Does your sexual preference define YOU?

Great Debates
21

to expand a bit on the “Sua-point”, back in my liberal college days, I recall a conversation I had w/a woman regarding her being a lesbian. I, in my own, “I’m so advanced” way, said “gee, that’s your business, no one should judge you about it 'cause it isn’t their business etc etc etc”.

and she set me right.

For her, conversations with family, long ago school chums, co workers, the general public, would always have, at it’s core, a different framework, “do they know, should they know, should I admit”.

On a daily basis, we have casual encounters, deeper conversations etc with all manner of people. and some basic assumptions are often made. We discuss the latest movie, adding in “Gee, and Mel shows his butt”, expecting that the other females will agree that it’s a good thing and the males will be less enthusiastic. We ask “are you seeing anyone”, when we know the person to be single, and suggest potential mates, with the default setting as “heterosexual”. (that is to say, that I doubt that many of us would assume there is a potential for a gay or bi orientation, unless we were already aware of it).

and to the extent that those who do not have a heterosexual orientation have to go through mental gymnastics or pronoun terrors in order to engage in these conversations, then that is the extent that “sexual orientation” defines us.

IN other words, it is difficult for the ‘default setting’/majority to get a sense of how pervasive assumptions about sexual orientation are. HOlding hands w/loved ones, gentle goodbye/hello kisses, even the assumption that you’re ‘a couple’, routinely impact our daily lives.

22

Lazlo,

Yeah, there’s a difference. I have a few close friends as well, and I don’t have the urge to spend my life with them, making them happy, sharing everything with them. I love them, but I don’t want to hold them close when they’re feeling bad, or kiss them to cheer them up. I don’t want to commit to them, to promise them that I’ll love them forever. I don’t have a friend that I couldn’t imagine living my life without.

What I feel for my boyfriend is a whole different kind of love. And it impacts my life in an amazing array of ways, every single day.

23

That last–mighty well put, Mr.Visible!

My gayness, the fact that the sight and thought of my own gender can excite me, is nowhere near what I would call “the core of my being.” My core consists of my moral values, aesthetics, personal style, religious/philosophical beliefs, and other such sould-things–including the genderless fact of when and whether I am even capable of loving another person.

Yet if my gayness is only tangential to my core as a person, it is close to central to my core as a SOCIAL participant, a part of public society. Being gay controverts the most fundamental unspoken assumption of 95% of those around us, including (in most cases) our own parents and siblings. To those who say, “Why would it matter?”, I reply, “So, if your own son stopped hanging around with girls, which you took to be a sign of heterosexual interest, and came to you at age 16 with a declaration that he preferred boys–you wouldn’t blink an eye? There wouldn’t be the briefest moment in which you felt sorry for yourself, betrayed, angry, hurt?”

And such a reaction is perfectly naturally, and will never be eradicated, I think. Which to my way of thinking licenses gay people to be somewhat defensive.

24

I would consider myself a bisexual in as much as I fantasize about sexual relations with both men and women, and in fact there are some real men I have been attracted to. However, apart from a single instance, this part of my sexuality has never really manifested itself. Not for lack of thought on my part, of course. But these guys were heterosexual (and one was even a homophobe, which doesn’t help a bi any).

Because of this, I often refer to myself as a heterosexual. My sexuality, apart from experimentation, has really only been manifested in a heterosexual manner. So, for me, I define my sexual preferences, not the other way around. :wink:

25

I knew a fair number of homosexuals and bisexuals in high school (not as many in college or after college, at least not as many that I know about), and it seemed to me that their sexual identities were generally more important to them (were more central to their being, or whatever) than were the sexual identities of most heterosexuals. This didn’t strike me as being very odd, though, since the homosexuals and bisexuals were very much in the minority – people seem to define themselves more by what makes them different than everybody else than by what makes them the same as everybody else.

