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Another nothing for nothing. From time to time I have an identity crises. But I always work it out to I don’t care. Am I Gay? Or Bi? I generally find it depends on who you ask. Some say if you ever had intimate relations with a male you are gay on the other hand if you ever also had lntimate relations with a female you are Bi. Frequency does not matter. Nor does what you desire the most. I have enjoyed sex with both; given a choice to select, all things being equal I would select a male. So what am I.
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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Normal.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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marc
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Needs to get a life! |
Registered: March 2003
Messages: 4729
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You are Bi....
But I am probly wrong here as well....
Life is great for me... Most of the time... But then I meet people online... Very few are real friends... Many say they are but know nothing of what it means... Some say they are, but are so shallow...
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You are human.
If you want to add other labels, that's up to you - just don't let anyone else pin them on you!
NW
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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If a man who has had relationships with both sexes is necessarily bisexual, then why is a man who has never had sex or a relationship not asexual?
Presumably it's because sexuality is psychological, not physical. And as no-one else can know your psyche better than you, only you can choose the label you prefer. Or you may prefer no label at all, though technically that's a label too.
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marc
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Needs to get a life! |
Registered: March 2003
Messages: 4729
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Everyone has a label..... Some labels are good..... Some are not.....
But everyone has them..... and each of them are imposed and/or prescribed by others.....
Even as much as all of you can argue to the contrary..... Each and every one of us has them.....
Life is great for me... Most of the time... But then I meet people online... Very few are real friends... Many say they are but know nothing of what it means... Some say they are, but are so shallow...
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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but we can reject the labels of others and choose our own. Even if that label is "unlabelled"
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Yes, and other people's labels are frequently wrong. "Witch", "communist", "paedophile" and "homosexual" are all labels that have been given to people by others, usually justified by their supposed actions, and in many, many cases they have been entirely invalid.
On the other hand, if you yourself confess to being a witch, or a communist, or a paedophile, or a homosexual, then by all reasonable accounts you are one. No qualification by actions is required.
David
(Note: Before someone gets their knickers in a twist, I use paedophilia in this sense as it is the modern equivalent of the witch hunt, not because I am suggesting it is equivalent to homosexuality.)
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Guest
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On fire! |
Registered: March 2012
Messages: 2344
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Yes, but usually I find that people will still label you what they choose. In any matter.
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marc
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Needs to get a life! |
Registered: March 2003
Messages: 4729
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You can reject anything you choose to..... but that does not remove the stigmatization of the label.
Life is great for me... Most of the time... But then I meet people online... Very few are real friends... Many say they are but know nothing of what it means... Some say they are, but are so shallow...
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marc
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Needs to get a life! |
Registered: March 2003
Messages: 4729
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It does not matter wether or not the labels are true or justified...
Once bestowed on a person they are forever there....
Choose them, deny them, agree to them, run and hide from them..... once there they are there for good...
Life is great for me... Most of the time... But then I meet people online... Very few are real friends... Many say they are but know nothing of what it means... Some say they are, but are so shallow...
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marc
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Needs to get a life! |
Registered: March 2003
Messages: 4729
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Oh..... and one more thing....
The vast majority of the labels placed upon you are for the most part held within closed circles and you are seldom if at all made aware of them....
Life is great for me... Most of the time... But then I meet people online... Very few are real friends... Many say they are but know nothing of what it means... Some say they are, but are so shallow...
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cossie
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On fire! |
Location: Exiled in North East Engl...
Registered: July 2003
Messages: 1699
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... to answer your question - but the Oxford Dictionary does! A Bisexual is an individual who is ATTRACTED to both sexes; there is no requirement that sexual relations should have taken place. This of course solves Deeej's problem in the contrast between asexuality and bisexuality. The use of 'asexual' as a description of someone who has no desire - or a positive distaste - for sexual relations is relatively recent, and derives from the technical/biological meaning, defining an organism without sexual characteristics. It's now being used in a parallel context to heterosexual, bisexual and homosexual and it thus automatically acquires a parallel definition - in strictness, therefore, it simply describes an individual who is not attracted to either sex. Of course, in the same way, homosexual defines an individual who is attracted only to other individuals of the same sex - no sexual experience is necessary!
