Frompan- +-sexual. First attested in 1926 (withpansexualism attested since 1917), as a descriptor of the psychological theory that all human activity is based onsexuality.[1][2][3] Used to describe asexual orientation since at least the 1970s.
1970–1972 (printed in compiled form in 1973),Ramparts, page 25:
Karen and Carlos are definitelypansexual people who have paired off to have this child, and this seems real and good to them now. When I had been with Karen, she had floated through several gay relationships,[…] all my friends had been what I would callpansexual, avoiding the older term bisexual, which is meaningless when you can count more than two sexes.
1979, Karla Jay, Allen Young,The Gay Report: Lesbians and Gay Men Speak Out:
Obviously many women who answered the survey considered themselves bisexual in the past no longer do. Perceiving oneself as bisexual was often a stage of transition between heterosexuality and homosexuality. But others did consider and still consider themselves bisexual. Here are some stories of bisexual orpansexual women and some comments about [...]
1995, Owen McNally, “The Vigor, Venom and Wit of Gore Vidal”, inHartford Courant[1], archived fromthe original on30 June 2013, page E1:
As a writer/sexologist, he argues that people are neither homosexual nor heterosexual butpansexual.
1999, Steven Drukman, “Cumming Attraction”, inOut[2], page82:
CUMMING: Bisexual, I suppose... No,pansexual. Some bloke in a newspaper called me a "frolickypansexual sex symbol for the new millennium." I thought that was fabulous.
2004, John Leland,Hip: The History[3],→ISBN, page50:
To the end he [Walt Whitman] denied that he was homosexual; his writings arepansexual, finding carnal ripeness in the soul, in nature, as well as in men and women.
1998, Dossie Easton, Catherine A. Liszt,The Ethical Slut[4],→ISBN, page262:
We like to attendpansexual group sex parties, which means that attendees may identify as gay or lesbian or bisexual or hetero or transgendered, but are generally comfortable and happy to play side-by-side with people whose desires may be entirely different than their own.
Some people prefer this term tobisexual because of its acknowledgement of more than two genders.[4][5] Some other people dislike this term, either because they feel thereare only two genders or they feelbisexual includes more than two genders,[6] or they dislike thepolysemy ofpansexual. Similar arguments are made about the less common termomnisexual.
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