Labels!!

Contributing as a peer, rather than a mentor (I wouldn't take what I say so much as advice as just my perspective - I don't feel fit to give "advice"...), I would just say that while I'm only sexually attracted to men, I can appreciate a beautiful woman & am very much emotionally attracted to women, as, in my experience, our brains seem to be on the same wavelength, if you will, yet I only consider myself gay as far as labels are concerned. That is to say that I don't think what you're feeling is abnormal, if that helps at all. To be perfectly honest, I'm not all that educated with the terminology, I just know that not being completely alone in what I'm feeling helps me.

 

From my limited experience, I think I focused on labels/identities a bit too much at first, not that I have a problem with them, because I was still trying to appreciate that the 'big' three [straight, bisexual, gay] don't have to be exact. So while I'm still trying to understand my sexuality, it's not so much to do with the conceptions of what a gay man's or a bisexual man's feelings are supposed to be, so if and when I have finally gotten comfortable with whatever I am, I'd probably go with whatever label feels most accurate to me [which, so far, has been gay.] Hopefully there's an answer to some of your inquiries, though I'm not entirely sure that I have. :|

Your OP touched upon something that I was curious about, sorry if I'm derailing your thread, but until reading another thread on here, I didn't concieve that there could be a difference and physical and sexual attraction. Up 'til now I would've assumed they were one and the same. :\

 

What you call "physical attraction" I would just call aesthetic appreciation, or, in simpler terms, the ability to appreciate someone's beauty/handsomeness. Most people think the phrases "physical attraction" and "sexual attraction" refer to the same thing, so you'll probably confuse whoever you're talking to if you use them to talk about two different things.

(What follows is just my person opinion.) The thing is, labels like "homosexual" and "panromantic" are useful because they describe things we do and don't do (like that we just have sex with those of the same sex as us, or we can fall in love with people of any gender, respectively). But what does who you can aesthetically appreciate tell anyone about the things you do? Not much. Sexual orientation labels tell the world who we'll have sex with, romantic orientation labels tell the world who we can form a long-term relationship with, which are useful things to know for anyone who wishes to do one or the other or both with us. But what use is it to proclaim to the world, "I can appreciate the beauty in women and the handsomeness in some men."? Doesn't seem very necessary or consequential to me.

Is it offensive? I've heard pan- terms used that way before (as a smug putdown of bisexuals), but the way I see it, they're just labels; their potential bigotry is all in their use, not in their definition. So I'd say that just using the term "panromantic" to describe oneself isn't bigoted; using it with the intent to elevate oneself above biromantic people, now that could be bigoted.

When does someone become panromantic? When they can fall in love with cis-males, cis-females, trans*-people, genderqueer people, bigender people, agender people, etc. When does someone become pansexual? When they can be sexually attracted to men, women, and intersex individuals. So, naturally, someone is biromantic if they can only fall in love with cis-men and cis-women, and they're bisexual if they can only be attracted to cis-men and cis-women. Again, the way i see it, they're all just labels, they're just terms with definitions. It's when we start making those labels or definitions out to be more than they really are that we run into hang-ups.

So, naturally, to answer the question of whether you're really just biromantic, I would say that if you can fall in love with anyone regardless of their gender identity, then you're panromantic. The politics of the labels doesn't change that.

 

I think that the terms "bisexual" and "biromantic" are misused in common society, though. Most people aren't aware of the "pan" options, and so misidentify themselves. Lots of people ARE bi, I'm not trying to deny that, but I bet you that more people are pan, if you explained to them what each of the terms really means.

 

I think you've got it right as far as being a panromantic lesbian. I don't know if there are labels for physical attraction; as far as I know, there are none.

I don't think that panromantic is offensive to biromantic people nor do I think pansexual is offensive to bisexuals. It's just greater flexibility with regard to your romantic/sexual partner, respectively; it has nothing to do with being bigoted or not being accepting.

As for the question of when someone becomes panromantic or pansexual...I'm not really sure what you mean. I realized that I'm panromantic when I realized that gender doesn't matter to me at all with regard to who I would fall in love with. I may also be some shade of pansexual because my only stipulation about the gender of my sexual partner is that the person be biologically female. If the person is transgender or gender fluid or androgynous or gender neutral, that's fine. It might even make it more interesting than being with someone who's a girl all the time.

And, about your question "Am I really just biromantic?" only you can determine that.

 

My problem with labels is that they lead people to make generalizations about individuals. They treat the individual as the label rather than the person. This doesn't always have to be the case of course. But often times labels are associated with stereotypes that just don't apply to everyone. To the extent that labels help provide a basic understanding of who you are, they are good. To the extent that labels cause people to ignore your individuality and focus on the label, they are bad. I don't know if that makes sense. Interesting topic though.

 

This is something me and a guy I know over Skype talked about one night.

" Labels do help us catalog others but at the same time it's EXTREMELY ABUSED and used to alienate and ridicule people who are different."

I agree on having to have a label when it comes to my sexual preference and even admit it to anyone who asks but when it's used to discriminate me I'll refuse it.

 

I kind of hate labels too, because people assume a lot about us based on them. Most labels have baggage. "Bisexual" has a lot of negative baggage. But I use it anyway. Most of the time, it's less mental energy to correct false assumptions after I have labeled myself than to fully identify myself without using it.

I think it just comes down to how much explaining you want to do. For most of us, there is a lot of explaining anyway...