Heck, I’ve known people (even been friends with people) who have much stupider things that are central to their beings (like the style of their hair or the size of their ass).

–“What I figure is anything adult humans want to do within the privacy of their own bedrooms is going to be unspeakably disgusting, so there’s really no point in trying to draw distinctions between one revolting act and another.” -David Drake, A Very Offensive Weapon.

26

MrVisible,

Okay, I see what you mean. I personally haven’t experienced “being in love,” versus just loving someone.

Scott,

I think the only problem I would have with my son coming out is that I know he’d be persecuted by idiots. I hope he’d be able to tell me something like this and not hide it. I’d hate to think that he’d be afraid of his own father disliking something he has no control over. Of course, this is academic since I have no children, so I really can’t say how I’d really react.

loinburger,

I hadn’t thought about that, but you’re right. I’ve known people who think this way as well.

27

Being gay is part of the core of my being.

Being gay is not the only way I define myself.

Does that help? :slight_smile:

I would also add that there is a gay community to consider - because of our collective minority status, and after centuries of discrmination, a strong band of brothers and sisters has come together to fight for their equal rights, and at the same time reclaim their history and celebrate their lives. I’m proud to be a part of that community. I’m also proud to be a part of the Unitarian Universalist community, the SCA, the Teeming Millions, my group of friends, my family, and so on and so forth.

Esprix

28

Thanks for sharing so personal a part of yourself, Erislover.

And you seem so…clever and philosophical…which can be a turn-on for some people…

Isn’t Taxachussetts one of the suburbs of LA?

29

Taxachussetts seems to be a suburb of everywhere. LOL.

30

At the core of my being I’m an “as much as posible” kind of guy.

31

I’m straight, and my friends are about 50/50. my roomate is gay, as is my closest friend. I have a lot of straight friends too, but it seems most of the new people I meet are gay. It’s rarely an issue.

oh and lazlo, don’t worry about it. I still understood what you were getting at:)

32

To me (GWM, 36), my orientation is about identical to my gender in defining who I am. My sexuality, especially since I’m celibate (not by choice- just sort of happened… send serious inquiries to “Single in GA” c/o…), isn’t as defining.
OTOH, I know straight guys to whom their sexuality (not their sexual orientation) is the most important facet of their existence and other to whom its trivia.
My orientation is there, it’s unalterable, and I have no real pride or shame in it. I wish that it weren’t such a highlighted and overly stressed social issue, but if “the gay couple down the street” is ever going to reach the same quotidian and judgment free attitude as “the black couple down the street” then it has to be for now.

Re: noclueboy
Just a thought. How many gay friends do you have (if straight)? And, vice versa, how many straight friends do you have (if gay)?

Most of my friends are straight. I’m not “evidently” gay, but I am out to them all as it’s far too important a thing to keep from friends and to real friends and thinking people it’s really not a barrier to emotional depth. What I look for in friends is the holy trinity of compassion, intelligence, and humor, and I really don’t care what its wrapped in as far as race, gender, orientation, or other demographic.
For romantic interests (if I remember correctly), I look for the above plus the fourth component of physical attraction, so that eliminateds the straight people and lesbians, not that there’s anything wrong with that.

BTW, my Dad ‘came out’ when I was a teenager, so I admit to some mixed feelings on this subject.

I think you’d be less than normal if it didn’t affect your judgment; that has to be a rather traumatic thing to experience, and I’m guessing that the social stigma was pretty harsh. At least you realize that your feelings are based in part on personal emotions rather than reason though.

[hijack] Does the terminology “gay” “straight” as opposed to hetero/homosexual, cause any problems? I don’t mean to offend, but I often have no clue. [/hijack]

Personally, I think “gay” is a silly word, but I don’t find it offensive and it certainly beats a lot of the alternatives.

33

It is not natural but cultural.

