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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Why aren't most people at least a little bit bisexual?
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stonespring
Shipmate
# 15530
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Posted
I started a thread here earlier about why exclusive heterosexuality would be the norm from an evolutionary perspective but this thread isn't about that. This is about what goes on in a person's head and about why, unless someone is already in a monogamous relationship or believes it is morally wrong, anyone would not want to at least try having a sexual experience or a relationship with a different sex than the one they have focused their attention on already.
I'm 29 and have only been with men. I would really like to know what it is like to be with a woman but I'm probably too shy and lazy to try (men are just so easy to sleep with). Why aren't most "gay" men the same? As long as gays can have all the tolerance and acceptance and gay marriage that we want, what's stopping us from also experimenting with the ladies when we're not in a monogamous relationship with a guy?
Same thing with straight people. Let's say a straight person grows up without homophobia or much sexual repression at all. I know lots of young people like this. They are fervent supporters of gay rights, are completely comfortable with their gay friends, don't mind at all that gay people think they are hot, and don't worry that if they get all emotional and cuddly with friends of the same sex that they'll be perceived as gay (as if that was a bad thing). But most of them don't try any same-sex sex or relationships out. Why?
It's almost like saying, "I won't have any friends of the same sex because all my friends are of the opposite sex and I like the opposite sex better for friendship." (Or the same with having only same-sex friends).
Missing out on sexual intimacy with one half of the human population is not like missing out on sex on an airplane or some other fetish or fantasy. It's denying oneself a deeper understanding of what so much of human culture has been talking about. It's also missing out on a better understanding of how one sex or another - even one's own - functions sexually, romantically, and emotionally. So it basically seems like a win-win for most people to not set limits on themselves and just be bisexual until they find one person they want to be in a monogamous relationship with - if that ever happens.
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
I can of course only speak for myself, but the reason I've never had sex with a woman is that I've never felt the pull of attraction to a woman the way I've felt it toward various men.
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
My attraction is simply in one direction. I've no desire to try anything else. I've contemplated the why and determined that there simply exists no pull, no desire.
I disagree that I am "missing out," it isn't like food.
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Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Paul.
Shipmate
# 37
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by stonespring:
It's almost like saying, "I won't have any friends of the same sex because all my friends are of the opposite sex and I like the opposite sex better for friendship." (Or the same with having only same-sex friends).
My gut reaction is to say, "It's NOT like that at all (for me)" but I'm struggling to articulate why exactly.
Actually maybe it is the same in the sense that in I would pursue a friendship based on a positive desire to be friends with that person not just on the non-negative no-reason-not-to. But as I say that I realise that there are people I'm quite close friends with which started off in more general 'friendliness' and maybe the problem is that there's less gradation between non-sexual and sexual activity. Which means you're more likely to reach a definite point of decision i.e. "do I want to have sex with this person?" and act appropriately.
Whereas "do I want to be friends with this person?" probably doesn't come up in the same way. In fact in my experience it only comes up in a negative way, say if you found out some serious flaw, or that they were unpopular with other friends or family in a way that would be awkward.
That probably still all sounds a bit vague.
![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif)
Posts: 3689 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2004
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Friendship = relationship.
Sex =\= relationship
That is one factor. Even should one only have sex within a relationship, friendship is a different dynamic.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
What RuthW said (mutatis mutandis with the gender of our particular attractors and attractees). It might well be morally improving for me to have sex with a chap but to my sure and certain knowledge I have only ever fancied two of them. Where the ladies are concerned, OTOH, we are strictly talking sands on the sea shore, and all that jazz.
Let's put the shoe on the other foot. Why don't gay men and lesbians try out women and blokes, respectively. Wouldn't this lead to broadening of mind among our homosexualist brethren. Oh wait, I've just been right wing and offensive. I am Nigel Farage! Hear me roar!
