Sexual orientation is commonly divided into four categories: asexuality, bisexuality, heterosexuality, and homosexuality. I understand that our sexual behavior may or may not correspond exactly to our orientation, and that the same is true for our sexual identity. What I have a harder time understanding is the recent phenomenon of eschewing all of these categories of sexual identity, in favor of an “I don’t like labels” non-identity.
Today I read this Buzzfeed article about an essay that Aaron Swartz wrote back in 2009 (Swartz passed away recently). In it, he talks about a “new gay identity” that modern homosexuals have projected onto historical figures who had same-sex sex, and our current (faulty) justifications for this identity. He points out the absurdity of gendered sexual identity by comparing it to race (e.g. a man sexually attracted to white people doesn’t call himself “anglo-sexual”), and by positing that sexual identity is not fixed and may change over time. He ends by saying people shouldn’t categorize themselves as “gay” “bi” or “straight”.
Perhaps because I have always identified as a gay man (and because my behavior and attractions have largely been in line with this identity), I’ve never felt the need to push back against these categories. At the same time, I’ve noticed more and more (mostly queer, in my experience) people saying “I don’t like labels” or “I don’t fit into any sexual category”. Frank Ocean is a recent, well-known example.
I have a hard time seeing the point in rebelling against gendered sexual identity labels, and I’ll even admit that it makes me a bit angry when people seemingly avoid the issue altogether in favor of a “don’t put me in a box, man!” attitude. Is the “no labels” phenomenon just a healthier and more progressive identity? Do some people truly not fit into any category, and so choose “none of the above”? Or is this just an unhelpful post-identity fad?
Some people don’t fit well within the labels, some don’t like the assumptions people make when they hear them…for some, yes, preferences change over time, while a label like “straight” or “gay”, etc, implies unchangability. Some feel that the “identity” portion of them doesn’t make sense, that lesbian, for example, doesn’t exist as a culture they feel they belong to. It’s true that this part (“identity”) of the LGBTQ community is a modern phenomenon (as is the community itself) - these identities and how important they’re seen to be is a purely modern phenomenon. Not everyone feels that way. When you fit well within a category, rejecting them may seem silly, but when you don’t it can seem a much more thorough way of solving the problem than inventing ever more obscure labels for yourself.
**And “don’t put me in a box” can be a legitimate way to avoid pressure and expectations, freeing yourself further, on a social and psychological level, to follow your sexual and romantic feelings of the present.
People who say they’re bi often get accused of lying, especially if they tend to go for one gender over the other. There’s also often the question of whether bisexual people would be attracted to transpeople or just cis; this is one reason why many people identify as pansexual, or omnisexual.
Not to mention that perhaps they just aren’t sure if they’re bi, and want to leave that avenue open.
My first boyfriend was like this; he always said he hated labels, but in my opinion he just didn’t want to admit he was gay (this was back in the 70s). After being together for four+ years, and living together for one of those, we broke up. A few years later he told me that he had decided that he was straight. Just like that. All that stuff, not just me but at other times lots of one-night stands and flings, was just a phase. He then did his best to try to make me not want to see him anymore, I guess I was an unpleasant reminder of all the years of that phase, and it worked. I haven’t seen him since, and I have no idea how it worked out for him.
So I think a lot of the time this can just be either denial, or for celebrities an attempt to keep their private life private. In my mind, when someone says they hate to apply labels to themselves, it pings the old gaydar.
Roddy
I can see the need for “labels need not apply” in many facets in life – yet I continue to be miffed by the ever expanding sexual identity crap that keeps cropping-up.
For instance, what is a transsexual MTF with a male organ who likes men other than a gay guy with tits*? Sorry if that sounds crude, but I think it’s a pretty clear example of all the “wordplay/labels” which I doubt really help anyone.
*Which is certainly fine by me, BTW. Not the ultimate arbiter by any means, but confusing the issue is just that: confusing.
I’d say it’s actually commonly divided into two categories, gay or straight. I don’t think there’s much general awareness of asexuality and I think plenty of people would consider it a disorder of some sort rather than a sexual orientation, and “bisexual” is often taken to mean “slutty straight woman” or “dishonest gay man”.
While I understand your objection, my brief foray into the world of online dating has left me with more respect for the “I don’t like labels” crowd than the “my sexuality must be described using a lengthy string of labels” or “I am using labels inaccurately/dishonestly in an attempt to attract people who wouldn’t otherwise pay attention to me” folks.
Have you ever actually met a gay man? They don’t think of themselves as women. If you hear one call another “girlfriend” that’s just a joke.
He was 26 and lived in New York City. There is perhaps no time or place on earth where it has been so easy to be a young gay man. Such a post-label posture seems awfully ungrateful to the legions of gay men who did have to fight the difficult fights.
