly broad range of preferences makes me something they called "omnisexual" (apparently takes lack of discrimination based on age into account.) I can't say omnisexual with a straight face. I mean really... people would think I also go for veggies and lemurs or something. At a certain point, coining new lingo creates more confusion than it clears up.

I say OK to LGBTE.
76
I'm sorry but the whole cisgender thing is ridiculous. We don't need a special designation for people who feel fine in their own bodies, genitalia-wise. I think transgendered people should be able to live however they want, but that really has nothing to do with me. Why am I suddenly being assigned a special label to complement theirs?

And if pansexuals are only attracted to personality, not appearance, gender or sex, why would their attractions even need to manifest themselves physically? Couldn't they get off just by sitting and having a conversation with someone, and basking in the glory of the person's amazing personality?
77
@69, no, according to the dictionary, "gender" means "sex." Just because some people use the word "gender" to describe something more sociological than biological, doesn't mean @27's use of the word was incorrect.
78
I can only imagine how straight people heteronormative cis-gendered non-queers must feel.
That's easy. With each new demand for ever-more-complex and mysterious linguistic change we roll our eyes and say, "oh, for fuck's sake.....".

SASQ
79
It seems to me that if "leather fetish" is added to the list, then every other fetish has to be listed as well if we are to be fair. How about dropping the "leather" and just including "fetishists" in general? That said,, this listing is getting tedious. When alternative sexuality has become so all inclusive as to pertain to the majority of the population, who needs a parade?
80
The eskimos have something like 30 words for different kinds of snow.

Why shouldn't sexually obsessed deviants have 30 labels for different kinds of sexual orientations?
81
Oh dear god, this all has to stop. I'm sure your particular flavor of sexuality is endlessly interesting to you, but no one else gives a shit. Please stop preaching about the church of Me, Myself, and I every chance you get.

Let me give an example: when someone asks what you do for a living, you say something general like "doctor," "student," "lawyer," "engineer," "sales," etc. Of course your actual career is probably a lot more specialized, and if asked you could give many details about the particulars of your medical specialty and how it differs from seemingly-related fields. But common decency prevents most of us from taking a simple question as an opportunity to opine on the fabulousness that is our career.

It's the same with sexuality. Most people don't care who you fuck and why you choose to fuck them, and the ones who do are douchebag Republicans. Liberals don't stick their noses in other people's business, so don't go sticking your business in our noses.
82
This may well be the result of the proliferation of queer studies. As necessary as that is, academics need to make their mark somehow, and subdividing groups ever further and coining new terms is how they do it.
This.
83
Can we please stop talking about liking "boys" or "girls" when we're talking about people over the age of consent? There's something more than a little creepy about the use of words denoting children or teens to discuss one's own sexual preferences.
84
@ 80 - That's a myth.

First, there's no such thing as a single "eskimo" language, there are quite a few.

Second, it's misunderstanding the way so-called eskimo languages function, with roots more than with words.

In other words, those 14 - to - 400 eskimo words for snow (depending on the version of the myth you've heard) actually correspond more closely to English sentences.

So in fact, there is an infinite number of ways you can talk about snow in "eskimo languages", because language being productive, you can make up as many sentences as you want.

They still only have one root for "snow"., but they'll use it in constructions such as "snow that just fell", "snow that's melting", "dirty snow", etc. Just like you and I would.

It's stupid Westerners who couldn't understand that different languages have different structures who invented that story, a long while back. It's also been debunked a long while back, but it seems that you can't kill a good-sounding myth.
85
@Fnarf
With regards to the "you are gay if you are currently touching someone who shares your genitals and straight if you are touching someone who doesn't" comment.
I think you are full of it.
Being gay or straight or bi or pan does not mean that you fill that identity if and only if you are CURRENTLY in a relationship with a specific-sexed person. I doubt you actually believe this anyway, because if it were true, then someone who does not currently have access to anyone elses genitals, could be considered, by your definition, to be Asexual.

Someone who is gay is STILL gay irrespective of their dating status. Someone who is straight is STILL straight whether or not they are having sex. Someone who is bi is still bi. This is true when they are with a man, it is true when they are with a woman, it is true when they are single. This is true because sexual orientation is about what they are looking for in a partner, not what partner they currently have.
86
@85: Here's how I would put it.

