[user104658]

Originally Posted by Withano

I dont think ive said that at all. Bi people can be sexually attracted to people, pan people can not

Bi people can be sexually attracted to personality, pan people can too

There is a very key similarity, and a very key difference between the two sexualities.

But it's not a different sexuality - it's just a bi person who isn't attracted to people if they aren't attracted to their personality?

This is what I mean about thinking you might be hugely oversimplifying the "spectrum" if you will of heterosexuality. HUGE numbers of heterosexual men and women (and homosexual too I would imagine) do NOT experience "raw physical sexual attraction" that isn't based primarily in personality. It is the primary aspect of all sexuality.

I'm beginning to wonder if the roots of "pansexual ideology" comes from a basic misunderstanding of what constitutes "normal" hetero, homo and bisexuality... People noticing that they are primarily attracted to personality and assuming that this makes them "totally different" from most people when it just... Doesn't? They've just misinterpreted or incorrectly assumed how it works for others? Perhaps having seen the, admittedly very VISIBLE, section of society that engages in casual sex and not realising that those people are actually a relatively small minority?

Which really then all just comes back to tribalism, once again. There seems to be a very real social desire for people to be part of a "special subset of people", above and beyond the pursuit of individuality even, that I really don't hugely understand. Being able to say "I am an X/Y/Z, this person here is just like me, these other people over here are NOTHING like me" has become such a core part of people's basic sense of self... I suppose there must be reasons for that.