Actress Bella Thorne considers herself pansexual 0:41
(CNN) -
The concept of pansexuality has been around since the time of Sigmund Freud, but it took stars like Miley Cyrus, and more recently Bella Thorne, to use it openly to make it fashionable again in the 21st century.
The word
pansexual
has been among the most searched terms on Google since the pop star came out as pansexual in an interview with
Paper
magazine
.
LOOK: Bella Thorne says she is actually pansexual, not bisexual
She said “I am open to anything that involves consent and that does not involve an animal and as long as everyone is of legal age.
Anything that is legal is fine with me.
Come on, I agree to try it with any adult, anyone over 18 who wants to love me.
I do not identify myself as a boy or a girl and I do not need my partner to identify as a boy or a girl ».
"I like sexy girls, I like sexy guys," he said.
"I like sexiness in general, you know," Thorne said for his part.
Experts and sociologists say that these descriptions summarize the contemporary interpretation of the pansexual, what is sometimes called omnisexual.
It's almost the broadest possible description of who you are sexually attracted to, which is exactly what grabs the attention of a younger generation that is comfortable with gender fluidity and doesn't like labels very much.
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Are you still confused?
Here are some guidelines to get started.
Pansexual refers to sexual attraction
The term pansexual is composed with the prefix
pan-
, which means
everything
and the word
sexuality
, which indicates that people who consider themselves pansexual do not restrict their sexuality to the opposite gender (heterosexuality), the same gender (homosexuality) or binary genders , male and female (bisexuality).
LOOK: Actress of "The Hunger Games" reveals that she is bisexual
The origin of the term
pansexual is
often found in
pansexualism
, a term popularized by Sigmund Freud in the early 1900s and used to describe the view that most human behaviors derive from sexual instincts, explained Justin R. Garcia, an assistant professor of Gender Studies and researcher at the Kinsey Institute of the University of Indiana, United States.
Most behavioral scientists today do not believe that everything we do is sexually based.
However, Freud's work raised important questions about the direction of sexual desires, Garcia said.
Also, he gave us a word that has evolved over time.
Currently, the term pansexual is used to describe a romantic or sexual attraction focused on qualities rather than sex or gender.
In other words, someone who considers themselves pansexual is capable of being attracted to multiple sexes and gender identities, said David Bond, vice president of programs for the Trevor Project, an LGBT crisis intervention group.
"Maybe it has to do with the person to whom you feel something or to whom you are attracted and those two factors can be parallel or different," he said.
Pansexual is different from bisexuality
Bisexuality refers to people who are attracted to men and women.
As more and more people fall somewhere on the spectrum between men and women, pansexuality has emerged as a category that includes everyone else.
“People are adopting it because
bisexual
participates in the binary gender.
Pansexuality is a way to overcome that and a personal recognition that there are attractions across the range of genres, ”wrote Patricia Johnson and Mark Michaels, authors of the book
Designer Relationships: A Guide to Happy Monogamy, Positive Polyamory and Optimistic Open Relationships
in an email.
“Although its scope and application are wide, it also has the advantage of referring to a whole range of attractions rather than clinging to the idea that the attraction can only be for the same sex, for the
opposite
sex
or for both.
That inclusive quality gives it a very specific meaning.
Some people prefer it over
bisexuality
because it encompasses attraction to men, women, transgender people, and intersex people (those born with a sex that does not fit the typical definitions of male or female).
However, some experts on sexuality claim that the term
bisexuality
also includes these categories, so the distinction between
pansexual
and
bisexual is
still open to discussion and no consensus has been reached on the most appropriate term.
Pansexual is not new, but it is fashionable again
The term tends to enter the public consciousness through celebrities and Cyrus is the one who has claimed the title most recently.
The pop star followed the lead of other notable people who recently came out pansexual, including transgender YouTube personality Jazz Jennings and Texas lawmaker Mary Gonzalez.
Experts attribute the term's growing popularity, particularly among
millennials
and
Gen Z
, to the growing acceptance of sexual and gender diversity, as well as neutral gender norms.
"It's a broad word and that's because people want the freedom to identify themselves in any way they want without someone else labeling them," said Michael Aaron, a psychotherapist and sex therapist.
"It has a certain cultural resonance because it is very broad and allows great flexibility and freedom of decision."
pansexual