pansexualism

pansexualism

English

Etymology

Attested since 1917 (a few years earlier than pansexual, which see for more).

Noun

pansexualism (uncountable)

1. (psychology, historical) The psychological theory that all human activity (mental and physical) is based on sexuality.
   • 1981, Richard Wollheim, Sigmund Freud (Cambridge University Press, →ISBN), page 114:

     And so we are back at pansexualism. It cannot, however, be too often insisted that, though Freud heavily emphasized the element of sexuality in human nature, he utterly rejected pansexualism, which he regarded as a travesty of his theory; and on many occasions he explicitly and energetically denied the equation of all instinctual life with sexuality.

   • 2017, Christopher Christian, Morris N. Eagle, David L Wolitzky, Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Conflict (Routledge, →ISBN):

     [W]e are positing that theoretical pansexualism is but the reflection of a real pansexualism, that is, of a movement by which sexuality reinvests the entirety of human activities. Sexuality is not everything, but it is everywhere.

2. (rare, chiefly derogatory) Pansexuality.
   • 2015, Amoakoh Gyasi-Agyei, Three Stages of Salvation: Heavenly-Oriented or Hell-Bound?: Foundations of Christian Theology (Partridge Publishing, →ISBN):

     9.10 Polysexuality and Pansexualism. The prefixes pan and poly originate from ancient Greek meaning all and many, respectively. A person identified as pansexual is gender blind. That is, such people can engage in sexual acts with people having any gender [...]. Polysexuality is thus a subset of pansexuality.

   • For more examples of usage of this term, see Citations:pansexualism.

Related terms

• pansexualist, pansexual