It seems like it could in fact be a valid sexuality type to be attracted exclusively to sex rather than gender, but the only common term that seems to describe this sexuality is “super straight” (when referencing the heterosexual form of this, while “super gay” might be an unused but equivalent term for the homosexual form) which carries harmful connotations that aren’t inherently entailed by having this sexuality type - which I agree is not a broader sexual orientation like heterosexual/homosexual/bisexual/asexual etc, but is more like a “microlabel” such as demisexual, in that it’s an additional descriptor that further specifies the exact nature of someone’s individual sexual preferences/orientation. However, that also doesn’t mean it needs to be considered as part of the LGBTQ+ community, as it’s not a marginalized sexuality or identity - in fact I’m pretty sure it’s one of the most common sexuality types there are, if not the most common. Especially due to how stigmatized or misunderstood this sexuality is, or that people feel it’s invalid or tied to discrimination against LGBT people somewhat inseparably, there isn’t much research on it, so it’s possible that people who are attracted to gender are more common than people who are attracted to sex, but it could be the opposite.
I understand the history of this word is problematic as it was created by transphobes, and its perception is so heavily tied to those origins that it’s considered a hateful ideology in itself. That’s one reason the word needs a different replacement and a “fresh start”. People are identifying as this sexuality without any bigoted ideas toward LGBT people, even being vocally pro-LGBT, but simply having no other word to describe their exact sexuality, and then using this word despite it having other connotations they don’t agree with, because it’s the closest word there is - and then being misunderstood and criticized for using it. It seems like replacing this word with a more well-intentioned one would actually serve to hinder those hateful ideologies from spreading (by stopping people from resorting to using it with no other alternative, as is happening a lot) and enable people to acknowledge the validity of all sexual preferences or orientations as distinct from any hateful rhetoric.
Additionally, the word itself carries problematic connotations linguistically - even if it wasn’t tied to attempts to undermine LGBT rights movements - since it could be interpreted as implying that people who are attracted to people of the opposite gender regardless of sex are “less straight” than people who are only attracted to the opposite sex regardless of gender. This recalls the fairly backward arguments (or offensive jokes) that someone who is attracted to people who were born as the same sex as them but who identify/present as the opposite gender, is actually “secretly gay” or “in denial of being gay” due to that attraction and is not really straight - that, for example, a man who is capable of being attracted to either cis women as well as trans women is therefore somehow less straight or more gay (or bi) than one who is only attracted to cis women - and this may come across as undermining the validity of those people as truly being the gender they identify as, or in other words attempting to deny or downplay the fact that trans women are women and trans men are men.
But it must be understood that being attracted to sex rather than gender does not mean denying the validity of gender identities in any way. Someone can fully support the rights of and acknowledge the legitimacy of trans people, that trans women are women and trans men are men in full, etc. The reality is just that sex is something distinct from gender and some people are attracted to one or the other or both, but not necessarily both. It’s not something that can be entirely rationalized or explained, just like why someone is attracted to men rather than women or vice versa, or any other sexuality. It’s something that people just naturally feel. Some so-called “super straight” people, non-bigoted and well-meaning ones in search of a way to explain and justify their sexual choices, genuinely just don’t feel attraction to people who were born as the same sex as them, even if those people identify as/present as the opposite gender to them, and even while still considering them to be women/men in alignment with their gender etc. For the homosexual equivalent, aka “super gay”, some people also are only attracted to their own sex, and would not be attracted to someone who was born as the opposite sex even if they identified/presented as the same gender as them. How can we criticize someone for having a particular sexual preference or orientation like that? I’m not saying they’re oppressed or anything for having that nature (for being gay, yes, not for being “super gay” or “super straight”), but it seems silly and harmful to not be able to distinguish between people who are attracted to sex and people who are attracted to gender - it also doesn’t need to be necessarily words based on how it relates to a larger orientation (like “super straight” and “super gay”) but rather an additional label that you can place on any sexuality which denotes whether your attraction is gender-based or sex-based, or either, or both. To say that that is somehow discriminating against individuals just by not being attracted to them in some way you can’t change - despite fully respecting them - seems no different from suggesting that someone is discriminating against women or men just by not being attracted to them since that’s their sexuality. Are gay men necessarily misogynists? Of course not. So why would people who are attracted to cis people (of a particular sex) and not trans people (of the opposite sex-assigned-at-birth to the sex they’re attracted to) necessarily be transphobes? It seems like there would be further variations to this as well depending on how people’s exact sexuality cashes out.