So, Navyone (if it really matters to you!) - if you feel attraction to females as well as males, you are bisexual. And that's a fact rather than a label!
For a' that an' a' that,
It's comin' yet for a' that,
That man tae man, the worrld o'er
Shall brithers be, for a' that.
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Does it necessarily matter if you are bi or gay ? Just go for whomever you are attracted too. If that happens to be a male or a female, there you go. I tend to agree more with the Kinsey scale then with the labeling of someone as bi or gay. I figure you can't fit everybody in neat little boxes and, in keeping with my metaphor, that some people exist between boxes and don not lie entirely in one box or the other. Although, with the advent of quantum mechanics, until it is known whether a person is bi or gay, we must assume that they are simulatenously both bi and gay.
Anywho, as has already been said, it doesn't matter who you have sex with, it's who you are attracted too. I could use a tree for sexual gratification but that doesn't mean I'm a dendrosexual(?).
It's always the old to lead us to the war
It's always the young to fall
Now look at all we've won with the sabre and the gun
Tell me is it worth it all
~Phil Ochs "I Aint Marching Anymore"
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I don't agree that labels are always there for good. In some cases, sure.
But that is not to say that untrue cannot be proven wrong. Although, sometimes ignorance prevails and labels that are wrong stick.
It's always the old to lead us to the war
It's always the young to fall
Now look at all we've won with the sabre and the gun
Tell me is it worth it all
~Phil Ochs "I Aint Marching Anymore"
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marc
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Needs to get a life! |
Registered: March 2003
Messages: 4729
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A fact AND a label.....
Life is great for me... Most of the time... But then I meet people online... Very few are real friends... Many say they are but know nothing of what it means... Some say they are, but are so shallow...
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cossie
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On fire! |
Location: Exiled in North East Engl...
Registered: July 2003
Messages: 1699
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... and you'd better make sure that there aren't any squirrels in that hole!
For a' that an' a' that,
It's comin' yet for a' that,
That man tae man, the worrld o'er
Shall brithers be, for a' that.
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Or worse haggis
I believe in Karma....what you give is what you get returned........
Affirmation........Savage Garden
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cossie
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On fire! |
Location: Exiled in North East Engl...
Registered: July 2003
Messages: 1699
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... the sensation generated by a tree-hole filled with haggis would be very similar to that obtained by using a rolled-up tube of coarse-grain sandpaper with the abrasive side inside! I'll pass on that, I think!
For a' that an' a' that,
It's comin' yet for a' that,
That man tae man, the worrld o'er
Shall brithers be, for a' that.
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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the scale is not just from homosexual to heterosexual with bisexual in the middle.
Sexual Orientation includes:- Buildings
- Scents
- Sounds
- Hair Colour
- eye colour
- Location
- time of day
- Situations
- flavours
- foods
- clothing
- pain
- sensation
- etc
You can get sexually aroused and ready to perform just by walking into a certain room. At that point you would potentially perform solo or with anyone who was present.
We shoudl thus understand labels and know that most who either self apply or apply to others do not really understand the labelling scheme, let alone understand the label
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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marc
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Needs to get a life! |
Registered: March 2003
Messages: 4729
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What amazes me is that the referance to labels only include those of a sexual nature.
There are thousands of labels..... Millions even....
Life is great for me... Most of the time... But then I meet people online... Very few are real friends... Many say they are but know nothing of what it means... Some say they are, but are so shallow...
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Mm, yes, it's called fetishism, and it is supposedly related to the fact that you associate those things with having an orgasm, so they turn you on.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_fetishism
An interesting question is, is "normal" human sexuality (homosexuality, heterosexuality, bisexuality -- attraction to either or any sex) just another form of fetishism?
It's a nice, simple explanation, but it fails to account for the fact that children can know they are gay long before they have an orgasm. Presumably there is some sort of predisposition, environmental or genetic. But sex (even solo sex, when associated with a certain sexuality) certainly reinforces sexuality.
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*Clarification* When I said Kinsey Scale, what I actually meant was a Kinsey type scale. In other words, a sliding scale of attraction instead of a sliding scale of sexual encounters.
