I've come across lots of interesting redefinitions of bi and definition pairs of bi and pan before. However - and I can't give you the link as it's one of the million web pages I've read this weekend - this weekend I came across a genius new one. I paraphrase mildly as I read it a short while ago...
Bi is if you have sexual relationships with any gender, pan is if they are romantic relationship
Wow. How brilliantly creative is that? There are these two words, right, and we know that 'bi' is the untrendy one that means you're not in with the cool crowd, but they seem to mean the same damn thing... it must be possible to come up with some kind of definition that splits them apart!
These kind of "bi is not the same" definitions always seem to involve pan being somehow morally superior. I think that might be the tell that gives away an attempt to make yourself more acceptable, the sad old theme of putting another group or identity down in order to raise yourself up in the social rankings.
I still think this bullshit by Genderbitch (http://genderbitch.wordpress.com/2010/10/11/bisexuality-binarism-cissexism/) is my favourite moronic article about bisexuality. It neatly invents a completely new definition of bisexual as 'bisexuality is just an attraction to only two gender groups' and then bleats about erasure, because telling us all how we are allowed to identify is just fine and dandy.
ReplyDeleteWow. Thanks for the link - that is one blinkeredly bigoted pile of cockwomblery.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if we were better off when you couldn't find any information than in the current phase of there being a mass of stuff, half of it wrong. Though that reminds me of something else I was going to write about...
While I do disagree with most of the linked tumblr post, I don't feel that writing it off as "moronic" and "bigoted" is fair, or even right.
ReplyDeleteReading that post, I didn't feel that genderbitch came from a bigoted POV at all. Sure, it's annoying that she claims to know the One True Definition of bisexuality, but bigoted? Really?
Also, to be fair, she didn't invent that definition of bisexuality. It's one that I have seen before, enough times that I usually include it when I list the various ways bisexuals define their bisexuality.