What Is Pan Sexuality

What Is Pan Sexuality
Medically Reviewed by Isabel Lowell, MD on October 20, 2021
Pansexuality is the romantic, emotional, and/or sexual attraction to people regardless of their gender. Like everyone else, pansexual people may be attracted to some people and not others, but the gender of the person does not matter. People of any gender identity can and do identify as pansexual. Some people use the terms “ bisexual ” and “pansexual” interchangeably, but there are distinctions between the two.
Some people prefer the term “omnisexual” to “pansexual.” Some people feel that the term pansexuality implies that their attraction to people has nothing to do with gender. People who prefer the term omnisexual can be attracted to people of any gender but find that gender is still a factor in their attraction.
Both “pan” and “omni” mean “all,” and the distinction between omnisexuality and pansexuality is hazy. Some people use them interchangeably.
Bisexuality is at its core the attraction to some people of two or more genders, while pansexuality is the attraction to a person regardless of gender. Polysexuality is the attraction to people of many, but not all genders.
It is important to note that while a bisexual or pansexual person may be attracted to people of different genders or regardless of gender, this does not mean that they are automatically attracted to ALL people of those genders, just as a heterosexual woman is not necessarily attracted to ALL men.
Pansexuality and bisexuality are similar, but not quite the same. Pansexuality is broader than bisexuality, and people who identify as pansexual may be attracted to people of all genders. Bisexuality is the attraction to two or more genders, but not necessarily all. People who identify as bisexual may be pansexual, but not necessarily. Some people prefer to identify as bisexual even if they may be pansexual simply because the term “bisexual” is more commonly recognized.
Similarly, the distinction between pansexuality and polysexuality is that pansexuality is broader than polysexuality. Unlike bisexuality, polysexuality specifically implies that there are some genders to which the person is not attracted. Poly means many, but not all.
For example, someone who is polysexual may be attracted to people of every gender except for women. Meanwhile, a pansexual person my be attracted to men, women, nonbinary people, and people of any other gender identity.
Some people assume that attraction to others regardless of gender implies that pansexual people act on their attraction more frequently than others. This can lead to the stereotype that pansexual people are promiscuous . However, just as with heterosexuality or homosexuality, pansexual people are all individuals. Any given pansexual person will have their own preference for the amount of sexual activity they want, and they may also prefer to remain celibate.
Furthermore, these same stereotypes of promiscuity cause some people to accuse pansexual people of being less likely to remain monogamous. This is untrue -- pansexual people are just as likely to prefer monogamy as hetero- or homosexual people. Pansexuality is not the same thing as polyamory. The potential to be attracted to someone of any gender is not connected to a preference for multiple partners.
Pansexual people are attracted to people regardless of gender, so any given pansexual person can find themselves in a wide variety of relationships. These relationships may be “straight-passing,” or they may be obviously non-heterosexual. Regardless of their partner’s gender, a pansexual person remains pansexual - they often do not experience “straight-passing” privilege. Instead, they may experience microaggressions as their sexuality is ignored or dismissed.
As with every relationship, it’s important for anyone partnered with a pansexual person to discuss boundaries. Neither partner should make any assumptions about things such as monogamy, sexual acts , or general preferences. Every pansexual person is different, and has their own preferences. If you’re in a relationship with someone who is pansexual, it’s important to respect them and their boundaries.
While you don’t need to come out to your loved ones as pansexual, some people find it to be helpful or cathartic. If you choose to come out, you can explain pansexuality as being a natural attraction to people regardless of gender. Some pansexual activists use the phrase “Hearts, not parts” to explain this orientation. While the phrase is reductive, it can be a useful tool when talking with people who aren’t familiar with LGBTQ terminology.
If you’re talking to your loved ones about pansexuality because you have a new partner, you should talk with your partner first. If a new relationship is spurring you to come out, then you are likely dating someone else who falls under the LGBTQ+ umbrella. If you come out, you may be outing your partner as well. This disclosure can have serious effects on your partner’s life.
If your partner would prefer to remain in the closet, then you may choose to wait before coming out yourself out of respect for their privacy.
Bisexual Resource Center: “Pan & Bi: A Handy Guide.”
Deconforming: “Bisexual vs. pansexual: what’s the difference?”
National LGBTQ Task Force: “Why Outing Can Be Deadly.”
SexInfo Online (UCSB) : “Pansexuality.”
UC Davis: “Ways To Be An Ally to Nonmonosexual / Bi People.”
Washington University: “Thinking of coming out?”
© 2005 - 2022 WebMD LLC. All rights reserved.
WebMD does not provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

