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| Human Sexuality; ...Is pretty crazy, right? | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jun 24 2012, 04:24 PM (598 Views) | |
| Yanmato | Jun 24 2012, 04:24 PM Post #1 |
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I'll flip you. I'll flip you for real.
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One of the more insidious aspects of heteronormativity is the mindset that heterosexuality is the "default" orientation. It's the "normal" sexuality. When one examines deviations from this established baseline, the subject is seen as having a particular trait. "Is attracted to own gender" is a trait, where "Is not" is the normal non-trait. The problem being that this sets heteronormative thinkers up for some strongly-built misconceptions. Whether it's judged as negative, positive, or neutral, "I am attracted to gender X" becomes an abnormal trait. The state of being attracted to that gender becomes a quality that defines that person. The thinker becomes aware of every member of that gender the subject knows. "They're attracted to those people," muses the thinker. This is what leads to the guy who feels uncomfortable sitting next to the gay man when a het woman provokes no response. This is what leads to the thought that gay bars are perpetual alcohol-fueled orgies because what's a lesbian going to do but have sex with other women? That's what they do, right? Heterosexuality gets no such confusion because it's not a trait at all. It's the default, normal state. In some ways, a heterosexual is seen as not even having an "orientation." And this divide between states that have no real fundamental differences among them means that while one sexuality is seen as nothing more than a quality the person possesses- one that defines little other than who they sleep with on the off-chance that they sleep with someone- another is seen as something akin to a fetish or a fixation. "You have a trait that is sexual in nature. You are a sex freak." This doesn't carry over the the heterosexual, of course. Remember, the heterosexual has no trait. In reality these traits mean little other than that a person is capable of being attracted to members of a certain group. If one is "attracted to women," this doesn't automatically mean one is filled with lust at the sight of any female that comes into their field of vision- that's the case whether the individual is a het man or is themselves a woman, no difference. And of course one understands this is true for normative sexuality. But normative sexuality is effectively invisible, so heteronormative thinkers generally don't think of truths of their own orientation and apply them to others. The terminology is somewhat misleading in this idea as well. "One is attracted to such-and-such" isn't quite as accurate as "One possesses the capacity to be attracted to such-and-such." Along with this I was thinking of Stalks's suggestion quite a while ago, that bisexuality is the human default and that restrictions (biological, psychological, and social) are pasted over that basic sexuality. And I have a new model by which to look at human sexuality. One that hopefully solves these issues or at least blunts them. To begin with, under this model heterosexuality is not the "default" from which one examines others. There's going to be a "default" from which all other things are seen as deviations- from which all differences are seen as "traits" while adherences are "non-traits-" that's just human nature. So consider pansexuality the default. I certainly don't think it's the most common state for humans to find themselves in, but it seems like a reasonable zero-line. Rather than naming someone's orientation by category, one possesses each of these traits, each of these sexual out-groups. And one would define oneself by acknowledging each of their traits separately. Each group one is not attracted to would be referred to by having a 'barrier' against that group. As in, "Thanks bro, but I have a barrier against other dudes." "Heterosexual" sounds like a package deal. All the not-attracteds that come with it must go together, or so the old model would have you believe. But that's just not the case. And it encourages heteronormative thinkers to lump everything not falling into that category together. Under the new model the originally "normative" individual now has several traits rather than a single un-trait. A barrier against their own sex. A barrier against minors. A barrier against animals. A barrier against relatives. Each of these traits is a separate quality that colors the individual's sexuality independently and none of them have anything to do with one another. Take one away and the rest don't suddenly evaporate. Under the old model, some people still believe otherwise. Every category of orientation under the old model is really a whole cocktail of separate unrelated traits. A better model should recognize each trait separately to more accurately measure and understand orientation. In addition, these barriers would exist on multiple levels. There's the guy who just isn't attracted to men and the guy who just won't ever say out loud that he's attracted to men. These are different from one another and both are different from the openly gay guy. I imagine three levels of barrier, any one of which could apply to any given group: Level 1: The individual cannot feel attracted to anyone in the given group. Level 2: The individual cannot acknowledge any feeling of attraction to anyone in the given group. Level 3: The individual will not act on any feeling of attraction to anyone in the given group. Only one of these three levels of barrier can exist for a certain group at a time. If one has a level 2 barrier, for example, that can only be because one doesn't have a level 1 barrier against the same group, and the notion of a level 3 barrier is moot. There's not much one can do about one's own level 1 barriers and having or not having any given one isn't inherently good or bad. And level 3 barriers aren't automatically harmful. In fact, maintaining certain level 3 barriers is seen as a good thing, and failing to build them can put you in jail for certain groups. Arguably with good reason, depending. But I suspect all level 2 barriers are inherently unhealthy. One can have barriers against certain activities as well as certain groups. Everyone has a few kinks they just do not want to ever try. I'd also put attraction toward things not capable of returning affection on their own (like the previously mentioned lamp, or in a more common but probably squickier case, corpses) in the act category rather than the group category. People in groups interact with one another; it's a two-way street between you and the person you do or do not have a barrier against. Acts are something one individual does or two or more people do together. You can have barriers around the act but the act can't have barriers back; that's the key difference between the two categories. And barriers against acts can live on any of the three levels, just like barriers against groups. So under this model, possessing the capacity to feel attracted to someone or something is not the trait. It's the "default." This means others thinking under the model are less likely to automatically view it as a fixation. But while that's probably true, humans are still able to fixate. One can possess a fixation just like one can possess a barrier. And that fixation can be toward a group or an act. It can vary in intensity. It just can't be toward the same thing one has a barrier toward- at least not a level 1 or 2 barrier. Fixations, just like barriers, are variations from the default, where having no barriers OR fixations is the "normal" condition. So does this make sense? Does it sound good? What are the flaws in this way of thinking? Does your own orientation look different under this model of measurement than the original categorical model? Does it feel more or less accurate? TL;DR: The opt-in model of measuring sexuality is dumb. Use an opt-out model instead. |
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| Yanmato | Jun 28 2012, 01:10 PM Post #21 |
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I'll flip you. I'll flip you for real.
