I keep bumping into a strange place where modern words and ancient myths do not line up very neatly (I mean who would think, right?).
The people who coined pansexual were not generally thinking, βI identify with the behaviour of Pan.β They were using the Greek prefix pan- meaning βallβ or βevery.β
It is the same pan as in pantheon (all gods), panorama (all-view), or pandemic (all people).
So linguistically, pansexual means attraction that is not limited by gender categories, not attraction modeled after the god Pan.
That saidβ¦
My brain has tripped over this for years, because if you have actually read the myths, Pan is a hilariously unfortunate mascot.
Pan is less βlove transcends boundariesβ and more: βI saw a thing. I chased the thing. The thing fled. I continued chasing the thing.β
Repeatedly.
The Greeks were not exactly writing him as a model of enlightened consent.
He represents raw instinct, fertility, lust, wilderness, and appetite. He is desire before civilisation has taught it manners.
Which is why I chuckle a little when modern people imagine Pan as some gentle woodland free-love deity (see: Percy Jackson).Β
The ancient Greeks would be like: βNo, no. That is the goat-man we told the children to avoid.β
He is closer to the personification of unchecked impulse than he is to modern ideas about sexuality.
In fairness, though, most modern identity labels have drifted pretty far from their mythological roots.
Take βnarcissism.β Most people know the psychological meaning, but Narcissus in the myth is a much weirder figure than the clinical concept.
Or βpanic,β which actually comes from Pan. The Greeks believed his sudden presence could cause irrational terror in travelers. That is literally where we get the word.
So Panβs most enduring legacy might not be sexuality at all.
It might be causing people to sprint out of forests for reasons they cannot explain.
If Dionysus is the unsettling invitation written in your own handwriting (that party you went to and decided to never speak of it again? Yeah, that one), Pan is the sound in the bushes that convinces you to walk faster without ever turning around. One asks you to question reality.
The other reminds you that you are still an animal. And sometimes that is a much scarier realisation.