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It’s not the same as being bisexual.
Caroline Rose Giuliani just got candid about her love life. Caroline, the daughter of former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, wrote an essay for Vanity Fair about being a “unicorn” in relationships (i.e. a third partner for couples looking to have a threesome).
As part of the essay , Caroline details her own journey to discovering her sexuality. “I had known for some time that I was at least bisexual but had barely explored that side of my sexuality,” she wrote.
At one point, she describes how her experience as a unicorn in one couple’s relationship helped her figure out her sexual identity. “Texting with Isabella a few weeks after our threesome, I told her about feeling Oliver’s passion for her permeate me,” she wrote. “My heightened response to their energetic flow also started me on the path to identifying as pansexual, which feels more precise than bisexuality. I am attracted to people based on their presence and energy regardless of their biological sex, gender, or gender identity.”
Bisexual is a term used to describe a person who is emotionally, romantically or sexually attracted to more than one sex, gender or gender identity, according to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC). “Pansexual” is used to describe a person who can be emotionally, romantically, or sexually attracted to people of any gender, HRC says.
“'Pan' comes for the Greek word 'all,'” says Holly Richmond , Ph.D., a certified sex therapist and marriage and family counselor. “Pansexual is not bi-sexual , it’s all sexual.” That means a pansexual person could be attracted to a man, woman, a transgendered person, or a non-gendered person (a person who chooses not to identify themselves by gender), Richmond says.
Caroline is far from the only notable person to identify as pansexual. Janelle Monáe and Miley Cyrus have also said they identify with pansexuality.
Below, experts offer up all of the other major info you should know about it.
"There are a lot of stereotypes and misconceptions about pansexuality, and one of the most prominent ones is that pansexuality doesn't exist, or isn't a 'real' sexual identity. This is absolutely false," says Corey Flanders, Ph.D., an associate professor of psychology and education at Mount Holyoke College. If a pansexual's sexual identity is denied by others or they're prevented from accepting their own identity, it can stifle them to a certain degree, she says.
Like Miley and Janelle, some people who formerly identified as bisexual later identify as pansexual. " Bisexuality as a term has experienced criticism for adhering to a binary system of gender, a.k.a. 'I'm attracted to men and women,' even though this strict definition of bisexuality doesn't fit many bisexual-identified folks," says Rena McDaniel , who has a master's degree in counseling with a specialty in gender and sexual identity.
Pansexuality, on the other hand, is seen as "more inclusive" of people who are transgender or identify outside of the gender binary of man or woman, she says.
There seems to be an age gap with this label. "Younger people are more likely to use pansexual as a term, while slightly older populations are more likely to use bisexual," McDaniel finds.
Pansexuals may be attracted to all people, but that doesn't mean that they're going to have sex with anyone, Richmond says. “Pansexuals can be very choosy,” she says.
" One of the ways society shames those who are attracted to more than one gender is to say that they are 'greedy' or a 'commitment-phobe,'" McDaniel says. "However, no one says this about heterosexual folks who also have about half the population of the world to choose from."
Being attracted to more people has nothing to do with the kind of relationship a person wants to have with their partner or partners, she adds.
Richmond says she first started learning about pansexuality five or six years ago at a conference for the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors, and Therapists. Although pansexual people have definitely been around longer than that, the general public is just starting to acknowledge the term and learn what that sexual identity means.
People often mix up gender identity and sexual identity but they're not the same. "Pansexuality is a term that refers to sexual orientation, who someone is attracted to," McDaniel says. "It is completely different from gender identity, which refers to how someone identifies their own gender."
So pansexuality isn't the same as transgender or gender non-binary, for example. Using pansexual as a label for your sexual orientation doesn't say anything about your gender identity or the gender identity of the person you're into, she says.
Because pansexuality is a fairly new concept to many people, it’s hard to pinpoint exactly how many identify with the label, Richmond explains; she puts her best estimate at less than 1 percent. But as more people become aware of pansexuality, there may be more people who come to identify that way, she says.
When pansexuals are making a romantic connection, it’s very much about connecting with the person—not the gender, Richmond says. “It’s about developing meaningful relationships."

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I'd refer to myself as pansexual because I believe in hearts not parts. #embracethequeer

Ambrose Spellman (Chance Perdomo) is Sabrina’s English warlock cousin who is on house arrest inside the funeral home he lives in (because of course he does). Ambrose is described as, “witty, puckish, and pansexual…always up for mischief.”