34

Actually, I think it probably is natural. When I was in my late teens and really having a hard time admitting to myself, let alone the rest of the world, that I was gay and trying to reconcile the fact that I’m a decent person with the baggage of religion and Falwellian homophobic diatribes on what gays “really are”, the person who gave me solace and really helped me to help myself (it wouldn’t be too melodramatic to say that she saved my life) was a friend of my family who taught me to accept myself for who I am and that what society and my family thought wasn’t important- be a good person and the rest is incidental.
Later, she learned that her own daughter was a lesbian and she hit the ceiling in Brownian motion. They later reconciled, and she admits that she overreacted (she’s a bit ashamed in fact), but she couldn’t “NOT” be devastated.
BION, I have known of gay fathers who were distraught to learn that one of their children was gay. The story of gay-friendly-gay-icon Cher and her daughter’s coming out is famous. Think “GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER” on speed when most gay friendly liberals have to confront the situation in their own household.

Now, the fact that it’s natural doesn’t mean it’s necessarily good. It could be well argued that racism, xenophobia, greed, and adultery are all “natural”, but they’re hardly virtues. OTOH, I have a hard time judging somebody who flips when they learn their child is gay, so long as they come to their senses later and accept the child for who they are.

35

Sampiro, I agree. And to make sure I was understood, when I suggest that homophobia is “natural,” I mean only that it is driven and amplified by a lot of stuff deep in our brains. I do not mean that “acting out” should be casually accepted-as-okay. And I certainly don’t mean that “natural=good.”

And I do acknowledge that cultural factors affect how well, or how poorly, we deal with such “acting-out.”

36

Wow, so many posts, and not one, “In Soviet Russia, your sexual preference defines YOU!”

But the question of cultural vs. natural would be difficult, if not impossible to ‘prove’. It’s not as if we can raise a batch of kids in a total cultural vacuum. (Insert Ohio jokes here).

37

I dont care what anyones sexual preference is, or what their gender is, or what color they are. I dont care what color their hair is or how many piercings or tatoos they have.

What matters is what their political views are, i.e., if they they demand or want to take from others, and whether they are criminal/harmful to other people.

38

Well, maybe if you were a dwarf, you would look at height differently. Being out of the norm makes us deal with our sexuality in a thousand different ways every day, that I really don’t blame you for not thinking of. It’s difficult to understand without living it or having someone close to you live it.

We’re not even talking about overt prejudice, but just the tiny things. Think about how many times a day a straight person talks about his/her SO. Or a cute girl/guy. Or going out to dance. Or whatever. And realize that every time a gay person does the same thing, it involves coming out.

I think this is part of why a lot of people think that gay people are “constantly shoving it in their face.” For a gay person to go through life in a fairly regular way, there are a million different ways in which they have to come out; and each time there are assumptions that are broken, expectations that aren’t met. That’s why it seems so radical just to live in society as openly as straight people get to, let alone participate in any kind of political discourse that analyzes how and why we’re oppressed.

I think that that is as ridiculous as saying that you could dislike that person’s skin colour, but still like them. I’m a package deal. You don’t get to dislike gayness and like me because i’m gay. I am what you don’t like. (Well, not you personally.)

39

See, but other cultures have no problems with homosexuality. To say that it is natural would imply that there is a biological aversion to homosexuality. That a person could not help but think homosexuality behavior was bad, not because of what society tells them, but because of a gut-instinct.

However, in most cultures, throughout the world, homosexuality was not only accepted and embraced, but practiced by large numbers of people.

I think by saying it is “natural” for people to react with homophobia when we come out, we allow ourselves and others to believe that our love is “unnatural” and should not be accepted. But then, I think choice of words is very important.

40

Heh. I was born in Ohio.

I think cultural vs. natural is simply proven by looking at various world cultures. If humans had a natural aversion to homosexuality, then it would not be practiced and laws would be made against it in most cultures/societies, correct? However, if you do research, you will find the exact opposite to be true. If only a certain group of people is averse to something, that implies that it is cultural.