I think somewhere deep inside every human being is a spark of bisexuality; it’s natural.
I think that there’s definitely a flaw in the hypothetical situation described in the OP; as far as I’m conerned what you’re describing sounds more like the relationship of best friends.
If it were a guy and a girl in the situation then hooking up would not be automatic either…if there was no ‘sexual’ attraction, no ‘lust’, from both sides, then best friends it is.
Whenever I see a guy, I automatically don’t consider sex with them (girls on the other hand…;)). Any further relationship that develops with a guy after that will be on purely friendly terms, as sexual relations have already been discounted.
I have some amazing friends who are guys, we spend scary amounts of time together and never argue etc and yet the situation of ‘dumping’ one of them over their body shape aint gonna happen, because the relationship does not require any further advancemant of intimacy and so can continue in it’s current state indefinitely, or at least till one or the other gets a decent girlfriend…
I don’t see the non sequitur. If romantic love and sex are inextricably connected, does it not follow that if the sex disappears, so does the love?
But you wouldn’t automatically judge a man because he leaves a relationship for the sole, self-admitted reason of lack of sex, even though it’s not his wife’s fault?
I realise I’m being a real pain about this, but I find the question really interesting, since it’s so alien to me. For me, I fall in love first, want to have sex later. It’s not always thus, obviously, but I can have love first and sexual desire later.
No, I wouldn’t automatically judge the man. If I were to be judgemental, then it would have to be on the case itself, with full knowledge of all the details. I would personally comprehend why this might happen, even if I didn’t think this was the right thing for the man to do; with full knowledge, I might even conclude that it was the right thing for the man to do. But that’s just my opinion.
I have had sex with plenty of people I haven’t loved.
I have never romantically loved anyone I didn’t want to have sex with.
I have platonically loved people I did not want to have sex with.
I have platonically loved people I have wanted to have sex with.
To some people, sex and love are inextricably entwined; to others, they aren’t.
I could love a person dearly, but if he OR she is morbidly obese* OR morbidly skinny* I will not want to have sex with them. That’s a body shape AND health issue.
I know men who have no desire to ever touch another man’s penis. I know women who have no desire to look at their OWN vaginas, let alone someone else’s.
A person’s gender cannot be dismissed as a “body shape issue,” and I think the OP is being disingenuous for the sake of argument - or, perhaps, deliberately naive - to imply that it can.
Argh, I forgot to define my asterisks in the last post…
“morbidly” implies weight OR lack thereof to an excess which directly threatens the life of the person in question. I do not find people who are so overweight OR so underweight that their lives are in danger particularly sexually attractive.
It isn’t an entirely unreasonable assumption (even though it may in fact be wrong), based on the tone and content of your posts in this thread - just like If I started a thread asking “how can you even begin to contemplate eating meat? is there something wrong with you?”, it would not be entirely unreasonable to assume that I was a vegetarian (I’m not BTW).
I’m not being disingenuous (but I had to look up the word to make sure), and if I’m being naive, it’s not deliberately. I’ll shout from the rooftops that I believe gender is nothing but a body shape issue. I’m not denying that there are mental differences between the genders, but all they do is establish trends; women tend to be this way, men that way. Personally, I usually recognise myself better in the description of typical female thought and behaviour, even though I’m pretty sure I have a Y chromosome.
If gender is not a question of body shape, what is it? What else is there to gender?
I’m still confused about the point of the question.
The scenario you draw is perplexing. There are many instances of straight men being friends without anything sexual between them. Straight men don’t just stop seeing their friends simply because there is no sex.
One big difference between straight men and gay men is that straight men don’t have romantic thoughts (not to mention sexual thoughts) about other men. You’re phrased the question in very romantic terms (“You talk through the night, never tiring of each other’s voices” could be something out of any Harlequin Romance), but that sort of thinking would not occur to two straight men. They’d talk, share stories, have a good time, but never think about it in such terms.
Now if one or the two is thinking in romantic terms, there is a problem, since the other probably isn’t. Since a straight man isn’t interested in a romantic or sexual relationship with another man, the situation may be uncomfortable. Some men would dump the man attracted to them simply because they don’t reciprocate and the idea makes them uncomfortable. If a man is straight, he isn’t going to feel romantic toward the other man, and the other’s romantic thoughts are going to make for an awkward situation.
I’d imagine it would be similar if a woman indicates a romantic or sexual interest in a gay man; the man would be uncomfortable with the situation, especially if the woman seemed to want to be more than just friends.
PriceGuy said, “If gender is not a question of body shape, what is it? What else is there to gender?”
There’s much more to gender than body shape, as the ambiguous gender thread will tell you. Gender isn’t something that is easily defined, but it is instantly known to the person it belongs to. I can swear like a longshoreman and love football and drive a muscle car, but I am most assuredly a woman. Not just physically, but in the very core of my composition. I don’t know how else to describe it, but I would think anyone who’s experienced sexual reassignment (hope I used the right term) would say that they just knew they were in the wrong body.
I’m not attracted to women physically, but I have very close female relationships. I also have close male relationships that have no element of sexual attraction (on my part anyway).
Gender is the part of a man or woman that you don’t see, but know is there. Does that make any sense?
