on being pansexual

So a little bit about me. I've known since I was 11 that I wasn't heterosexual. Where I am on the spectrum of sexuality has ebbed and flowed with time.  
 
Right now I'm a pansexual woman in a heteronormative relationship with a pansexual man. We've been together almost 8 years. We have the privilege of having a love the world doesn't discriminate against, but it doesn't change that we are at times attracted to other people, or fantasise about being with other genders. We don't get jealous about it.  
 
Early on in my relationship with my partner, I met a woman that literally floored me so hard I was unable to do my job properly (I was working as a hairdresser and she was my client. I didn't give her a terrible haircut, I just wasn't able to give her exactly what she wanted cause I was so distracted, and I got written up for it). We ended up becoming friends for a time, she was into poetry, and I invited her to an event that was going on in my area. I told my partner about her. It was never a big deal. He didn't get jealous, and more importantly he didn't propose we have some kind of threesome.  
 
Being pan or bi doesn't automatically make me want to fuck multiple people at the same time.  
 
I've had exactly one threesome, and we were all extremely wasted. I was the third wheel, who wished the guy we were fucking was somewhere else. They, very obviously, were more into each other than they were into me. Was the worst birthday present ever.  
 
My first kiss with a guy was gross. I was 16, he was 20. He literally tried to stick his tongue down my throat. It felt like I was trying to lick the inside of my mouth, more than he was trying to kiss me.  
 
First time I kissed a girl I was also 16. We were so nervous our teeth collided, but overall it was sweet and a bit awkward. I cried for 2 days straight afterwards because it was the most beautiful thing I had ever felt in my 16 years on Earth.  
 
My first girlfriend. I was so fucking in love with her. She was a terrible person. The early days of us sleeping together where beautiful and amazing and no one has ever made me cum as hard as she did, back when things were good between us.  
 
She broke my heart, and she broke me. I had a breakdown after our relationship ended, even though I was the one who left her. I spent time in a psyche ward, developed anorexia and discovered panic attacks.  
 
Found alcohol and weed and black men, and I was definitely a promiscuous little whore for a while.  
 
Would go on to hook up with my ex about 5 months after I left her. And we were fuck buddies for a bit, while I was also fucking a couple of different guys, none of who gave a shit about me, and one of whom was my drug dealer.  
 
My first time with a guy (consensually) was a terrible drunken one night stand. And I know people say size doesn't matter, but he had no idea what to do with the little that he had, and it was definitely a disappointment.  
 
One of the best kissers I've ever made out with was a gay guy. We were good friends and when we were sad or drunk or lonely, we'd make out. It was sweet and non-sexual, but omg that boy could kiss. He, of all people taught me the value of a soft kiss. And I honestly believe I'm a better kisser than I was, because of him.  
 
I can't tell you how many people I've kissed. I've made out with straight people, and gay people, and bi people. I made out with a straight girl at a party once just so it would help her get laid (it did).  
 
I've kissed a lot of people and felt nothing. Most of the guys I've slept with, I felt nothing. The sex wasn't good. I was too deep into addiction to care.  
 
Until I met the bio father of my daughter. Fuck he smelt so good. The sex wasn't the best, but he turned me on, and he made me feel special. Too bad I was the young dumb side chick who actually believed he'd leave his girlfriend for me. He didn't. My daughter has never met her father.  
 
Because of the amount of disconnected sex I having, even with mentioned sperm donor, it lead me to believe I was gay, because sex with men, it was meh, didn't really get it, and penises were gross. I mostly just slept with guys cause I thought that's what girls do.  
 
I also learnt that I can get off unless I'm in love with the person I'm sleeping with. So that ruled out casual sex. Didn't mean I didn't try though. Or that I didn't sleep with some disgusting people just because it felt nice to be wanted.  
 
2 years after my daughter was born I hooked up with my ex girlfriend again. Copious amounts of alcohol where involved. And like all bad addictions, once I had a taste I was well and truly screwed (pun intended) and I only walked away after her boyfriend found out she was fucking 2 (maybe 3) other people at the same time she was fucking him.  
 
