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Post by snipertom on Mar 6, 2014 1:47:47 GMT
I don't agree that everyone "has some degree of bisexuality". I know people who are exclusively heterosexual or exclusively homosexual and it isn't because they're "hiding something from themselves". Being able to judge that someone is aesthetically pleasing doesn't equal attraction to that gender. Even if it is rare, saying it doesn't exist is a) incorrect b) denies people their own self-identity and sexual orientation. It's not so dissimilar to saying that bisexuals don't exist which is clearly bogus and oppressive.
The kinsey scale *comes from the 50s* and was a *research tool* in a time where people thought there were only straights and the occasional (sinful) gay. The main idea to draw from it is *not* some bogus idea that there are 7 sexual orientations, but rather that there is a continuum - please refer to what I said about me being roughly a 4.5 if anything, which is clearly between 4 and 5.
In regards to using pansexual vs bisexual, I agree that generally speaking bisexual includes what pansexual means, however perhaps indicating that you are interested in people who are trans/alternatively gendered is probably fair as not all bisexual people are. I'm not sure a new word is needed but if it helps people communicate with each other (rather than hindering it) I don't think I can argue *against* it.
However I find genderqueer a bit of a strange label. Transgender already covers people whose gender and biological birth sex don't exactly correlate regardless of intent to have sex reassignment (hormonal/surgical) so I don't see what genderqueer adds, especially as it's not very specific either.
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Post by snipertom on Mar 6, 2014 1:49:16 GMT
I wonder if I can make a poll with Facebook's 51 gender categories
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Post by csj on Mar 6, 2014 4:15:10 GMT
Treating Kinsey's work as the most realistic means of categorising one's sexuality makes as much sense as basing all psychoanalysis on Freud, rather than the advancements made since then.
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Post by zimmyhoo on Mar 6, 2014 6:34:40 GMT
I wonder if I can make a poll with Facebook's 51 gender categories Do it. |
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Mar 6, 2014 7:54:11 GMT
There's something I've been wondering. Why is it that we never heard about transgender people in, say, the 1940s or 1950s? It seems that the identity has surfaced in the past decade or two. I am NOT transphobic; this is a serious question, and I'm just curious to know what people's thoughts on it are. My answer would be that society got kinda "militarized" in the 1940s along with the war effort and as sorta a reaction to "polite society" coming apart during prohibition where races and classes started mingling. Conformity was a virtue. Before that decent women really didn't go to watering holes and polite society was regularly shocked by occasional outings of prominent figures, while the commoners were uptight prudes and rubes (though others in some areas pretty much buggered whoever they pleased). Yeah that's an incredible oversimplification but it's a big country... On reread I appear to have missed my own main point in an attempt at brevity and once again proved that I do not have enough free time and working brain cells to be on this forum. But I will stay here anyway. What I was trying to say was gay and trans and crossdressing etc. people did indeed exist back in say the 1920's, for example, but society communicated much differently and had different norms. If you wanted to hear about them and you were in high society you'd read the society pages or the gossip sheets, then meet with the ladies at tea or the gents over cigars at the club and talk about you-know-who who wears women's lace under his business suits or she-go-willy who likes to garden in men's trousers. Or if there was a really big scoop, so-and-so who was on the fringes of being important might be outed. The really important people were too big to fail so they could be as queer as they wanted as long as they didn't run down the streets being open about it. There are rumors of secret parties, perhaps clubs. So "heads could explode" as I think GK Sierra put it weekly or biweekly or whenever your fave slander sheet came out, and then you could get out your pen and write a rant to the editor or your favorite penpal. It's like the internet now but in very low-reach and slow-mo. I should apologize for referring to the average Americans of the 1920'a earlier as commoners, uptight, prudes and rubes earlier; I was sarcastically appealing to a stereotype to sum up tens of millions of average people who number many closeted alt lifestyle persons among them. Instead I'll just let that clarification serve because internet. To an extent they looked up to the upper crust but also they looked down their noses at them THROUGH prudery by aspiring to a higher standard (though depending on what you read that bounces back and forth on who is morally superior to who, but I think everyone has to admit in the long run the rich have lost the argument in the long run). Then on the lowest end where there are people who have the least to lose from society's ire. Most of those stories are lost to history because there are no witnesses, because other criminal activity is involved, and what statements survive are questionable because of sensationalism. But enough of that complexity. I'm going to go troll the opportunity thread now. |
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Post by snipertom on Mar 6, 2014 15:05:07 GMT