It's always the old to lead us to the war
It's always the young to fall
Now look at all we've won with the sabre and the gun
Tell me is it worth it all
~Phil Ochs "I Aint Marching Anymore"
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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It isn't fetishism. Fetishism is an extremity of a scale where (eg) a building is important. But I can see why you would think it was. But compartmentalising does not help, not really.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Timmy,
>Sexual Orientation includes:
* Buildings
* Scents
* Sounds
* Hair Colour
* eye colour
* Location
* time of day
* Situations
* flavours
* foods
* clothing
* pain
* sensation
* etc
Why are none of those fetish objects? Fetishism is "a condition in which arousal and/or sexual gratification is attained through inanimate objects (shoes, pantyhose) or non-sexual body parts (feet, hair)" (http://allpsych.com/dictionary/dictionary2.html). So if any of those things mentioned above turn a person on, even only slightly, they are fetishes.
I am not sure what you mean by "Fetishism is an extremity of a scale where (eg) a building is important.". Fetishism is very common indeed, and comes on all sorts of levels. It's not a deviant thing, though some people may use it that way. A heterosexual man's attraction to a woman's breasts is arguably a fetish. As are clothes, scents, everything not directly related to the sexual act.
Believe me, I've read several articles on fetishism as part of my course (films often rely on it, consciously or unconsciously, to make their female stars alluring). Don't read Freud's account of it, though. He's bizarrely obsessed with castration.
David
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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Does being aroused by the scent of new mown grass mean that you have a fetish for it? Does arousal when you hear a certain piece of music mean it is a fetish?
The answer is a resounding "no", whatever your reading material for the course may be. It is likely to mean it is a memory, no more and no less.
But "only being aroused by that" is likely to be a fetish.
I have very good friends who go to fetish parties, clubs and weekends. They are on the cover of a fetish video. They will tell you the difference, for their fetish is their hobby, and interestingly has nothing to do with sex or orientation. They do not have sex. Instead they have their fetish, of which, for them, sex is not included at all.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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>Does being aroused by the scent of new mown grass mean that you have a fetish for it? Does arousal when you hear a certain piece of music mean it is a fetish?
If you are sexually aroused, yes. Because those things are not inherently sexual. But there must be some sexual association going on, otherwise you would not find them sexually arousing. Even if it is "just memory". Because most memories do not have a physical effect on a person.
I have no idea what a fetish party is, and I made no reference to it. I am talking about what I understand sexual fetishism to be, and as that is one defined by Sigmund Freud and other psychologists. You may have a different and more popular conception, and that is fine. But since I defined my terms I think it is rather absurd of you to insist that mine is wrong by using a different, and less clinically correct, definition.
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cossie
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On fire! |
Location: Exiled in North East Engl...
Registered: July 2003
Messages: 1699
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Deeej is certainly clinically correct in his definition, but as with the clinically correct definitions of gender sexuality, the popular label doesn't conform precisely to that definition. In terms of labels, 'fetish' is commonly applied to a non-sexual element which is necessary in order to achieve sexual satisfaction - but the word actually embraces ANY abnormal stimulus of sexual desire. Incidentally, a true fetish in the clinical sense must of necessity involve sexual stimulus; an abnormal attraction of a similar kind but without a sexual element is in strictness not a fetish but an obsession.
I'd also argue that gender orientation is distinct from the other 'preferences' mentioned above; you might visualise it as the x-axis of a series of graphs of sexuality, with the other preferences forming successive y-axes. I've argued on several occasions that I am not convinced of the existence of a 'gay gene', though I accept absolutely that gender orientation is not a conscious choice. To group gender orientation with the other preferences mentioned - which certainly reflect 'learned responses', though the learning isn't necessarily conscious - would imply that it, too, is a 'learned response' and thus capable of therapeutic adjustment. Not in my book, thanks!
For a' that an' a' that,
It's comin' yet for a' that,
That man tae man, the worrld o'er
Shall brithers be, for a' that.
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So your stance is that sexual orientation is a learned response, but not cabable of being extinguished ? I'm not sure I understand how something can be learned but not necessarily unlearned. Although I must say that my knowledge of psychology does not go too much further than an introductory course and maybe a bit of childhood development.