She's the only woman I've ever been with. Though our relationship only romantically lasted 3 years, our entire relationship spanned closer to 7, with how many on and off affairs we had.  
 
My body count is 1 woman and 9 men. I didn't plan for it to be that way. It's not like I haven't sparked with women over the years. There was one woman I thought might lead into something more, but she broke it off with me because I was too smart, and I apparently (unintentionally) made her feel dumb. Sadly not the first time I've been rejected for my brains, or been told to shut up with my "big words". Apparently I'm an insufferable intellectual when I'm drunk or high. Well, that or I just dated and fucked down cause I had terrible self esteem.  
 
I also almost had an affair with a college teacher (woman) but I didn't feel it was ethical to do so, so I bailed out of that before it even got started. But there was a moment, and I chose to not take it.  
 
Before I met my now partner, I identified as a lesbian and had for years. But I met someone who made me question that. An intellectual man, who's entire personality revolved around his car. The first part was sexy, the second definitely not. We flirted for months, but ultimately there was no spark, and I remember he causally touched me once and I was so confused as to why he was touching me at all.  
 
When I met my now partner, there was a spark, intellectually, and physically. I sometimes wonder if I'm still mostly gay and he's my exception to the rule. He's the only man who's ever touched me where it didn't feel wrong. Sex with him has never felt wrong. Hands down, the best sex of my life and after almost 8 years it's still getting better. When we first got together we were so wrapped up in each other we would both forget to breathe when we kissed, and we were accidentally getting high off oxygen deprivation. I still have to remind myself to breathe sometimes, when we're kissing.  
 
I still have feelings for women. Have two crushes right now. One on a friend I should know better than to be crushing on, and the other on my yoga instructor.  
 
In general, women take my breath away, make me lose my words, turn my legs to jelly, give me crazy butterflies. Only time that happens with a man is if they're very very pretty, and it's never as intense.  
 
Sometimes I feel like I could easily cross emotional lines with women (and the occasional man) and have an emotional affair. Sometimes I definitely brush up against that line and shit gets blurry. I know better. And I want to be that person who doesn't flirt with that kind of thing.  
 
I am completely monogamous, or maybe monogamish. I'm not sure I can be poly, but that's more my own fear and insecurities from being cheated on so much when I was younger. I tried an open relationship with my ex girlfriend, because we were so young when we got together, but she just wanted free reign to do whatever she wanted, and then chuck a jealous hissy fit any time someone showed any interest in me.  
 
My ex and I were both femme. We got called fake lesbians a lot, got told we were bi for attention. I've been told by men that their dick can cure me. I've been told I'm going to hell; that's it's just a phase; that I and my family are cursed cause I like women. I've lost friendships with men after they found out I'm bi/pan because they thought it was suddenly okay to act like a weirdo and ask for a threesome, when a twosome was never even on the table. I have feared sexual assault, and been sexually assaulted.  
 
I left home at 17 because my father couldn't handle having a gay daughter living under his roof.  
 
Since having kids I'm a lot more closeted than I was in my teens. I know how cruel the world can be, and I wanted to shield them from that, even if it meant losing who I was.
 
I've struggled with my sexuality my whole life and I still do. I think maybe I always will. But I know who I am. And I'm okay with who I am. I'm not ashamed. But I'm at times still afraid. Afraid of judgement. Afraid of violence. Because I've lived through it all.  
 
The worst (emotionally) though, was when my previously openly queer girlfriend decided one day that she couldn't hold my hand in public, because people might see. Like, bitch, that's the whole fucking point, to be unafraid, to be true to ourselves.  
 
Nothing hurt quite as much as her shame. Like I wasn't loveable enough to be seen holding hands with. Like our love was less than every heterosexual person who could go out and public and not be afraid.  
 
I can hold my boyfriend's hand in public and it's beautiful, and no one fucking cares, because as far as the world is concerned, we're straight. (They'd get hell of a shock, though, if ever confronted with our porn history.) But it's also sad, because I lost that liberated feeling with women a long time ago.
 
I smile every time I see women holding hands or kissing in public. I was like them once. Unafraid. I wish I could feel that way again.