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No one is saying it's wrong to say one isn't gay. At least no one but you. There's no need to be obtuse. I know for certain you're smart enough to follow along. This is not and has at no point been about tactful ways to turn people down. It's about looking at the way our taught mindsets interact with our natural thought patterns and finding a new taught mindset that interacts less painfully with those thought patterns. @Ozgho: That's a whole other question over which many a flamewar has already been waged, from the lowliest message boards to the highest Child Psych conferences. If you really want to talk about it it probably deserves its own thread. But if one wants, one could definitely consider their child barrier in the act category instead of the group category. |
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| Nameless | Jun 28 2012, 02:30 PM Post #22 |
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Our Great and Humble Zombie Overlord
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That's not what I'm getting at. At what point in the human lifespan are we setting a "default"? As children, it seems more likely that the "default" would be Asexual, and then sexual attraction would begin to "grow"; as opposed to being pansexual, and determining sexuality is a process of filtering out candidates. Of course you are most likely discussing the social impact of determining sexuality, and not it's inception. MFW
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| Celery Stalks | Jun 28 2012, 04:48 PM Post #23 |
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Just watch, I'm going to make Bell my wife!
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You're just throwing around fancy city talk without saying anything of importance.![]() Regarding the OP: P1: No matter where you set the defaults there are going to be those who are "abnormal". If you want people to stop assuming others are heterosexual you need more homosexuals, people are going to assume things firstly based on the statistics they have and secondly on how they think themselves. There isn't really anything wrong with this, as long as you leave room for the possibility that any unknown someone could be different from the norm and that they aren't "wrong" for being so, which I think is common in open-minded societies. P2: This is ridiculous. I don't know anyone who thinks gays are attracted to all men, I also don't know any heterosexual who does not experience at least some kind of sexual tension around members of the opposite sex. Where do you live where it is common to assume gays are sex freaks and gay bars are orgy-fests? Southern America? P3: Stop trying to get people to think about the defaults of sexuality differently and just get them to see sexual identity differently. If people believe that gay men like all other men it is not a problem with what people believe to be the norm but a problem with how people think about sexuality. If I were to go up to someone and say that I find girls with glasses sexually attractive they would not assume that I would be attracted to every woman that put on a pair of glasses. People understand that saying "I'm attracted to something." doesn't mean "I'm attracted to everything that falls within this category." This applies to interests outside of sexuality to, a lover of film doesn't simply like all movies. P4: It was pansexuality that I suggested and it was merely a suggestion on how someone can attempt to look at themselves differently for a better understanding of how they feel. I don't think it is practical or even logical to forcefully apply it to all of society, because pansexuality is not the default, sexuality is complex. Everyone probably has a different starting point upon which different blacklists and whitelists are formed. P5: This is already how a reasonable person thinks about sexuality. An unknown person could be attracted to anything, but there is a pretty high chance that they aren't attracted to X. P6: That's no different than saying "I'm not gay." or "I'm not attracted to men." P7: But being straight is a trait and seen as one, it is just seen as a very common trait so it is assumed that it is likely someone is straight. P8-9: This is the only section that is really insightful, and I think it could be examined outside of this whole opt-out-system-to-make-things-PC rant. Although I think most people understand that these three barriers (or four states) already exist, as many people experience similar conflicts in life, outside of sexuality even. P10: Where are these people who view gayness as some kind of fixation? In many modern societies people are generally looked down upon for such bigotry. Summary: Opting-in and opting-out are just two sides of the same coin, you are just expanding into territory from a different direction. It is most practical to have both a combination of opting-in and opting-out since it allows for easy flexibility. Under an opt-out model it would still be assumed (currently) that most people opt-out of homosexual relationships. Also when someone says they are gay or straight it is NOT an opt-in statement but a massive opt-out statement. You are opting-out of being able to be attracted to anything not male/female. If they were opt-in statements there wouldn't really be a need for the term bisexual, you'd just be both straight and gay. In fact people usually make opt-out statements already, it is rare that people make opt-in statements regarding sexuality unless they contain a subjective word like "beautiful" in them. But both opt-in and opt-out systems are flawed if you think of them in terms of separate traits (which is what you are doing). Sexual attraction is often fueled by a combination of traits, which you could think of as completely unrelated peaks on a graph. Someone could be attracted to females with red hair and males with brown hair but not males with red hair and females with brown hair. So yes, you can opt-out of certain individual traits that are true globally, but you must have the ability to define grouped traits. In fact "male" could be seen as a group of traits rather than an individual trait, there is a whole lot that goes into sex identity. Edited by Celery Stalks, Jun 28 2012, 04:53 PM.