It's always the old to lead us to the war
It's always the young to fall
Now look at all we've won with the sabre and the gun
Tell me is it worth it all
~Phil Ochs "I Aint Marching Anymore"
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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Definitions very over time. And a clinicla efinition is often unhelpful. There used to be a clinical definitaion "Insane" that is now wholly obsolete, but used popularly to define one whose mental processes are abnormnal.
A fetish party is usually associated with the BDSM scene, where people go wna express and enjoy their partyicualr fetish in puiblic with other simiilar minded people. One such even is "The Night of the Cane" where willing participants cane or are caned by others. Marks are given, both literally and by judges.
It seems to me to be unlikely, with regard to sexual arousal, that sexual association is anything other than a learned response - learned even as simply as "That was great - wow, that fresh baked bread smells good" froma first masturbatory experience at whateverage one first tried it. Can one argue nowadays that sex itself is anything other than a learned response? Do we have sufficient instinct to work out that "this goes there" without being taught?
Why is a fetish, certainly clinically, anything that is viewed by societ as abnormal? "I like breasts and vaginas and can only get aroused when I am in the presence of them in the ratio of 2:1" is surely a clinically defined fetish
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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I've often wondered about whether homosexuality is a learned response in some way.
I have thought back to my own upbringing - a biased sample of one!
At school we all talked incessantly about sex form about age 9 onwards. We had no real clue what it was, but we talked about it. I have only evenr been at school with boys except for 2 years at 5 and 6 when it was mixed. At the mixed school girls and boys kept in separate clumps and each hated the other.
From ages 10ish to 12 (when I left one school) we were exclusively heterosexual. We laughed and giggled about homos. We also often groped each other through the clothing in some sort of macho ritual which was peculiar to that school of scrotum crunching and "through the clothes anal invasion" (which caused the victim to uncurl and expose his balls to be crunched). It was not exactly erotic, was painful, and I have not learned to like pain because of it.
I left that school with "no sexuality", but an interest in sex. That summer nothing at all happened. I have never been abused by an adult, never shown sex by anyone. I did enter the growing stages of puberty. Masturbation fantasies did not exost, it was a simple, mechanical act of getting off.
One thing during the summer was that I learnt to sail. Another pupil had tanned legs with blond "boy's leg hair". He was about my age. I found it fascinating to look at but not sexual.
At a new school at 13 I was unsure of myself, nervous, and nothing special. No-one groomed me for sex, no evidence of homosexuality was there despite the alleged tradition of buggery in the British Public Schools. I started out pretty average, with in eexception.
Showers were new. I had never been wholly naked "in public" before and I was body concious. Concious of my body and my collegaies bodies and the bigger boys' bodies, and very shy of having a tiny little dick with all the big boys having substantial weaponry. Even so I did not think about boys and their bodies when masturbating.
What happened was more subtle. And this is where i start to be unsure f the response was learned or from my nature.
Playing rugby I walked of the pitch behond Nick Jones. I didn't know Nick, I just knew who he was. The school was "like that" with boys minglng with boys form other houses. Nick had long, tanned, somewhat feminine yet muscular legs that vanished into very short rugby shorts. I was following those legs and getting aroused. Rock hard. And I felt drawn into the whole idea of buggering him - a fact I suppressed as fast as it arrived in my head. The erecton lasted!
So, was that when I started to associate sexual pleasure with boys' legs? Or was it natural for me to get aroused when seeing Nick's legs as legs and unfortunate for me that he was a boy because they were very beautiful legs indeed that any girl would have been proud of? Or am I just naturally gay?
To be very clear, he was not pretty, had no other feminine features and was just an ordinary boy. And I never knew his personality because it was the rugby pitch I met him on and we never spoke, ever. His legs did form part of masturbation images, certainly for a while. So did I reinforce the response, or was it always there?
An extra opportinity for learned response was meeting John. He was fascinating in a different manner. It was absolutely not a sexual fascination, I just liked him a lot and was fascinated by an unusal bodily attribute of very blond long downy hair on his arms and legs, too. Additionally he was one of only two people I've met with totally dry palms. John was not arousing. I did not get the "Nick Jones Effect" with him, when he was clothed or naked. He was very ordinary, though I felt he was good looking.
