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Post by snipertom on May 26, 2013 16:45:45 GMT
Seeing as the latest happenings in the comic have stimulated a fair bit of discussion, I'm somewhat interested in seeing what the spread of sexual orientations is on this board, as there seems to be quite the variety! Anonymous poll that you can only see after voting of course, for obvious reasons, but if you wish to discuss or explain more, you can do so here. Here is the Kinsey Scale for those who are not aware of it:  PS: play nice people  |
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Post by lordofpotatoes on May 26, 2013 17:08:36 GMT
You just had to make this thread, did you?
Haha, jk, I have no problems with this thread, lets hope it stays nice. I picked K3.
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Post by snipertom on May 26, 2013 17:12:30 GMT
I WAS COMPELLED. COMPELLED BY THE POWER OF AMBIGUOUS SEXUAL ORIENTATION FICTIONAL TEENAGERS. i picked 5, but really it's more like 4.5
I too hope no-one goes nuts and starts shouting. That would be sad.
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Post by legion on May 26, 2013 17:56:22 GMT
I can't answer this poll because I have absolutely no idea.
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Post by GK Sierra on May 26, 2013 18:16:30 GMT
This thread is a good idea. Paragraph-length discussions are my fav, but not when they're clogging up comic discussion threads.
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Post by snipertom on May 26, 2013 18:35:57 GMT
legion aw shoot i forgot to put that as an option - K? = No idea/unsure
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Post by GK Sierra on May 26, 2013 19:34:19 GMT
Pretty interesting to see where the results have landed so far...
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tpman
Full Member
Posts: 161
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Post by tpman on May 26, 2013 19:35:49 GMT
Luckily Proboards gives us many options for editing our polls after they are posted! Since I should probably say something that adds to the discussion, here's some info on the Kinsey scale en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinsey_scale. Edit- actually that doesn't even answer any of my own questions. Anyone have a link to a really good source on this stuff? |
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Post by Steam Engine on May 26, 2013 19:46:14 GMT
What is this test about? Is it about "is it difficult for you to interact with opposite gender"? Or about "which gender is most attractive for you"? Or about "which gender is most sexually attractive for you"? Or about showing that you are sexually attracted?
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Post by spritznar on May 26, 2013 19:54:28 GMT
so i rounded up to 6 but i consider myself like 5.5 (although i haven't completely ruled out the possibility i'm asexual)
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Post by lordofpotatoes on May 26, 2013 20:56:35 GMT
so i rounded up to 6 but i consider myself like 5.5 (although i haven't completely ruled out the possibility i'm asexual) 2-dimensional thinking, huh? |
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Post by Marnath on May 26, 2013 22:28:22 GMT
Where do we fit on the scale if we're mostly asexual/aromantic, but what little attraction we feel is hetero?  The Kinsey scale is a little...limited in scope. |
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Post by warrl on May 26, 2013 23:46:44 GMT
legion aw shoot i forgot to put that as an option - K? = No fucking idea And the way you worded it is so completely appropriate. |
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Post by snipertom on May 27, 2013 0:14:42 GMT
legion aw shoot i forgot to put that as an option - K? = No fucking idea And the way you worded it is so completely appropriate. It was an off the cuff comment, but fair enough, I've edited my post. |
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Post by spritznar on May 27, 2013 4:56:18 GMT
ok, so i moved the paragraph long discussion here. hopefully that's more appropriate/less annoying? ... no i'm not? i said queer which is not the same as gay. i actually think some degree of bisexuality is the "norm". If you believe that bi is the norm, then you do believe that a large part of the majority of people who identify as straight are lying or mistaking. But surely you should also believe that of gay people, since you seem to imply that anything that isn't 100% straight or 100% gay is bi (even if they're 99.99% straight/gay, nope, the remaining 0.01% means they are wrong about saying they're straight/gay and they are really bi). you seem to be taking the most extreme interpretation of what i said. i do think there's some general confusion about what falls under the title of "straight". (people sometimes seem to infer 'attracted to the opposite sex' means straight and then carry on to say straight means 'cannot be attracted to the same sex'.) i take it to mean someone who has no inclination to become sexually/romantically involved with the same sex. the reverse for gay. but i think a lot of people simplify their sexuality to the gender they're most attracted to, say if they're kinsey 1s or 5s. (i consider myself very mildly bisexual but tell people i'm gay because it gives a more accurate generalization of my preferences than the label of bi) i also think that a great many people could be kinsey 1s and 2s if societal factors didn't discourage them from exploring beyond "straight". and yes, i think some people lie. people who are scared because they think or know their families, friends, or neighbors will react badly to the possibility of them having homosexual tendencies. people who have been told those tendencies will make them 'perverts' or send them to