The fact we can’t seem to talk about this without assuming people have bad intentions, lumping them together with other people via association fallacies, and strawmanning people as being bigoted while misunderstanding or deliberately misrepresenting their experience/position is silly. It’s obviously a nuanced subject, and human sexuality is complex. There could well be some unrecognized validity to a differentiation between sex-based vs gender-based attraction, and it seems like it would benefit the LGBT rights movements to be able to acknowledge these kinds of experiences, of people who are genuinely supportive of LGBT, rather than immediately demonizing it without trying to understand it. Maybe we can have a bit of good faith here?
(Btw, I don’t identify with the super straight label nor with the sexuality type it describes even with the bigotry removed, but I don’t find it to be justified to criticize people for having this particular experience of sexual attraction, and think it deserves a proper unproblematic term, or multiple words related to the larger concept of sex vs gender based attraction).
Ehhhh, I think you screwed up by over explaining. The point you’re endlessly actually asking about makes sense, and it’s a valid discussion to have, but it’s buried when you’re trying to ask something. There’s a limit in the human brain to how much information you can track in a question before you start losing parts. There’s one for raw information as well, but it’s bigger and easier to bypass. I hope, because this is going to be a long response.
The reason that “super straight” is offensive is because it implies that attraction to a trans person isn’t heterosexual when the expressed gender would make the attraction hetero. By the very fact that “super” is used as the modifier, it implies better as well. And that’s just bullshit, which I think you pretty much said despite it being buried.
If you have some need to draw a distinction between heterosexuality that includes trans partners, it’s inherently trans exclusionary. There’s nothing wrong with not being attracted to trans people, it’s when the implication is that there’s a difference between heterosexuals that do and haven’t experienced that attraction that you run into the wall.
However, for the purposes of discussing the matter, I think either cis-exclusive hetero or trans-exclusionary hetero would be the most effective terms cis-exclusive would mean that your attraction is limited to cis people, with no rejection of transness in that you would be expressing it as attraction first. Trans,exclusionary would be for those that reject transness ideologically or for reasons other than raw attraction.
Now, I think it important to note that a lack of attraction by itself doesn’t mean anything else. It isn’t some kind of glaring proof of bigotry. The way humans form attraction leads to the unfamiliar having a greater weight in what base attractions factor in. As an example, not being attracted to white people doesn’t mean you’re a bigot, it just means that the collective set of characteristics of white people doesn’t match your inner “template”.
Now, that template may well have been formed because of bigotry, be it internal or external, but it isn’t the proof of the pudding. Just by virtue of growing up with little or no exposure to other physical traits than your own ethnicity can cause your template to be limited to those that look most like what you’re used to. The unfamiliar is, on a primitive level, a questionable source for mates.
It’s how people handle their templates that matters, not that they have them. If I say “white women are ugly”, that’s shitty, and a form of bigotry. If I say “I’ve never met a white woman that I’ve been attracted to”, that’s a statement of fact (well, not for me personally, this is an example, not a statement of my own preferences). Now, I could be saying it politely and still be a bigot, but saying it isn’t proof of bigotry.
This applies to trans people too. Acknowledging that you’ve never felt attraction to a trans person is a statement. Saying that they’re ugly is shitty, and is probably bigotry, depending on the reasoning. Saying they aren’t women/men is bigotry.
So, the why matters more than actual terminology, which means that more options in terminology are helpful when discussing the matter in general. The two I suggested are already what I use in my head when thinking about the subject of attraction as a whole, and how transness factors into the individual “templates”.
Now, as a personal example, I don’t have many limits in terms of what kind of women I feel attraction to. Race has never factored in at all. The range of physical features I feel attraction to is very broad, and tends to be more about details than categories (like noses; size doesn’t factor in, proportions do). As such, I can’t ever say I wouldn’t be attracted to a trans woman. I can, however, say that I would never be attracted to a trans man because I’ve never been attracted to a man. Tbh, I’ve never experienced attraction to anyone that strongly presented as male, even when I knew they were women. My inner template has an edge in the androgynous range of features and traits, and once it crosses into a perception of a person being a man/male, attraction goes away.
I included that as a comparison, because what/who I personally feel attraction to isn’t the same as examples used. For the same reason, I specifically have experienced attraction to trans women, but never in a circumstance where it mattered. Thus, I don’t fit either the cis-exclusive or trans-exclusionary labels, to the best of my self awareness.
