Sexuality

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Kirjava said:
However, do you really think sexuality can be measured correctly? I don't think you can really rate how much you like a certain gender compared to the other, only how much you like specific people."
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Yes like I said (after this post), it's a statistic based on previous data that can be used as a loose predictor of future behavior. The wonderful thing about statistics is that they inherently cannot be matters of black and white. So just because someone has only been with members of one sex their entire life, it does not preclude them from being with someone of the other sex in the future.

tl;dr: "Sexuality" is a measure of probability.
 
I like a lot of these posts, I really like the quote Chris Hardwick posted.

Kirjava out of curiosity, when did you first have a girlfriend?


I think bisexuality is natural, but how society views it has changed the look of many people on that natural (mentality?)

Most of my friends have the same views as me on this subject, and usually I don't make friends with very close minded people.
 
Kirjava said:
However, do you really think sexuality can be measured correctly? I don't think you can really rate how much you like a certain gender compared to the other, only how much you like specific people.
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Good point. Also depends on who you happen to meet, if you're bi and only happen to come across hot girls and ugly guys, you might end up on the hetero end of the scale just because of that. Well, I think you gotta take that scale for what it is - it measures what it measures. Apparently it was introduced to challenge the idea that people can be neatly divided into hetero and homo and to demonstrate the continuum in between.

“It is a characteristic of the human mind that tries to dichotomize in its classification of phenomena….Sexual behavior is either normal or abnormal, socially acceptable or unacceptable, heterosexual or homosexual; and many persons do not want to believe that there are gradations in these matters from one to the other extreme.”
-- http://www.kinseyinstitute.org/research/ak-hhscale.html

It can't 100% accurately measure your preference, but it certainly is more accurate and useful than just black-or-white classification.
 
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Yeah, I'm strongly in favor of homosexuality, even though I'm straight. I have very close relatives of mine that are gay and my mother has always been around gay people growing up.

In my opinion, this topic should never be brought up, considering gay people are just as normal as straight people, only the tiniest bit different. Also, I think that somebody already said this, but it's very similar to the discrimination against blacks.
 
Kirjava said:
I think that the main thing keeping people in 'heterosexual' or otherwise mindsets is not being open to allowing themselves to feel anything else, and even going to the point of deluding themselves into ignoring feelings that they don't see as acceptable. Maybe if people weren't so tainted by thoughts like this they'd come to the realisation that gender simply isn't as important as how much you like a specific person.

I find it hard to believe that someone could say that they would never be attracted to someone that doesn't fit within their spectrum of sexuality. How can you be so sure? Just because it's not happened so far doesn't mean it never will. Sure, if you keep telling yourself that and don't allow anything to happen - it never will. However, I'm sure that if you didn't refuse thoughts like this they may stumble into your brain sooner or later. You may even enjoy them!
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So if I don't want to suck some dude's dick, I'm close minded? Not everyone is pansexual.
 
cuberkid10 said:
Relationships aren't always about sex..
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Sex isn't always about relationships...

I'm gonna edit this post, because thus far I haven't really added anything.

Basically, I really couldn't give a toss what/who anybody does/doesn't. Ultimately its up to them (or indeed not).

This nature/nurture theory gets used for anything - criminals, drug addicts etc. I'd probably side with the nurture with these two examples, but as far as sexuality is concerned - I'd probably opt with nature.
 
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cmhardw said:
I love Louis C.K.'s take on sexuality. His view is that discrimination based on sexual preference is one of the strangest discriminations there is. When a group racially discriminates against another race, as Louis puts it, and I'm paraphrasing here as I don't remember his exact words, it goes something like "You people are terrible, get away from us. Go over there and be with each other, don't be near us." But with discrimination based on sexuality, more specifically discrimination against any sexuality that is non-hetero, the phrasing is more like "You people are terrible, come over and be with us (other heteros). Don't be with each other, that's terrible! Be with us!"

