Sexual Orientation- A sexual inclination
Most commonly used to describe the gender of one's sexual inclination, but that would be only a fraction of one's sexual inclinations.
This post is first, a comprehensive definition of sexual orientation and than a opportunity to discuss the impact of sexual orientation on peoples lives.
If your not familiar with Alfred Kinsey's gender orientation scale, he claims that you can chart one's gender orientation from 1 to 7. 1 being completely heterosexual and 7 being completely homosexual. 4 is equally attracted to men and women. Where do the tranny lovers fit in? What about pediphiles?
Before Kinsey there was Magnus Hirshfeld (Germany late 1800's). His idea, which inspired Kinsey, was that you can rate one's sexual orientation on scales of 1 to 10. Each sexual inclination would be rated seperately. One's heterosexual inclination would be rated on this 10-point scale, along side one's homosexual inclination. These scores can be described as such:
1no inclination
3could do with or without
6prefered
9almost completely focused
You can see from this method how an individual may be heterosexual 9 and homosexual 9, or a strong bisexual. The range of sexual orientation is vast within these two catagories alone, but that's not all.
You can also scale any other sexual inclination on this 10-point scale.
The Pansexualities:
Heterosexual
Homosexual
Asexual
Sapiosexual, or attraction to the mind.
Autosexuality, attraction to one's self.
Transgender orientation, etc, etc.
Now you can see how one may be Heterosexual 9, homosexual 2, and yet still have a sexual attraction to Transexuals 6(The chicks with dicks phenomenon that so many "straight" men identify with).
The Paraphilias:
Exhibitionism, Voyeurism, Sado-masocism, scoptophilia(porn), galactophilia(lactation), pediphilia, etc, etc, etc. There are hundreds of these specific sexual inclinations. Any one individual could concievably scale there own inclination in regards to each but that would be a waste of time. Most people would rate themselves a 1 on all but a couple.
Promiscuousness
This is one last extremely important aspect to one's sexual orientation. Is one inclined to have one sexual partner or more than one? This can be scaled on one 10-point Promiscuousness scale. 1 meaning no inlination toward promiscuity (or monogamous), 9 being almost exclusively focused on having multiple partners.
What does sexual orientation have to do with you? Do you understand yours? Do you know the sexual orientation of your SO? If you find that your SO's sexual orientation is not compatable to your own, can it be reconciled? Do sexual orientations change overtime or can they? Can you successfully change, stifle, or ignore the sexual orientation of you or your SO?
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A daughter of hope and fear, religion explains to Ignorance the nature of the unknowable. -Ambrose Bierce
Oh Shadow, such thought provoking fodder. Good stuff!
I know for sure the kinds of things that I find arousing (which incidentally, I am still trying to locate on my spirituality radar since I am not sure where they fit in, in terms of desirous attachment and obsession.. etc... that's neither here nor there). As I grow older and of course discover my body spiritually, I find that my sexual inclinations are more sapiosexually based. Or more appropriately, more spiritually based. I believe that sex can be amazing with someone with whom you share a spiritual connection. Of course, this was NOT always the case, but it is where I am headed now. I see and have engaged in relationships that are predicated on sexual desire and found that they were just not for me. For someone to come along and try and change that would be repugnant, as far as I'm concerned. My ex did that to me. I loved him so intensely, to the point of needing him in my life, that I did almost anything to satisfy him. He continued to attempt to mold me and shape me into someone I wasn't. Needless to say, it bred resentment on both of our parts. Mine for feeling that if I didn't do these things to satisfy him, I would "lose" him and his for feeling like I would never be what he wanted me to be. It was unfair to expect such things from me. Mind you, shadow, I had no idea about his sexual inclinations until 6 months down the line. He just couldn't find the courage to tell me. Had he just been honest with me from the beginning, things would have been VERY different.
I for one, do not believe that I can reconcile with my partner's sexual orientation if it differs from mine, as you can see. I think whenever you hold out the "hope" for someone to change (sexually, emotionally, etc), you are vulnerable to hopelessness. You can either accept your SO's sexual orientation (whether that be hetero, homo, bi, whatever) or you just move on. I wouldn't expect things to change.
You do know Kinsey's own story with his wife, yes? Speculation suggests that while she immersed herself in his work- engaging in video taped group sex, etc- to spend more time with him, their relationship may have been severely strained. Some reports claim that they lived happily ever after this way. Who really knows? What I do know is this: the SECOND- (the SECOND) you feel the need to want to change someone for you own needs, you are pretty much screwed when it comes to love. If that person changes for YOU, it will never be genuine. It leads to resentment. Imagine if she wanted to make you hetero? You might suppress the thoughts for a period of time because you love her and want to stay with her for the child or whatever, but you then lose yourself and eventually, the desires find their ways through the cracks of that wall you've just built. And then what?