Now, I get it. Trans identity is only fairly recently in general awareness. It’s been in my lifetime that it went from being something even most bigots didn’t really know existed (and they look for people to hate because that’s their fetish, hate) to being something that’s a topic of common discussion. So there’s going to be people that just don’t know enough to matter still talking about the subject. Ignorance isn’t the same as hate, though they sometimes wear the same hat. That’s where some if the things you talked about (l.e. “secretly gay”) come from. They just don’t get it.
That’s why I agree that the term “super” straight/gay is bullshit and needs to go away. But there is room for terminology to indicate the layers of attraction in conversation, as long as people aren’t being dicks about it
Not reading all of that but
Gynephilia = attraction to female bodies
Androphilia = attraction to male bodies
Yeah, these are pretty good terms, especially for nonbinary people who don’t have an exact term that factors in their own gender into their sexual attraction toward others (e.g. someone whose gender is neither male nor female but who is attracted to males or masculinity isn’t really heterosexual nor homosexual, perhaps they are androsexual or androphilic). The only problem is that they could end up essentially running into the same questions about how they break down further into gender or sex or both or either. For example, gynesexual or gynephilic people doesn’t really specify whether their attraction is gender-based or sex-based etc. The definitions also differ.
You described it as attraction to female or male bodies. Does this mean attraction to sex regardless of gender (as bodies are usually more tied to sex than they are gender identity) - and then, would it still apply if the body had been a different sex originally but was changed through operation? Or does it mean attraction to sex and gender combined (meaning they must have that body but also identify with the gender and present that way aka be cis)?
Additional definitions are listed as using both terms (gynephilia and gynesexual, for example, and the equivalents for the opposite gender/sex) as interchangeable and meaning attraction to either femininity, women, female presenting, or female identifying people, while other sources differentiate between gynephilia and gynesexual (as well as the male forms of both terms) and state that gynesexuality is attraction to femininity while gynephilia is attraction to people who identify as women. In that usage, gynesexuality could either apply to being attracted to anyone with any tangible femininity whatsoever, including femboys (even who are cis men), men crossdressing as women, trans women, cis women, or trans men (who were assigned female sex at birth, or perhaps only if they still had some feminine presentation or hadn’t undergone sex change) - or it could exclude any of the above, since “femininity” is pretty vague. Gynephilia’s meaning of attraction to people who identify as women (which is not the only listed definition, but almost sounds like the opposite of your definition for it, if we take female bodies to mean sex rather than gender), sounds like it’s describing attraction to the female gender, possibly regardless of/independent of sex. That is, they could be attracted to a trans woman or a cis woman, but not to a trans man or cis man of any kind, regardless of female sex or presentation.
Needless to say, these terms are still pretty unclear without further specificity as to their most accepted meanings and also whether their attraction is rooted in gender, sex, both, either, or a broader and more vague concept of masculinity or femininity, and how exactly that’s defined or formulated or how those attractions specifically manifest for people in terms of what kinds of feminity or masculinity they’re attracted to (arguably many if not most or all people have a bit of both) or how much and of what kind is required to form an attraction.
I’m a trans person, so I think I feel qualified to say that people can’t choose who they’re attracted to - race, gender, sex, age, etc - but I also don’t think we need words for every specific sexuality. Straight, gay, and bi seem good enough, and you can qualify that (I’m gay and only attracted to black people, I’m bi but only for people older than me, I’m straight but only for people that are either cis or trans and have had bottom surgery).
wow that’s a lot of words. so, basically, you want a term to say ‘i’m straight, but i’d never date a trans person’, but you want it to somehow shield you from any suggestions that you might be somewhat transphobic, and you want it to free you from any obligation or expectation to introspect and unlearn the transphobia that society has programmed you with?
Firstly like I said I don’t even identify with this type of sexuality, but I think it would help everyone if it had a proper term for it rather than one with bigoted and transphobic connotations which promotes discrimination and misunderstanding - or rather a term that denotes sex vs gender based attraction in general, which can apply to heterosexuality or homosexuality. I also realized there are at least 4 distinct variations on this; being attracted to sex exclusively regardless of gender, being attracted to gender exclusively regardless or sex, being attracted to either, or being attracted to only both together. I’m not sure which one of these “super-” (straight or gay) even refers to, it’s more complex than that. And “non-super-” (straight or gay) is also unclear, maybe it means attraction to gender regardless of sex but I’m not sure. The “super” term is flawed and problematic and it deserves more nuance and delineation between these different forms of sexual attraction.
