From the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS):
“Today on Pansexual and Panromantic Pride Day, everyone deserves to feel seen, respected and supported—no matter who they love. Create a world where everyone feels proud to be themselves!” HHS declared in the tweet.
At first I thought ‘pansexual’ might refer to some bizarre kitchen fetish. I can’t see how something you use to cook scrambled eggs has any erotic appeal whatever, unless it is the non-stick aspect that attracts. Slippery is better…
But no, it turns out that pansexual is yet another point on the spectrum of gender identity politics. I found the definition on Google:
Pansexuality is sexual, romantic, or emotional attraction towards people of all genders, or regardless of their sex or gender identity.
For years there was a perfectly good term for this kind of thing: bisexuality. It meant that a person swung both ways. Guys used to joke, and perhaps hope, that their wives were three cocktails away from being bi. But in the modern era two genders are not enough, so a distinction has to be made. Again, from the Book of Google:
Bisexuality is being attracted to more than one gender, while pansexuality is being attracted to all genders.
This is a distinction without a difference in a binary world. Brumby Road is binary in many things: true/false, right/wrong, left/right. That would include male/female. We long nostalgically for the days of Smokey and the Bandit, when Hollywood could give us dialogue like this and not worry about whether is was politically correct:
Bandit: “Snowman, are you out there?”
Snowman: “I’m doin’ what I’m supposed to be doin’. What are y’all doing, he’n’ and she’n‘?”
Actually I kind of enjoy that some people like ‘he’n’ and she’n’, and some people like ‘he’n and he’n,‘ and some people like ‘she’n and she’n‘, and some people like all three. But really, isn’t that enough? How many permutations of romance and intimacy can we deal with? If there are n genders, then the number of combinations of pairings of 2 is
n + n!/2!(n-2)!
3 genders have 6 pairings. 4 genders have 10 pairings. 5 genders have 15 pairings. The formula is for the number of combinations of n genders taken 2 at a time and allowing for identical parings like ‘he’n and he’n’. It does not account for throuples or orgy numbers. Even Fibonacci numbers don’t grow fast enough for that.
I think 3 combinations of 2 genders is plenty, but I don’t much care who identifies as what, as long as they leave me alone and don’t scare the kids or the horses. What I really object to is that HHS, funded by taxpayers and staffed by overpaid and underworked Federal employees, uses money they confiscate from me to recognize and publicize this nonsense.
I hear the new administration is creating something called DOGE that is going to look into making the government more efficient and cutting out waste and silly spending. Start with the HHS employees issuing tweets to “Create a world where everyone feels proud to be themselves!”. Pave the streets and defend the country and leave us alone to find our own self esteem. If you are short I know people who have some to spare.
Rich Freggiaro Cycling Blog 