Oh, Eddie. What a classic. Will you marry me?
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Male Lesbians
Friday, November 04, 2011
No Church in the Wild
On Halloween, and for the week that precedes it, the streets of San Francisco fill with lunatics overjoyed to be free of their nine to five chains and bound by those they wear in the dark. A set of lovely skirted hips passing by sways to camouflage thick obliques consuming the uncurled waistline of an eighteen-year-old boy, but that’s normal for the Stro. Thirteen masked wrestlers in the space of a block and a half. A cognizable portion of political statements. Body paint on men and women, cheeks and shoulders, asses and bellybuttons, nipples and cocks. Feathers reaching to kiss upper-story windowsills, pink feathers, gold feathers, peacock feathers, actual peacocks. And, oh, the leather. You smell leather walking through the streets, laced with sweat and liquor and precum. Some of the men shame New York’s best male models and Vegas’ best gigolos. In fact, it is a gathering of the largest proportion of good-looking, well-kept, in-shape, exposed beefcakes in such a small geographic area available anywhere in the world. But I see as many tits as cocks. Women let their pussies hang out on days like this.
This is now one of the City’s most covered parties, thanks to the costumes. Furries. Soldiers. The obligatory cops (oddly hard to tell which are the real ones). Numerous people in boxes with various graphics, slogans strewn abreast. And boots! My see-through black boots with three-inch heels and laces look average. I look around expecting to see the aquarium-in-platform of I’m Gonna Git You Sucka. There is no shortage of pimps. Purple pimps, mostly, though most of the cool colors make a pimpsuit appearance. Eyes jump from the Obama mask on my right to the man’s ass in front of me, jump to the girl’s ass to his right, and catch the couple fucking in a fold of the building as I pass by. Hundreds of people, every one in costume…or naked. But that guy is always naked. I’m not yet stumbling into the friend in a cutoff pink tie-dyed and frayed t-shirt and covered by a denim vest that’s leading my way. I do, however, have Jack Daniels in my Coke Zero bottle.
This is now one of the City’s most covered parties, thanks to the costumes. Furries. Soldiers. The obligatory cops (oddly hard to tell which are the real ones). Numerous people in boxes with various graphics, slogans strewn abreast. And boots! My see-through black boots with three-inch heels and laces look average. I look around expecting to see the aquarium-in-platform of I’m Gonna Git You Sucka. There is no shortage of pimps. Purple pimps, mostly, though most of the cool colors make a pimpsuit appearance. Eyes jump from the Obama mask on my right to the man’s ass in front of me, jump to the girl’s ass to his right, and catch the couple fucking in a fold of the building as I pass by. Hundreds of people, every one in costume…or naked. But that guy is always naked. I’m not yet stumbling into the friend in a cutoff pink tie-dyed and frayed t-shirt and covered by a denim vest that’s leading my way. I do, however, have Jack Daniels in my Coke Zero bottle.
Back in the day, this party was legendary even by City standards. Then someone got shot. So, now Halloween in the Castro in one of the more muted festivals of the Season. One-thousandth of the size of Pride. One-hundredth the risqué of Folsom Street Fair. The Gays of San Francisco made this, like all the others, into a day where everyone can walk outside and be proud of whatever it is they feel like looking like. And do drugs.
I don’t want most of what some of these people want. I don’t want to be whipped, those lash marks look painful. I’m not turned on by fat ladies in leather corsets. I’m only tolerating checking out the chubby or deformed naked people because occasionally there’s a really hot naked guy. And I do appreciate that.
San Francisco did instinctively what the Internet had to be invented for Middle America to enjoy: the cloaked but exposed lagniappe you can’t whip out at work, whipped out, surrounded by folks who might enjoy it. And oh, my, is this exposure. Because it feels good to just do what’s in your head. And all the reasons they give us to forego that enjoyment are bullshit, thus we continue the bacchanalia. I’m thin on comforts at the moment, and looking around at all these people who seem fucking batshit makes me feel better about being crazy myself. And it feels good to see other people who aren’t afraid of sex. Can’t wait to see where this one leads.
San Francisco did instinctively what the Internet had to be invented for Middle America to enjoy: the cloaked but exposed lagniappe you can’t whip out at work, whipped out, surrounded by folks who might enjoy it. And oh, my, is this exposure. Because it feels good to just do what’s in your head. And all the reasons they give us to forego that enjoyment are bullshit, thus we continue the bacchanalia. I’m thin on comforts at the moment, and looking around at all these people who seem fucking batshit makes me feel better about being crazy myself. And it feels good to see other people who aren’t afraid of sex. Can’t wait to see where this one leads.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Drama!