If people want to explore their sexual orientation, that is their choice. If they are honest with you about it and you explore together without expectation, jackpot! If you introduce things in a very slow and compassionate way without EXPECTING them to change- ever- then you may just be on to something. I think the key here is just being satisfied with what you have. And if you are not satisfied 100% by what you have before you, then it is tough to say if this is really the situation you should be in...
My humblest of opinions of course....
Namaste,
Jess
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Much of your pain is self-chosen. It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self...trust the physician...drink his remedy in silence and tranquility: for his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the unseen- kahlil gibran
Agreed. The purpose of such a survey is to discover for yourselves, what exactly sexual orientation means and for us to discover what our sexual orientations actually are.
I myself have gone down a long path of trying to analyize my own orientations. Theorizing the reasons that I am sexually inclined the way I am. And I have to say that most of my sexual actions were not conscious ones. Not that I didn't make conscious decisions, but the decisions themselves were rooted in delusion and driven by my biological urges.
Your story seems similar to my own and I am terribly afraid that I may push my wife away with my perversions. But at least I understand my perversions now. I know the roots of my perversion and how they tend to be expressed or find alternative outlet.
It is a terrible shame that relationships, otherwise perfect, can be destroyed due to lack of compatability of sexual orientation.
I wonder where your definition of perversion comes from? Western society's idea of perversion perhaps? I have trouble subscribing to the terms "perverse," "strange," "weird..." etc... They are fraught with problems mainly because these are social constructs. Its all relative, I suppose. I guess I just have a problem with labels... and I don't see your problem as a perversion. In fact, I see it as an expression of your sexual freedom. Sickness? Disease? Perverse? I just don't see it....
I wonder where your definition of perversion comes from? Western society's idea of perversion perhaps? I have trouble subscribing to the terms "perverse," "strange," "weird..." etc... They are fraught with problems mainly because these are social constructs. Its all relative, I suppose. I guess I just have a problem with labels... .
I beg to differ. Pedophilia is a perversion. Rape is a perversion. Necrophilia is a perversion. I know the term is considered derogatory, but IMO these sexual acts are offensive and hurtful. I suppose if I accept modern day terminology I would call these paraphilias, but I think it's perfectly acceptable to label a pedophile a pervert.
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This is one doodle that can't be undid, Homeskillet.
What does sexual orientation have to do with you? Do you understand yours? Do you know the sexual orientation of your SO? If you find that your SO's sexual orientation is not compatable to your own, can it be reconciled? Do sexual orientations change overtime or can they? Can you successfully change, stifle, or ignore the sexual orientation of you or your SO?
I've had emotional and sexual relationships with both men and women. In retrospect, I think I've always been heterosexual, but I was driven to seek out female companionship because I experienced a frightening amount of sexual violence early in my life, inflicted upon me by men. I still find women physically attractive but am not motivated to seek out sexual or emotional relationships with them. Over time, as I've gotten older, I've become more soldily heterosexual. I do believe that sexual orientation can change over time.
If I found that my SO's sexual orientation was not compatible with my own, I don't think it can be reconciled.
I don't think it's possible to successfully change, stifle, or ignore the sexual orientation of me or my SO.
In terms of your situation, if my partner admitted to being bisexual, I would be worried that it was a precursor to full homosexuality. I would also worry that my SO would eventually have to satisfy his desire for sexual fulfillment with a man. It's something that a woman just can't give...
I agree with you blind_otter some paraphilias are and should be concidered perverse. This is the way I like to look at it though. You can have a taboo interest, unconscious and involuntary, to any of these horrible sexual inclinations you have described, but having a taboo interest is not exactly a horrible thing. It's when these inclinations become fetishes, and the urge to fullfill them becomes to great, then they are obviously a problem for society. But in this same sense, foot fetishes and pedophila are equally perverse. Along with BJs, anal sex, etc.
Quote:
Over time, as I've gotten older, I've become more soldily heterosexual. I do believe that sexual orientation can change over time.
It is also conditional to your current environment. My sexuality has changed and I know why. Having a high promiscuousness, I become more homosexual while in a long term relationship with a women. As a single man, I never concider seeking a hook up with a man (unless a woman was involved). Having my heterosexual inclinations regularly fullfilled, and a possessive wife when it comes to other women, my promiscuous nature has elevated my homosexual inclinations.
