Sexual identity labels on television

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As a man who calls himself both pansexual and gay I can understand some people’s confusion and have experienced their discomfort.

Indeed, this kind of sexual ambiguity asks more of viewers, who’ve grown comfortable with the sort of gay-straight split embodied by “Will & Grace.” We can become disoriented watching a character’s sexual dis-orientation. On Internet boards, fans of “The L Word” have been critical of Jenny’s ambivalence, impatient with her flighty back-and-forths, wanting her to land. She’s viewed as the Anne Heche of TV’s lesbian clique. And her psycho-sexual vagueness challenges gay people as much as it does straights, as it suggests that the separatist, “we’re-completely-different” paradigm may not be iron clad.

Matthew Gilbert, Boston Globe: Sexual identity getting difficult to keep straight