Summer in Shanghai boiled up a fever.
Two houses, alike in dignity, gathered to witness a union that would bind their great families together. The bride prepared to step into the spotlight, stealing one last glance in the mirror to confirm her tiara sat upright on the crown of her head. She breathed, once, twice, and began her journey down the aisle. But, as she stepped into the hallway, her maid of honor grabbed her hand, wide-eyed, and pulled her just outside.
She stood dumbstruck looking upon her betrothed, a male hand with a soft wrist stroking his jaw.
"What the fuck is this?" she said.
Two slim necks snap in her general direction. No one speaks.
"What the fuck is this?" she repeats.
What is it? It's the unintended consequence of endless hours packed into adjacent cubicles. It's the lingering musk of boredom and longing. It's the giving in that happens when you just can't live the life everyone tells you you should anymore. Then it's the late nights in dark bars chosen for remote locations.
It's the end of a conversation that started, what, a month ago? A year ago? And it always went the same way:
Groom: "This can't be for real. There are expectations. I have to proceed as has been planned for me."
Dude: *Dissatisfied but still horny*
But this Dude ain't just dissatisfied no more.
Two houses, alike in dignity, gathered to witness a union that would bind their great families together. The bride prepared to step into the spotlight, stealing one last glance in the mirror to confirm her tiara sat upright on the crown of her head. She breathed, once, twice, and began her journey down the aisle. But, as she stepped into the hallway, her maid of honor grabbed her hand, wide-eyed, and pulled her just outside.
She stood dumbstruck looking upon her betrothed, a male hand with a soft wrist stroking his jaw.
"What the fuck is this?" she said.
Two slim necks snap in her general direction. No one speaks.
"What the fuck is this?" she repeats.
What is it? It's the unintended consequence of endless hours packed into adjacent cubicles. It's the lingering musk of boredom and longing. It's the giving in that happens when you just can't live the life everyone tells you you should anymore. Then it's the late nights in dark bars chosen for remote locations.
It's the end of a conversation that started, what, a month ago? A year ago? And it always went the same way:
Groom: "This can't be for real. There are expectations. I have to proceed as has been planned for me."
Dude: *Dissatisfied but still horny*
But this Dude ain't just dissatisfied no more.
Friday, August 26, 2011
What you see isn't so much what you get
British researchers with amusing accents recently suggested that your language not only effects how you express colors, but also how you perceive them. The best example: In Namibia they only have five color words. There isn't a difference between the word for "green" and the word for "blue." So, when you show a Namibian a circle of blue dots with one green dot in it, it takes them a very long time to discover that there is one dot that is somehow different. The words they had to use to describe color actually shaped how they physically saw that color, conceptualized it, applied it.
Imagine, then, the difference between growing up in a world (1) where you had and knew a word for each organ's insertion into each individual orifice that took into account the gender and active or passive status (check that Best Grid Ever post below) or (2) where you had the words "straight," "gay," "fuck," "cunnilingus," and "fellatio" to work with. Obviously we grow up with a much smaller sexual lexicon than a Romans did, and as a consequence I think we fit the world we see into a much narrower descriptive framework, glossing over a shitload of details in the process. We've lost/ignored the ability to conceptualize sex as neither "gay" nor "straight" because we don't have words for anything like that. I shall now stick it to the rest of the English-speaking world by describing activities using the Latin words for them...
But, seriously - mind-boggling study.
Frenching
A friend of mine wrote an excellent book. It's now a NY Times bestseller. And that's encouraging for me, because its story is couched in the mentality that this little experiment espouses.
The book is French Lessons, and the friend is Ellen Sussman. It follows three French language tutors and their students around Paris (literally, there are maps). Perhaps because zey are French, or perhaps because Ellen and I have similar conceptions of the meaning of sex, everyone pretty much gets down with one or more of the other characters somewhere in the book. And this lady can write some sex.
Given that Ellen is the most happily married lady I know, I am particularly impressed that she manages to wrap her head around the concept that some sex is just sex. A few characters are married. Sometimes married characters are devoutly faithful to their spouse. Sometimes they are not. And I love it. Each sexual or near-sexual encounter is written to convey the purpose of that encounter. Sex isn't always about love. That's something the last 2000 years of Christianity have distorted. Sometimes you just wanna get your freak on. French Lessons gets that. And Ellen was bitchin enough to keep a bit of this polyamority even when the man told her the public would be offended.
