Heterosexuality - Classic Or Dud?

If I am in any sense "defensive abt my heterosexuality" it is thus: that I sometimes worry that I am merely boringly straight and am too chickenshit to do anything abt it. As rainy's official stalker I disdain her fanclub as loser wannabes.

And then there's this thing I have for Nick's lovely balls. It's a dark, fearful thing. I R scared...

NB the opening sentence does in no way suggest that the author thinks alternative sexualities are freakish. Some lesser-minded people do. That's all.

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some people do get mighty defensive about their heterosexualities, this seems to be especially men. if men didn't get defensive about it, why do they blather on and on about the women they find attractive? it really isn't that necessary. we know what women you find attractive, they're all over the television and magazine covers etc. do you see what i'm saying? men talking about women is usually pretty boring, we've heard it all before.

i do not think of myself as a heterosexual.

its a shame that people choose to define themselves as anything, its so restricting.

but i also think that if one is queer, sometimes it is useful to define oneself as queer, cos there is still homophobia which needs to be combatted. how can you fight homophobia without an idea of what it means to be queer?

i can get pretty defensive about my sexuality, and this is why i like to separate myself from pseudo-lesbianism. my desire for women is constantly being called into question, thanks to pseudo-lesbianism. if i express interest in a woman, men automatically assume i am doing it to titillate them, rather than out of some genuine interest in women.

i see lesbian sex as politically subversive, firstly because gays are an oppressed group, and secondly to illustrate that women need not rely on men for pleasure, need not pander to men to get what they want. to let a man into that defeats the purpose.

is there 'typical' heterosexual behaviour? yes there is, but i am loathe to make that kind of generalisation, not all heterosexuals exhibit typical heterosexual behaviour.

a lot of the time this can be because of the annoying stupid liberals telling you yer being subversive. some time ago i'd got to the "lordies", which was supposed to be some kind of tough bar in chch but was actually fairly tame and mildly homoerotic, with loserish ex-boyfriend#2 and the only people who would hassle us were female university students or vegan-types stopping us to congratulate us on our bold stand against homophobia blah blahblah. i felt like yelling wake up its the 90s fuck off and leave us alone but i'd just mutter and stare at my feet instead.

Maria, if you look through fashion magazines, you'll see it in the advertising. I didn't notice it so much before - only in the nineties. Was it that way before?

The fact that male homosexuality isn't used in this way, at least to my knowledge, makes what Lady Die said believable. At the same time, it may be true that homosexuality is titillating to heterosexuals. And they may not intend to use anybody. (I liked Another Country, but I was uncomfortable with some scenes in Hedwig and the Angry Inch.) I don't know what should be done about all that advertising though; I can see why lesbians might feel used.

The second paragraph of mark s's first post was also surprising and remarkable.

I dislike it when people presume to know more about other people's sexuality than they do themselves, even if it seems obvious.

Well, um, for the same reason women blather on and on about it and gay men blather on and on about it. People like to talk about things like that for whatever reason. If I post that I'm attracted to Derek Jeter, it's not to prove that I like men, it's to say I think he's cute.

That's my only point of contention cos otherwise I basically agree. I feel in a weird position myself because I identify myself as bisexual, and I actually think the vast majority of heteros ARE bisexuals who just either aren't as strongly center or have been mentally conditioned to be straight. Everyone's got a bit of AC/DC in them, I think. But the problem with saying this - and I think it SHOULD be said cos I think talking about things besides "regular" heterosexual behavior makes them more "acceptable" - is that everyone, men and women, seems to think that I'm just saying it to be "sexy", which is just ridiculous.

I don't understand the concept really - can some man please explain why they find "mock lesbianism" as Lady DI put it, sexy? I don't find gay male sex sexy (no offense - I just know that you guys aren't going to have any interset in me so it's a bit hard to insert yourself into that fantasy), and I don't think most women do, though I could be wrong. So why's it that way with a lot of men?