hell. some of those people will even lie to themselves, because they aren't bad people and they aren't perverts, so they couldn't have feelings 'like that'. Again, this isn't how those labels work. They are not scientific, essentialist categories you impose on people based on measured threshold of sexual attraction. They are social groups to which people chose to adhere on a personal and individual basis. So if the majority say they're straight, then the majority is straight; telling them otherwise is no better than telling a gay person that it's "just a phase". you are correct, they're not hard and fast scientific measures, they're labels people self select. my point that you seem to be avoiding is that there are social benefits to defaulting to "straight". whereas claiming your queerness still has various overall negative social effects. people who are too gay to be content in heterosexual relationships often accept their label because it's easier to fight society than to fight themselves (ditto for trans). but i believe some people who are bisexual, especially near the heterosexual end of the kinsey scale, find it easier to ignore or suppress their same sex interest than to face societal disapproval. (again, see also: cognitive dissonance) you seriously don't think homosexuality has a negative status? i think this is the end of this conversation because i don't know what planet you're living on I live on a planet where people have enough reading comprehension to understand the subtle differences in meaning between "not necessarily negative" and "almost never negative"; before acting all self-righteous and morally superior, it would be nice not to grossly misread and misrepresent my point. ok, i was reacting in a limited time span and did slightly misread your comment. still, i feel "not necessarily negative" downplays the, in some cases extremely negative, effects of the overall cultural atmosphere. (if there's a 70% chance of rain i won't necessarily get rained on but i'd still prefer to have an umbrella handy) so, empirical evidence be d@mned then? we should just let them believe that if they want to? i'm not sure what you're trying to say here I haven't made a moral judgement; a false belief may be very bad, sure; but in the meantime, if a false belief is present in the majority of the population, you have to be aware of it and understand it if you hope to understand how people think and why they act the way they act, especially if you hope to change that belief. i'm pretty sure i'm trying to discuss and mitigate the effects of that very thing? my main argument is that i believe the heteronormative assumption to be false and self perpetuating and want to counter it so it can hopefully stop perpetuating itself? What I really don't like about ideology is how oponents (which are often "anyone who doesn't share the ideology") are reduced to irrational, raging lunatics or blind, stupid, uninformed puppets. Real people are complex, real people have many reasons to believe what they believe and to act the way they act. In real life there are intelligent and knowledgable racists, intelligent and knowledgable homophobes, intelligent and knowledgable islamists. Sure, it's easier to paint people as mindless puppets, their strings pulled by the heterosexist patriarchic fabric of society, while confortably seeing yourself as the only free spirit, able to think past dogmas and preconceived ideas which are the food of all the sheep around you. But that's completely delusional. are you implying i'm painting you as an "irrational, raging lunatic s or blind, stupid, uninformed puppet s"? because i didn't think you were irrational or a raging lunatic, but that paragraph long rant is making me reconsider... i don't think i'm "the only free spirit, able to think past dogmas and preconceived ideas". i've tried to make it clear that these are just my opinions and ideas. i don't assume they're true, simply the most compatible with my current understanding and experiences. i'm discussing it with you to share my conclusions and see if your experiences and observations (which led you to a different conclusion) may offer something i've missed. nothing you've said so far has made me reconsider my original view. (my 'ideology' has held up so far, how about yours?) if you want to agree to disagree i'll drop it, otherwise, as long as you continue to rebut i'll most likely continue to volley (irrelevant sidebar; i've been reading st: voyager fanfiction recently and keep hearing my comments in seven of nine's voice when i reread them...) |
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Post by legion on May 27, 2013 5:32:13 GMT
I wrote the last paragraphs because of the lasting impression that I've been on the receiving end of several angry rants and accusations of covert homophobia, which, as I understand, were mostly adressed at people who will never ever admit that there might be anything romantic between two same-gendered characters in Gunnerkrigg Court.
The problem is that I'm not one of these persons. I also don't like that I keep receiving negative moral judgements when I'm merely trying to neutrally describe some facts about reality (I may be wrong about some facts, but being wrong is not the same as being evil, as far I know). This what comes of to me as ideology: I try to describe states and processes and I am condemned for morally endorsing bad things; I'm not endorsing them, I'm describing them.
So yes sure, it might well be that many people find more confortable to identify as straight rather than as bi. I don't see how this changes the fact, which I've been asserting, that the straight identification is overwhemingly majoritary, and that therefore people expecting other people to be straight by default, even if it's rude/stupid/ignorant or anything you want, at least statiscally makes sense.