In regards to sexuality I'm generally of the opinion that people should be whatever it is that they are, as long as being who they are does not infringe on the rights of another person to be happy and be who they are. People don't choose their sexuality, they are who they are. Discriminating against a person for their sexuality is no different than discriminating against them for the color of their skin, or where they were born.
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Louis CK is the man!
 
DavidWoner said:
tl;dr: "Sexuality" is a measure of probability.
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We spoke on IRC about this and I think it's a nice way of looking at it - I'd never considered it like this before.

This is how sexuality /should/ be viewed.

Cool Frog said:
Kirjava out of curiosity, when did you first have a girlfriend?.
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idk I was like 14. Lasted for a week lol.

Stefan said:
It can't 100% accurately measure your preference, but it certainly is more accurate and useful than just black-or-white classification.
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True, I guess it's like how High School Exams measure how good you are at High School Exams. Not an exact measure of intellect, but related.

aronpm said:
So if I don't want to suck some dude's dick, I'm close minded? Not everyone is pansexual.
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You're seriously misinterpreting what I was saying.
 
Kirjava said:
XY/XX/etc is pretty clear cut. You're thinking of gender identity.
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I thought the physical stuff was sex and the emotional stuff was gender?

Anyway, back to the original question: I feel like for a lot of people, sexuality is fluid, for whatever reason. And even for people that ID as monosexual, there are 'exceptions' (though maybe not many). I remember seeing a stat somewhere (not completely sure of its validity, but it's interesting nonetheless) saying that a tiny amount (~2%) of people only ever felt attraction to one sex exclusively without any exceptions, though many people have a stroooong preference to one sex or the other.

And, in the end, I don't think it really matters what other people ID as. If it's a result of closemindedness, then they're really the only ones that are losing.
 
The gender argument brings up a question of compromise: for someone who's only interested in women (for instance), how much compromise is acceptable? Could you be physically attracted to a woman who is congenitally infertile? How about someone who is biologically female but mentally identifies as male (pre-treatment transsexual)? How about someone who looks female but is genetically male? How about a man who looks and acts just like a woman, until you look very closely? And so on. I guess what I'm really asking is, on the deepest level, is the attraction to the gender itself, or to characteristics that almost entirely fall on one side of the gender spectrum?
 
17, 'Christian' ( in my own little nitsche...I hate people who are all uptight on religion )
i'd consider myself 100% straight....i've never been attracted to other men, and I have a huge problem with people that think it's okay to be telling other people how they should feel about things. I don't think one should even care about the sexual identity of others if all they're going to do is hate.

On the compromise thing....i believe attraction is a mix of physical and emotional attraction and not of the straight 'i like this gender' or 'i like this gender' type in those cases. You can be attracted to the female personality without being physically attracted to them. Or vice versa and swapped.
 
15/ Undecided, atheist at times, but mostly Christian (Methodist)

musicninja17 said:
17, 'Christian' ( in my own little nitsche...I hate people who are all uptight on religion )
i'd consider myself 100% straight....i've never been attracted to other men, and I have a huge problem with people that think it's okay to be telling other people how they should feel about things. I don't think one should even care about the sexual identity of others if all they're going to do is hate.

On the compromise thing....i believe attraction is a mix of physical and emotional attraction and not of the straight 'i like this gender' or 'i like this gender' type in those cases. You can be attracted to the female personality without being physically attracted to them. Or vice versa and swapped.
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I really doubt this. I'm sure there has been a time when you've looked at an attractive (according to most) man, and thought that he was good looking. I know I've done this. I'm straight, but there are those moments (like Athefre said) where you think "I could see myself being into that eventually". It's natural to be curious; To wonder what it would be like, or perhaps even imagine it.

I have no problem with people with a different sexual preference than I. I view discriminating people based solely on their sexual orientation as racist, and just as bad IMO, in general, as hating blacks.

All in all, ignorant people are ignorant. Gays are just the same as everyone else. They like sex. So do you. Just think of them as someone whose favorite sex position is different from yours.

--I may add to this later--

EDIT: Also, a question for you all (stolen from PKA (a podcast)): If you were married and magically switched bodies with your spouse. Would you have sex just to see what it was like?
 
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