Oi, this is a weird subject to get into. No matter what anyone says, they're potentially offending someone. I think people just shouldn't make distinctions between sexual preferences, what's the big deal? Be attracted to whom you are attracted to. If you're straight, fantastic, if not, equally good. Everyone would be happier if they just all minded ones own business, ya know.

i don't find it sexy but i am a man. i think it comes from porn.

what i posted above in response to the thing on PDAs was pretty dumb. there were much better reasons for me to be scared in public than stupid liberals.

someone told me today that all women are lesbians, I could accept that if they also admitted that all men are gay, inasmuch that sexuality is a fluid thing and to some degree most people have an attraction, however small to the other sex. Friends is on TV at the moment, no wonder I sound like a retard

'can some man please explain why they find "mock lesbianism" as Lady DI put it, sexy? I don't find gay male sex sexy (no offense - I just know that you guys aren't going to have any interset in me so it's a bit hard to insert yourself into that fantasy), and I don't think most women do, though I could be wrong. So why's it that way with a lot of men?'

i don't know what's going on with this 'mock lesbianism' business, but i can say that it is arousing to many men to see images of women making love to each other. for some people, sure, they probably depend on fantasies of being involved. but for a lot of us, it doesn't really have to have anything to do with that. maybe we identify with one or the other of the women; maybe we like to imagine what it must be like to be a woman, able to make love to another woman and get closer to a certain kind of twinship than we can imagine. maybe we think women's bodies are beautiful, and seeing them makes us happy, horny, or both. maybe we think women are beautiful, and that seeing them feeling pleasure is a beautiful thing, even if it doesn't include us (we don't have to 'insert ourselves' into a fantasy, we can just watch something beautiful or sexy. do you have to imagine that you've got a dick to like gay porn?). heck, maybe we just get vicariously turned on by seeing other PEOPLE experience pleasure! my homosexual tendencies are mild at best (a prick to play with might be fun for a lark, sure, but i have all too little interest in the man attached to it. i just like women better, they're what i want in a partner), but i've seen love scenes between men that left me trembling, not because i wanted to fuck/kiss/touch them, but because the desire and tenderness was so 'there' and beautiful that i couldn't help but feel sympathetically turned on. the scene i'm thinking of is in 'bent'.

so what the fuck is up with these implications that the male gaze is inherently possessing / penetrative / demeaning? (answering the post from lady die now) has andrea dworkin put something in the water supply? and 'we know what women you find attractive'....do you really? do you have any fucking idea? (or any idea how boring the women 'all over the television and magazine covers' are to most of us with a brain?) or are you just throwing around blanket statements because you (a) think you've 'got' men, thanks no doubt to an excellent women's studies course in men 101, and (b) you're so transparently insecure that you have to find an object of blame to cover up your self-loathing? i mean, god, 'if i express interest in a woman, men automatically assume i am doing it to titillate them'...can you be that narcissistic? it's really not all about you. some of us big bad men are capable of saying, 'hooray, you like girls. yippee. good for you. i'm ever so proud. i believe you. now get out of the way so i can find someone interesting to talk to, someone who has fewer issues and more good ideas.' and some of us would sooner spend our time with, and give our hearts to, a woman who'd never make the cover of cosmo (or even a shoe catalog) but who has a strong mind and a lifetime supply of humanity, than spend even five minutes with a model lookalike sporting a peabrain and a fresh load of venom.

finally, we KNOW that women don't 'need us for pleasure'. that's old news to men with brains. but those of us men who like women can probably be forgiven for choosing to focus on women who want us too, because dwelling on potential partners who don't is a waste of time and heartbreak, as any woman who's ever pined for a gay man can attest. and maybe that's the biggest confusion of your post. you think that lesbianism is threatening to men because it takes away their 'power' (whatever that is, as though every poor schmuck trying to survive and pay off his student loans without selling his soul to the devil is a member of a secret society that meets in mountain grottos, and puts asbestos in tampons and writes cheques to the wifebeaters' fraternal order of elks). some men probably feel that way. but for those of us who don't eat their dinners raw and drag our lovers home by the hair, the only time lesbianism is ever something we trip over is when we find out that a girl we fancy is exclusively gay. and the point isn't that she's a lesbian, or that we can't 'have her' in some comic-book possessive way (whether 'have her' means fucking her, 'owning' her, or making her watch bad anime). the point is that she doesn't (we can assume) want us romantically. and when any prospective partner doesn't return our sincere romantic interest, for whatever reason, it can hurt. if we'd started to open our hearts, it can hurt a lot. (like the guy on beavis and butt-head said, 'men have feelings too / may i share mine with you?') so it's not about power. it's about wanting to be loved: loved by a partner, an equal, who we love too. i daresay that's what most of us want. maybe it's what you want. some of us just have a pretty silly way of talking about it.

