Sexuality is a continuum. Some people are completely straight, some people are mostly straight but just slightly bi, some are right in the middle. And no point on that continuum is “bad” or “wrong”. It sounds to me like you’re close to the completely-straight end, but not quite completely.
Likewise. But a continuum includes the endpoints. Just because we happen to be at one particular point on the spectrum doesn’t negate all of the other points.
I think “more attracted by” and “less disgusted by” are two completely separate circuits in my brain. Like, if I introspect on the part of my brain that decides whether I prefer beef to chicken, it’s a different part to whether I am less disgusted by cheese with an off smell vs visible mold. The same applies to your hypothetical.
I think there’s a real strong point there.
I’m a straight guy. But I can appreciate a well-muscled or otherwise movie-star attractive guy. I don’t want to kiss or cuddle him, but I can admire a high quality example of the male form. Whether the guy is seemingly overtly gay or hetero doesn’t change that a bit.
I can also mentally roll my eyes or avert my gaze at bad examples of the female species. There are plenty of those I’m so disinterested in that the thought of kisses, cuddles, or sex with them is actively repellent, not merely meh.
But I really think I come to those two different conclusions using two very different mental “circuits”. It’s not one preference curve. It’s two separate curves that are not intercomparable.
I can’t relate to the question at all. I identify as a straight woman. I’ve occasionally found a woman sexually attractive, but much less often than men, only somewhat masculine women, and I’ve never made out with a woman. So, mostly straight.
But i feel like there are both men and women who i find sexually repulsive. I do find men more sexually threatening than women. I’ve never really worried that a woman was going to sexually assault me. That’s a special form of sexual repulsion that I’ve only felt towards men. But i didn’t think that’s what you are describing.
On the other hand, if I’m somehow forced to make out with a person I’m not attracted to, i choose the less threatening person. I suppose that’s likely to be the woman. I can’t imagine the situation where that would come up, though.
I wasn’t talking about any kind of force or even persuasion; from the way it was described it seemed like manipulation and dishonesty of motives. Comparable to the OP making out, apparently sincerely, with one guy at a party only in order to make another guy jealous. Not related to the the genders involved, so peripheral to the topic of the OP, but still kind of low.
Thanks for the clarification. I agree w you that any ulterior motives completely pollute the situation and hence the OP’s question.
It’s not obvious to me there were, or were not, ulterior motives. I’m pretty obtuse about folks behaving deceitfully in social situations; my default stance is everyone always plays straight. Foolish I know.
When they may be playing bi … ?
I think the OP’s question stands on it’s own, whether or not she’s engaged in deceitful making out. (And we don’t know that, maybe the other woman was also interested in generating male attention.) Also [mod hat on] i think that further discussions along that line likely belong in another thread, possibly a pit thread, depending on their nature. [mod hat off]
Yeah. I’m not sexually attracted to other women. But it’s not because I find them physically disgusting. I find very few people of any gender physically disgusting; and in the few cases in which I do, it’s generally got as much or more to do with their behavior as with their looks.
I find the idea of unwanted sex disgusting. But that’s got nothing to do with what the person looks like or what gender they are.
It could just boil down to the OP finding an ugly man to be less attractive than an ugly woman, and the possibility of having sex with either of them doesn’t even enter into the reaction.
Is the question, “a man I find disgusting” vs “a woman I find disgusting”? Or “a man I find disgusting” vs “an attractive woman?” Those are two very different ideas.
Same. I can’t relate to finding random people “physically disgusting”. I sometimes find obvious evidence of disease off-putting. (Open wounds, coughing in my direction, that sort of thing) But if you selected two random people at a bar, the odds I’d feel disgust towards either is very low, no matter their gender. Also, the odds that I’d find making out with them disgusting is very high, no matter their gender or physical attractiveness.
In an abstract way that’s obviously correct. But the question arises: is that continuum concept itself a generally useful idea for describing reality? Does it apply to everyone, or do people fall into sets: binary or on a scale? In other words, is it true that:
I’m not sure of the answer and for me this is really just a philosophical question. Everyone’s sexual preference and behaviour is a private matter as far as I’m concerned. As long as they are not violent or predatory.
This is the portion of the op thought process that is interesting to me?
I’m reframing the question as which thought would bother you more, than which action. Married and imagining hypothetical “have to”s get too absurd. And the assumption that as a heterosexually identifying cis-man the idea of same gender sex with a man I could state objectively is attractive and not disgusting as a person would evoke a stronger no thank you than the no thank you response to a woman I found overall unattractive. I suspect the op is right that fewer women than men react in that way.
So my question is why? Is it that heterosexual men are more firmly in the no spectrum to it camp than women? Or do generic heterosexual cis-men focus more specifically on sexual parts and can ignore unappealing features than women do?
The heart wants what the heart wants. Logic be damned.
For some people, what the heart wants can be disassociated from what the gonads want. For others, it can’t.
I don’t know whether there are more men than women in the first category.
Come to think of it, you might have a point there. It’s also possible to be simultaneously attracted and disgusted by a person.
“Binary” isn’t a description that can apply to any individual human. It’s something about a population of humans. If every human in some population is either completely gay or completely straight, then you could say that that population is binary. I think it’s pretty clear that humanity as a whole doesn’t meet that description.
I still can’t wrap my head around “being forced to choose.” There’s a lot of things I’d do if forced that I would not do otherwise, but the lack of consent in this hypothetical is troubling.
Edited to correct a typo.
It may be partly the second, but i bet it’s also partly that men, just as much as women, find it more potentially threatening to mess around with a man than with a woman.
Oh definitely would rather fool around with the woman than with the unattractive man, for sure. Though I’m not sure that I’m 100% straight (though I’ve never actually ever fooled around with women, either, so in practice I’m 100% straight).
But I think it’s also true that there’s a much wider variety in my response towards men (some I’m very attracted to, some I am very turned off by) than my response towards women (they’re all fine, some are more attractive than others, sure, but I don’t think I am especially physically turned on or turned off by any women).