#multisexualities

[ap0c0lypstick]

not oc but too perfectly succinct not to share. chef's kiss 🤌🏻

[semanticpolyromantic]

How could I know if I'm poly? I've been looking into it and I just don't know

Sorry for the late response! I never got a notification for this message :[Well, there are a ton of ways one could come to identify as polysexual or polyromantic! It’s all up to which terms are most comfortable for you to identify with. One of the basic things ply individuals have in common is an attraction (romantic and/or sexual) to multiple genders. Typically, I’ve noticed the number of genders included in that attraction to be more than two. And remember, there is often overlap amongst the multisexualities. For example, two individuals could be sexually attracted to the same exact genders, yet one could identify as polysexual and the other could identify as bisexual. For me, personally, I identify as polyromantic because I am able to be romantically attracted to pretty much every gender, with only about one gender that I do not experience romantic attraction to.I hope this helps!

[queerfeministagenda]

Bisexual | Polysexual | Pansexual

They’re transparent!

[k-k-k-ko-blog]

"pansexual" dates all the way back to 1917 and it was already in use by many people before the bisexual re-definining unlike asexual which was never used to describe sexual attraction and was pretty much invisible. i think it affects people on a linguistic level as well, the "bi" implies two and in a binary world, people will immediately think of male and female. most people that identify as bisexual use the binary definition to emphasise its difference from other multisexualities. so confusing.

Whoa. Looks like pansexual is another term that has evolved a lot since its first use, according to this definition. Again, I can’t find many decent sources on pansexuality and its origins, but it would appear that everything I come across still says ‘bisexuality is always binarist’. I personally ID as bisexual which is tricky in itself since I don’t see myself as belonging to the gender binary. I actually haven’t met many bisexuals who limit their definition to the binary or who are unforgiving of a bisexual person with different preferences to them. I’m sure there are bisexuals who adhere to the gender binary, just as there are bisexuals who don’t.

A few of my favourite posts on the complications defining bisexuality are here and here (the second contains a link with the definitions of bisexuality used by a large number of bisexual groups around the world. To my knowledge it does not touch on whether the definitions are appropriating other multisexualities, and does not have countries outside of western society included (this makes some sense, as if you are oppressing somebody, whether or not you know about it your first instinct is to deny it. If bisexuals have indeed taken their definitions from other multisexualities, the groups would not admit it).

Once again, I haven’t yet read on pansexuality enough to say anything with authority, but I will share what I know about the bisexual community.

[k-k-k-ko-blog]

I think the bisexuals taking up the spaces of other multisexual identities and using their definitions was because when the first bi activists started popping up, they realised that they were other gender identities apart from the binary and stretched the term to have them in it. Since bisexual in its original definition was built on top of the binary, the terms poly and pansexual already existed at the time but now the "bisexual" blanket covers them. Pretty problematic and erasive imo.

That’s a good point. What do you think of the term trans* to cover non-binary gender identities, then? Or asexual (side note - I found a lesbian blog that described the A as Ally and I wanted to throw things) being used to cover demisexuality and other terms that denote more gray sexual and romantic attractions? Are they also erasing the lesser-known identities beneath them? (I say lesser-known because where I am from pansexuality isn’t even a known word, due to ignorance.)

Is bi*sexual with the asterisk a better usage as an umbrella term to cover non-monosexualities, or do you think there’s a more appropriate word to explain the multiple sexualities without adding to the LGBTQIA+ acronym? (I’ve seen people in and outside of the broader queer communities complaining about all the letters. I don’t agree myself, but I can understand why some people who aren’t interested in doing their research would think there’s too much to remember.)

To be honest, I might not be looking in the right places, but the reading I’ve done thus far on pansexuality and bisexuality (not much on polysexuality so I’ll leave that out at the moment) does not suggest that bisexuality has taken the definitions of other multisexualities. It seems possible - and probable, given the similarity of the definitions - that the bisexuality movement did, either out of an attempt to encompass other multisexualities or out of ignorance thinking that it was best to use the broader definitions without thinking of erasure. Would anybody have some recommended reading for me to check this topic out?