Who cares? Just suck and fuck whatever consents and gets your motor running. If something changes and doesn’t seem so interesting, stop doing that

I agree with most of the other comments that labels aren’t really important. But if you do want to think about and describe your sexuality for whatever purpose, go for it. And as a lifelong bisexual, self doubt is a common enough trope in bi/pansexual communities to get it’s own label, ‘bi imposter syndrome’. Some bi (or pan, I see the difference as mostly stylistic) people are equally attracted to all genders, some have a significant tendency one way or another, and some think they have a preference and then it switches, and sometimes switches back again and again. I’ve been in a relationship with the same guy for so long now, I sometimes wonder ‘am I really bi? Am I just pretending? Maybe I just didn’t know what I wanted when I was young, and now I can admit I’m just gay’. But then I speak to some girl, or see a hottie on TV, and realise I’m defitnely sexually attracted to them.

If bi is so broad to include anyone who has ever had, or could have, sexual attraction to anyone who wasn’t their traditional hetero gender, is there any point in the label? Isn’t almost everyone bi? Sure! I kinda think everyone is kinda bi on some level. But it’s also about what purpose a label serves. If someone described themselves as ‘pan’, I would assume they woukd open-minded and nonjudgemental about people of different sexualites and genders. I wouldn’t assume they’d automatically be attracted to everyone they met, even straight men aren’t attracted to every woman. I use to avoid calling myself gay, because I’m bi, but I realised that insisting on that was sometimes kinda homophobic, and as someone married to another man, I have a lot in common with lots of gay folks. But I also sometimes refer to myself as a “straight white man” when talking about privilege, because most acquaintances don’t think of me as gay so I’ve never experienced much discrimination on that front, and don’t feel I can claim to speak as a ‘minority’.

There are 2 ways to fix gender:

• create more genders
• abolish all genders

Same thing goes for sexuality :3

I don’t get why labels are so important to people.

If other people label you, they think you have to act a certain way.

If you label yourself, you think you have to act a certain way.

“I like what I like” why does it have to be more complicated than that?

Based on your description, “pan” seems appropriate. I don’t think ratios really matter when it comes to this kind of terminology. You appear to be, to varying degrees, attracted to people regardless of their sex or gender.

That said, I’m not sure what the distinction is between “pan” and “omni”.

So, self labels.

External labels are bullshit. But self labels matter because they’re part of self discovery. We live in a cis-hetero world. We’re all raised with that at the default. Finding new words gives us all a new map in our brains, new ways of thinking as we’re exposed to the ideas those words represent. It’s easy to say “just like what you like”, and there’s truth behind that idea too.

But, that’s an idea you reach as you grow and learn. Maybe some day there won’t be a default, though I suspect nobody currently alive will see that day since it takes generations for shifts that big to happen.

So, labels have their place and use.

As an example, imagine growing up fifty years ago. The idea of romantic attraction and sexual attraction being distinct, separate parts of a person’s makeup was not a thing people realized. Imagine being omniromantic, but heterosexual. Imagine loving a man, deeply enough that once gay marriage became legal, it was a real option.

But, all that time, sexual incompatibility was an issue. One that led to strife and an eventual breakup.

That’s the story of one of my cousins. It isn’t a hypothetical. He has said now, as has his ex partner, that if they had had the concept of omni/pan at all, it would have helped. And, if they had known that romantic and sexual attraction aren’t always linked, they might have found a way to stay together, or have broken up sooner and gone through less pain.

Niche? Absolutely. But language is more than just a way to coordinate a hunt. As we learn, it lays down maps in our brain that we use to navigate everything. That includes our love lives.

Language is also about communication though. It applies to dating, sex, and partnerships via communicating with the people we’re compatible with. If you’re looking for a man with a penis, it sure as heck helps to have words for men, and penises.

Having a word that states “I am sexually attracted to any gender, but not to a specific gender presentation” really helps when someone is trying to see if you’re compatible. So, favoring having the word “pansexual” as shorthand is pretty damn useful. That would allow you and any person you’re talking to you know, from the beginning, that there will or won’t be a compatibility issue, and everyone can handle the situation like compassionate and friendly adults.