Secondly, I understand if you believe that someone being attracted to sex exclusively regardless of gender, OR being attracted to sex and gender together only, would come across as transphobic since you aren’t attracted to gender on its own, and you factor in sex as well, or gender isn’t factored into your attraction at all. I also thought this at first, until I thought about it more (again, I don’t share this sexuality, and I am very pro trans - like, literally, I advocate for trans people and have debates with transphobes quite frequently). But I think it’s important to understand that everyone’s sexuality is different, and even if you don’t share this sexuality or understand it, I have talked to quite a few gay as well straight people who have explained their attraction and how they’re simply attracted to sex rather than gender or vice versa or either or both, without being transphobic at all. I believe it’s possible to have an attraction to sex and not gender and for that to not in any way invalidate the legitimacy of gender identities or your view of trans women as women or trans men as men etc. Plus, saying “not attracted to trans people” also lacks the nuance of what I’m describing, especially since one of the variations (attraction to sex regardless of gender) can include being attracted to trans individuals as long as their sex assigned at birth is the one you are attracted to, and another (attraction to either sex or gender) can mean being attracted to either trans men or trans women because they both have some aspect of either masculinity or femininity which you are attracted to from either their gender or sex, just not being attracted to cisgender individuals who are entirely both the sex and gender that you aren’t attracted to.
I hope this makes sense, please try to understand where I’m coming from before immediately labeling me as something I’m really not or not taking the time to address the specific points I’m making
Idk I’m talking out my ass… but super straight sounds like someone saying “i’m straight and homophobic”
Or someone trying to convince themselves that theyre “straight”
🤷🏻♂️
I hate the term “super straight” and so do a lot of other people who identify as the sexuality it describes but dislike the term, the history, associations and connitations
You’re right, the term “super straight” and its usage manages to imply both homophobia and transphobia at the same time. It’s unfortunate that a bunch of bigots had to jokingly hit on a potentially real sexuality and tarnish its image with their hateful nonsense.
Totally agree
I don’t really get the need for a term like this. People are attracted or not attracted to all kinds of aspects of other people, so do we also need hyper-specific terms based on hair color, ethnicity, body size etc as well?
Well, can’t we say that about literally any other sexuality? Why is there a word for anything? I would argue that this sexuality is more relevant and restrictive (i.e. someone who has a preference for red hair probably isn’t literally exclusively attracted to those people and no one else) and comes up more, but in general it helps to be able to express and identify your orientation to other people and to talk about it. I mean, most of these macrolabels that people use might not serve that much of a purpose, even if they do describe more specifically what someone’s sexuality is and make them feel validated or help them to understand their own nature, in addition to making it easier to clarifying to others or justifying (though it shouldn’t require justifying) their sexual choices in alignment with their attraction which may not be able to change.
There’s no way you wrote all that 😭
It’s kind of crazy to think someone will read all of it too. Probably.
Agreed, I was implying maybe they didn’t write it all. Who would?
How about just “straight”?
So you don’t think there should be any distinction between being attracted to sex vs being attracted to gender? Or are you suggesting that someone who is attracted to members of the same sex but who identify as the opposite gender is not straight?
I also pointed out that this applies to gay people as well, not just straight people. Some gay people are attracted to their own sex purely and would never date someone who was born as the opposite sex even if they identified as having the same gender, while others are attracted to their own gender regardless of what sex. I know people like both of these personally.
I just think it would be beneficial for there to be (a) real term(s) to distinguish sex vs gender based attraction without it being bigoted, and it also needn’t be tied to heterosexuality or homosexuality although there can be different terms for either to “modify” them I guess - maybe also for bisexuality, though I admit I can’t think of any situation where there would be different manifestations of bisexuality for sex vs gender as it covers both anyway, but there could be.
You’re right, generally a straight person who is only attracted to the opposite sex, a straight person who is only attracted to the opposite gender, a straight person who is attracted to either, or a straight person who is attracted to both simultaneously, would all be considered straight. But there is clearly some variation in sexual orientations or preferences here. There are at least 4 distinct types I can think of, and that’s just for straight people. The same would at least also apply to gay people, maybe others. It seems like if we have words to describe all these different sexualities and microlabels, one that describes a pretty fundamental difference in sexual attraction of different people (though one that is apparently controversial) ought to exist and be acknowledged rather than enabling bigoted people to continue promoting their hateful ideas indirectly and forcing people to use their problematic word for lack of any alternative.