Less facetiously most of us heterosexuals mostly fancy women (or, checking my privilege, men if we are women). Most homosexuals fancy members of the same sex. If it's not depravity in your case, I'm guessing it's pretty much not depravity in ours.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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Lori
Shipmate
# 9456
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Posted
If sex is just sex to someone and sex is just sex to someone else, then maybe those someones can just experiment: see how it feels, like or dislike, move on. Regardless of gender, regardless of age, regardless of ... well, anything: interests, friendship, communication (or lack thereof), or individual sexual attractions too - not just body shape or face shape, but also soft or rough, do this or do that.
Personally, though, I don't operate like that. I don't really understand staunch heterosexuality (except for religious reasons), and that's presumably because I'm (female and) bisexual (men, men, men in my younger years; then 33 years living with women; 2 years now married to a man) - but I have no desire to experiment. There are lots of categories of people (whether racial or situational) that I've never slept with but I don't want to 'just try it'.
quote:
Originally posted by stonespring:
Missing out on sexual intimacy with one half of the human population is not like missing out on sex on an airplane or some other fetish or fantasy. It's denying oneself a deeper understanding of what so much of human culture has been talking about.
But it is a bit like that. There are countries and cultures that are far bigger than my own - but I've never 'experienced' those people as lovers. Am I really denying myself a deeper understanding of them? No, I don't think that I'm denying myself that. It's just it has never happened. No more than it has happened that I had a partner with, say, one leg or with sixteen children. I'm sure that one-legged folk with sixteen children are fascinating and sexy people too, but I can't experience everything and basically I don't want to.
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
How is it odd, AO?
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Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Ad Orientem
Shipmate
# 17574
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Posted
It's odd because the OP gives the impression that sexuality is akin to experimenting with food. I don't have to be attracted to garlic to try it (I hate it, BTW) but as far as sexuality is concerned I'd have to be attracted to it before I doinked it, so to speak.
Posts: 2606 | From: Finland | Registered: Feb 2013
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
I agree AO. Though I would add one cannot be certain unless one has explored the possibility. Not the the extent of physical exploration, mind, but mental exploration.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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stonespring
Shipmate
# 15530
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gildas:
What RuthW said (mutatis mutandis with the gender of our particular attractors and attractees). It might well be morally improving for me to have sex with a chap but to my sure and certain knowledge I have only ever fancied two of them. Where the ladies are concerned, OTOH, we are strictly talking sands on the sea shore, and all that jazz.
Let's put the shoe on the other foot. Why don't gay men and lesbians try out women and blokes, respectively. Wouldn't this lead to broadening of mind among our homosexualist brethren. Oh wait, I've just been right wing and offensive. I am Nigel Farage! Hear me roar!
Less facetiously most of us heterosexuals mostly fancy women (or, checking my privilege, men if we are women). Most homosexuals fancy members of the same sex. If it's not depravity in your case, I'm guessing it's pretty much not depravity in ours.
Did you read my OP? I'm a man. I've only ever had sex and relationships with men. I think that there's an important part of life that I am not experiencing because I have not also had these experiences with women. I just don't really feel worthy of taking up a woman's time or subjecting a woman to my rather awful body and personality. Men are horny selfish bastards so they can have me if they want. But if I manage to become a better person, I think it would be interesting to develop a sexual relationship with a woman, if any woman on the planet would be willing to do so with me (and that's a big if).
Some people put sex on a pedestal. Therefore, once you enter lifelong monogamous sexual relationship with the right person, male or female, those people think that you don't need to worry about anything else. That's fine. I just think that there are a lot of people who claim to be 100% heterosexual or 100% homosexual, who don't have any particular religious reason to avoid sex with either sex, and who don't think that sex is on a pedestal at all. For such people sex isn't just a handshake or a snack - it's deep and meaningful, too. So, for these people with sex not on a pedestal, why do they feel so solidly in their monosexual orientation?
