Is Lando Calrissian Really Pansexual? Maybe Technosexual?

I came into this week ready to get things done! I spent my long holiday weekend rearranging my apartment, I ate fruit that wasn't blended into my ice cream, and I did some situps. I had my life together, and two ideas for incredibly incendiary, contentious articles to write that were sure to stir a conversation in the LGBTQ community.

Then my editor asked me to write an article for him about the Solo movie. The Han Solo movie, not just a single movie. OK, so it's a single film. Whatever, look, it's that new Star Wars movie about Han Solo. I haven't seen the film, to be honest, and I haven't been to the theater since I watched Dunkirk. Hey, Tom Hardy is the greatest actor who spends most of the movie in a mask, and I will die on this hill.

I knew what my editor wanted me to write about, which is that Donald Glover announced that his character; intergalactic cape model Lando Calrissian, was pansexual. Cool, happy to opine about it. Then he told me the catch: He's pansexual because his love interest in the movie is a robot. I thought, I don't have enough weed for this. Fine. I'll do it.

Does being romantically attracted to a sentient droid make you pansexual? Is this representation of pansexuality a step forward for progressive representation of nonbinary sexualities? Or is this a step backward and mocking of pansexual people? I say these are the wrong questions to be asking. The first and foremost question on all our minds is, Is the droid hot? Is she all bolts and stiff plates, and does she walk like C3PO? You know, like she has a too-large toy up her butt? Like, I dunno if I could get into any droid whose boobies were just hammered out of sheet metal like a female RPG video game character's armor. Now, if she's all like liquid metal so they bounce, I'm on board. Hey, don't judge me, little Miss Sex Toy.

You know you're interested in how many settings the droid comes up with and if they're water-based lubricant safe. These are the hard-hitting questions we need answered. Oh, by the way, if you want a hard-hitting droid you need the BDSM model. Do not ask about the accessories that come with the Japanese models. Or do; I won't judge. There's no kink-shaming when it comes to hot man-on-droid action.Yet these are the things we all want to know when it comes to being intimate with R2D2F.

Is this a positive representation of pansexuality? Look, man, I don't know. I mean, if Lando was shagging a shaggy wookie -- we know Wookies have gender. Though that just raises the question of if that counts as interracial, bestiality, or being a furry. Dude, I do not want to go crawling through erotic fan fiction websites to get the consensus of the fandom; those are some dark, twisted places not even the most twisted minds of the German kink scene want to visit. It's like Elder God madness-inducing. I've gone through the wiki page on Issac Asimov, and apparently, he really didn't get too deep into it, though his Third Law of Robotics (a robot must protect its own existence) raises extra questions about hard-core BDSM play. I even tried asking Dan Savage to get his take on this, and he couldn't give an answer because he was too busy asking who I got his private number from.

Apparently, there's a whole ASFR scene out there. Oh, ASFR stands for Alternative Sexuality Fetish Robots, and enthusiasts call themselves "technosexuals." It's apparently a thing that goes back to the movie Metropolis. It's a German silent film from 1927. Look, there are other things than Drag Race, people, get some culture. Now, having spent my time among the kinker types, I can tell you, the attraction to robots can be pansexual. Ish. Yes indeed, they have gay, straight, male, female, cis, and trans droid porn out there.

Now, does this really mean that pansexual includes robots now? I mean, Facebook gives you something like 33 gender identities to choose from, and technosexual isn't one of them. Though to be fair, it is one on Tumblr, so take that how you will. I mean, we're talking about something that is a few decades away from being a real debate, and no, your Real Doll doesn't count. You guys know what a Real Doll is, right? It's an $8,000 rubber latex customizable and posable sex doll that comes in all gender identity options. A perfect treat for your incel friends whose BitCoin mining finally paid off. Yet it still doesn't count as a gender.

Wait, is this even legal? Can droids consent? Apparently it is canon that droids are fully sentient, emotion-having, self-aware creatures. So yeah, I guess a droid can consent. But what is the age of consent for a droid? Is sleeping with one after the warranty period considered a granny droid fetish? Do morally bankrupt young droids pursue wealthy meat people in order to get their money? This just raises further questions! Though further searches through Wookieepedia, the Star Wars wiki, it turns out that droids are a slave race in the Star Wars universe. Yikes. That's a whole extra thing to unpack.

Really, though, can Lando be called pansexual because he's ready to do a droid? Sure, as long as he's down to tap a trans Twi'lek, do a Dathomirian dude, or suck face with a Sullustian sister as well. Those are all different races in Star Wars, if you were wondering. Yeah, calling Lando a pansexual is probably a stretch without further context or reading into his interactions with other characters (oh, the tension between him and Lobot), and it's not the greatest representation, for sure, but the fact that they can so casually introduce a sexuality that is so underrepresented or even known about at large is a hell of a leap forward. That and how Donald Glover is just so cool with it, like it's just another thing, is pretty cool in and of itself. Yeah, it'll get better for pansexual folks out there, but look at it this way; it's Star Wars canon now, and that's better than what transgender folks have got going other than a muddled and off base episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Shit. I just realized I didn't make a single Battlestar Galactica joke.