Here's to all the folks with the balls to say "I don't care if you're offended, this shit is good."
The book is French Lessons, and the friend is Ellen Sussman. It follows three French language tutors and their students around Paris (literally, there are maps). Perhaps because zey are French, or perhaps because Ellen and I have similar conceptions of the meaning of sex, everyone pretty much gets down with one or more of the other characters somewhere in the book. And this lady can write some sex.
Given that Ellen is the most happily married lady I know, I am particularly impressed that she manages to wrap her head around the concept that some sex is just sex. A few characters are married. Sometimes married characters are devoutly faithful to their spouse. Sometimes they are not. And I love it. Each sexual or near-sexual encounter is written to convey the purpose of that encounter. Sex isn't always about love. That's something the last 2000 years of Christianity have distorted. Sometimes you just wanna get your freak on. French Lessons gets that. And Ellen was bitchin enough to keep a bit of this polyamority even when the man told her the public would be offended.
Here's to all the folks with the balls to say "I don't care if you're offended, this shit is good."
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Priapus
My father bemoaned to me today the use of tax dollars to study behavioral correlation with penis size among gay men. Not shockingly, men who have above-average cocks tend to identify as tops, while men with below-average penis size tend to identify as bottoms. While it's true that the organization that performed the study receives NIH grants, those grants are for tuition-like expenses related to AIDS research and weren't actually used to perform this study.
But, thank you, study, for noting oh-so-astutely the social pressures that can effect identification as top or bottom. Priapus would be thrilled that you confirmed his status as sexual dominator (although I note that historians tend to assert that the classical world found smaller penises more attractive, if not more...er...pungent). Permit me to submit a new query for your investigation.
I heard an amazing hook-up story from a female friend with what could only be termed a glorious ass. I'll call her Pria for now.
Pria connects with a male friend of a friend at an event located in a hotel where she has a room, and she takes him upstairs. As she shuts the door behind them he whips her around, lifts her dress, and starts tossing her salad. "I mean...if you wanna do that...that's fine with me...just don't kiss me after," she recounts, with more than a small smile on her face. Fortunately no further kissing appears to have been requested. He goes at the tossing for a while, and they continue removing clothing, engage in some more traditional petting, and make their way to the bed. To her surprise, as Pria begins to lay on her back, expecting to get penetrated, no doubt, she is AGAIN flipped over and tossing begins anew. This dude tossed twice. That salad was hella dressed.
So I ask you, study authors, to analyze this man who flies in the face of every thought I've ever had about eating ass: (1) that it would never be totally voluntarily - at least some measure of situational coercion would have to take place and (2) that one would never toss the salad of a person whom they'd just met (honestly how would you know they weren't on the verge of an IBS flare-up?) Top or bottom? Thx. Friends, tell me of the axis orientation of those who have tossed your salad, won't you?
But, thank you, study, for noting oh-so-astutely the social pressures that can effect identification as top or bottom. Priapus would be thrilled that you confirmed his status as sexual dominator (although I note that historians tend to assert that the classical world found smaller penises more attractive, if not more...er...pungent). Permit me to submit a new query for your investigation.
I heard an amazing hook-up story from a female friend with what could only be termed a glorious ass. I'll call her Pria for now.
Pria connects with a male friend of a friend at an event located in a hotel where she has a room, and she takes him upstairs. As she shuts the door behind them he whips her around, lifts her dress, and starts tossing her salad. "I mean...if you wanna do that...that's fine with me...just don't kiss me after," she recounts, with more than a small smile on her face. Fortunately no further kissing appears to have been requested. He goes at the tossing for a while, and they continue removing clothing, engage in some more traditional petting, and make their way to the bed. To her surprise, as Pria begins to lay on her back, expecting to get penetrated, no doubt, she is AGAIN flipped over and tossing begins anew. This dude tossed twice. That salad was hella dressed.
So I ask you, study authors, to analyze this man who flies in the face of every thought I've ever had about eating ass: (1) that it would never be totally voluntarily - at least some measure of situational coercion would have to take place and (2) that one would never toss the salad of a person whom they'd just met (honestly how would you know they weren't on the verge of an IBS flare-up?) Top or bottom? Thx. Friends, tell me of the axis orientation of those who have tossed your salad, won't you?