For some people, it changes over time. Kinsey himself (he of the scale) claimed his scale to be only descriptive of a certain time for which the responder was answering, not a lifetime “once and done” label.
I’m willing to detail my preferences. You tell me what I am:
0-2 - not interested in much of anything that I recall
3-6 - masturbation, mostly with pillows and bouncing on rubber balls. No fantasies or attractions to people that I recall
7-12 - attracted to boys. No consensual relationships with any other people.
13-19- attracted to boys/men with some consensual relationships with men.
20- attracted to men and women. Found myself in a sexual MFF situation; found the woman’s face and breasts exciting, but her vulva a complete turn off
21 - fell in non-sexual romantic love with a female friend, while dating a male.
22-24 - no attraction to anyone, but continued to enjoy masturbation
25-30 - attracted to multiple men at once, with simultaneous consensual relationships with more than one man.
31 - Relationships and sex with both men and women, sometimes at the same time. Fell in love with a woman, had a huge crush on a man. The hormones were kickin’ that summer.
32-35 - My sex drive disappeared. Completely gone, no attraction to anyone, including no urge to masturbate.
35 - Fell in love and experienced a sexual reawakening with a man.
till present (38) - No further sexual or romantic attraction to women. No sexual or romantic attraction to other men, just my husband.
So…am I bi? Am I straight? Am I asexual? You tell me, 'cause I really don’t know. I don’t think there’s a label that covers my entire lifetime sexual identity, only labels that work for certain time spans.
I WAG it can be a form of MYOB sometimes. Some people, having heard a label, suddenly feel like they have unrestricted access to say whatever the hell they want about your life.
I used to eat meat rarely, probably once a month at most. I would call myself “vegetarian” because it was the most recognizable way to explain my diet. That would, of course, open up ALL KINDS of opportunities for people to run their mouth off about anything at all related to that…I’d hear all about their sister who once only ate beets for a month, or about the logical fallacies of ethical vegetarians (which wasn’t my reason at all), or "gotcha"s about beef broth, or dire warnings about vitamin B12, or that I need to meet their friend Rob who is also vegetarian and isn’t that neat, etc. etc. etc.
I could completely understand saying “Look, my sexuality means I have sex with who I want when I want to, and that’s really all you need to know.”
I do think it’s probable that sexual orientation is the result of the complex interplay of biology and culture, and that, rather as there is no unaccented English, there is no “real” sexual orientation. I think it’s inevitable, but still incorrect, that we tend to look at the way sexual orientation is expressed in our time and place as how people “really” are, and that differences in other times and places are cultural distortions of the basic reality that we see.
I dislike it too, and I’ve known lots of people who eschew those labels. What happens is they don’t get to choose how to define themselves, but other people do the defining for them, because people always will - you just do need to categorise people.
(These people are usually, and accurately, described by others as bi. Also, often, “awkward.”)
It’s all very well saying “I’m just a human being!” but so is every other human. That just means you have a heart, lungs, endocrine system, etc. To understand people as individuals, what we do all the time is put them into boxes, labelled gay or straight or vegetarian or meat-eater or sci-fi fan or sports fan or mother or liberal or whatever. These boxes do have removable sides, however. People are quite capable of adapting to changes in the way you behave and the way you identify - they just put you in a different box.
My teenage daughter and her friends use the term pansexual, and I ask them if they’re attracted to aliens or something - Captain Jack Harkness is pansexual, but he lives in a world very different to the real one.
Justifying it by saying that they’re also attracted to transgendered people is kinda insulting, since it says that trans people aren’t really men or women at all.
For a while I thought I was bisexual, but that limits the world to only two sexes. I have a niece who is inter-sexed, so I know that sex is not binary. And with pre and post operative trans people, that brings it to at least 7. I have been attracted to both trans-men and trans-women, so what does that make me, sept-sexual? I think that’s what some people, like me, mean when they say they have no interest in being labeled. I have sex with people, not genders.
I was actually thinking of much the same analogy – I’m “mostly vegetarian” but do sometimes eat white meat. There’s not a commonly understood label for this, so calling myself a vegetarian has sometimes been easiest if not entirely accurate. But it’s also sometimes meant that people suddenly want to start arguing with me about vegetarianism.
I would guess that a lot of “I don’t like to label my sexuality” folks are bisexual, and don’t want to deal with stupid questions and negative stereotypes associated with bisexuality and/or feel the label “bisexual” is too vague to be particularly useful.
And that is why a transwoman isn’t just a gay guy with breasts.
Is there some reason you feel compelled to bring this up in a thread where it isn’t relevant? The topic of this thread is people who reject labels for themselves, not people who label themselves in a way that you feel is irrational. We’ve had a number of threads on transgender issues recently, and I believe you made almost exactly the same “a transwoman is just a crazy gay guy with tits!” post in one of them, so it’s not like you’ve lacked opportunity to share your views on trans folks with the SDMB.