But my liking for him and his personality seemed to coalesce with my arousal over "Nick's legs", because John's face arrived while I was masturbating.
So, did I learn to associate boys with pleasure, or was I always going to be aroused by boys?
As a teenager I could get hard without anything sexual in my head, and could masturbate to orgasm mechanically without fantasising. Show me a str8 porn mag and I could get hard, not because they were naked girls, but because they were naked and in sexual situations. I could get hard watching dogs copulate or while reading the Bible. No big deal at all. I even got hard in latin lessons!
Can any of you add your own growing experiences to this? Can anyone say whether they have any idea if they learned their sexual orientation or are sure that it is wholly natural?
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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All the evidence is that a person's sexual orientation is already decided before the end of infancy - and certainly by the age of 5 or 6. So even if it is "learned" it is acquired almost through osmosis, as it were, before the child can even understand such things.
Personally, I don't like the term 'learned' in this context (and I have not heard it so used before). Sexual orientation may well be genetic; but if it is not genetic it is acquired (rather than learned) in earliest infancy and is probably the result of some malfunction (of which we are most likely ignorant) in the relationship between the child and the mother.
So my twopennyworth would be that it has nothing to do with schoolboy experiences - though these might possible enhance an already latent orientation.
The paradox has often been noted that the United States, founded in secularism, is now the most religiose country in Christendom, while England, with an established church headed by its constitutional monarch, is among the least. (Richard Dawkins, 2006)
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Timmy,
>Why is a fetish, certainly clinically, anything that is viewed by societ as abnormal?
I'm not sure if you meant to put "certainly clinically" but my point was that clinically speaking, fetishes are far more common than you might think (witness attraction to breasts, legs etc.) and hence not clinically abnormal. Perhaps you meant "in the popular view"?
Yes, I know, I'm a terrible pedant.
David
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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An attraction to something is not a fetish.
A fetish is where it is either only possible to become sexually excited while engaging in satisfying that fetish, or where the fetish significantly enhances the sexual experience in a way impossible without it.
That is abnormal behaviour.
It is normal behaviour to become excited by normal body parts presented in a traditional (I use the word explicitly) manner.
That fact that one may be especially interested in feet, for example, is expressed popularly as a "foot fetish". Even so, the foot is a normal part of the anatomy, and is as exciting or unexciting as perceived by each party. Thus an attraction to feet when presented in a traditional manner is not a fetish.
However feet alone, presented from under some form of concealment, and used just as feet for sexual purposes then become defined as a fetish
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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JFR,
I'll have to take your word for it that in most people sexual orientation is learned by the end of infancy. In my own case, however, I can't see any evidence at all that I had any sexuality at all until I was 11 or 12. And I think that it was in almost all ways a learned response, albeit an unconscious one. Incidentally, I don't think it means that it can necessarily be un-learned -- all the evidence points to there being some sort of "switch" that once set, cannot be un-set.
I wrote a huge long post on here last night that I was going to post, but then decided it would be a bit presumptuous to start talking exclusively about my own experiences when everyone else was talking in more general terms. However, as Timmy asked if any of us can add our own experiences, I'll go ahead and rewrite it.
I don't know if it is unusual or not (but given that it was fairly similar to Timmy's upbringing it can't be that unusual) but I had a completely asexual childhood. No interest in either sex, not even curiosity. I went to an almost all-boys school and all of my best friends were boys. I wasn't even interested in giggling over porn magazines -- I found them tedious and somewhat gross (though I suspect that the latter was what made other people look at them, not that they were genuinely interested in them, at least at first).
