a warning/notification and nugget the first

[adrienmundi]

I've got odd bits in my head that want to come out, so I'm probably up for a series of short, disconnected, seemingly extra-contextual posts on a variety of subjects. You've been warned ;)

*****

I don't like the way a lot of people implement the term 'bisexual' (or it might well be that I don't like the term itself). It seems... inaccurate? Or maybe it's exactly as intended, which is another issue.

To me, it seems to be just as rooted in the idea that sexual attraction/activity is based on membership in the categories of 'man' and 'woman' as hetero- or homosexualty; it's constructed on the same underpinnings. Like I said, maybe this is what some people mean when they say 'bisexual', that they like men (who are 'men') and women (who are 'women'), but... where is the room for individuality, for unique categories and meaning? It's not just personal (though it does affect me, potentially, directly; if people like only 'men' and 'women', which is their choice, but still, there isn't room for me), it seems potentially imprecise. Some people, it seems, use the term to mean 'I like the person, independent of genitals/sex/gender', but frame it in terms defined by hetero- and homosexuality, which were created to define a sharp, absolute demarcation.

Comments

[dustyskinandall.livejournal.com]

I avoid identifying myself as bisexual, but don't throw a fit when others use that to identify me. Binary gender classification is pretty much a bunch of BS at this point...
I've definitely been attracted to "butch women" or "effeminate men" or "femme women" or "men's men" etc. etc. so where does that leave us? It's definitely imprecise to say "bisexual" for me.

[adrienmundi]

That's why I say, "I like pretty", and of course, I get to define what pretty is :)

[dustyskinandall.livejournal.com]

Nice. Maybe I'll start using that one! ;)

[adrienmundi]

Use, customize or modify at will :)

[scottopic.livejournal.com]

I am a bisexual and I use it for specific, definitive reasons.
I interact differently with penises and vaginas and what is standard in connection with them in cultural, social, sexual and bio-terms.

I'm not a pan, omni, or *-sexual, all of which in most statements I've heard or read comes across as "man, lookit how open I am!"

You may not like my use, but I've found the insistence that I see it in a particular not-my-wiring way to be offensive to the extreme, since I operate under the faulty assumption that people can choose their own labels as long as they don't implant them in others. I like pretty, and I like certain kinds of pretty, just like everyone, everyone else. If past actions and statements between us still makes you feel excluded by me, then I consider all of them failures.

This is not meant to be angry or aggressive, but it is a statement on my own position.

[adrienmundi]

OK, sure. For the record, I do want to point back to language in my original like 'the way a lot of people implement the term'; I certainly didn't intend to be all encompassing with my ramblings on the point.

That being said, I suspect my problem is categorical; I just don't understand the categorical weighting. I get that penises and vaginas work differently, but to me, it also seems that each individual set of genitals works differently, too. Add in the mental connections to the person who owns them, and individuation only multiplies. Or, to paraphrase one of my favorite biohistorians, intracategorical variation is greater than intercategorical variation (again, to me).

From another take on the same or similar angle, when it gets down to nuts and bolts, there's a large difference I've observed in getting physical with people at either end of the height spectrum (I'm sure this affects me more than others, being nearer one end than a lot of others); some thing just aren't possible, or possible the same way, across that difference. It's interesting to me that the categories of experience aren't named, though; there aren't 'shortosexuals' or 'tallosexuals', and 'bisexual' isn't constructed across the assumed polarity of height as a category. I feel pretty certain that this comes down to a lot of social contruction, particularly to the weighting of some categories and the dismissing of others as only individual variation.

In my ideal circumstance, I would call for an explosion of categorization, because everyone's individual preferences should, I think, be allowed equal weight where they are the subject. That this would almost certainly lead to a deemphasis of the currently privileged categories is just gravy*.


*Not intended as an appeal to potential gravysexuals, but if that's your thing, get on with your bad self.

[scottopic.livejournal.com]

The implicit exclusion of gravysexuals, despite your patronizing tone towards their interests, is not lost on me.
Do you have a recommendation for a baseline 'biohistorian' primer type author/book?