I wonder where your definition of perversion comes from? Western society's idea of perversion perhaps? I have trouble subscribing to the terms "perverse," "strange," "weird..." etc... They are fraught with problems mainly because these are social constructs. Its all relative, I suppose. I guess I just have a problem with labels... and I don't see your problem as a perversion. In fact, I see it as an expression of your sexual freedom. Sickness? Disease? Perverse? I just don't see it....
I love this analogy:
Common colds afflict almost everyone at some stage of their life. Let us agree that only the person who sneezes is normal in this century
It is same as the porn or other perversion. "because everyone watch porn and interested in transsexual, let us agree that only person who is watching porn and interested in transsexaul is normal in this century", I think nowaday's society is very close to this absurdity. and freedom many people thinks lead them right into destruction
True to yourself, but when we have sinful nature in ourselves, do you always need to carry out every whim in our mind? what if you want to kill a person? also true to yourself? we are made body, soul, spirit. our body has sin tendency, which need to be disciplined. our spirit make us beautiful, which everyone has the potential to develop
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--Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty (emancipation from bondage)
--Rom 12:2 Do not conform yourselves to the standards of this world, but let God transform you inwardly by a complete change of your mind.
--Beauty for ashes
I beg to differ. Pedophilia is a perversion. Rape is a perversion. Necrophilia is a perversion. I know the term is considered derogatory, but IMO these sexual acts are offensive and hurtful. I suppose if I accept modern day terminology I would call these paraphilias, but I think it's perfectly acceptable to label a pedophile a pervert.
Hmm... interesting. I was mostly directing the term perverse to Shadow's correlation between his sexuality and social constructs. While I am no doctor, or psychiatrist and I try to avoid labeling people, I do believe that rapists, pedophiles, necrophiliacs, etc have more of a mental instability than a sexual sway. Isn't rape motivated by a sense of control or hostility towards men or women? An act forcibly and in many cases aggressively placed upon an unconsenting party? Necrophilia is much the same... no consent there. And pedophilia? Probably the most heinous of all.
In Shadow's and many others' cases, I can't see how this is in any way connected to those mental instabilities. This is a preference, much like any other foreign preference that we just don't subscribe to as a modern society. The Masai tribe of Africa drink cow's blood as a symbol of power which they believe to ingest straight from the cow. Because we do not do this here or in other countries around the world, I am sure we see this type of behavior as WEIRD or STRANGE... Heck, I'm a vegetarian! And while I wouldn't willingly drink cow's blood, I cannot judge them for their cultural behaviors. The same can be said of the reverse!
Please do not misconstrue what I am saying. I do not think that any act that forcibly strips any power or free will away from another for the benefit of the afflicting party is acceptable. That goes for people who steal, lie, cheat, rape, kill, etc. I think we are discussing two different things here: sexual preference and power shifts. In the case of someone who finds a ts attractive, there is no power shift. This is simply an attraction. I just have a problem understanding why being attracted to a man, woman, transsexual, etc, is so perverse. These are just forms of sexuality. If you believe in God, or sin, or any other religion or moral code that sees this as "wrong" then that is your belief. I just don't see it fit to crucify people because they have sexual inclinations that stray from our own or what we've been taught is "proper" and "natural" and "normal." Members of the KKK teach their children that mixing the races is ABNORMAL. They grow up believing this, so they know nothing else until (if ever) they decide to seek out the REALITY of the world. Does this make us similiar in our beliefs and inability to be open about what is actually going on around us? I think it does....
If someone told me they were running around raping transsexuals, I would certainly not call this ok by any standard. And as you said, blind otter, these power shifting behaviors are CERTAINLY offensive and hurtful. The victims have no choice in the matter. But is that REALLY the same as what this post was originally posted for?
We can agree on this. Perversion should not correctly be applied to most sexual inclination because most sexual orientations are in fact natural (normal). Some are more rare than others, but all are a natural condition of human brain chemistry. I however use the term perversion with endearment and am delighted to be called a pervert. By no means letcherous, but dirty minded to say the least.
The point here is that perversions are so various, and the degrees at which these perversions are the focus of one's sexual orientation make one's true sexual orientation unique. Most people don't understand, don't want to understand, or struggle to understand their orientations for most of their lives. Infact, supressed or otherwise inhibited inclinations are sometimes the cause of elevated secondary inclinations. Sometimes these are not healthy inclinations. For instance, my promiscuousness is inhibited by my monogamous relationship. This in turn has raised not only my homosexual tendencies (as previously described), but also my sadistic and masochistic inclinations.