RealityChuck, that’s exactly what I mean. People fling the words “gay” and “straight” around like they’re absolutes, like we can measure them and define them the way we say red is red, cats are cats and the sun shines.
Two guys are great friends and love each other deeply, do everything together, etc etc etc. One of them makes romantic advances. The other one says no because of the first one’s gender, which is a purely physical characteristic. To me, that’s shallow as hell. I cannot see the difference between this and spurning an ugly woman because of her appearance, which most people would agree is shallow.
Jjimm’s and friedo’s explanation is probably the only answer I’m going to get, but I was sort of hoping there’d be another one.
It does. I know most people have a very strong gender identity. I don’t and would happily be able to switch between the two every now and again. I haven’t changed sex because I’m happy this way and might regret it if I changed. Which would suck. Big time.
BUT (and this is the point), no-one else can see it. I’m sure you’ll agree that you and you alone know what gender you are to your core. If I said that you were really a man and ought to have a sex-change, you’d punch me out, and rightfully so. So how can it matter what gender your SO is inside, if you can’t even know?
Excuse the hell out of us for not being bisexual! You are never - never - going to get a satisfactory answer to your question. We have our reasons for being attracted exclusively to one gender, and they’re none of your bees. Just because you don’t understand it doesn’t mean it’s “shallow”.
I’m not saying it’s my business. If you don’t want me to know, don’t answer. I’m just wondering how you can eliminate a very large portion of the population from your pool of dating material, based solely on their looks, without thinking that it’s shallow.
I’m not accusing anyone of anything. I’m not demanding that everybody turn bisexual. I’m not trying to raise anger or emotion of any sort. I have an honest question whose answer I’m honestly curious about.
I think you’re operating under two assumptions that not everyone shares with you.
That gender is nothing more than a difference in body shape/function
and
That physical attraction is a shallow if not altogether unimportant/invalid motivating factor in a relationship.
Until you define the context of your question more clearly and outline the principles you’re operating under better I don’t think you’ll get any responses that you won’t dismiss out of hand.
I’m a straight guy. In college, I had a roommate who was easy to talk to, funny, smart, gentle, kind and understanding. The kind of person I wanted to live the rest of your life with. We had fun every second we were together. Whatever we did was a blast, simply because we were together. We talked through the night, never tiring of each other’s voices.
He was, in short, my best friend. College is many years behind us, but he is still my best friend. The only reason we don’t spend much time together these days is simply because he currently lives on the other side of the planet, but we still communcate regularly. He flew me out to Hong Kong to be the best man in his wedding a few years ago, and I’m flying him here to be the best man in my wedding next month.
I was never even remotely sexually attracted to him and, as far as I am aware, he never was to me. I didn’t “dump” him as a result, however. We are still best friends.
The original poster doesn’t seem to understand how you can be friends with somebody without being sexually attracted to them. Personally, I think that’s rather sad.
My emphases. You are inadvertantly accusing people of something: you’re accusing them of being shallow. I’m not offended by this, but your thinking appears to be out of whack with most of the contributors to this thread.
In my view, gender difference goes way, way beyond physical shape and “looks”.
If a woman I found ugly or a man I found ugly propositioned me sexually, I would say no. Yes, even if I got along with him or her swimmingly in all other ways.
I guess I’m devastatingly shallow. There’s the answer to your question. Yes, it means I’m shallow. No, I feel no need to change. Someone somewhere will find those people attractive and hump them silly; it’s not my job to summon manufactured lust to satisfy someone else’s opinion of what I should and shouldn’t do with my genetalia.
That is an assumption I have that not everyone shares. Yes. My question: Why do you not share it? What else is there to gender?
Yeah, basically… what, you don’t agree? I just find it hypocritical to criticize someone for not liking fat women or bald men but accept that they don’t like women or men. I’m not calling anyone in particular a hypocrite; in fact there’s been extremely little hypocrisy in this thread. I expected a lot more. Nor do I accuse anyone of criticizing anyone for not liking fat women or bald men; it’s just something I see happening a lot. Not necessarily on this board though; it’s not like I searched the archives for it.
Had I made a post saying “I’d never date a fat woman”, I’m sure there’d be a few arrows shot at me and my attitude. Had I made a post saying “I’d never date a woman”, that would certainly have been accepted by everyone not wearing swastika underwear.
If I have dismissed any responses out of hand, I am sorry. Not my intention. What I do do, though, is challenge the responses. I accept the explanation jjimm and friedo gave; they admitted that romantic love and sex are intimately connected for them. That’s a good and valid answer.
My main question now is about the gender bit. Those of you who say that gender goes, externally detectably, beyond the physical, kindly explain how.
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Great. A good, valid answer. Thanks. I’m not trying to change you. Wouldn’t have you any other way.
Jjimm:
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Well, if people are offended by my calling them shallow, I guess I can’t help offending them. What I’m looking for is their explanation why they’re not shallow. They seem shallow to me, I’m wondering why they don’t feel they are. I can see why it can be construed as offensive, but it was really not my intention.
In what way does gender difference go beyond physical shape and looks?
Godzillatemple:
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I think you should read the rest of the thread. Your point has been brought up before.