You’re allowed to like women and not want to fuck a woman with a penis, just like you’re allowed to not fuck blonde women if that’s what you prefer. It’s not so deep that you need to get all repressed-homosexuality-weird about it.
Thinking that kind of sexuality deserves a term to describe it rather than forcing people to use a bigoted term to describe themselves is indicating repressed homosexuality? Not sure how you came to that conclusion. Like I said I don’t even identify with that, but other people do, and it makes sense to have a normal term for it. There probably will be eventually, if there isn’t already. I just thought people might provide an actual answer as to whether such a word exists or not, it would probably be something obscure and not commonly known like a lot of other microlabels of sexualities.
Okay, so I’m a queer woman who is gonna do her best to level wit you. The problem is that you’re trying to come up with a sexuality based on exclusion, which inherently is going to be bigoted.
If you’re a straight man, you’re attracted to women. But if you were to say “only white women tho” then it’s clearly coming from a racialized place, even if you insist that you’re not racist, your limitations on who you are willing to consider a dateable woman says other wise. Conversely, if you were a white man who says “only asian women tho”, that’s again coming from a racialized and fetishized place. Even if it’s subconscious and unrealized bias that makes sense in your head, the context of fetishized communities is still racism.
So on the same note, it’s hypocritical to say “trans women are women” while categorically insisting that you would never date one. Does this include Trans women who have bottom surgery and pass as cis? If so, then visual attraction isn’t the only factor. If not, then clearly “super straight” has some caveats making the term meaningless.
Anytime you’re trying to define “everyone but X”, you’re inherently embracing a bigoted stance. Does this mean you’re required to date any and all women who ask you out? No, of course not. But to defining an entire category undateable speaks to bias. Lesbian women are attracted to women instead of attracted to “not men”, gay men are attracted to men instead of “not women”. To say categorical trans folk do not apply there is by definition trans exclusionary. On a case by case basis, a trans person can be rejected without bias, but categorically doesn’t just imply bias, but is such.
I’m trying to understand what you mean but tbh I’m struggling.
How is it that only being attracted to sex (as opposed to gender) is bigoted while being attracted to male but not female, or female but not male, isn’t? Saying you’re straight or gay is essentially saying you’re capable of being attracted to “everyone but gender (or sex) x”, which is defining an entire gender (or sex) as undateable, just like what I’m describing is also defining certain groups of individuals as undateable if they don’t meet one’s criteria for attraction, whether that be a particular gender, sex, either, or both.
Also, when you say “Lesbian women are attracted to women instead of not men”, this seems like a tautology doesn’t it? If someone is only capable of being attracted exclusively to women (not all women ofc), then the logical entailment is that they aren’t attracted to men. The only difference here seems to be the way it’s phrased which focuses on the individuals one is not attracted to, but that isn’t a practical difference in terms of the nature of the sexuality or whether that sexuality itself is somehow bigoted, only how it’s framed. If it’s simply the way it’s being described that you see a problem with, and the fact it focuses on the types of individuals someone is not capable of being attracted to rather than the types they are, then we can easily change how it’s described. In fact, I never described this hypothetical sexuality as “not being attracted to trans people”, that was something other people came up with. What I said all along was “being attracted to sex, regardless of gender” or alternatively “being attracted to sex and gender simultaneously”, with other possibilities being “being attracted to gender, regardless of sex” or “being attracted to either sex or gender”. These are all distinct sexualities, and I think most people probably fit into at least one of them even if they haven’t thought about it, unless they’re bisexual or asexual, though there could definitely be other categories (in terms of gender and/or sex based attraction) or people who are undecided ofc.
The race hypothetical seems like a false equivalence, and we could talk about it but I don’t think it’s related. I think that preferences for someone’s appearance, whether it be hair color, height, eye color, etc or even their race, can definitely be a fetish of some kind, and is more of a light preference or kink than it is an actual requirement. For example someone who likes people with blue eyes isn’t “blueeyesexual” in that they aren’t capable of being attracted to someone without blue eyes. However, what I’m talking about could feasibly limit the kinds of groups of people someone is fundamentally capable of being attracted to - just like being straight or gay rather than bi or pan does. It’s just an additional modifier on those sexual orientations, which specifies whether their attraction to women or men is gender based or sex based or either or both.