All of that is to recognize that what you’re asking matters. It can’t be dismissed as “just be with who you want”. When you’re past the point where labels are useful to you, you’ll just be with who you like, and that’s it. But we all use labels. They’re useful. They have a role. So asking about them is perfectly valid and useful too.

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So, are you pan, omni, or bi?

Bisexual may or may not include people that don’t present as distinct expressions of the binary, but usually has a preference for binary presentation to some degree or another.

Pan and omni are two other sides to the multi-sided multi-attractive polyhedron of attraction. They’re essentially identical except for one aspect.

Pan has no distinct connection to gender presentation at all. They’ll be attracted to any combination of gender, regardless of presentation or genitals/secondary sexual characteristics.

Omni has connection to presentation. They don’t necessarily prefer any given presentation or gender combination, but they are attracted to presentation as part of the person rather than it being irrelevant. They also do care about secondary sexual characteristics, though only as part of the individual rather than as an exclusion.

It’s a razor thin distinction, but it does exist. Knowing it about oneself can help figure out who you’re attracted to, why you are or aren’t attracted to an individual, and when looking for potential partners.

Tbh, my grasp of all the pan/omni stuff is essentially second or third hand, since other than not excluding anyone as a matter of principle, I’ve never experienced sexual or romantic attraction to anyone that isn’t a woman. I’m hetero. I don’t reject the possibility of attraction to another man in theory, and I’ve definitely run into situations where a man that’s sufficiently able to present as a woman by heteronormative standards pinged on my radar as attractive, if not attractive to me.

Which isn’t entirely tangential. It’s relevant to your situation because you have experienced a full attraction to a woman. You also state that your love wouldn’t disappear if a partner transitioned. So, as you said, you aren’t at the extreme hetero end of that binary. There’s no exclusivity.

However, I do think that omni would fit your self labeling better than bi or pan. You do factor presentation into things, just not as the exclusionary or primary factor.

Thing is, you’re also functionally hetero (the way you phrased things implies you’re a woman, this isn’t a blind assumption, but if I’m wrong, just switch terms out). You know you can be attract to women, but it isn’t something that’s going to be part of any active search for a partner. It would be something that if it happened, great, but you’d likely have to dismiss large numbers of women before you found someone that “sparked”. In practice, that amounts to being hetero for the purposes of dating apps and other “ISO” use cases.

In day to day life, it makes sense to acknowledge the self label of pan/omni, and even discuss it. But if you’re being set up on dates, or using an app, or whatever, it has next to no use. It’s just a numbers thing.

Calling yourself bisexual/pansexual would not be inaccurate. I think “Kinsey 2” or “Kinsey 1” might be good concise descriptions to use, but only you can decide what is best.

(The Kinsey scale is a model, and therefore imperfect, but useful.)

You definitely fall under the bi umbrella, what specific label you decide on is of course up to you, have you ever heard the term heteroflexible? I find it a bit cringy, but it’s for you to consider. Sexuality is a spectrum, so you don’t have to nail yourself to a specific label under the bi umbrella if you don’t want to, you can keep it vague.

The way I see it, does it really matter what the correct term is? I don’t see why terms are necessary. People have there preferences/place on the spectrum, like you mentioned. No offense intended to anyone here, but I think the term “pan” is sorta pointless. At the end of the day it sounds like you are bi, and your preference leans towards dudes/away from women.

Feel free to educate me if I’ve got this wrong.

I was just in a group setting where 3 people who all had a tendency for “same sex attraction” described themselves differently.

One individual strongly preferred the term queer.

The second identified as pan because they liked the flag more than the bi flag, but admitted that bi might be a better fit for them.

The third indentified as bi.

The discussion of accurate terminology could be helpful in some settings, but… In casual settings, or even when negotiating intimacy with other people, what YOU mean by the term means more than the term itself, and you are not out of place by feeling “generally fuzzy” on usage.

I think what you’re describing is the term “Queer”

Eh like gender, sexuality is ever changing and always hard to define, so go with what you feel like best describes you, but perhaps pansexual but leans towards men more perhaps?

Of course with me I like to give people percentages because I find it entertaining, and more accurate than just pan-sexual in a way.