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Best Chart Ever
In his article The Teratogenic Grid, Holt Parker makes an excellent point. Perhaps it's an excellent point only if you are a nerd of ancient sexual cultures.
He makes he point that the Roman world did not base its "division of sexual categories on the axis of same versus other" as we do upon the axis of gender when we say "heterosexual" and "homosexual." Instead, they contemplated an axis of active and passive.
Our bifurcated categorization is "a rather parochial affair and a comparatively recent development even in the culture of the West." I love the word "parochial" here.
In other cultures (past and present) sexual categories are instead based on "age, social status, ritual category, or power relations and often cut across of simply ignore the biological classes of male and female." More than two genders are recognized in "various" cultures. You can't make absolute choices about whether you like only boys or girls where some people are both, or decide to be "homosexual" or "heterosexual" if you are some measure of both. But you can make choices about whether you're active or passive.
America ignores its intersex population in an offensive way. (My spell check just red-lined "intersex"). Estimates of the children born intersex range from .018-1.7% of live births, but it seems obvious that most intersex births are not reported and kids are often "corrected" at the discretion of some inhumane nongeneticist (Wikipedia agrees). America has reached the point where it feels like it should tell ~576,000-5,440,000 of its citizens they aren't proper humans by not recognizing them as a natural part of our culture, and it's gross. And that's only the 576,000 to 5,440,000 Americans who outwardly exhibit both gender's organs, that's not even considering all the folks who have a little chromosomal swap going on. But, I digress.
Holt Parker went on to build a grid to show how language worked when you had gender identifications (as male, female, or intersex) but where homosexual can only be an adjective that describes discrete and brief acts of one's life. And where homosexual and heterosexual acts can happen simultaneously or interchangeably, across and between class levels. Different acts are taboo to Romans than to us. The lord, the lady, the soldier, the slave boy, or the other slave girls could fuck a slave girl and it was a-ok. No one thought anything of this because the slave girl's social status and gender computed to being passive - to being penetrated. The senator should never be penetrated, be passive. Dirtying your mouth with a sex organ was not proper for anyone and would have been scandalous for the upper classes. If some senator were found being passive at all, that would be an undue scandal.
The chart has two parts. First, the active role:
------------------Vagina-----------------Anus---------------Mouth
Activity: futuere pedicare irrumare
Person: fututor pedicator/pedico irrumator
Notice the grammar depends upon the orifice, not the gender. In a sense, this is because men are presumed to be active. Male Roman writers were disincentivized from talking about active women. But I have seen almost all of these words applied to women's activity in primary sources. When they are, the writer generally thinks something is awry. As Seneca said, women are pati natae - "born to be passive." Don't tell woman number 5 (I'm calling her "Sporty Spice" until she gives me a better nickname).
In the passive, gender categories return:
Early in my academic career I began to play in this space and it irrevocably destroyed my allegiance to the categories "homosexual" and "heterosexual." This destruction was facilitated by the fact that I had entered my first relationship with a woman, during which I still fantasized about and hooked up with men.
I no longer believe in "gay" and "straight." As a consequence people often comment that I think everyone is "gay." More accurately, I think that most everyone might enjoy some measure of homosexual acts or relationships. In a fraternity house, I think there's a lot of male-male love and sometimes some male-male blackout drunk sex to match.
If you made it all the way through that diatribe, email me at bacchus.paine@gmail.com so I can subscribe you to this blog.
He makes he point that the Roman world did not base its "division of sexual categories on the axis of same versus other" as we do upon the axis of gender when we say "heterosexual" and "homosexual." Instead, they contemplated an axis of active and passive.
Our bifurcated categorization is "a rather parochial affair and a comparatively recent development even in the culture of the West." I love the word "parochial" here.
In other cultures (past and present) sexual categories are instead based on "age, social status, ritual category, or power relations and often cut across of simply ignore the biological classes of male and female." More than two genders are recognized in "various" cultures. You can't make absolute choices about whether you like only boys or girls where some people are both, or decide to be "homosexual" or "heterosexual" if you are some measure of both. But you can make choices about whether you're active or passive.