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Post by spritznar on May 27, 2013 6:24:28 GMT
i did notice you seemed to take the brunt of some misdirected ire previously, although i didn't think much was coming from my direction. if you were ranting to the general forum, perhaps next time you could post that paragraph seperately from your reply addressing a specific person?
the fact you've been asserting is "that the straight identification is overwhemingly majoritary, and that therefore people expecting other people to be straight by default [...] at least statiscally makes sense."
the point i wanted to make was that i do not believe it makes statistical sense to assume people to be straight. mainly because the people in question who were assuming straightness were using it to discount same sex attraction, and the statistical category you referenced as 'straight' did not sufficiently exclude people who had potential for same sex attraction.
you say, as long as they believe it to make statistical sense your point still stands. i maintain that my effort was to stop people from making future assumptions based on statistics i believe to be faulty or misleading.
i believe we've come to a conclusion?
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Post by snipertom on May 27, 2013 8:00:41 GMT
I suppose it also depends on whether you think of labels as descriptive or prescriptive. I think in an ideal world they are descriptive (although it's difficult, sometimes to find words that work, certainly I think K5 is an oversimplification for me), but people obviously sometimes use what they want to be true rather than what is true. Or they, as legion points out, identify with it as a cultural category rather than a true description.
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Post by spritznar on May 27, 2013 8:20:54 GMT
sexuality and human relations are complex and we just don't have the language in place to talk about it in a clear concise way. i think if people actually do talk about it more we'd develop the language (and come to a more uniform concensus on the meanings) , which is what things like the kinsey scale try to do, it's just not quite there yet
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Post by snipertom on May 27, 2013 11:01:14 GMT
I decided awhile ago to forgo the labels because none of them fit accurately and just describe who I like and who I am.
So I really like girls a lot all the time, and occasionally like a guy a lot.
describing myself as "gay" meant that if I hooked up with or dated a guy people got offended/confused/felt betrayed and describing myself as "bi" meant that too many guys got the wrong idea
And I guess I'm more girly than manly and mostly think of myself as a girl.
But just like the whole question about "where are you from exactly", it ends up being a whole paragraph!
btw, I'm quite intrigued by the fact that there are more asexual than gay people on this board! I was wondering if any of the asexual people out there (marnath?) would be able to share their experience and/or clarify if that means they are aromantic AND asexual or whether they do have romantic feelings?
In response to the questions about how to answer the poll if you are asexual but do have some attraction to others... I'm not entirely sure. It's definitely a limitation of the Kinsey scale, but I suppose answer with whichever you think is the more dominant part of your sexual orientation or which you identify with more?
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Post by mercuryp on May 27, 2013 11:37:32 GMT
The main limitation of the Kinsey scale is that it assumes people are attracted to others on the basis of gender, and only really allows K0-6. You can tack on asexuality easily enough (oops, not on the scale!), but it really stops there.
The very existence of pansexuality throws a wrench into things. It implies that there are things other than gender to consider, and the Kinsey scale is (literally) one-dimensional.
I don't think it invalidates the Kinsey scale, though. Gender-attractiveness is an important facet of sexuality, but there are other things to consider, such as strength of libido and the level of base physical attraction one experiences on a day to day basis.
As an example, my sexuality is pretty strange; I'm probably a little more into girls than guys, but I experience no base physical attraction at all, and my libido is low but it exists. One-dimensionally, I'm much closer to asexual than anything else. But if the Kinsey scale is only one axis, then I'm more of a K4-K5, and I can let the other axes better describe the other facets of my sexuality.
I think even a hypothetical two- or three-axis scale would fail to accurately describe a lot of sexualities, but it would be better.
It's also tricky for transgender people (hi) to identify as homo- or heterosexual before or during transition. It gets easier post-transition, but I don't think it ever gets entirely simple. Edit: I use transgender in place of "transsexual" here, apologies to people with more complex genders - it's even harder for them to pick one of the two.
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Post by csj on May 27, 2013 12:56:32 GMT
Has nobody really come up with any better way of visually describing the diversity of human sexuality then what a dude came up with 60-70 years ago?
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Post by snipertom on May 27, 2013 13:47:13 GMT
Apparently there's evidence to show that male sexual orientation is roughly like the Kinsey scale, while female sexual orientation is 2-dimensional with "into chicks" on one axis and "into guys" on the other axis.
Of course that still doesn't take into account people of other/more complex genders, either as the subject or object of appreciation.
