I was reading this thread the other day, and while I wasn’t overly surprised at the effeminate men professing their preferences for tomboys or “dykey” women and vice versa, I was a little thrown by posts like this and this, referring to people who are either predominantly feminine or masculine and seek that in partners as well. I found this really peculiar… until I realized that, damn, my tastes are pretty weird too. I’m bi and very tomboyish, but I can’t date guys who are even slightly less manly than me (down to even depth of voice!), or girls who are even a tiny bit more so. so I like cavemen and girly girls. this strikes me as odd.
now I’m wondering, is this so abnormal for a bisexual person? are bi people generally attracted to the same set of traits in both sexes, or is my situation closer to the norm? I’m interested in the input of not only those who identify/live as bisexuals, but of anyone who’s ever been attracted to members of both sexes, even if only once or very rarely.
I was always attracted to girly girls, the girlier the better. Pretty, long haired, skirt-wearing, lady-like sugary-sweetness… but my darker fantasies included girls who liked to dress in leather (mwaha! “Naughty” girls like me!)… however, there was never any question that they were women. I am not and never was attracted to women who looked like men.
I always ended up with men who were very girly, though, too. One was shorter, thinner, and had longer hair than me - and he was very effiminate. The one man who is a big, muscular, broad-shouldered, football playing, hairy teddy-bear type that I fell for - I married him. I don’t know what happened. It still confuses me today, however, I love him to death and am very attracted to him, but he’s the only one. I’m not a fickle lover, and I marry for keeps. He’s the only manly man I’ve ever found attractive, and WOW, do I ever. I’m speaking on a purely shallow level, FTR, of course there are many other factors involved. Personality, compatibility, etc etc. But that’s not what we’re discussing.
I’ve often wondered about things like this, myself. The girls I’m attracted to are girls. And I’m a girl. I’m a very girly girl. I don’t want to be a man, and when I was attracted to a woman, I didn’t want them to be a man or manly.
but, you don’t have to limit yourself to purely shallow/physical things; personality traits are important too. to me, that’s what makes someone feminine/masculine, 'cause they could look one way and be completely another. for example, I’d come a lottttttttttt closer to dating an androgynous-looking guy who was completely macho than a bearded pirate with a lisp and a fear of bugs.
was it comprehensible? perfectly.
does it make sense? course not.
I am male, and while I am attracted to men in an abstract way, there is always a deal killer somewhere somehow. I had sex with another man once, and it felt absolutely horrible. I haven’t stopped that attraction, but there is something that just keeps it from working out, no matter what there is some little aspect that will always turn me off. I like masculine men that have a femmy aspect somewhere in there. A lot of my male friends are very straight, but have some kind of homosexual vibe to them, and are open about it. I think that what I am attracted to in men, just doesn’t exist in a high enough quantity with men for me to really want to go for it again.
With women, I absolutely love WOMEN. They have to be all woman. I like strong dominant women, but not too dominant because I tend to be very domineering myself, so I need that give and take. I tend to like aristocratic types, but I also want a primal nature in there too, some sort of fire.
I think a lot of my desire for men stems from an unrepentant sexuality that men have that women tend to lack. It’s very easy to stifle a woman’s sexuality I find, and even with strong powerful women you have to be very gentle. I think wanting to just toss out that whole war of the sexes thing is part of the male attraction for me.
I am female, and somewhat femme. I like people who act androgynous but not people who look androgynous, if that means anything to you. I like manly-appearing men and womanly-appearing women.
Femmey female here. My attraction almost always falls on the masculine end of the spectrum; most of the women I am attracted to are short-haired, muscular, makeup-less butch lesbians. Though I do like sensitive men/women (not that sensitivity is necessarily a feminine trait), I’m not attracted to people who physically present as feminine. I guess I’m just stuck in the gender binary no matter what–I want to date people who are not like me.
yum, more data… great answers, everyone. sexuality is so fascinating and utterly incomprehensible.
hmm… could you expound on that? give an example, maybe?
it seems like you like men with a touch of femme, and women with a touch of masculine, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.
it does, sorta. like, people whose character isn’t predominantly either? I just can’t think of any example offhand; everyone I know is distinctly one or the other.
sweet. now I can stop worrying I’m the only one.
see, this is what I would assume would be the norm. donno why, really; just seems intuitive. but then I guess that’s the same misled mentality that people have when they ask gay/lesbian couples “so, who’s the girl?” so often it just seems to be the way of things… even I, the tomboy who likes cavemen, identify with it, because they’re not like me in that they are distinctively more masculine.
For example, I have quite a crush on a female friend of mine, who is very femme in appearance and dress. However, she has what I think of as an androgynous personality. I don’t know how to describe it well without going into stereotypes, though.
Wow, nevermore, I wonder about this myself sometimes.
The one moment a guy shows a tiny sign of femininity I am instantly turned off. With girls, it’s girly = ‘good’, tomboy = ‘yeh I can live with that’, butch = ‘nuhuh’. If they’re dykier then me, then that’s too dykey.
I always thought it was bizarre, I just patched it down that I like men to be like men, I want them to protect me, where as with women I want to protect them.
woah. you might just have something there.
when I’ve been with guys, I’ve felt and wanted to feel comfortable and warm and safe…
but now I’m with a girl, and I find myself acting as if I want to be the one to provide that feeling. I want to take her out & buy her things, I want to drive her around, I want to do the hard stuff and carry the heavy stuff and let her do the fun little details. I don’t act more like a guy or anything (in fact I think her girliness is infectious), but I do seem to have to taken on the role of protector…
huh. curiouser and curiouser.
Profane, ErinPuff, and Gfactor, if y’all happen to venture back in here, would you mind revealing your gender? I think it’d be a bit more enlightening for me if I could put your comments in that context.
My attractions have nothing to do with protecting or being protected - they’re far more basic.
I like the hardness of the muscles, the flat planes, the courseness, and the physicality of men. I also like the softness, curves, and voluptuousness of women. Sort of a GI Joe and Barbie concept.
I like the whole spectrum from very femme females through very femme males with every stop on the way
I’m a woman, and more discriminating than that makes me sound, by the way! I do tend to like androgynous men and women most of all but I appreciate masculine looking/acting people and feminine looking/acting people quite a bit too. Mmmm. Uh. Yeah.