As for lesbians, the first time I knowingly met lesbians I will admit yes that my reptile brain thought "Wonder what they get up to in bed". Subsequently this reaction hasn't occurred.

'can some man please explain why they find "mock lesbianism" as Lady DI put it, sexy? I don't find gay male sex sexy (no offense - I just know that you guys aren't going to have any interset in me so it's a bit hard to insert yourself into that fantasy), and I don't think most women do, though I could be wrong. So why's it that way with a lot of men?'

i don't know what's going on with this 'mock lesbianism' business, but i can say that it is arousing to many men to see images of women making love to each other. for some people, sure, they probably depend on fantasies of being involved. but for a lot of us, it doesn't really have to have anything to do with that. maybe we identify with one or the other of the women; maybe we like to imagine what it must be like to be a woman, able to make love to another woman and get closer to a certain kind of twinship than we can imagine. maybe we think women's bodies are beautiful, and seeing them makes us happy, horny, or both. maybe we think women are beautiful, and that seeing them feeling pleasure is a beautiful thing, even if it doesn't include us (we don't have to 'insert ourselves' into a fantasy, we can just watch something beautiful or sexy. do you have to imagine that you've got a dick to like gay porn?). heck, maybe we just get vicariously turned on by seeing other PEOPLE experience pleasure! my homosexual tendencies are mild at best (a prick to play with might be fun for a lark, sure, but i have all too little interest in the man attached to it. i just like women better, they're what i want in a partner), but i've seen love scenes between men that left me trembling, not because i wanted to fuck/kiss/touch them, but because the desire and tenderness was so 'there' and beautiful that i couldn't help but feel sympathetically turned on. the scene i'm thinking of is in 'bent'.

so what the fuck is up with these implications that the male gaze is inherently possessing / penetrative / demeaning? (answering the post from lady die now) has andrea dworkin put something in the water supply? and 'we know what women you find attractive'....do you really? do you have any fucking idea? (or any idea how boring the women 'all over the television and magazine covers' are to most of us with a brain?) or are you just throwing around blanket statements because you (a) think you've 'got' men, thanks no doubt to an excellent women's studies course in men 101, and (b) you're so transparently insecure that you have to find an object of blame to cover up your self-loathing? i mean, god, 'if i express interest in a woman, men automatically assume i am doing it to titillate them'...can you be that narcissistic? it's really not all about you. some of us big bad men are capable of saying, 'hooray, you like girls. yippee. good for you. i'm ever so proud. i believe you. now get out of the way so i can find someone interesting to talk to, someone who has fewer issues and more good ideas.' and some of us would sooner spend our time with, and give our hearts to, a woman who'd never make the cover of cosmo (or even a shoe catalog) but who has a strong mind and a lifetime supply of humanity, than spend even five minutes with a model lookalike sporting a peabrain and a fresh load of venom.

finally, we KNOW that women don't 'need us for pleasure'. that's old news to men with brains. but those of us men who like women can probably be forgiven for choosing to focus on women who want us too, because dwelling on potential partners who don't is a waste of time and heartbreak, as any woman who's ever pined for a gay man can attest. and maybe that's the biggest confusion of your post. you think that lesbianism is threatening to men because it takes away their 'power' (whatever that is, as though every poor schmuck trying to survive and pay off his student loans without selling his soul to the devil is a member of a secret society that meets in mountain grottos, and puts asbestos in tampons and writes cheques to the wifebeaters' fraternal order of elks). some men probably feel that way. but for those of us who don't eat their dinners raw and drag our lovers home by the hair, the only time lesbianism is ever something we trip over is when we find out that a girl we fancy is exclusively gay. and the point isn't that she's a lesbian, or that we can't 'have her' in some comic-book possessive way (whether 'have her' means fucking her, 'owning' her, or making her watch bad anime). the point is that she doesn't (we can assume) want us romantically. and when any prospective partner doesn't return our sincere romantic interest, for whatever reason, it can hurt. if we'd started to open our hearts, it can hurt a lot. (like the guy on beavis and butt-head said, 'men have feelings too / may i share mine with you?') so it's not about power. it's about wanting to be loved: loved by a partner, an equal, who we love too. i daresay that's what most of us want. maybe it's what you want. some of us just have a pretty silly way of talking about it.

