Poll: What is your sexual orientation?
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Heterosexual female. I did have an almost intimate relationship with one of my female friends once but I wasn't really sexually attracted to her and it was more like an experiment. Anyway that helped me figure out that girls don't turn me on therefore I'm probably not even bisexual.
It's alright, don't worry yourself over it too much, it's just a friendly debate.Greyfox105 said:
I'm thinking that a 'standard' scale of sexuality would probably resemble the following:
HetrosexualityHomosexuality
(this is assuming that the closer you get towards either side, the more open you are to the possability of it, hence why bisexuality would be the 'neutral' option)
I think that asexuality/non-sexuality would be more descriptive of the extent of your interest rather than where that interest is directed.
So the scale would be:
AsexualityNymphomania
I hope that's useful and/or interesting to everyone.
Yes, because you're surely making your sexuality public to everyone you know and do not know, and you will forever be judged by it, Sir John The Net Knight. Who knows how many opportunities in life you might miss?Sir John The Net Knight said:
...
See what I did there?
I'm female and...it's kind of strange. I've only had relationships with guys, but I know there are some women I just wouldn't say no to. Dunno whether I'd want to spend my life with a woman but, as I say, I wouldn't necessarily say no. Kristin Bauer, anyone? Hehe.
EDIT: I didn't explain this very well. What I mean is, I wouldn't say I'm straight bi-sexual. I think it's more a matter of degrees for most people.
EDIT: I didn't explain this very well. What I mean is, I wouldn't say I'm straight bi-sexual. I think it's more a matter of degrees for most people.
Male, kinda weird. I don't find myself sexually attracted to anyone, so I would say asexual, but I do want a relationship with a female, and I do have a fetish that turns me on, so I don't know quite what to say...
Male - Heterosexual with frequent bouts of asexual feelings.
I don't really know why im like that, but sometimes I can just go for weeks, months and een years at a time without even thinking of the opposite sex in any type of sexual way. In fact, I have to actually try to do so in order to ever come out of these bouts of sexual aloofness, and even when I try and the timing isn't right, im not affected at all by any sort of amorous feelings during that period.
I guess it's a side effect of having lead a life where I've always strived towards being the master of my impulses rather than being enslaved under them. Meaning that when I've been afflicted by impulses trying to make me act in a certain manner or do certain things which I woulnd't do normally I've beaten these impulses down internally and always tend to emerge as the winner of that inner conflict.
But, im not particularly troubled by being the way that I am, so I don't see it as an issue.
I don't really know why im like that, but sometimes I can just go for weeks, months and een years at a time without even thinking of the opposite sex in any type of sexual way. In fact, I have to actually try to do so in order to ever come out of these bouts of sexual aloofness, and even when I try and the timing isn't right, im not affected at all by any sort of amorous feelings during that period.
I guess it's a side effect of having lead a life where I've always strived towards being the master of my impulses rather than being enslaved under them. Meaning that when I've been afflicted by impulses trying to make me act in a certain manner or do certain things which I woulnd't do normally I've beaten these impulses down internally and always tend to emerge as the winner of that inner conflict.
But, im not particularly troubled by being the way that I am, so I don't see it as an issue.
Gender Binary: In gender theory, there's a differentiation between biological sex and socially assigned gender identity. Although in strict biological germs, there's a relatively large intersex community that throws the whole biological sex binary into some complication. That's not usually what's referred to here, but there's info out there if you're interested in it.
When people speak about gender binary, it's predicated on the idea that men and women have discrete characteristics or traits that are natural to their gender. Biological determinism posits that the gender attributes are tied into sex - which is which I suspect there's some confusion when the idea of a binary being opened up causes confusion. Examples of a biological determinist position include the idea that women are naturally better suited to the raising of children (note, raising, not bearing), housework, like pink and are poorly suited to leadership roles. This collection of ideas and others like it broadly are taken to be immutable, unchangeable and essentially true. It's almost positing an ontology of femininity that people participate in by virtue of having a vagina. Social constructivist theory, however, takes issue with this. It claims that men are capable of identifying with traditionally female / feminine 'traits' and vice versa. What it responds to is the conflation of traits at all with biological sets - it's essentially saying that you aren't a 'male' or 'female' by virtue of what you do, how you act or how you express yourself.
Men that like to bake and watch sex and the city don't magically lose their balls and women that like power-tools and gaming don't suddenly sprout knobbage. The argument for why people adhere to gender roles is assigned (broadly) to tradition, social pressures and cultural expectations, consolidated into what is sometimes referred to as a 'cultural script' - I.e; the roles / lines we're meant to say in certain situations. It's subconscious, largely socially defined and not absolutely and always true - but if you look around, you find tell-tale signs of it around and about quite a lot. The main point of criticism that SCs make of determinists is that there's a conflation of what happens to be incidentally true to being absolutely / universally / 'naturally' true. A case study can be found in the study of boys => blue, girls => pink trope of western society. Until 50 years ago, it was the other way round. Yet today, there are instances of evolutionary psychologists attempting to find (pseudo)scientific rationale for women liking pink because berries were pink-coloured in the distant, murky past of our species.
So, the aim of a social constructivist theory of gender is often emancipatory. People should be free to do as they will and express or define their gender identity as they see fit. As such, the binary of how we perceived gender in relation to particular traits / acts is broken down. If I want to make a cake - and I frequently do - then I can do so without feeling like I'm doing something violating cultural norms.
IMO, it's all a knock-on-effect of people operating in a post-modernist epistemological context. At least, in the west.
However, for the purposes of the poll I was assuming that the author was referring to male / female as markers for biological sex. So the in-depth discussion about the gender binary isn't strictly relevant.