America ignores its intersex population in an offensive way. (My spell check just red-lined "intersex"). Estimates of the children born intersex range from .018-1.7% of live births, but it seems obvious that most intersex births are not reported and kids are often "corrected" at the discretion of some inhumane nongeneticist (Wikipedia agrees). America has reached the point where it feels like it should tell ~576,000-5,440,000 of its citizens they aren't proper humans by not recognizing them as a natural part of our culture, and it's gross. And that's only the 576,000 to 5,440,000 Americans who outwardly exhibit both gender's organs, that's not even considering all the folks who have a little chromosomal swap going on. But, I digress.
Holt Parker went on to build a grid to show how language worked when you had gender identifications (as male, female, or intersex) but where homosexual can only be an adjective that describes discrete and brief acts of one's life. And where homosexual and heterosexual acts can happen simultaneously or interchangeably, across and between class levels. Different acts are taboo to Romans than to us. The lord, the lady, the soldier, the slave boy, or the other slave girls could fuck a slave girl and it was a-ok. No one thought anything of this because the slave girl's social status and gender computed to being passive - to being penetrated. The senator should never be penetrated, be passive. Dirtying your mouth with a sex organ was not proper for anyone and would have been scandalous for the upper classes. If some senator were found being passive at all, that would be an undue scandal.
The chart has two parts. First, the active role:
------------------Vagina-----------------Anus---------------Mouth
Activity: futuere pedicare irrumare
Person: fututor pedicator/pedico irrumator
Notice the grammar depends upon the orifice, not the gender. In a sense, this is because men are presumed to be active. Male Roman writers were disincentivized from talking about active women. But I have seen almost all of these words applied to women's activity in primary sources. When they are, the writer generally thinks something is awry. As Seneca said, women are pati natae - "born to be passive." Don't tell woman number 5 (I'm calling her "Sporty Spice" until she gives me a better nickname).
In the passive, gender categories return:
------------------Vagina-----------------Anus---------------Mouth
Activity: futui pedicari irrumari/fellari
Person:
male cunnilictor cinaedus/pathicus fellator
female femina/puella pathica fellatrix
They had one quick word for "one who [had/has/is having] cunnilingus performed on her by a mouth" to "one who [fucked/fucks/is fucking] a mouth" and another for "one who [sticks/stuck/is sticking] a cock into an ass." With those kind of words, an intersex person never has to search for how to describe herself/himself.
Early in my academic career I began to play in this space and it irrevocably destroyed my allegiance to the categories "homosexual" and "heterosexual." This destruction was facilitated by the fact that I had entered my first relationship with a woman, during which I still fantasized about and hooked up with men.
I no longer believe in "gay" and "straight." As a consequence people often comment that I think everyone is "gay." More accurately, I think that most everyone might enjoy some measure of homosexual acts or relationships. In a fraternity house, I think there's a lot of male-male love and sometimes some male-male blackout drunk sex to match.
If you made it all the way through that diatribe, email me at bacchus.paine@gmail.com so I can subscribe you to this blog.
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Marlena's
At the corner of Hayes and Octavia, where the crack addicts of lower market clash with the hipsters of Hayes Valley, sits a very old bar run by an even older tranny named Marlena.
I would never profess to be recalcitrant about trannies - one of the funniest moments of my life was when one canoodled my little sister's boyfriend into rubbing his face against her thigh - but I was not prepared for Marlena's. Four magnificent transvestites, one a polynesian-themed glory who swung blue eyeshadow in a way I have seen no one else achieve, graced the bar, but they were the least remarkable of the clientele. I was more taken aback by the presence of yuppy straight couples, or the "regulars" who spend every night at Marlena's but never remember that they have met my friend's dog (Marlena allows dogs) roughly twenty times. The berber carpet, the 80s music, the cutie bartender who looked like he might just be straight - the place looked at first glance like the perfect tranny dive bar.
That is, until I realized Marlena was a pedofile. Looking up at Marlena's this day in early July, we slowly noticed three separate alters to the Lord Harry Potter. Marlena had every move poster ever printed pasted up on her grey concrete bar walls. She also had a reproduction of the Elder Wand (yeah, I know what that is), a first edition of The Tales of Beedle and Bard (that I don't), little Harry Potter medals. Most of her magazine cutouts featured the 11 year old Daniel Radcliffe, not his post-Equuis man-form.
A couple of the present trannies gave me eyes. My Southern grandmother would never guess that some transvestites prefer fucking women. Clearly Marlena is not one of them. But they do.