I’m not sure whether this would factor in or change depending on whether a person had a particular surgery - it may for some people and not for others. That could be an additional specification on how someone’s exact sexual attraction manifests in certain situations. For example it may be the case for some people who are only attracted to sex regardless of gender that after sufficient “sex change” surger/ies, a person was now attractive to them even if they weren’t born as the sex they’re typically attracted to. For others, they may still not be capable of being fully attracted to them if they weren’t born as that sex. This seems like a separate consideration that would differ on a case by case basis.
Where “super straight” comes in is unclear. I don’t really know what this term means as far as the sexuality it describes (though I suspect it’s one of the 4 aforementioned categories), so it was more of a heuristic label to attempt to approximate the kinds of sexualities that seem to be based more on sex than gender, or which factor in sex as part of the attraction in addition to gender. I think it probably means either attraction to sex regardless of gender, or more likely, attraction to both sex and gender simultaneously (which would effectively require the partner to be cis). But the other forms could all include attraction to transgender people - being attracted to sex regardless of gender (which is one possible variation of a sexuality that might still be called a kind of “super straight” but I’m not sure) can imply being capable of being attracted either to a cis person of a particular sex, or to a transgender person who was assigned that sex at birth but identifies as or presents as a different gender or the opposite gender. Being attracted to gender regardless of sex would imply being capable of attraction to either a cis person of a particular gender, or to a trans person who identifies as that gender. Being attracted to either gender or sex would imply being capable of attraction to either a cis person of a particular gender and sex, or a trans person who identifies as that gender, or a trans person who was assigned that sex at birth - leaving out only people who have neither the sex nor gender the person is attracted to.
Nobody tell OP about the Kinsey scale they would be so mad.
Why would I be mad about that? That seems to describe a simple range between heterosexuality and homosexuality. That isn’t remotely what I’m talking about, it doesn’t even seem to account for the difference between gender and sex or for transgender vs cisgender people. I’m talking about sex vs gender based attraction, and as I said it can apply to heterosexual people or homosexual people. I don’t know why you’re so desperate to make me out to be a villain just for asking a question in good faith (which most of these comments are not demonstrating, and prefer to strawman and misrepresent me as being either bigoted against trans people or having repressed homosexuality or something lol. Even though I explained my view in depth and also clarified that I don’t even identify with this sexuality type but I think it would benefit everyone if it had a proper label rather than one which promotes bigotry and misunderstanding).
i know that this type of sexual behavior is described on the kinsey scale since i’m op’s exact opposite; but the verbose justification where kinsey was more succinct has my-lady-doth-protest-too-much energy, but with a dash of transphobia.
What an interesting conclusion to come to. You must live a rich inner life.
acknowledges the term was made to troll LGBT people
Why can’t we have a good faith conversation on this?
K, sure.
The point was that having the particular sexuality that the word describes doesn’t entail trolling or undermining LGBT people, even if the word was created and is currently used for both purposes. That’s why there should be a different word that refers to the sexuality exclusively in a non bigoted fashion. Do you think that someone simply having that sexuality is automaticaly trolling LGBT people, even if they actually respect them? Aren’t we then denying and invalidating people’s own sexual experiences without trying to understand them, and assuming that they must be bigoted just because of unintended associations with whoever came up with the word and its connotations that they actually disagree with? This is what I meant by bad faith, strawmanning and not engaging with what people are really saying, just lumping them together with others who they don’t endorse in any way.
Huh. Never thought I’d read “Super Straight” outside the denim section
There’s a reasonable probability that I’ll be heavily downvoted for this, but it’s my two cents, so here I go. For clarity, I’ll in the following use “male” and “female” to refer to biological groups identified by their reproductive organs (by far most people can clearly be identified as one or the other), and “man” and “women” to refer to groups of people that identify as such.
Sex (the action) is pretty fundamentally tied to your reproductive organs. As such, I think it makes most sense to define “straight” vs. “bi” vs. “gay” in terms of sex (the attribute). I would say that a male that is exclusively attracted to females is “straight”, while a male that is exclusively attracted to women “bi with a strong preference for women”, and that a male that is exclusively attracted to males is “gay”.