My answer would be that society got kinda "militarized" in the 1940s along with the war effort and as sorta a reaction to "polite society" coming apart during prohibition where races and classes started mingling. Conformity was a virtue. Before that decent women really didn't go to watering holes and polite society was regularly shocked by occasional outings of prominent figures, while the commoners were uptight prudes and rubes (though others in some areas pretty much buggered whoever they pleased). Yeah that's an incredible oversimplification but it's a big country... On reread I appear to have missed my own main point in an attempt at brevity and once again proved that I do not have enough free time and working brain cells to be on this forum. But I will stay here anyway. What I was trying to say was gay and trans and crossdressing etc. people did indeed exist back in say the 1920's, for example, but society communicated much differently and had different norms. If you wanted to hear about them and you were in high society you'd read the society pages or the gossip sheets, then meet with the ladies at tea or the gents over cigars at the club and talk about you-know-who who wears women's lace under his business suits or she-go-willy who likes to garden in men's trousers. Or if there was a really big scoop, so-and-so who was on the fringes of being important might be outed. The really important people were too big to fail so they could be as queer as they wanted as long as they didn't run down the streets being open about it. There are rumors of secret parties, perhaps clubs. So "heads could explode" as I think GK Sierra put it weekly or biweekly or whenever your fave slander sheet came out, and then you could get out your pen and write a rant to the editor or your favorite penpal. It's like the internet now but in very low-reach and slow-mo. I should apologize for referring to the average Americans of the 1920'a earlier as commoners, uptight, prudes and rubes earlier; I was sarcastically appealing to a stereotype to sum up tens of millions of average people who number many closeted alt lifestyle persons among them. Instead I'll just let that clarification serve because internet. To an extent they looked up to the upper crust but also they looked down their noses at them THROUGH prudery by aspiring to a higher standard (though depending on what you read that bounces back and forth on who is morally superior to who, but I think everyone has to admit in the long run the rich have lost the argument in the long run). Then on the lowest end where there are people who have the least to lose from society's ire. Most of those stories are lost to history because there are no witnesses, because other criminal activity is involved, and what statements survive are questionable because of sensationalism. But enough of that complexity. I'm going to go troll the opportunity thread now. Totes. Also at some stage academics at the end of the 1800s started talking about 'homosexuals' as a type of person as opposed to the earlier conception of homosexual acts as being things that some people got up to that were naughty. Plus there was a distinction made between men who were tops (considered 'straight') and men who were bottoms (considered 'gay') and the 'gay' men were thought of as belonging to a 3rd gender category of neither male nor female. Weird huh? |
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Post by eyemyself on Mar 6, 2014 15:41:37 GMT
On reread I appear to have missed my own main point in an attempt at brevity and once again proved that I do not have enough free time and working brain cells to be on this forum. But I will stay here anyway. What I was trying to say was gay and trans and crossdressing etc. people did indeed exist back in say the 1920's, for example, but society communicated much differently and had different norms. If you wanted to hear about them and you were in high society you'd read the society pages or the gossip sheets, then meet with the ladies at tea or the gents over cigars at the club and talk about you-know-who who wears women's lace under his business suits or she-go-willy who likes to garden in men's trousers. Or if there was a really big scoop, so-and-so who was on the fringes of being important might be outed. The really important people were too big to fail so they could be as queer as they wanted as long as they didn't run down the streets being open about it. There are rumors of secret parties, perhaps clubs. So "heads could explode" as I think GK Sierra put it weekly or biweekly or whenever your fave slander sheet came out, and then you could get out your pen and write a rant to the editor or your favorite penpal. It's like the internet now but in very low-reach and slow-mo. I should apologize for referring to the average Americans of the 1920'a earlier as commoners, uptight, prudes and rubes earlier; I was sarcastically appealing to a stereotype to sum up tens of millions of average people who number many closeted alt lifestyle persons among them. Instead I'll just let that clarification serve because internet. To an extent they looked up to the upper crust but also they looked down their noses at them THROUGH prudery by aspiring to a higher standard (though depending on what you read that bounces back and forth on who is morally superior to who, but I think everyone has to admit in the long run the rich have lost the argument in the long run). Then on the lowest end where there are people who have the least to lose from society's ire. Most of those stories are lost to history because there are no witnesses, because other criminal activity is involved, and what statements survive are questionable because of sensationalism. But enough of that complexity. I'm going to go troll the opportunity thread now. Totes. Also at some stage academics at the end of the 1800s started talking about 'homosexuals' as a type of person as opposed to the earlier conception of homosexual acts as being things that some people got up to that were naughty. Plus there was a distinction made between men who were tops (considered 'straight') and men who were bottoms (considered 'gay') and the 'gay' men were thought of as belonging to a 3rd gender category of neither male nor female. Weird huh? I seem to recall several species of fish where members of the species with male chromosomes fall into several sub categories and exhibit very different sorts of behavior for attracting mates and claiming territory. I've always viewed human sexuality as incredibly complex. I consider myself omni or sapio sexual and am generally more attracted to women then men but have a track record of mostly dating tall, gangly, geeky boys. |