Maybe if I had sexual fantasies and thoughts about women I would feel more comfortable in saying that I'm bisexual and other people just aren't. But I don't have those thoughts about women. There are plenty of beautiful or smoking hot women in the world - and I am not turned off by the thought of having sex with them at all - but my safe mental orgasm place has pretty much always been with men. In spite of that, I still think sex and maybe even a relationship with a woman would be great. Maybe not a monogamous marriage, but lots of people don't want that either. Would I still have sex and relationships with men? Of course! I'm married to a man right now who knows all about this. He was married to a woman and doesn't want to ever have sex with a woman again. I have no idea why. He doesn't think any other man would want to have sex with him. I just have to find young guys who want him and then I hope I can find some pasty nerdy clean cut white collar slightly overweight tall guys (sigh) who like me and maybe also some righteous lady friends (in bed).
The eccentricities of my situation aside, it is the norm for a huge segment of society now to have quite a few years of sex before marriage that involves either strict serial monogamy or something a bit more multivariable. People can talk all they like about "adolescent experimentation" or being a "lesbian until graduation" (LUG). I'm talking about pursuing honest, open, loving, caring sex and/or relationships with whatever sex you aren't usually thinking about (if you're not bisexual to begin with) and seeing if it isn't something that you might want to be open to in the future.
What really bothers me is that some people read Romans 1 to say that it's fine for gay people to have sex with the same sex but that what the pagans were doing that was wrong was straight people experimenting with homosexuality for the fun of it. All I have to say to that is - grrr. Face it, sexual friction is either ok with people who have similar in and out parts to you or it isn't. I say it is, and it's also ok with different in and out parts. Why not broaden the parts that you can explore? (And broaden the kinds of parts that you allow to explore you?)
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
Until we find out what causes people's sexualities at all, asking why they aren't some other way may be interesting as something to discuss over beers, but it really is unanswerable with our current understanding.
If we knew a physical mechanism that controlled or influenced sexuality, and all the science said that we would expect that mechanism to produce situation X, and it really produced situation Y, then we can ask why not X. We're nowhere near that now with sexuality. So this whole question strikes me as a meaningless exercise in jaw-flapping.
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
More and more, studies show this stuff is more physiological than psychological.
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Hallellou, hallellou
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balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
If we knew a physical mechanism that controlled or influenced sexuality, and all the science said that we would expect that mechanism to produce situation X, and it really produced situation Y, then we can ask why not X. We're nowhere near that now with sexuality. So this whole question strikes me as a meaningless exercise in jaw-flapping.
I hope you are not talking chromosomes here.
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Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003
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balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
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Posted
I'm surprised no-one has mentioned the Kinsey scale yet.
It is a scale of degrees of gayness that goes from 0 to 6 where 0 = fully heterosexual, 6 = fully homosexual and 1 to 5 are degrees of bisexuality.
Why there are more 0s and 6s compared to the 1 to 5s is not explained.
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Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
As a teenager I did experiment. My friend (who turned out to be gay) and I had a romp under the covers - but it did nothing for me so I concluded I must be straight.
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Why aren't most people at least a little bit bisexual?
I thought the modern view was that we're all a bit bisexual? That doesn't mean everyone is inclined to 'experiment' - although increasing numbers probably do. There are still social and religious constraints against bisexual experimentation; SSM, for all the radical support it's received, promotes monogamy not variety.
From my point of view, being a Christian means I don't need to add extra sexual complications to my life, which is fine by me. But others take a different view.
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
The obvious answer is about evolution, isn't it? A species which is going to reproduce satisfactorily, requires an efficient method of reproduction. Most members of that species will conform to that method.
I am not good enough at mathematics, but some bright spark may be able to work out if being bisexual may be less reproductively efficient than heterosexual.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
The obvious answer is about evolution, isn't it?
Not as clearly as one might think. There are a number of species which exhibit behaviour such as the OP proposes and manage to breed quite well, the mallard being an obvious example.
But conflating behaviour between species is problematic, especially comparing to humans.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by balaam:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
If we knew a physical mechanism that controlled or influenced sexuality, and all the science said that we would expect that mechanism to produce situation X, and it really produced situation Y, then we can ask why not X. We're nowhere near that now with sexuality. So this whole question strikes me as a meaningless exercise in jaw-flapping.
I hope you are not talking chromosomes here.
You mean the X and Y? Nah, I'm a math teacher. Those are just variables.