Fnarf, under your theory, Marcus Bachmann is straight.

Also, under your theory, "ex-gay" therapy works. If you're a man who touches vagina-- even if you dread it, even if it makes you throw up in your mouth, and even if you're imagining cock the entire time-- then you are officially straight.
87
Some people are auto-sexual, meaning they should go fuck themselves.
88
Pansexual = bi + arrogance + condescension + need to feel specialer

a/k/a a subset of bisexuals for whom being bisexual simply isn't enough
89
@8, @14 oh yeah.

And I don't get the distinction between bisexual and pansexual, either. o.O. I say this as a bisexual woman who has run up and down the continuum with her partners, fwiw.

I don't care for the alphabet soup, and that's why I'll use queer. I get the general inclusive sentiment behind it, but Dan nails it here, as un-PC as that may be to some folks...
90
"heteronormative cis-whatever, blah blah blah"

When you go to the grocery store I bet you call an apple 'apple normative, cis-apple, though I don't dislike pears or cantaloupe and celebrate their right to be non-apple, of which I want 2 pounds, or a bit over a kilogram, or ding-a-lings as your personal preference of measurement dictates, but only if you don't prefer others preferences.'

Takes a special kind of nutty to make the simple that complicated.

We don't actually need a string of words to describe normalcy in sexuality. Or we already have one- 'normalcy.'
91
Sadly, I am drawn to reply seriously to @76's question "the whole cisgender thing is ridiculous... Why am I suddenly being assigned a special label to complement theirs?"

Because the usual alternative, when discussing (for example) whether transwomen should get to change in the women's locker room at the gym, is to refer to you and me as "real women." If you want the drama that goes with asserting that you are a "real woman," and transwomen are not real, then go for it. In serious public conversations about these issues, I prefer to use ciswomen and transwomen to avoid arguments about who is "real."

But then I also switched to "firefighter" and "chair" early on, rather than insisting that female firemen or chairmen should just get over themselves and not insist on changing regular words that the rest of us have always used.
92
Two conversations are happening here, and there's an easy fix:

-Let there be as many specific niches as people want. If you want to identify as "I'm only attracted to people of either gender that are 5'6, red-haired, green-eyed, and into science fiction (which I call 'leprasexual')," then good for you. Create that niche.

-When we are talking about bigger issues - the right to marry, anti-discrimination, etc. - let's come up with one singular word that describes everybody who isn't traditional "straight." Queer seems like a good choice to me.
93
@90- There are no apples in the grocery store. There are Galas, Braeburns, Granny Smiths, Red Delicious (which suck like your grasp of history), etcetera...
94
@ 91 "Biological women" may not sound so hot, but at least it doesn't need an explanation.

The problem with "cis-" is that no one outside of certain circles has any clue as to what it means... It may sometimes help you avoid arguments, but I'm not even sure it's actually helpful in that respect: just look at this thread.

At any rate, if sexual minorities want to decide what they're called, for the sake of fairness, we should ask all cis-women of the world if THEY want to be called "cis". And I'm sure we'd get a massive "no!"
95
The problem with using biological women versus trans women, is that it places them within a kind of heirarchy - wherein biological or "women born women" are somehow superior to the "fakers."
96
@94 We didn't ask firemen if they wanted to be called firefighters or firemen. Sometimes cultural change happens. Sometimes new words appear when they are needed. And maybe "biological women" will catch on, and maybe "ciswomen" will catch on. Wait ten or twenty years and see.
97
@79- Everyone doesn't need a parade.

But they ought to have one anyway.
98
"wherein biological or "women born women" are somehow superior to the "fakers."

Like this one?

tinyurl.com/6mme7f
99
Anybody who has ever been to university, seen the angry debates, or, hell, even been on a committee knows that this sort of debate is often driven by a given type: the one who knows that their views aren't the majority, knows that they will never be able to bring a significant number of people around to their view, but dammit they can at least make the majority dance like a monkey around the debate that they try to make go on for ever and ever.
100
@99

What people normally call 'assholes'.

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