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| Yanmato | Jun 28 2012, 05:53 PM Post #24 |
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I'll flip you. I'll flip you for real.
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I work with otherwise reasonable, intelligent people every day who sincerely believe from the bottom of their hearts at least two or three of the following each: ~ Homosexuality is a personal choice. ~ All homosexuals are also pedophiles. ~ All homosexuals are also bestialists. ~ All homosexuals are also polygamists. ~ All homosexuals are eager to have sex with anyone willing. ~ Most homosexuals are willing to resort to rape if they can get away with it. ~ They would be in grave danger of sexual assault sharing a dorm room with a homosexual. (See previous) ~ All transvestites are transsexuals and sex freaks. ~ Gay bars and other "gay" events regularly feature orgies. Plenty of people favor "tolerance" of this "alternate lifestyle," but the majority opinion is that non-het sexuality is unnatural and unhealthy. This is not a backwoods niche of the deep south. This is the biggest, most progressive city in the state. A proposition putting sexuality on the anti-discrimination list (preventing people from being fired or denied housing on the sole basis of their sexuality) was shot down with an overwhelming NO on the campaign that it would leave gay teachers free to rape schoolchildren and induct them into homosexuality. I'm truly glad for you if you get to live in a city or a subculture in which these notions are throwbacks from another century, and I hope your reality becomes a reality for everyone. But you clearly do not live in the average American city. Not even close.
See above.
Okay, this was me being misleading. I didn't mean to imply this whole schema had come from you; just alluding to a somewhat similar thing you'd said earlier as a leaping-off point. For the presentation.
MAN, where do you LIVE, Stalks? And what's the real estate like? |
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| Celery Stalks | Jun 28 2012, 06:11 PM Post #25 |
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Just watch, I'm going to make Bell my wife!
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Well then you must live in a pretty non-progressive state. Also, when I was speaking of modern societies I was not including America except selectively.
I live in Minneapolis, and property in the actual city (and not its suburbs) is pretty expensive. Most schools here work really hard to prevent things like bullying and intolerance and most employers make it clear that they won't discriminate based on things like sexuality. I think you missed my point though. It was not that discrimination doesn't happen, but that this was the wrong way to go about correcting it. People should be able to identify themselves in a way that makes them feel comfortable and not lose the respect of everyone for doing so. |
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| Yanmato | Jun 28 2012, 07:40 PM Post #26 |
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I'll flip you. I'll flip you for real.
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Correcting discrimination may have been something I aimed to have this setup help with, but that was never the main goal. The main goal was to define human sexuality in a more accurate and useful way, avoiding granular categories or an either/or spectrum of any kind, as well as to avoid the additional "rules" people tend to add in their own minds (all sexualities as deviations from heterosexuality being the biggest one), that the other system encourages. If it seems like sexual equality was the entire point of the schema it's just because that's all we've been discussing. |
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| Nameless | Jun 28 2012, 07:51 PM Post #27 |
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Our Great and Humble Zombie Overlord
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It's difficult to avoid the topic of sexual equality when tackling sexuality in general, because it is a hot button issue. |
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| Celery Stalks | Jun 28 2012, 08:01 PM Post #28 |
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Just watch, I'm going to make Bell my wife!
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It is neither accurate (well, more accurate than anything else) or practical. Looking at sexuality your way is not going to prevent people from seeing patterns. Straight and gay are still going to exist, and people will still see things spectromatically. People do this because the straight and gay populations are large and vocal, and also because straightness and gayness are strong barriers and not just slight preferences so people relate to them heavily. No matter how people look at sexuality they are still going to divide people into groups. What is important is learning to respect the preferences and choices of others. |
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| forbjok | Jun 29 2012, 04:51 AM Post #29 |
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Forb.Jok
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I don't know about "most", but I can say that this is definitely not always the case. I've been attracted to characters (mostly cartoon) and people since I was in kindergarten at least. Of course, it wasn't quite the same as being attracted to people/characters as an adult, but looking back on it, it was definitely sexual in nature, even if I didn't really understand it back then. |
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| Nameless | Jun 29 2012, 08:30 AM Post #30 |
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Our Great and Humble Zombie Overlord
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That is true. Perhaps sexuality is determined from birth, as it is widely held. Then perhaps (and I mean no disrespect) homosexuality is a mutation in genetic coding. It would be facinating to determine what strand of DNA would determine such. |
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