X Years Ago Today

[sorcyress]

One year ago today, it was 2008, and I was (shocking nobody who's ever had an extended conversation with me ever) interested in gender and sexuality.

I also believe I originally meant to post up some thoughts on that poll, ages and ages ago, and then got distracted. At the very least, go fill it out for me if you haven't, okay? Or, if you want to do the really quick and dirty version in the comments of this post...

You list as [gender(s)]:
Explain:

You are attracted to people of [gender(s)]:
Explain:

You consider yourself [poly/mono/etc]:
Explain:

You are currently in relatinships best described as [none/mono/poly/complicated/etc]:
Explain:

And, bonus question, since I forgot it in the original poll:
Your preferred pronoun is:

Seriously. This kind of thing fascinates the hell out of me. Babble¹ about gender and sexuality and stuff like that in the comments, please!

~Sor
MOOP!

1: No, really, Har, Dodger, etc. I like hearing people's thoughts, especially about this. I am encouraging long comments, damnit. Don't let yourself be limited by the thought that I'm going to be overwhelmed --if you're that worried, just toss a one line summery at the bottom for ease of skimming. I promise to read the whole thing though.

Comments

Some views on Sexuality

[kirby1024.livejournal.com]

Just because you wanted people to yap on a little as well, I thought I'd bring up some of my views on sexuality in general.

I tend to look at a person's sexuality as three different components: Their sexual identity, their sexual orientation, and their sexual behaviour.

Sexual Identity is what you consider yourself to be. In a lot of ways, it's what you answer when someone says "so, who are you?". There's a lot of baggage attached to one's identity that is often not connected to the actual sexual acts - just look at the baggage around the "dyke" identity. When one assumes the dyke identity, it goes way beyond just sleeping with other women - there's often an entire social attitude that goes with it. Other identities have just as much baggage, like "bear", "queer" and "twink" - there's not just the sexual nature of these identities but the attitudes and social expectations that arise from these identities. Also, these sorts of issues often stop people from acquiring an identity - for example, the connotation of "bisexual" stopped a lot of people from taking that identity, especially if they were involved in the queer scene - bisexual was (and still is, to an extent) a dirty word, considered a "slut" and a "fence-sitter", and there's a great deal of antipathy aimed at bisexuals. So many didn't identify as such, they chose "queer", or "gay", or "lesbian".

Sexual Orientation is who you're attracted to. This is probably the simplest one (it's the direct analog of the question you place in the questionnaire), but it's important to keep it separate. Why? Because the Identities you choose often don't encompass the full range of your sexual orientation. They're often a bit more restrictive (for example, there are more than a few dykes out there who are attracted to men, but don't act on it because their identity restricts them in that regard). Further, the converse is true - a lot of people's identities push them into engaging in acts that don't fit their identity (thus, engaging in behaviour at odds with their orientation). There are so many added attachments to people's sexual makeup that we can't just use Orientation as the be-all, end-all.

Sexual Behaviour is what/who you do. It's such a simple thing, yet when you combine it with the above three, you can arrive at very odd places. More importantly, I think you need to keep this one separate because, f'rex, Monoamorous bisexuals usually have a behaviour that's quite different from their Orientation or Identity. Further, many people have engage in behaviour that's outside the scope of their orientation, once or twice, and this often freaks people out, because they believe that their behaviour is identical to their orientation.

It's my belief that these three sexual attributes are freely variant - they don't all have to match. Further, it's also my belief that none of these three sexual attributes are static. And I know that makes me very controversial in this political climate, but I honestly don't believe that our Orientations are completely static throughout our whole lives - they do change, in some cases quite frequently. And this is not to say that we should force change, absolutely not. People have a right to their own sexual expression. But I get a little annoyed at people who claim that sexuality is set in stone - that just doesn't match up to my experience. At the very least, the gender I lean towards changes from time to time - sometimes I like women more, sometimes I like men more.

I get a feeling that this sort of divide is probably useful in defining gender as well - I think gender can probably be divided into Identity, Orientation and Behaviour as well. I'm less inclined to force it though - I've not had as much experience in gender as I've had in sexuality.