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stonespring
Shipmate
# 15530
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Posted
Note that I'm asking about why gay people aren't tempted to try it out with the opposite sex just as much as I am asking about the other way around.
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
You might as well ask why people who like chocolate, don't like chocolate. After all, they could give it a go!
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
The obvious answer is about evolution, isn't it? A species which is going to reproduce satisfactorily, requires an efficient method of reproduction. Most members of that species will conform to that method.
I am not good enough at mathematics, but some bright spark may be able to work out if being bisexual may be less reproductively efficient than heterosexual.
Ant species seem to do just fine even though in most species a very small percentage of individuals reproduce.
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
Well, when one human being can lay thousands of eggs a day the way that an ant queen can, then one or two of the species reproducing could conserve the species, but as we tend to produce live young singly with occasional multiple births and it takes us most of a year to do that, only a few of the population reproducing would have the species die out rapidly.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
You might as well ask why people who like chocolate, don't like chocolate. After all, they could give it a go!
Not a good analogy - many foods are an acquired taste, but once acquired enjoyed very much!
[ 11. May 2014, 06:09: Message edited by: Boogie ]
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
You might as well ask why people who like chocolate, don't like chocolate. After all, they could give it a go!
Not a good analogy - many foods are an acquired taste, but once acquired enjoyed very much!
But that's not what I said. I said if you like something, have a go at not liking it. Maybe some people can do that.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
I used to take sugar in my tea - I weaned myself off if pretty quickly, now I don't like it.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
I used to take sugar in my tea - I weaned myself off if pretty quickly, now I don't like it.
Me too. I did the same with meat, which mainly makes me gag now. It's so meaty!
I suppose in some situations, e.g. prison, some people do jump ship sexually. Boarding schools maybe, and the House of Commons.
Oh, I forgot, I did it with Christianity as well.
[ 11. May 2014, 07:49: Message edited by: quetzalcoatl ]
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
Do men really jump ship in prison? It seems to be more complicated than that, although Kinsey reports quite high rates (in 1948).
I would be surprised if teenage boys were reporting those rates of homosexual experiences in the mixed communities most are growing up in. I have more experience of pressure on girls to be sexually active in teenage years and gay is such an insult that it's a rare teenager who identifies as gay.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
I suppose you could say that there is quite a lot of conservatism in people's sexual tastes. If you like women's bodies, and are not particularly bothered about men's dicks, or vice versa, there is no pressure to reverse this. As to why our tastes are relatively conservative, you could advance psychological, social, and biological causes, well, why not all of them. The fact that there are people who can butter their bread on both sides, doesn't imply that we all want to, or in fact, can.
The food analogies are interesting, but perhaps, like most analogies, unsatisfactory.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Fineline
Shipmate
# 12143
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by stonespring:
Missing out on sexual intimacy with one half of the human population is not like missing out on sex on an airplane or some other fetish or fantasy. It's denying oneself a deeper understanding of what so much of human culture has been talking about. It's also missing out on a better understanding of how one sex or another - even one's own - functions sexually, romantically, and emotionally.
So what do you make of asexual people then? By this logic, they must experience the ultimate in deprivation and lack of depth of understanding.
Posts: 2375 | From: England | Registered: Dec 2006
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Josephine
Orthodox Belle
# 3899
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Posted
Your question seems to imply that people want to have sex with "men" or with "women" or with some other category of person. It seems to assume that people are something to be experimented with. It seems, to me, to be deeply objectifying.
You say that "Missing out on sexual intimacy with one half of the human population" seems like a bad thing. But no one can be intimate, sexually or any other way, with three or four billion people. We all necessarily miss out on sexual intimacy, not with half of the human population, but with virtually all of it.
Unless, of course, you think that any person is pretty much interchangeable with any other person, in the same way that one steak is so much like any other steak that you would know by trying one whether you would like any of them. That idea seems repugnant to me.