My reasoning here is twofold: First, a male that is attracted to women can have a range for how “female presenting” the woman has to be before they are interested. Some will only consider women that have gone through surgery and full hormonal therapy attractive, while others will find women without any surgery or hormone therapy attractive. This brings up the second point: A lot of sexuality becomes a lot easier to talk about (and de-stigmatize) if we accept that sexuality is a continuous spectrum. If we accept that, it makes sense to me to use one word for each extreme, and a more fluid language for the bulk of the spectrum. I know plenty of bi people that have more or less strong preferences towards one side of the spectrum, and some that are completely agnostic. I think a lot of stigma can be removed if we’re more open to people being “just slightly bi”, while we can keep the language clear by reserving “straight” and “gay” for the two extremes.
Finally, if we use “straight” to refer to e.g. males that are exclusively attracted to women, we open an unnecessary can of worms regarding males that are attracted to people who identify as women, but don’t present as female. In short: Sex (act) is fundamentally tied to sex (attribute), so it makes sense to me to define sexuality in terms of sex, rather than gender.
The only people who should be worried about this conversation are therapists and philosophers.
Our culture is fucking with people’s heads by making them have to question shit like this. Words are made up (you should look up some definitions). Our emotions are not. No one should be judging anyone for whom they find attractive and no one should feel shame or pride for having a preference.
So why would people who are attracted to cis people (of a particular sex) and not trans people (of the opposite sex-assigned-at-birth to the sex they’re attracted to) necessarily be transphobes.
This is not a thing. At all. Just because I prefer red apples over green apples does not instill a phobia or hatred of green apples.
The LGBT movement, as with nearly all movements, is about education. It seems you may have skipped over the prerequisites jumped right to LGBT 201.
Yes, “It’s obviously a nuanced subject, and human sexuality is complex” and the point is that no one should be casting societal assumptions upon or judging anyone. The point is to mind your own business and support government legislation that protects marginalized groups from the ignorant and those who lack empathy. “Do no harm” shouldn’t be regulated to practicing doctors. We’ve all lost sight of the “treat others as you want to be treated” Golden Rule. So, mind your own business and treat others with the same respect you believe you deserve.
If you are personally struggling with your own sexuality, I would strongly suggest you seek guidance from a professional rather than pondering aloud on the internet and expecting validation. If you are struggling to understand the sexuality of others, I would suggest you stop trying and embrace the uniquenesses found in every corner of this planet.
Just looking to see if anyone had heard of a more genuine term for this sexuality type rather than treating it like a transphobic joke, really
Doesn’t hypersexuality cover this? Or sex addiction?
Does hypersexuality or sex addiction cover the phenomenon of being attracted to sex and not gender? … i dont think so
Oh… i meant biological sex, as in the sex you’re assigned at birth, as opposed to gender identity. I think thats where the confusion lies. Sex as in the attribute, rather than the activity. I also think it’s silly that the English language hasn’t provided a terminological distinction between these phenomena.
Ah, I see. So “I’d have sex with a man if he was assigned female at birth, but not with a woman if she was assigned male at birth” (assuming speaker is a super-straight male, and talking exclusively about transgendered people)? I, uh… I don’t know how to even approach this. If someone irl talked with me about this I’d probably suggest they seek some kind of therapy? Though I doubt people like this actually exist.
I know for certain people like that exist. Human sexuality is a broad spectrum, and attraction to sex, gender, either, or both simultaneously, all seem to be fairly common variations. But I’m not sure actually if the “super straight” label left open the possibility of being attracted to people of one’s own gender who were born as the opposite sex or not. It’s possible that given the original intentions, it denoted exclusive attraction to cisgender individuals of the opposite sex and gender combined - that is, not being attracted to anyone of one’s own sex or one’s own gender, and they must both be opposite to them. This would be “attraction to both sex and gender simultaneously” or aligned sex and gender aka cisgender people. However, the situation you described sounds like being attracted exclusively to sex regardless of gender. There would also be exclusive attraction to gender regardless of sex, or atrraction to either sex or gender (separately or together, e.g. a man who was a type of heterosexual, but could be attracted to women who were born male, women who were born female, or men who were born female, but not to men who were born male - attraction to anyone with an aspect of femininity, whether it comes from gender or sex - which some might call gynesexual in this context, but that again can cash out into different manifestations, e.g. if the femininity of someone’s gender was what mattered, or the femininity of their sex assigned at birth, or both, or either).
So just straight? Like seriously? That’s the most asinine type of trolling I’ve heard, I’m sorry if you don’t get it.
