I’m tired of the Gun Battle of the Sexes. Why don’t we discuss sex and sexuality directly instead? I liked/didn’t like this Huffpo article because it was pretty friv, but it’s as good a starting place as any…
I especially dug the first comment: “i always thought a ‘Queerplatonic Relationship’ was ‘Best Friends’, so does that mean i need to call my BFFs ‘Zucchini’s’ now?”
[Categorized dizzy because, ya know, it has no category]
Eh, I’ve been using the term “gray bisexual” because I’m mostly attracted to women, but penises don’t bother me at all, and most of the time I’m asexual anyway. I’ve had experiences with both guys and gals, and can say I like both for different reasons. But really it’s more like “gray whatever”. I’m not bothered by really any configuration of being, so why limit myself to strictly male and female? I have trans friends, and they’re just as attractive to me as anyone else, so bisexual doesn’t really cover it.
Before the prozac broke my sex drive, I basically was attracted to anyone who flirted with me, male female trans whatever. I still sorta feel that way, but I’ve been living in gray land a long time, and don’t really get out much anymore.
I’m probably a craniosexual, truth be told. Brains excite me, and so I’ll pretty much gravitate over there to the nerd section. But when one of them starts to get too full of him or herself, I kinda gravitate away… unless we can salvage it with some funny stuff. But as far as the act itself, hetero. (Lots of straight & gay & all over the spectrum friends, so no bias, either.)
I’m kinda that way too. People who can make me laugh get a big head start, and people who are able to intellectually frustrate me outright turn me on. What can I say? I like being proven wrong.
That sounds like a challenge and I am NOT biting. We need to leave room for other folks here, OK???
My sexuality is kind of unusual, I guess. I am genderqueer/fluid and consider sex to be a very open, free, everyday thing. My outlook is that sexuality is integral, very much a part of life, society, and everyday social relationships. So, the paradox is that my sex life tends to be closed off and separate, because this is how the people I live near require it to be. I live in a culture where people speak of sex with awe, but where it is required to be separate and hidden away. So I tend to feel that most people are being antisocial for having schizoid sexual identities, while they think I am antisocial for not internalizing their rather arbitrary hang-ups.
In my younger years, I thought that I was trying to save myself embarrassment by being less forward sexually. But as I have gotten older, it has seemed more obvious that I am sparing the feelings of others who are themselves easily embarrassed. I try, to what limited extent I can, to be an activist for kid’s sexual freedom, because this seems to be when they are expected to “socialize” the contradictory neurotic shameful nonsense around them. People tend to get quite hot and irrational about this! I prefer to break the cycle of prudery.
My own problem, as most people are concerned, is that I consider intimacy to be a primarily intellectual and aesthetic thing. By “aesthetic”, I mean not what people look like, but rather arts and sensuality generally. Apparently, this is uncommon and frowned upon, with most people apparently considering intimacy to be entirely emotional and role-based. So I end up more or less blind as to to why some relationships involve a sexual component, while others do not. For me, how people get together for sex (and most other activities) might as well be random. And as a consequence, most of my sexual relationships have indeed been more or less random, where I do not understand how or why I ended up with them. And, to my frustration, these tend to not be the relationships built upon my sort of intellectual intimacy either! Like a few others here have noted, the most attractive quality tends to be that someone is interesting.
Well that is like the worst of both worlds. And that is my biggest hangup as well. My wife, though we are both white hot angry with each other, has challenged me in ways that I am eternally grateful for (gardening and plant husbandry being a prime example). I couldn’t imagine being with someone intimately who didn’t have agency and intellectual vitality.
I totally get where @popobawa4u is coming from; I feel almost like another species - most folks are chimps, and we’re bonobos, waiting for all these repressed idiots to evolve.
I like this. People are speaking up and owning their story, keeping it real, no bs psychologizing about others. Honest communication.
#GROOPHUGG
Yeah, I think it’s more than just being intellectually challenging for me - I love when people have an independent mind and show curiosity and vision beyond their immediate environment. Sex is not unimportant for me, but sexual compatibility comes fairly low on my list of priorities - I can live without much sex much better than I can live without much emotional connection.
Asexual and greysexual seem odd as identities though - libidos change and while a low or absent interest in sex or romance is innate for some, for others it could be due to experiences, medication, children, environmental factors or other things. My wife was abused at different times during her childhood and while she had gotten over her general dislike of men by the time I came along, it was about six years after we were married before she was interested in sex to any great extent.
(ETA: I did know about this beforehand, so it wasn’t a shock that sex wasn’t that big a part of our relationship from the start)
I feel so boring after reading these stories. Just a regular married guy attracted to women in general and his wife in particular. Not concerned what other people chose to do with their genitals as long as it’s with adults and consensual.
Gender and sexualities are sliding scales and not black and white for everyone. However, describing feelings as sexualities really devalues the whole meaning. You can be aromantic as well as asexual, but only asexual describes your sexuality. You don’t need to label yourself.
The real thing that gets to me is the “demi” term. That’s how a lot of attractions are. You’re not special.
The huffpo comments are perfect here.
I don’t think any of the terms in the article describe me. Sexy women turn me on, as do sexy men but I only want to be intimate with men. So…I’m hetero but am turned on by any sexy person.
Sexy is sexy. It’s hilarious all the “no-homo” shit dudebros say to each other when paying a compliment. “Sweet abs dude, nohomo.” FFS, just pay the guy a compliment or shut up. It’s not that hard. If the other guy seriously thought you were hitting on him, then you could stop when he starts hitting on you. But that homophobic little “nohomo” just points out for all to see that you’re super insecure and scared.
I suppose it can be useful if you want to emphasise the fact that there is a continuity of positions, rather than the traditional few that are more well known. There are balances of different factors, but having names for points along the different spectra can open your mind to the possibility that you aren’t broken for having or lacking certain kinds of attraction.
I think a number of these identities are much more fluid, and you could be in relationships with different people that meet these different identities.
What is the dividing line between romantic, platonic relationships and close friendships? Is it important, or is it just another point along the line between close friendships and romantic relationships? Does it necessarily have anything to do with identity? Close (and sometimes exclusive) bonds between members of the same sex have an interesting history, including the kind of brothers-in-arms relationship, which has explicitly involved sex in some cultures. I always thought the relationship between Jonathan and David in the Bible was interesting - there’s no mention of sex, but plenty of romantic language which would be awkward for the more homophobic congregation. From the song David wrote when Jonathan was killed:
“I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan; You have been very pleasant to me. Your love to me was more wonderful than the love of women.”
There does seem to be evidence that women are generally more fluid than men. The article I linked to refers to the Kinsey test, which I failed. I didn’t know you could fail a personality test.
So you literally failed…“The test failed to match you to a Kinsey Type profile. Either you answered some questions wrong, or you are a very unusual person.” How could you answer a question wrong? I scored a two: “Predominantly heterosexual, but more than incidentally homosexual.” I did take issue with one question. I think it was true or false-you find sex with a woman repulsive. I answered false because I certainly don’t find it repulsive I just don’t have any desire to engage in it.
