Growing up, I never had a perfect example of what a pansexual person was supposed to be. I had never even heard the term "pansexual" until I was late into high school and new into Tumblr. Until that point I'd been classifying myself as bisexual, and before that "straight with exceptions". When I received my first kiss, my first kiss from a girl, in middle school I'd never heard of anyone who could like more than one sex or gender. I had a crisis thinking that my sexuality had been unnaturally warped, that I was either gay now or failing to be straight. It made it hard to have a healthy relationship, and middle school made healthy relationships hard enough already. I was too scared to stay with my girlfriend all of the time, and often broke it off and then asked for her back and then called it off again. Neither of us were very confident in ourselves at the time, and I think it was because neither of us knew what was going on. About eight years later my old middle school partner identifies as non-binary and I identify as pansexual.
Do you know of any canonically pansexual characters on television or in books?
Marvel's Deadpool, Rick of Rick and Morty, Captain Jack Harkness from BBC's Doctor Who and Torchwood. All excellent, fun, hilarious characters. Also notorious flirts, drunks, self-loathing, violent...men. While pansexuals are so rarely seen I am grateful for each and every one, and count these three among my favorite characters of all time, I find it hard to relate to sexually super-active men as a "one partner at a time, and even then sex isn't really my favorite thing" woman. Panseuxals, when they are seen at all, are often seen as sexually promiscuous as if their capability to be attracted to anyone of any sex or gender means that they are always attracted to everyone and everything everywhere. While sexual freedom is admirable and sexual confidence encouraged, it's disheartening to see that this is what the world thinks of me. If the straight world sees me as promiscuous, the queer world sees me as...
...not queer enough for the club. Or maybe too queer in the more literal sense of the word: too weird. Oftentimes people confuse bisexuality with pansexuality and wonder why we even need the extra term.
Bisexuality: the attraction to two genders/sexes
Pansexuality: the attraction to all genders/sexes or regardless of gender/sex
So where a bisexual person may be attracted to women and men, or women and non-binary people, and so on, a pansexual person can be attracted to any gender or sex. Like bisexuals, this means we're seen as "too straight to be gay, too gay to be straight". I remember coming out to male co-workers and reminding them that I did like men in addition to women and other genders. They kept referring to me as a lesbian and I kept fighting back to claim my identity. Some of this might come from our sexist society putting men in the center of attention and claiming that all women need to love them but I digress.
There are many sexualities and gender identities in the world, and many people that would claim them if they knew they were there and if they knew they would not be attacked for it. People who identify as pansexual have a lot of trouble getting recognized and finding a place to fit in, so I'm grateful that I am usually able to surround myself with people who understand me.