At one point, I thought I wanted to be cuckold to my wife. I thought this was a true sexual inclination that I was just now realizing. The truth is that I was craving promiscuousness so much that I was willing to vicariously be promiscuous through my wife. Recognizing that my own promiscuousness could not be fullfilled, I try to manipulate her into cuckolding me. This is not healthy to my relationship, and is simply a by product of a inhibited sexual orientation. My fantasies also wonder to sadistic fantasies that are truely unnatural for me. Fantasies about forcing my wife to have sex with others or watch me have sex with others.
Very interesting thread, got me thinking. I have had some very "perverse" fantasies throughout my life. When I was a teenaged girl, I went very rapidly from classic romance, one boy, one girl, lust, groping, etc. to some really whacked out fantasies having to do with incest, bestiality, group scenes, rape ...probably read too much Victorian era porn which is rife with that kind of stuff. It got me off, but I had very little to no desire to act on it. It was a masturbatory aid.
Lately, other kinds of disturbing thoughts (e.g., my h having raw, meaningless sex with slutty girls, typical female cuckhold scenarios) also work, but I think I'd probably retch and then freak out if I actually saw/participated in any of this in reality.
shadowofman, you mentioned that you have had some violent/forcing types of fantasies regarding your wife. Do you think this means you would actually get off on the real deal? For me, fantasy has been a fun, safe way to play around with my imagination, my body,my issues, alone. I get the impression that you are a little more adventurous in reality than I have been. I am slightly jealous, but also afraid of the pandora's box I might open up. For now, I will keep a lid on it, but not ignore the contents, if you know what I mean.
Anyway, do our thoughts define our sexual orientation or our acts?
Anyway, do our thoughts define our sexual orientation or our acts?
BOTH! This is my point. Each individual sexual inclination can be rated on a ten point scale. 1 being no inclination. 3 taboo interest (the stuff of masterbatory fantasy) 5 could do with this particular sexual act or without 6-10 prefered through exclusively focused
My sadistic inclinations are a bit elevated right now precisely because my orientation and my wifes clash. This causes me to fantasize about forcing her sexual orientation closer to mine. This is completely against my nature. I am turned off by virgins cause they are to coy, and if a woman ever started crying during sex, I would be scarred for life. My interest is in experienced, insatiable sluts, and that is what I turn my wife into in my fantasies. So to answer your question, I have zero interest in fullfilling my sadistic inclinations.
Interestingly, my masochistic inclinations are just as elevated, but I am very willing to indulge in thoughs. It doesn't require me to step out of my nature, BUT it would only temporarily assuage my promiscuousness. For this reason, cuckoldry is not ideal. I'll take what I can get though.
One may not consider themselves homosexual/bisexual with just a taboo interest in homosexuality, but these labels are not the greatest way to describe sexual orientation anyway. It would be best to rank one's interest in homosexuality as I have said. I rank myself a 6 in my current situation (long term relationship with a woman). And really that's just because I like penis, not nessessarily men.
So does your wife indulge any of your masochistic wishes? Other kinks? I am curious to know how you reconcile your sexual schemata to your wife's, assuming that they are so different. Is she ggg (again, love that Dan Savage) or not?
My h has opened my mind (amongst other things) to some new experiences, that I initially was a little wary of. But out of my own curiosity, and a desire to please him, I gave it a go, and was happily surprised. I think for me this proves that your sexual persona, if healthy and alive, will evolve over time, adding new elements or discarding the no longer needed aspects. I am not the girl I used to be, that's for sure.
I wouldn't expect my h to accommodate my every desire, especially if it is hurtful to him, but I do expect him to experiment a little. And he can expect this of me, as well. We're not sexual twins, but there is some give and take.
And in a situation like yours, with your varied and, well, "pungent" tastes, you've got to realize that your wife has got a lot to adapt to. Can you not be content to keep certain things in the realm of fantasy, for the sake of your r?
You know what, I sound unpleasantly preachy in previous post. Please ignore.
I don't think you can stifle/force a change in anybody's orientation/interests/sex drive. We can adapt, out of love and unselfishness, but deep down, the truth doesn't go away. Probably becomes stronger, due to lack of fulfillment.
I do not expect any change in my wife, even if I hope for a reconciliation of our sexual tastes. As of right now, I am her's. I will not cheat, or expect her to be priomiscuous (this is something I have to keep telling myself). She has recently started talking to another man with the intent to develope a sexual relationship, but she has since backed away from this. I don't blame her. I know I wouldn't want to date anyone else, I just want to have sex with them.
As of right now, I am in this monogamous relationship. My fear is that I will throw it all away for sexual gratification in the near future. I have been telling myself that when I turn 30 I am going to break this monogamous contract. Not leave her, but break monogamous obligation. I can't tell you how much that notion scares me. I truely love this woman more than I ever thought possible, but my hormones rebel every waking moment.
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