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Post by snipertom on Mar 6, 2014 16:21:57 GMT
Totes. Also at some stage academics at the end of the 1800s started talking about 'homosexuals' as a type of person as opposed to the earlier conception of homosexual acts as being things that some people got up to that were naughty. Plus there was a distinction made between men who were tops (considered 'straight') and men who were bottoms (considered 'gay') and the 'gay' men were thought of as belonging to a 3rd gender category of neither male nor female. Weird huh? I seem to recall several species of fish where members of the species with male chromosomes fall into several sub categories and exhibit very different sorts of behavior for attracting mates and claiming territory. I've always viewed human sexuality as incredibly complex. I consider myself omni or sapio sexual and am generally more attracted to women then men but have a track record of mostly dating tall, gangly, geeky boys. am glad you are "Continuing to preach the "Please be Okay" agenda". Puns entirely intended. |
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Post by snipertom on Mar 6, 2014 16:22:51 GMT
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Mar 7, 2014 18:42:47 GMT
Also at some stage academics at the end of the 1800s started talking about 'homosexuals' as a type of person as opposed to the earlier conception of homosexual acts as being things that some people got up to that were naughty. Plus there was a distinction made between men who were tops (considered 'straight') and men who were bottoms (considered 'gay') and the 'gay' men were thought of as belonging to a 3rd gender category of neither male nor female. Weird huh? Oh yeah the passive and active homosexuals. It wasn't just men. Supposedly the active female is the one who initiates social contact and takes the male role in sex acts where the passive looks like a normal female in all aspects but is secretly waiting to respond to homosexual advances or something like that. That was still being taught as gospel when I was in high school to the extent that isolated young gay people may actually have thought that they really did have to commit one way or the other. Then again the computers in our computer labs were trash-80s. [Sorry meant to reply earlier but saw something shiny and wandered off.] |
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Post by snipertom on Mar 7, 2014 18:44:19 GMT
I think outdated ideas of what it means to be into the same gender really kinda messed me up for awhile...
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QuotePilgrim
Full Member
Behind my door, there are twelve other doors.
Posts: 142
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Post by QuotePilgrim on Mar 7, 2014 23:24:47 GMT
My god, I never knew a word to describe my sexuality until I came to this thread and saw someone else use it: demisexual.
Anyway I marked K0, because I never had romantic feelings towards other male human beings, and the thought of it kind of disgusts me (to be clear, it’s just the thought of me having such feelings).
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Post by CoyoteReborn on Mar 9, 2014 22:21:07 GMT
Why is 'Coyotesexual' not an option here? I'm sure lots of people are attracted to me! (preen)
I certainly am.
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chaosvii
Junior Member
I absolutely did not expect this!
Posts: 84 
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Post by chaosvii on Mar 16, 2014 20:29:15 GMT
But you should never, ever ask someone to define themselves on the Kinsey scale because other than extremely strong examples, Kinsey says nothing about human sexuality and might as well not exist. Kinsey should be used only as a specific and descriptive label... Don't get involved. Don't ever debate sexuality. I wouldn't go around talking about this stuff because it really isn't relevant and only draws attention to the fact that people disagree and giving them a place to voice their disagreement. While I have little to comment on regarding whether or not the Kinsey scale is useful, I do have things to say in regards to the utility of a given psychological tool being based in its ability to accurately provide descriptions of behavior as well as inclinations towards behavior. I think that all forms of categorization in the psychological & sociological sciences are better off when that's all they do (If X, then Y probably happens more often than if Not-X, and the like). And the way that they are talked about diverges strongly from how well equipped to explain matters like "defining oneself" or "those that are in this category tend to like/dislike unrelated factor H." Normative behavior is nothing more than a mathematical average of all behavior that can be quantified in the record, whereas forming an identity as an abnormal or a normal individual has nothing to do with what a scale or a graph tells you about a given population. And I think that such a difference is why "debating sexuality" is fraught with complaints and criticisms of pigeon-holing & "people will get the wrong idea" and other such conflicts. People are not easy to summarize, but descriptions of people are not summaries of them even if they are interpreted as such. And whenever descriptions have a social dimension attached to them, then the risk of miscommunicating "the wrong idea" pops up. I think that the the notion of being "summarized" rather than "partially described on one significant aspect of them" is a big deal in much the same way that a person's identity is a big deal and for similar reasons. Not that I have any insights on how to reach this goal of "a better tool and how to use it," mind you. That would involve lots of study for one, and communication skills. Even if I did the former, I doubt I'd be any good for the latter. |
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