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Post by dismalscientist on May 27, 2013 14:27:18 GMT
In response to the questions about how to answer the poll if you are asexual but do have some attraction to others... I'm not entirely sure. It's definitely a limitation of the Kinsey scale, but I suppose answer with whichever you think is the more dominant part of your sexual orientation or which you identify with more? I answered “asexual”, although that label may not describe me better than K-1. Predominantly I — a male — find women attractive. On rare occasions another man will indeed seem very cute to me, though I’m unsure I could ever pursue a relationship with one. However … forgive me for putting it bluntly or giving TMI, but I just don’t crave sexual intimacy. If a djinn offered me the choice between a consequence-free night of passion with an indescribably beautiful woman, and a piece of delicious cake, there’d be no contest. I’d take the cake. Like, every time. Lest you suspect me of exaggeration, note that I’ve been in a romantic relationship with a woman for thirteen years — and we’ve been entirely celibate for something like ten of those. Seems to be going perfectly well from my perspective, and presumably hers. (We couldn’t possibly share a room, anyway; she snores something awful.) So am I asexual? Unsure. If in doubt, take half my “asexual” vote and put it in K-1. Edit: corrected an off-by-one error. |
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Post by davidm on May 27, 2013 15:18:04 GMT
Robots disgusted with humans. Human auto reject robot love, "never mention again!" Human accept human. Girl and girl not make babies, how robot inferior? Robot build babies, make better mate! Human illogical prejudice racist robophobia.
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Post by arabesque on May 27, 2013 16:22:54 GMT
I think sexuality is one of those issues too complex to put on a chart. Not everyone fits into the categories neatly, especially when you factor in romantic orientation
I, for example, am only sexually attracted to women but show little to no romantic interest in anyone and don't have much of a libido. So "heterosexual" doesn't really cover it. I'm still curious to know if there's a label for that
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tpman
Full Member
Posts: 161
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Post by tpman on May 27, 2013 16:44:54 GMT
Where do we fit on the scale if we're mostly asexual/aromantic, but what little attraction we feel is hetero? The Kinsey scale is a little...limited in scope. I'm pretty sure that you would just choose a Kinsey number for where you fall on the hetero/homo scale. Just imagine the intensity of your sexuality is on the Z-scale. If you're 100% asexual then there's an X value on the Kinsey scale for people who don't have any sort of sexual leaning at all. |
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Post by spritznar on May 27, 2013 16:54:40 GMT
I decided awhile ago to forgo the labels because none of them fit accurately and just describe who I like and who I am. [...] describing myself as "gay" meant that if I hooked up with or dated a guy people got offended/confused/felt betrayed and describing myself as "bi" meant that too many guys got the wrong idea haha, i was actually logging on to ask you about that because i was thinking about my theory that people round to the nearest labeled orientation (straight=0, bi=3, gay=6) but your 4.5 is exactly halfway between bi and gay btw, I'm quite intrigued by the fact that there are more asexual than gay people on this board! i was surprised by that also. possibly there might be more asexual people frequenting the internets (or just GC)? like how you find a higher ratio of introverts online, because it's more comfortable/appealing to them? |
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Post by Marnath on May 27, 2013 16:54:41 GMT
btw, I'm quite intrigued by the fact that there are more asexual than gay people on this board! I was wondering if any of the asexual people out there (marnath?) would be able to share their experience and/or clarify if that means they are aromantic AND asexual or whether they do have romantic feelings? Hah, I would not presume to speak from a position of any great insight, but here's my take on it. My experience has been that I do appreciate pretty girls from the standpoint that they're pretty, and sometimes I see a picture of a girl I'd describe as hot. But in real life, face to face? Never, that I can think of. I think some girls are pretty but I've never wanted to do anything about it. I've never been on a date, and I don't ever intend to. The few girls that have hit on me or whatever I've turned down. So, am I asexual? Maybe, I do seem to fit the definition of "Gray-A" according to that asexuality wiki I saw linked around here a while ago. I'm not sure. Aromantic? Without a doubt yes. I have never wanted romance or to end up with someone. |
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Post by spritznar on May 27, 2013 16:57:30 GMT
The main limitation of the Kinsey scale is that it assumes people are attracted to others on the basis of gender, and only really allows K0-6. You can tack on asexuality easily enough (oops, not on the scale!), but it really stops there. the scale in my head works like a color gradient. the kinsey scale is shade, like say red and blue with the various shades of purple in the middle) and then degree of sexuality/asexuality becomes the dark/light transparency gradient. *shrug* it's a working model The very existence of pansexuality throws a wrench into things. It implies that there are things other than gender to consider, and the Kinsey scale is (literally) one-dimensional. i think of pansexual as a perfect 3, cause if you're attracted to both sexes completely equally then gender is no longer a factor in your attraction...? but i'm not entirely clear on the nuances of pansexuality |
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The Kinsey scale is a little...limited in scope.
