Yeah the “bisexuals are monogamous” one was brand new to me, one of the weirder ones. I can’t tell if it was meant to be a joke or not.

But is there really a difference, then? Both words communicate the same thing, i.e. being attracted to multiple genders. Anything beyond that is so subjective as to not really be meaningful beyond prescriptive queer discourse.

So the definitions I’ve seen here are:

• Bisexuals are only attracted to cis people, pansexuals are attracted to cis, trans, and nonbinary people
• Bisexuals are only attracted to binary genders, while pansexuals are attracted to all genders
• Bisexuals are attracted based on looks, pansexuals are attracted based on personality (possibly means they’re demi too)
• Bisexuals are attracted to people because of gendered characteristics, pansexuals are attracted to people regardless of gendered characteristics (not really sure what this one means, different wording of the previous one?)
• Bisexuals aren’t attracted to GNC people or androgyny, pansexuals are attracted to all gender presentations
• “Bisexual” is transphobic, pansexual is the more inclusive one
• Bisexual has always been inclusive, pansexual was unnecessary and is transphobic and/or biphobic
• Bisexuals are attracted to more than one gender, pansexuals are attracted to all genders
• Bisexuals are monogamous, pansexuals are polyamorous
• Bisexuals like the bi flag, pansexuals like the pan flag
• Plus various other joke definitions

Did I miss any? A couple of these were new to me. Innovations in the discourse?

I think the problem is that identifying as pan vs bi doesn’t really communicate anything, because there’s not a meaningful consensus of what either word means in relation to the other. The definitions vary wildly depending on who’s using them, so you have to clarify either way and you may as well just explain your sexuality in more direct terms if the nuances matter.

That has nothing to do with being bisexual or not though. I might not be into bodybuilders “exhibiting their masculinity” by being absurdly jacked, but that doesn’t make me not bisexual. I’m just not attracted to that particular gender presentation.

I think when people say “I’m not attracted to trans people” they have a particular idea of a trans person in their head, but plenty of trans people pass and some go “stealth”. “We can always tell” is patently false. I suppose I can imagine a person who is so caught up in gender who would be turned off if they found out someone is trans, but I find it difficult to imagine anyone not asexual who wouldn’t find some trans person initially attractive, at least post-op.

I agree with your last point though. At this point I’ve mostly given up on pansexual/bisexual and just call myself queer.

This is transphobic because it insinuates that trans people are some third gender rather than their actual gender. There is nothing about bisexuality or the “bi” prefix that would imply that bi people are only attracted to cis people unless you believe that trans and cis people are separate genders.

Nonbinary people, on the other hand, I can see how “bi means two” can be conflated to mean bisexuals can’t be attracted to nonbinary people although I think that ignores the history of the term bisexual, as well as ignores the reality of nonbinary genders, i.e. you can’t necessarily tell someone is nonbinary by looking at them. I think when people say they’re “not attracted to nonbinary people” if they’re not bigoted they likely mean something like not being attracted to androgyny, but not all nonbinary people present androgynously.

You’re greatly stretching the definition of fascism here. You’re more describing fascism roleplay than “non-evil fascism”.

Sure, if you read a book and never tell anyone you did it you aren’t participating in fandom. My point was more about people who continue to be “Harry Potter fans” and explicitly do participate in fandom (posting about it, writing fanfiction, whatever) despite not wanting to support Rowling.

The argument goes that while pirating doesn’t inherently support the author, continuing to participate in fandom perpetuates the cultural influence that the author has in society and can encourage others by proxy to go spend money on the author’s work.

“Daddy issues” isn’t a kink term, and entirely refers to having a poor relationship with one’s father. I think you mayhe misread their comment as claiming it was a kink term?

The whole disagreement is that they think its lightly misogynistic to say that the only reason to engage in CG/l, or diluted versions of it like calling your partner daddy during sex, is because you had a bad relation with your father. In other words, using the term “daddy issues” at all was the issue, and you doubled down in this comment.

You can literally see the part where the user instructed Claude to tell them the color it was thinking of… Is that part of the joke?

Yeah I’ve since learned that this is not actually correct. I’m not sure where I got that from.

Most of the 69 jokes I’ve heard are from teenage boys (or the teenage at heart) who barely know what 69 refers to, it’s just the “sex number”. If pressed they could probably tell you what it means specifically but I think most of the time it’s just “funny because sex” not any statement on the act itself.

I don’t see why a sex joke would only be funny if it’s about an act you would personally do. If anything, it seems to me that people would be more likely to joke about a sex act that seems weird to them.

The problem with a political interpretation of HDG is that it’s at odds with the fantasy escapism of being tamed by a plant monster that wants what’s best for you.

Fundamentally, the Affini are bad. Their ideology is rotten and hypocritical and in real life it would not work out the way it does on the page. If you try to think about the political implications of HDG at all you will inevitably run into that. “Benevolent slavery” simply isn’t a thing.

But there’s plenty of fiction that explores evil empires, the point of HDG is to have fun with the kinky idea of “what if a hot plant turned me into a pet?” Exploring the politics of the situation inevitably detracts from the fantasy of it being benevolent.

Calling the Culture anarchocommunism is somewhat accurate. Humans do have say in what goes on in the Culture, there are humans in high ranking roles in the Culture making decisions. Humans aren’t pets in the Culture, and Minds don’t own humans. Humans are only pets in the sense that Minds are superintelligent AI that largely do all the work to run society while humans live post-scarcity easy lives, but they are ostensibly equals.

Here’s some background from the author: http://www.vavatch.co.uk/books/banks/cultnote.htm

HDG is kind of like what anti-Culture propaganda portrays the Culture as, but more rapey.

The Affini are just Rogue Servitors from Stellaris but plants instead of robots. I love playing as Servitors and collecting aaalllllll the little pets~

I think it’s a bit of a double entendre, because it’s also referencing this specific part of the report:

As the stock of “femboys” rose, the fate of porn featuring “straight” guy porn has fallen. Searches for “straight” on PornhubGay tumbled nine spots to 19th place, just above “cruising” and two spots below “cute femboy.” (Notably, “straight guys first time” is still in the 6th spot, though it was knocked out of the top five.)

So “straight” guys are “out” as a gay porn category and femboys are “in”.

Really the appropriate term for that is versatile, switch refers to kink roles. In this context I read the post as referring to tops who are switches, but I suppose it could refer to someone who is either a top or vers if they were using a more loose definition.

It’s perfectly appropriate to use thorn for all th sounds, eth existed in Old English and modern Icelandic but it wasn’t a thing in Middle or Early Modern English, unlike thorn. Old English is basically unrecognizable as English though, so this dialogue is faux Early Modern English. Most people who use thorn in English nowadays are drawing from the Early Modern usage.