What I do think, however, was that something happened around the ages of 11 or 12, coinciding with puberty. I think that I was in a very impressionable state, and there were quite a few environmental factors that went on to affect my sexuality.
i. that I was very shy
ii. that I knew very little about sex, as until then I had no interest in it
iii. that I had no input or useful information from either my peers or my family
iv. that all of my friends were boys, and that I was at an (almost) all-boys school -- girls were simply people I didn't think about, except as honorary boys (indeed, most of the girls I did know were tomboys)
I don't think any of these are terribly unusual in the UK. However, I can see a sort of obsession in my way of thinking around that time that I hypothesise had a large effect on my ultimate sexuality.
i. that I never had an opportunity to talk to anyone about sex, or the body in general
ii. that I became fascinated with the bodies of other boys, in the hope that I could find out something about my own
iii. that I still had no conception of the female body, so when I thought about sex it was probably with boys
iv. and finally, the most important (reinforcing) step: once it occurred to me that this behaviour was not "normal" (and I had no way of knowing whether it was or not) I became obsessed with worrying about whether I was gay, and whether thinking about other boys was normal, and tried to stop thinking about it; and, in the nature of any obsessive thoughts, the more one thinks about them the stronger they become. (Believe me, I've had problems along these lines in other circumstances too.)
Going on to an all-boys secondary school afterwards wouldn't have "made me gay" either, but it did help to prevent any thought processes that might have made me consider girls as an alternative.
I don't think my sexuality was associated with any person in particular, though I certainly had a lot of crushes on other boys. (I don't think I have ever told even one of them that I did, though.)
Incidentally, I am possibly the only person I know (any statistically, I must be one in thousands) who can say categorically that it was not sexual conditioning that made me gay. I have no problem believing that it does have an effect on other people (after all, who could be turned on by some of the horrible things that both heterosexual and homosexual couples do, unless there is sexual pleasure in it for them somewhere down the line) but in my case I have never had an opportunity to have been sexually conditioned, not ever having had sex (even solo sex).
So, purely from my own experiences, what do I conclude?
i. I can't see why sexuality can't be defined at around the age of puberty, or shortly before, based on one's experience so far in life
ii. That sex is not essential to have some idea of sexuality, BUT
iii. That some sort of "reinforcing step" is necessary -- be it obsessional-style thinking or sexual conditioning
I don't necessarily think that there is a different thought process required for a person to be heterosexual, but without doing a study into it I don't have sufficient data to make any sort of conjecture. Though it does seem to me that straight children also have mechanisms for reinforcing their sexuality: conformity to the group (which is almost always heterosexual); an obsession with female pornography, actresses and models; the portrayal of heterosexuality as the "norm" in the popular media; and so on -- none of which I was aware of or interested in.
Please feel free to rebut me with your own experiences!
David
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>A fetish is where it is either only possible to become sexually excited while engaging in satisfying that fetish, or where the fetish significantly enhances the sexual experience in a way impossible without it.
Okay, but that's not quite the same definition I've been using.
>That fact that one may be especially interested in feet, for example, is expressed popularly as a "foot fetish". Even so, the foot is a normal part of the anatomy, and is as exciting or unexciting as perceived by each party. Thus an attraction to feet when presented in a traditional manner is not a fetish.
No, it's not. But I'm not familiar with the term in popular usage and can't imagine why someone would say they have a "foot fetish" if the sight of a foot was not instrmental to producing sexual pleasure. There has to be some sexual element to it, right? The foot is not inherently a beautiful part of the body.
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David has more or less asked me (and everyone else) to back up my musings about the aetiology of homosexuality with reminiscenses. To tell you the truth I am amazed at how much of his childhood David remembers so clearly; and this cannot be just the fact that he is ... um ... younger than me... um ... much younger than me, because Timmy has displayed a similar prodigious memory - and Timmy is ... er ... somewhat younger than me .
I do not remember a time when I was any different; I do not remember a time when there was a sudden realization. I just always knew: that was the way I was - long before I could put a name to it or even realized that I was different from other boys. I have a recollection of when I must have been 5 or 6 years old of standing alone in the 'front room' of my grandparents' house and imagining males dancing naked around the carpet wearing barrels (yes, barrels). That must have been my first experience of the erotic side of revealing much but covering more.
I recall that a couple of years later I spent some time with two male cousins under the bedclothes in their room playing 'doctors'. (Aeons later, when I was a prison visitor, I encountered one of them in prison - at that time homosexual activity was still illegal. You can imagine how I felt when his first words to me were "Do you remember how...?")