Alex Velazquez, Into , September, 2018

i like how deadpool is canonically a pansexual feminist who kills pedophiles and is against racism and homophobia, but he still has dudebro fans ...

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Pansexual refers to the sexual orientation of someone who is romantically, emotionally, or sexually attracted to people of any gender identity, gender, or biological sex.
Some pansexual people say that, when it comes to attraction, they don’t see gender or they find it irrelevant. That’s what distinguishes pansexuality from omnisexuality or bisexuality .
The term pansexual is also used in the name of Pansexual Visibility Day , observed on May 24.
Pansexual was first used in psychology to refer to the idea that sex is the primary driver of all human behavior, pan – here from the Greek meaning “all.” The word was originally leveled against the ideas of Sigmund Freud as far back as 1914. Critics were still arguing against this supposed pansexual psychology in the 1950s and 1960s.
New meanings for pansexual emerged in the 1960–70s. A 1960s study described pansexual rats who paired sexually with other rats regardless of their biological sex. In 1966, Life magazine described poet Allen Ginsberg as being in favor of pansexual freedom, apparently meaning complete sexual freedom. On a similar note in 1974, the Saturday Review saw a trend of pansexuality or “sexual anarchy” in New York theater. Around the same time, an article in Ramparts magazine made reference to pansexuality as a sexual identity, contrasting it with “the older term bisexual.” A 1979 book titled The Gay Report also includes reports from people who called themselves pansexual .
A handful of celebrities have spread awareness of the term when they came out as pansexual . Superstar Miley Cyrus described herself as pansexual in an interview with Elle UK in August 2015. In a later interview with Variety , she said, “I don’t ever think about someone being a boy or someone being a girl.” In 2017, she released a song, “She’s Not Him,” which Billboard called “a pansexual milestone in mainstream music.”
In an April 2018 Rolling Stone interview, artist Janelle Monae identified as pansexual. She noted that she previously called herself bisexual , but then learned of pansexuality and thought that fit, saying “I’m open to learning more about who I am.” Google searches for pansexuality spiked in April 2018 after the interview.
In March 2021, singer Demi Lovato described themself as pansexual during an interview with Joe Rogan on his podcast The Joe Rogan Experience. When asked by Rogan if Demi liked “girls” and “boys,” Lovato answered “Yeah, anything, really.” Rogan responded by asking if pansexual was the correct term, and Lovato answered that it was. Lovato’s interview with Rogan was covered extensively by the mainstream media. I n May 2021, Lovato announced that they identify as nonbinary and use they/them pronouns .
Demi Lovato Comes Out As Pansexual https://t.co/Yz5PKgOAdc
— PRIDE Radio (@prideradio) March 30, 2021
Pansexuality can mean different things to different people, so let’s unpack the term:
It’s sometimes thought of as an identity distinct from bisexuality and sometimes as being under a broader bisexual umbrella. From that latter viewpoint, bisexuality can be thought to include attraction to people of multiple genders, including both those with the same gender as one’s own and those of different genders.
Pansexuality specifically refers to sexual and/or romantic attraction to people of all gender identities or attraction regardless of gender . It is often considered to be more inclusive than bisexuality. Some pansexual people choose that term because they feel that bisexual reinforces the idea of a gender binary rather than a gender spectrum .
Bisexual people, however, can be attracted to nonbinary people, and some nonbinary people identify as bisexual. Some take the bi- prefix to mean attraction to both their same gender and other genders. The activist Robyn Ochs has described bisexuality as “the potential to be attracted—romantically and/or sexually—to people of more than one sex and/or gender, not necessarily at the same time, not necessarily in the same way, and not necessarily to the same degree.”
Pansexuality on the other hand is sometimes thought of as being gender-blind. A pansexual writer for Cosmopolitan noted she is “drawn in by a person’s ‘vibes’ and the ‘feel’ I get from them as a being” rather than thinking “I wonder what it’d be like to f*ck them? I wonder what their genitals look like.”
The Marvel superhero Deadpool is considered pansexual , bringing some notable representing of sexual diversity in popular culture.

This is not meant to be a formal definition of pansexual like most terms we define on Dictionary.com, but is
rather an informal word summary that hopefully touches upon the key aspects of the meaning and usage of pansexual
that will help our users expand their word mastery.

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