I would never profess to be recalcitrant about trannies - one of the funniest moments of my life was when one canoodled my little sister's boyfriend into rubbing his face against her thigh - but I was not prepared for Marlena's. Four magnificent transvestites, one a polynesian-themed glory who swung blue eyeshadow in a way I have seen no one else achieve, graced the bar, but they were the least remarkable of the clientele. I was more taken aback by the presence of yuppy straight couples, or the "regulars" who spend every night at Marlena's but never remember that they have met my friend's dog (Marlena allows dogs) roughly twenty times. The berber carpet, the 80s music, the cutie bartender who looked like he might just be straight - the place looked at first glance like the perfect tranny dive bar.
That is, until I realized Marlena was a pedofile. Looking up at Marlena's this day in early July, we slowly noticed three separate alters to the Lord Harry Potter. Marlena had every move poster ever printed pasted up on her grey concrete bar walls. She also had a reproduction of the Elder Wand (yeah, I know what that is), a first edition of The Tales of Beedle and Bard (that I don't), little Harry Potter medals. Most of her magazine cutouts featured the 11 year old Daniel Radcliffe, not his post-Equuis man-form.
A couple of the present trannies gave me eyes. My Southern grandmother would never guess that some transvestites prefer fucking women. Clearly Marlena is not one of them. But they do.
Wednesday, May 04, 2011
The Second Axis
Kinsey missed something, I fear. For every analysis of persons 1 through 7 (one has already changed sexual course) there is an alternate consideration: Is she a top or a bottom? I'm purposefully abandoning the words "masculine" and "feminine" because they're about as helpful as "grey" and "pink" in actually conveying a concrete characteristic. As I know each of these persons quite well, I feel competent to make an initial assessment of where they sit on the second axis of an improved Kinsey scale. On the second axis, 0 is totally passive (bottomy) while 6 is totally active (toppy). I hope you all will correct me if I am wrong.
1. Man #1 is a 6 on the Kinsey scale, with no interest whatsoever in pussy (in fact, he harbors a bit of revulsion for pussy). Yet he is rather active, with some limited passive tendencies. I'm pegging him a 4.
2. Man #2 is a 5.5 on the Kinsey scale - he only likes black chicks, and otherwise is strictly dickly. He is rarely aggressive (which has the pleasant side effect of making him a very nice person). I'd guess he's around a 3, maybe 2. That's not to say he never tops, of course, this isn't about sex (I've never fucked him) but about how likely I imagine he is to throw the first punch at the bar.
3.Woman #3 is a 6 on the Kinsey scale. You would undoubtedly describe her to me as a universal top if you saw her in a bar, but honestly she's a mere kitten. I'm putting her at 2 despite her athletic ability.
4. Woman #4 is perhaps my greatest enigma. She's sitting squarely on Kinsey number 3 at the moment. Undoubtedly in bed she is topped often, but her personality strikes me more around a 4.
5. Woman #5 now sits pretty comfortably at 1 Kinsey-wise (at least she implied that when I tried to holla). But I challenge anyone to try to give her shit - she will school you. 6.
6. Woman #6 I'm putting at 4 Kinsey-wise, given her recent assertion that pussy is just SO much more compelling than cock. I wouldn't want to face her in battle, but her toppiness doesn't seem absolute. I'll put her right in the middle at 3.
Why do this? Other than making my friends hate me for their ranking, I'm hoping they'll correct me. When they do, I believe I can begin a graph I expect to take years to finish. Now to publicize. Anecdotes welcome.
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Why
I have long questioned the narcissism of the "Weblog." How, I would think to myself, can I be so bold as to proclaim that anyone in the world would care to subscribe to my random thoughts? The simple answer is that they shouldn't, but I am a narcissist nonetheless.
In the course of yesterday, I spoke with one of each of the following types of people:
1. A man who has known he was attracted strictly to men since childhood, but who only began telling his closest friends about it at 21.
2. A man who realized he was attracted primarily to men in his mid twenties, to the surprise of none of his friends.
3. A woman who has always known she was attracted only to women.
4. A woman who only dated men until very recently, when she fell in love with a woman.
5. A woman who proclaimed herself a lesbian in high school, but has been with only men in the last decade.
6. A woman who was in relationship with women from childhood through graduate school and a few years beyond, with a boyfriend in between, who now dates a man and loves him.
Naturally the day also brought acquaintance with many, many persons asserting heterosexuality, at least two of which I feel confident have had sex with a person of the same gender at one time or another. My friend's reference to Kinsey was not unexpected. He is (now) gay and we discuss my admiration of Kinsey's insight regularly. What my friend undoubtedly fails to appreciate is that I think Kinsey's insight is only part of the story.
