For someone who is purely playing with the pans in the kitchen 
and being attracted to all people regardless of sex, I find it difficult to sometimes not believe in free will and maybe give it more attention then it may deserve when looking for a partner. As a pansexual man its hard not to say that I do get to āchooseā who Iām attracted to. Iām curious if anyone else may have dealt with this and what information you can share.
Iām cishet but I fail to see how adding more choices to the menu says anything about freedom (or lack thereof) to choose those items.
If you step back and look at it generically, everyone has a universe of potential partners that they are attracted to; even if thatās filtered to one particular gender identity itās still billions of choices in principle. Yet practical considerations (time, geography, money) eliminates most of them up front. And then regardless of your gender or sexual identity you are going to be less attracted or even repulsed by some of the remaining choices. Letās face it, plenty of people are assholes, mendacious, or just plain annoying, even for short term relationship purposes. Not everyone takes showers or uses BO juice, etc.
I am having trouble with the idea of choice in sexuality - as in, one gets to choose their orientation. i think who one is attracted to is not a choice. Their choice of partner is a choice, but the feelings of attraction are not.
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Well a bisexual or especially a pansexual will claim they are equally attracted to anyone so they can choose whatever they want. IDK if Matthewās argument is therefore that a homosexual attracted purely to the same sex therefore has limitation of choice only in between their ears ā I donāt think so ā but yeah this is a slippery slope because if one has total freedom then the homophobes are right that homosexuality is āa choiceā and a casual one at that.
People are attracted to who they are attracted, no matter how narrow or broad that set of attractive people may be. We can have nuanced discussions of how much of range exists where at least some people can cultivate a taste thatās a bit outside their default, much as one can slather a hated food like broccoli with butter and salt and learn to like it (for some given value of ālikeā). But really canāt we just let people have their tastes and not try to āaccount forā it?
I think thatās my point. Where the problem lies is with people who claim there is a choice about who one is attracted to and that one shouldnāt make certain choices of who they are attracted to, and that one can be changed by ātherapyā to not make those choices. The problem I have is not about the choice of partner, but about characterizing who one is attracted to as a choice.
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So youāre in a crowded room, you look around, and say to yourself, āI think Iāll be attracted to the people with brown eyes tonight,ā? Is that how this āchoiceā works?
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Iām attracted to Atheist women. Not attracted to a woman once I find out sheās a Christian. I donāt care if this Christian girl looks like Megan Fox, not going to happen.
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More generically, perhaps you are āsapiosexualā ā attracted to intelligence
Iām pretty sure thatās not how attraction works, and very sure itās not how it works for me. I get to choose whether I act on attraction, and with whom, though at my age this isnāt saying much anymore, but I donāt make a conscious choice about who I find attractive, and of course attraction can involve more than physical appearance, well again it does for me. So it would be silly to pretend I didnāt find all sorts of women physically attractive, to whom I would be entirely incompatible, and vice versa.