I distinctly remember, when I was about, 9 or 10 having a favourite singer on the radio - 7.30 every Monday night was a must! I recall my father asking why I didn't listen to a more 'manly' singer. I must have been about ten years old when I went - with a male friend! - to hear this singer in the local "Empire". I distinctly recall that while listening to him sing and watching him perform I experienced my first erection. (Recently I downloaded one of his songs from the Internet 'for old time's sake' and found it bland to the point of boredom.)
I went to high school at the age of 11+. I had crushes on several guys in school, but by that time I knew that this was 'forbidden' and 'unacceptable'. The one great erotic lust of my life came when I was 18 years old - and he was as str8 and str8 can be! (We are still good friends and it still hurts when he hugs me when we meet.)
So, Deeej, where has all this reminiscing led me? I think that my own experiences indicate that I was already 'gay' by the end of infancy and certainly aware of my orientation (even if I could not have named it) long before the onset of puberty.
It takes all sorts to make a world.
If you have read all this nonsense you deserve a hug.
The paradox has often been noted that the United States, founded in secularism, is now the most religiose country in Christendom, while England, with an established church headed by its constitutional monarch, is among the least. (Richard Dawkins, 2006)
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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Deeej wrote:
>The foot is not inherently a beautiful part of the body.
Well, it is if you enjoy the look of feet. Equally the vagina is not inherently beautiful but sight of one causes arousal in heterosexual men, because they enjoy the look if one.
In the victorian era the sight of an ankle was considered to be erotic. But it was not a fetish item.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Thank you Deeej and JFR for your very interesting and frank perspectives!
My own experience was that I was rather shy, introverted, "sensitive" and bookish as a child - to some extent, I still am. I have never not been aware of an attraction to other males - it certainly dates back to the age of five, which is the earliest that I can rememember having fantasies of companionship and mutual genital activity with other boys (accompanying my own nightly solo genital activity). At this stage, I was at a mixed-sex primary school, and had friends of both sexes.
By the time I was seven or so - at a single-sex prep school - I'd pretty much accepted that I had occasional crushes on boys (well, generally one at a time - although my best friends were twins who I had a longstanding crush on for about 18 months). One of my vivid memories of my first year at prep school (aged nearly seven) is standing in the dinner queue ... the boy behind me was a prefect (so he'd'v'e been around 13/14): he was getting on for six feet tall. I turned around for some reason, and realised that my mouth was exactly at the same level as his dick, and knew that I *really* wanted to suck on it, and that it would never happen and I could never let it be known.
By the time I was nine or ten (secondary school at ten), my fantasies had shifted away from boys my own age towards adults ... any UK viewers remember the Man fron UNCLE series? ... I knew they were hairy, and I distinctly remember that some fantasies included shaving their pubes to make them more like me! And at this age my fantasies often had a rather violent streak ... possibly due to the level of physical and emotional abuse that I was getting from my father.
By the age of 12, I knew that I was going through a "homosexual phase", and believed that most boys grow out of it ... at some level I also knew that this this would not be true for me, but the process of admitting it took years ... I was around 13 when I accepted that there would always be a homosexual component to my sexuality ... but didn't really face up to and get happy with the fact that being gay was 95% plus of my sexuality until I was 20. But at some deep level I'd known it for years: in my first (unfortunate) longterm sexual relationship starting at 13 (although it didn't get physically sexual for some months, it was always sexually charged) I wanted to and intended to spend the rest of my life with him, and looked foward the eight years 'til I would reach the age of consent and we could be open about the relationship!
So, for me, my homosexuality does not feel acquired. Although the specific forms it takes (romantic love rather than casual sex, for example) do somehow feel like the products of my upbringing and experience.
NW
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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As far as I know I have always been gay. when I was around 7 or so my mom was told by my granddad that I was gonna be a fag. Why? Cause I wouldnt rough house with my cousins. Later around 10, I refused to go hunting with them, and that pretty much clinched the deal. I always kinda knew i was different, not like my cousins. When I was 11, I had this one cousin who was like the most perfect boy in the world. I would see him at my grands and boing I got an erection. But I had heard the word fag and queer enough that I knew I was treading on dangerous ground. By the time I was 12 I had it all figured out. Had a name for it and knew I deffinately had to keep it hidden.
Now if you read this, I really feel sorry for you.
I believe in Karma....what you give is what you get returned........
Affirmation........Savage Garden
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