Kinsey said, in brief, that humans do not fit neatly into the categories of heterosexual or homosexual. I don't believe that "bisexuality" was contemplated then. Humans instead fall evenly distributed along a scale. 0 on this scale means entirely heterosexual; 6 means entirely homosexual. A 2, then, is primarily heterosexual with more than a passing interest in persons of the same sex. Kinsey asserted (at least in the movie) that a person's "number" could change over time.
This is insightful for its scientific assertion of what now seems an obvious principle: there is more than just "straight" and "gay." IMHO, straight and gay don't even exist. I formed this opinion long before I knew who Kinsey was, based on personal experience and historical research into times before Christianity and times in spite of it.
The purpose of this narcissistic exploit is to explain why it seems that Kinsey's insight was incomplete and seek feedback on the contours of the complete story. Kinsey (through no fault of his own) lived in a time where men were men and women were women and those terms have very concrete sociological and psychological applications across the human species. They do not. "Male" brains and "female" brains are as fictional as hetero and homo.
In the course of yesterday, I spoke with one of each of the following types of people:
1. A man who has known he was attracted strictly to men since childhood, but who only began telling his closest friends about it at 21.
2. A man who realized he was attracted primarily to men in his mid twenties, to the surprise of none of his friends.
3. A woman who has always known she was attracted only to women.
4. A woman who only dated men until very recently, when she fell in love with a woman.
5. A woman who proclaimed herself a lesbian in high school, but has been with only men in the last decade.
6. A woman who was in relationship with women from childhood through graduate school and a few years beyond, with a boyfriend in between, who now dates a man and loves him.
Naturally the day also brought acquaintance with many, many persons asserting heterosexuality, at least two of which I feel confident have had sex with a person of the same gender at one time or another. My friend's reference to Kinsey was not unexpected. He is (now) gay and we discuss my admiration of Kinsey's insight regularly. What my friend undoubtedly fails to appreciate is that I think Kinsey's insight is only part of the story.
Kinsey said, in brief, that humans do not fit neatly into the categories of heterosexual or homosexual. I don't believe that "bisexuality" was contemplated then. Humans instead fall evenly distributed along a scale. 0 on this scale means entirely heterosexual; 6 means entirely homosexual. A 2, then, is primarily heterosexual with more than a passing interest in persons of the same sex. Kinsey asserted (at least in the movie) that a person's "number" could change over time.
This is insightful for its scientific assertion of what now seems an obvious principle: there is more than just "straight" and "gay." IMHO, straight and gay don't even exist. I formed this opinion long before I knew who Kinsey was, based on personal experience and historical research into times before Christianity and times in spite of it.
The purpose of this narcissistic exploit is to explain why it seems that Kinsey's insight was incomplete and seek feedback on the contours of the complete story. Kinsey (through no fault of his own) lived in a time where men were men and women were women and those terms have very concrete sociological and psychological applications across the human species. They do not. "Male" brains and "female" brains are as fictional as hetero and homo.
Men, it is said, are better at hand-eye coordination and math. Women, by contrast, at language and communication. Yet what of men who are grossly uncoordinated in comparison to particular women? What about "lesbian" soldiers who exhibit all the best characteristics of the ideal male infantrymen, or "gay" men with an uncanny knack for nonverbal communication?
I am female. I like sports (a lot), I'm good at math, I can throw better than at least some men with more accuracy, and I paint my nails religiously. So what of me? I heard once that the only athletic world record held by a woman was long distance swimming, an accolade that the speaker (not this guy) attributed to our comparatively generous body fat percentages. There are obvious evolutionary justifications, of course, for the hunter to be faster than the gatherer. But, a few thousand years of societies that physically and sociologically subjugated women seem to have obfuscated the reality that there is some play in these stereotypes. That play is what's missing from Kinsey's scale, and probably holds the key to explaining why anyone falls where they do.
I'll start with this personal observation: I am generally more attracted to women when I have been working out a lot, particularly when I have been building much muscle.
Enough is Enough
Amidst a discussion of our various friends variable sexualties, my good friend said dismissively: “What do you, have a list of everyone’s Kinsey number going?”
“No,” I replied, “but you’ve just borne my new blog.”
For this first entry, I note only that Microsoft Word does not recognize the spelling of the word “sexualties.”
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