Things get more complicated when you integrate class or race or consider transgendered / cisgendered as well. But then you're getting into more complicated and nuanced things-and-stuff. My favourite quote from a random academic whose name I've forgotten is 'Strictly and historically speaking, woman doesn't exist'. Yay for deconstruction taken to its logical conclusion!
When people speak about gender binary, it's predicated on the idea that men and women have discrete characteristics or traits that are natural to their gender. Biological determinism posits that the gender attributes are tied into sex - which is which I suspect there's some confusion when the idea of a binary being opened up causes confusion. Examples of a biological determinist position include the idea that women are naturally better suited to the raising of children (note, raising, not bearing), housework, like pink and are poorly suited to leadership roles. This collection of ideas and others like it broadly are taken to be immutable, unchangeable and essentially true. It's almost positing an ontology of femininity that people participate in by virtue of having a vagina. Social constructivist theory, however, takes issue with this. It claims that men are capable of identifying with traditionally female / feminine 'traits' and vice versa. What it responds to is the conflation of traits at all with biological sets - it's essentially saying that you aren't a 'male' or 'female' by virtue of what you do, how you act or how you express yourself.
Men that like to bake and watch sex and the city don't magically lose their balls and women that like power-tools and gaming don't suddenly sprout knobbage. The argument for why people adhere to gender roles is assigned (broadly) to tradition, social pressures and cultural expectations, consolidated into what is sometimes referred to as a 'cultural script' - I.e; the roles / lines we're meant to say in certain situations. It's subconscious, largely socially defined and not absolutely and always true - but if you look around, you find tell-tale signs of it around and about quite a lot. The main point of criticism that SCs make of determinists is that there's a conflation of what happens to be incidentally true to being absolutely / universally / 'naturally' true. A case study can be found in the study of boys => blue, girls => pink trope of western society. Until 50 years ago, it was the other way round. Yet today, there are instances of evolutionary psychologists attempting to find (pseudo)scientific rationale for women liking pink because berries were pink-coloured in the distant, murky past of our species.
So, the aim of a social constructivist theory of gender is often emancipatory. People should be free to do as they will and express or define their gender identity as they see fit. As such, the binary of how we perceived gender in relation to particular traits / acts is broken down. If I want to make a cake - and I frequently do - then I can do so without feeling like I'm doing something violating cultural norms.
IMO, it's all a knock-on-effect of people operating in a post-modernist epistemological context. At least, in the west.
However, for the purposes of the poll I was assuming that the author was referring to male / female as markers for biological sex. So the in-depth discussion about the gender binary isn't strictly relevant.
Things get more complicated when you integrate class or race or consider transgendered / cisgendered as well. But then you're getting into more complicated and nuanced things-and-stuff. My favourite quote from a random academic whose name I've forgotten is 'Strictly and historically speaking, woman doesn't exist'. Yay for deconstruction taken to its logical conclusion!
You left off alot of stuff on the list. Your poll just says straight or gay. There are like peeps that are autonomous. Or elements that enjoy things that aren't people, ie fetish and the like. And really, if you are bi, you are also gay just not as much, so thats redundant, but I suppose it helps carify a bit.
Ok to alleviate some questions here:
Difference between "sex" and "gender".
Gender being the scientific term - incredibly rare for it not to be binary: male/female. That's "what" you are.
Sex is how you consider yourself. "Who" you are. People who have a male gender, but have always believed themselves to be female for example. Thus you can have a different sex than gender (and some people rectify that with surgery).
Also sexuality is rarely a binary thing. Another aspect being who you are attracted to.
It is fairly well believed that as opposed to gay/straight there is a sliding scale everyone falls on, the majority of people being close enough to straight to not need to worry about the difference away from the end of the scale. Similar with the gay end of the scale, but plenty of people being right there in the middle or varying deviations along it.
That's not even yet giving the option for a "zero" response for non-sexuals.
So a simple 8 option technically doesn't come close to covering every aspect of the omni-directional graph you could derive for sexuality.
One which has to define the difference between a lesbian woman and a straight man born with a female gender.
As well as grades of sexuality: from excessively sexual to non-sexual.
Or on as many tangents as you like - sexuality towards animals perhaps.
However there really are enough options there to cover nearly all common areas of the graph.
All in all, nice blog.
Difference between "sex" and "gender".
Gender being the scientific term - incredibly rare for it not to be binary: male/female. That's "what" you are.
Sex is how you consider yourself. "Who" you are. People who have a male gender, but have always believed themselves to be female for example. Thus you can have a different sex than gender (and some people rectify that with surgery).
Also sexuality is rarely a binary thing. Another aspect being who you are attracted to.
It is fairly well believed that as opposed to gay/straight there is a sliding scale everyone falls on, the majority of people being close enough to straight to not need to worry about the difference away from the end of the scale. Similar with the gay end of the scale, but plenty of people being right there in the middle or varying deviations along it.
That's not even yet giving the option for a "zero" response for non-sexuals.
So a simple 8 option technically doesn't come close to covering every aspect of the omni-directional graph you could derive for sexuality.
One which has to define the difference between a lesbian woman and a straight man born with a female gender.
As well as grades of sexuality: from excessively sexual to non-sexual.
Or on as many tangents as you like - sexuality towards animals perhaps.
However there really are enough options there to cover nearly all common areas of the graph.
All in all, nice blog.
I'd call nonsexual straight with zero sex drive *shrugs*.
There aren't enough statistics but at the moment it definately is interesting that there's more homosexual and bisexual females than straight.
Yeah that's true. My girlfriend said she used to be bi when she was like 14.D4zZ said:
There aren't enough statistics but at the moment it definately is interesting that there's more homosexual and bisexual females than straight.
