Sexuality is, perhaps, one of the easiest things to understand about living organisms, but it is the least understood thing about living organisms by humans. This is because there are more myths about sexuality than there are facts known to the general population. Often scientific papers are misquoted, misread, or simply ignored on the subject, but it's all in there, and very easy to understand when you actually read the information. So I will attempt to weaken some of those myths here, at least the most damaging of the myths circulating at this time.
When it comes to sexuality there are generally a few different types, the rarest being the well informed, scientifically educated, and deep thinking person, we'll call them the scientist. One of the most common are those who think that because they have a lot of sex, they know everything about sexuality, we'll call them hillbillies. Another common type of person is the one who keeps up with the magazines, popular culture stereotypes being their bread and butter, we'll call those people wasps; if you get that reference then you win the game today.
The final type, the rarest of those who are often wrong, but also the most educated of the least educated, know about their own sexuality so well they can recite genetic, biological, and other scientific texts on the matter. However they are completely clueless about the sexualities most opposite their own. We shall call these people smart.
The nature of sexuality has often been shown as a sliding scale, or categorized list of various types. The reality of sexuality is that it is more of a cloud, a cloud with hundreds of dimensions, billions of paths, and millions of extremes. The reason for this is that sexuality is actually not a single trait, it's a combination of many traits in the organism's genetic makeup, which includes what they are attracted too, what causes them to become aroused, pheromone reactions, even their favorite color can play a huge role in sexuality.
I have noticed that a majority of transgender "admirers" are best described as closet homosexuals, or closet heterosexuals, rarely do they truly understand what they are getting with a transgendered individual. What they really should be looking for is the transsexual, a person who's sexuality is opposite the social definitions for their particular genitalia. That's a lot for a brief description, but it illustrates just how complex this matter is.
Due to the fact that everything which influences sexuality is genetically or personality driven, it becomes more than just a choice, also much more than just who you want to sleep with. The asexual, like me, is one which has absolutely no sexual desires, though we can be attracted to people and wish to get close, we simply have no desire to sleep with them at all. But the gambit of asexual variations is just as massive as heterosexual or homosexual variations, even transsexuals have a lot of variation.
It's that variation which people know almost nothing about, unless you are one of the lucky few who have spent most of their lives studying biology, genetics, social psychology, and even neurology. That variation is discarded when the labels are used, to call someone gay, or homosexual, ignores all the other traits influencing their sexuality. Perhaps they are aroused by the smell of leather, many people have this trait, this does not change that they are homosexual, but it is an important trait to note in their sexuality lest you inadvertently insult them by saying leather is evil or bad in some way.
Most heterosexuals are anything but heterosexual, in reality. Many of them are mecha-sexual, they are aroused by machines, often employing them as a tool in their activities. Many are aroused by latex, or rubber, wearing masks made of the stuff as a method of improving the enjoyment of sexual activity. We could invent billions of new labels for sexuality, and still never include all possible variations on the primary ones.
We cannot discard the labels, we need those as a means of identifying each other for various reasons. But people do need to learn more about the variations, and what each label actually represents. Too often I have heard people refer to transsexuals as transgender, in spite of the fact that the latter has nothing to do with the core sexuality, though it can alter the label best describing their core sexuality. Here's an easy way to remember that group; transgender female (male-to-female for the layperson) who is sexually attracted to women is a lesbian, a homosexual. Once you understand why that is true, you will understand a lot more about transgender and lesbian.
The key to really understanding sexuality is not found in pop-culture magazines like Vogue or GC, but in those long, dry, scientific papers. At least, I have heard people think they are dry, I find these papers quire fascinating, riveting, more enjoyable than any fiction.
No comments:
Post a Comment