I consider myself to know a fair bit about gender and sexuality, if someone names a gender identity or sexual orientation I’ll probably know what it is. Scrolling the internet earlier today, I saw mention of something I didn’t recognise, and decided to do some digging. I thought I'd share what I found.
If I give you the word 'polysexuality’ your mind may jump to polyamorous or polyamory, as mine did. A polyamorous relationship is a romantic relationship between three or more people, where all are comfortable with sharing each other. This however, is not what polysexuality is.
In it’s simplest form, polysexuality is attraction outside the gender binary. That doesn't mean attraction to only people who are outside the gender binary, it means attraction where gender isn’t a factor.
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| Polysexual Flag |
Almost all sexual orientation is based off of gender. Hetrosexual is the same gender. Homosexual is the opposite gender. Bisexual is the same and opposite gender. It all factors down to who you are gender-wise. Polysexual is different. It is the mantra of ‘I like who I like, regardless of gender.’
The most difficult thing I had to grasp about polysexuality was the difference between it and pansexuality and bisexuality. Polysexuals like everyone, the word ‘poly’ even means many. How is this different from bisexuality and pansexuality?
Both of these are focused on gender, with ‘bi’ being two and ‘pan’ being all. Bisexuals and pansexuals feel attraction to gender, whereas polysexuals do not. Though polysexuals may feel attraction to a lot of people like bi and pan people do, it’s just not in the same way. To quote someone’s description of why they identify as poly, ‘I fell in love with people, not plumbing’.
All in all, polysexuality is a completely different way of looking at the nature of sexual attraction, and definitely something I think more people should know about.
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