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Posts: 10273 | From: Pacific Northwest, USA | Registered: Jan 2003
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Net Spinster
Shipmate
# 16058
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Well, when one human being can lay thousands of eggs a day the way that an ant queen can, then one or two of the species reproducing could conserve the species, but as we tend to produce live young singly with occasional multiple births and it takes us most of a year to do that, only a few of the population reproducing would have the species die out rapidly.
Reproduction is more than just birth. A baby on its own cannot survive for long (unlike let us say some frogs). A baby with just one caregiver to raise it to adulthood (e.g., the mother) also is unlikely to survive (think no community). A baby with just two caregivers is also unlikely to survive (again no community). A baby within a larger community had a much better chance along with other babies within the community. So how are such communities knitted together? Extended blood family, pair bonding, family (non-blood) connections, other. Different human cultures seem to have different methods. Does having gay relatives help in some cases (e.g., by providing aunts and uncles who don't have their own children and will provide care)? We don't know yet.
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spinner of webs
Posts: 1093 | From: San Francisco Bay area | Registered: Dec 2010
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Nenya
Shipmate
# 16427
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
Your question seems to imply that people want to have sex with "men" or with "women" or with some other category of person. It seems to assume that people are something to be experimented with. It seems, to me, to be deeply objectifying.
My sentiments exactly, expressed far better than I could have done it.
A bisexual acquaintance once said to me that surely we fall in love with a person regardless of what bits they have in their underwear, and I completely understood that. A number of my girlfriends that I've repeated it to also understood; a couple didn't and started to look decidedly uneasy. ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
I dislike the analogy between food and sex, although it's often drawn and I think we have the book "The Joy of Sex" partly to thank for that with its sections on Starters, Mains and Afters. ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
Nen - generally dishing up what's quick and easy and has been appreciated previously.
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
Your question seems to imply that people want to have sex with "men" or with "women" or with some other category of person. It seems to assume that people are something to be experimented with. It seems, to me, to be deeply objectifying.
You say that "Missing out on sexual intimacy with one half of the human population" seems like a bad thing. But no one can be intimate, sexually or any other way, with three or four billion people. We all necessarily miss out on sexual intimacy, not with half of the human population, but with virtually all of it.
Unless, of course, you think that any person is pretty much interchangeable with any other person, in the same way that one steak is so much like any other steak that you would know by trying one whether you would like any of them. That idea seems repugnant to me.
Sex =\= intimacy. Sex can just be sex. It needn't be objectification or harming if both/all parties agree to the parameters.
That said, I do not agree with this:
quote:
Originally posted by Nenya:
A bisexual acquaintance once said to me that surely we fall in love with a person regardless of what bits they have in their underwear, and I completely understood that. A number of my girlfriends that I've repeated it to also understood; a couple didn't and started to look decidedly uneasy.
I've had offers from multiple directions: however, regardless of the beauty of the body or beauty of the soul, the bits in the knickers matter to me. It isn't that I find any particular bits repulsive, it is that I only find some attractive.
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Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Jack o' the Green
Shipmate
# 11091
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Posted
I once had a discussion as part of a larger group with a Psychologist from Manchester University who was strongly of the opinion that we are all bisexual. In part, he used the argument that given the right circumstances e.g. a prison or boarding school, blokes will end up having sexual encounters with other blokes.
I felt I was in a bit of a no win situation, because by denying any circumstance where I could see myself being attracted to another man, I was either 'in denial', or hadn't experienced enough situations like prison to justifying being so adamant.
Suffice to say, if blokes just aren't sexually attractive to you, then it's not any sort of sacrifice not to have sex with one. We only feel a sense of lost opportunities for that which we wanted in the first place. Even curiously is only an issue when what might be discovered could also be agreeable in some way.
[ 11. May 2014, 17:35: Message edited by: Yonatan ]
Posts: 3121 | From: Lancashire, England | Registered: Feb 2006
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
But that article I linked to, reviewing the literature, said that not all men did end up in homosexual relationships in prison, The numbers found varied from something like 17% to 40% from the different research projects they'd found, so I'm unconvinced your psychologist is right. (I'd have to go and read it to find the exact figures)
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Josephine
Orthodox Belle
# 3899
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
We all necessarily miss out on sexual intimacy, not with half of the human population, but with virtually all of it.
Unless, of course, you think that any person is pretty much interchangeable with any other person, in the same way that one steak is so much like any other steak that you would know by trying one whether you would like any of them. That idea seems repugnant to me.
Sex =\= intimacy. Sex can just be sex. It needn't be objectification or harming if both/all parties agree to the parameters.
Sex, even if it's just sex, is always between persons. I think it is repugnant to say, "I want to try having sex with a [fill in the blank] to see what it's like." That's not treating the person as a person. That's treating them as a category. Saying that it's "just sex" doesn't make it any less repugnant.
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I've written a book! Catherine's Pascha: A celebration of Easter in the Orthodox Church. It's a lovely book for children. Take a look!
Posts: 10273 | From: Pacific Northwest, USA | Registered: Jan 2003
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
Both your posts are very well put Josephine and are the best answer so far to the OP.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
We all necessarily miss out on sexual intimacy, not with half of the human population, but with virtually all of it.
Unless, of course, you think that any person is pretty much interchangeable with any other person, in the same way that one steak is so much like any other steak that you would know by trying one whether you would like any of them. That idea seems repugnant to me.
Sex =\= intimacy. Sex can just be sex. It needn't be objectification or harming if both/all parties agree to the parameters.
Sex, even if it's just sex, is always between persons. I think it is repugnant to say, "I want to try having sex with a [fill in the blank] to see what it's like." That's not treating the person as a person. That's treating them as a category. Saying that it's "just sex" doesn't make it any less repugnant.
This is not what I am saying. I do not agree with the OP. I do not agree with the treating of people as a category.
I am not fond of the mythos which surrounds sex, I think it potentially exacerbates problems by inflating expectations. However, that is a discussion for a different thread.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Josephine
Orthodox Belle
# 3899
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
Sex, even if it's just sex, is always between persons. I think it is repugnant to say, "I want to try having sex with a [fill in the blank] to see what it's like." That's not treating the person as a person. That's treating them as a category. Saying that it's "just sex" doesn't make it any less repugnant.
This is not what I am saying. I do not agree with the OP. I do not agree with the treating of people as a category.
I'm sorry that I misunderstood you. I thought that you were saying that, as long as both people were cool with it, trying out sex by category was just fine.
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I've written a book! Catherine's Pascha: A celebration of Easter in the Orthodox Church. It's a lovely book for children. Take a look!
Posts: 10273 | From: Pacific Northwest, USA | Registered: Jan 2003
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
Equating bisexuality with sexual experimentation is grossly biphobic.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
I don't interpret the OP as saying that, exactly, Jade.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
I think the basic problem is thinking that, because there's some kind of 'scale', the usual expectation would be a bit of a normal distribution with most of us in the middle, and therefore there's something weird about most of being at one of the ends of the 'scale'.
I don't think that it's true, in biological terms, that there's a scale. Many of our genetic traits aren't scales, they're switches. On or off. There's a whole array of switches that are meant to be turned on or off on the basis of whether the sperm entering the egg carries an X chromosome or a Y chromosome. In a relatively small proportion of the population, not all the switches that are usually flicked in response to this event end up being flicked.
And while sexuality is not wholly genetic, it does have a strong genetic component. Bisexuality may well only be probable with certain combinations of the switches, and that combination may be relatively uncommon.
You only get a normal distribution, centred around the middle, if there's a single central 'target' that the system is tending to aim towards. Our biological systems have two 'targets', at either end of the supposed scale, and for the vast majority of us our genome is pushing us towards one end of that scale or the other.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Gwai
Shipmate
# 11076
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Posted
See I don't see how bisexuality can be completely rare, and I do think it's somewhat a spectrum. I am one of many women I know who find at least some women very attractive. Like many bi women I know, out of a random group of people, I am more often attracted to men than women. So without disagreeing about the switches, I do think it's somewhat a scale.
However, I think that in our current culture and society, it's not at all surprising that very few people think of themselves as bi even if many of us are. For one thing, I didn't realize I was bi until after I was married or dating Bullfrog (male). And I didn't realize it because my culture told me I should like men, and I DO find men attractive, so the fact that B and K (female) are super-attractive too? I told myself it was just aesthetic appreciation, obviously. Heck when I told my sister I was bi, she laughed. Which I have teased her about since she came out as a lesbian.
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A master of men was the Goodly Fere,
A mate of the wind and sea.
If they think they ha’ slain our Goodly Fere
They are fools eternally.
Posts: 11914 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
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infinite_monkey
Shipmate
# 11333
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Posted
When I came out as bisexual to my mother the first time, her response was, "Oh sweetie, be reasonable--that doesn't exist." She was, I think, just as incorrect as folks who claim it's universal.
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His light was lifted just above the Law,
And now we have to live with what we did with what we saw.
--Dar Williams, And a God Descended
Obligatory Blog Flog: www.otherteacher.wordpress.com
Posts: 1423 | From: left coast united states | Registered: Apr 2006
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stonespring
Shipmate
# 15530
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Fineline:
quote:
Originally posted by stonespring:
Missing out on sexual intimacy with one half of the human population is not like missing out on sex on an airplane or some other fetish or fantasy. It's denying oneself a deeper understanding of what so much of human culture has been talking about. It's also missing out on a better understanding of how one sex or another - even one's own - functions sexually, romantically, and emotionally.
So what do you make of asexual people then? By this logic, they must experience the ultimate in deprivation and lack of depth of understanding.
Asexuals aren't missing out because they don't want to have sex with anyone. I am talking about wanting to have sex, but only wanting to do so with half the adult human population. With asexuality, though there often is still a desire for platonic or romantic but asexual partnership. If this is directed at only one sex and not another, that would seem just as odd to me.
Posts: 1537 | Registered: Mar 2010
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stonespring
Shipmate
# 15530
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Equating bisexuality with sexual experimentation is grossly biphobic.
Some people know that they are bisexual without ever having had sex with anyone. I, for one, have no idea what I am other than that I am not straight. I have never had any romantic sexual or other experience with a woman and that is why I am asking all of this.
I wouldn't call myself biphobic but rather monophobic.
Posts: 1537 | Registered: Mar 2010
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stonespring
Shipmate
# 15530
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
Your question seems to imply that people want to have sex with "men" or with "women" or with some other category of person. It seems to assume that people are something to be experimented with. It seems, to me, to be deeply objectifying.
You say that "Missing out on sexual intimacy with one half of the human population" seems like a bad thing. But no one can be intimate, sexually or any other way, with three or four billion people. We all necessarily miss out on sexual intimacy, not with half of the human population, but with virtually all of it.
Unless, of course, you think that any person is pretty much interchangeable with any other person, in the same way that one steak is so much like any other steak that you would know by trying one whether you would like any of them. That idea seems repugnant to me.
All of the arguments you are making about how special sex is I think could also be made about adult friendship. Sex to me is just a way of being friends, and marriage is a form of friendship that often involves sex. Some people only have one or a couple of friends in their whole lives. I talk about experimentation not because I think it is necessary or even necessarily a good thing - and people can certainly be objectified and are everyday by just about everyone. Rather, I find that by saying that you are flat out not going to have sex with one sex or other, you are sorting people into categories.
In other words, I acknowledge that everyone has their preferences but what I don't understand is a strict denial to have sex with any category of nonrelated adult. In other words, I agree with you that it's wrong to label, sort, objectify, etc. Rather than "experiment" I should say that I see no good reason why anyone single would not be open to fall in love (and/or lust) with anyone else regardless of sex (or race or anything else).
If people would stop saying that they are straight or gay and would just be honest and say that they are choosing to not even consider the possibility of sex with one sex or other, than that reveal how limiting the whole thing feels. Sexual orientation, no matter how unchangeable it may be, is just an orientation and not a determination. Gay men are not made to have sex with men any more than women in general are made to have sex with men.
Posts: 1537 | Registered: Mar 2010
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