Anyhow, to "anonymous" (and I have a very good suspicion who Sir Anonymous is based on word styling and sentence structure, but I could be wrong so I will answer this as if I am talking to an anonymous person and not the sexually and mentally abusive fuckwad that I think it is - no Ethan, I'm not talking about you, calm down ;), here's the deal: if you're turned on by the idea of chicks getting it on, that's great. Fine. What we - or at least I - specifically are referencing are not guys who just find it arousing but a very specific type of guy, who also happens to be the most vocal type of guy 9 times out of 10. There are men in this universe who seem to think lesbians (or at least a specific type, the oh-so-famous-in-porn "lipstick dyke", as if there's some sort of distinction or somewhat) and, even more so, bisexuals are just there for their own personal amusement.

From personal experience, letting people know you're bisexual results in a torrent of attention from men who decide that it somehow makes you much, much more sluttier to have had same sex experiences, as if somehow another woman counts as more than one partner or something? I have no idea, but it's quite common - do you know how many emails I get whenever I mention having had experiences with women from horndog guys? Or the guys I know in real life who somehow automatically figured I'd be into threesomes because of it? Hell, I could start naming names if I was my older, more angry personality, but my life has turned up so much in the past two days that I ain't got it in me to be a right evil bitch.

The point that I was making wasn't that "all men are crazy demeaning psychos", and I doubt that was Lady Di's point either. The point is that there is a very specific, definable, vocal, and none-too- small group of men in this world who behave this way, and I personally feel that the reverse isn't true - there isn't a sizeable group of women who are looking at gay/bi men in the same way, and I'm purely curious as to why this is.

I don't have an issue with it other than it's a disgusting and wrong way to think, but it no longer personally bothers me - as far as I'm concerned, a man that would say that to me isn't worth my time. But I do find myself curious about the phenomenon.

On Blind Date back when I watched a lot (with my dad!) it wd drive my crazy that the women wd always say — when asked who they fancied — either T.Cruise or P.Swayzee. Cuz why so lame? Why not branch out and be honest? IT WAS ALWAYS ONE OF THESE TWO! Yes yes they are goregous except P.Swayzee but USE OTHER PIN-UPS PLEASE!!

But one day I started to think abt whst wd actually happen if No.2 said "I fancy fat old men with bad breath, a Prince Albert, a mauve top hat and NOTHING ELSE". i. They'd be disappointed, for such was not behind the screen nohow, and ii. They'd be laughed at.

Declaration of genuine attraction is HARD: a bit of us is always still 10 when a grown-up asks abt yr "girlfriend"/"boyfriend". Response = SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP etc. When we say, I like [x] — whether [x] is a type or a person — we court rejection AND ridicule. We are making our deep selves vulnerable the extrreme. I believe an awful lotta ppl — the girlies on BD, menfolk of many difft stripes — actually plump in this situation for a Conventionally Approved Generalised Object, as a screen (to themselves as much as to the world) representing but also obscuring what they ACTUALLY want.

This is used to piss me off. It is why I have very few close male friends of longstanding outside the bisexual community (haha). But increasingly I find it sad: and not sad in a sneery or an exasperated way, but genuinely sad, in a lament-for-a-dream-deferred kind of way.

So why the oh-so-male fnar-fnar you-and-me-then lesbian-babe bar-hound cliche? Well — and let's for the sake of argt exclude all the REAL full-on jerks here — because deep-sensed personal variation in male desire patterns is really quite unsettling to many men (OK, to all geneders prob), and I think a socially approved symbol of Acceptable Rebel Deviation has been therefore been somewhat cultivated, in unspoken complicit widebased whatever, to stand in its place. For example (and not the only one by any means) I think convincing yrself you'd like to watch lesbians is a way of expressing an unrealisable will to be BE a girl, when you're a straight man. Desire is tricky and weird: some ppl madly fuck what they mainly hate. Tricky: as Toraneko rather hilariously put it (tho re other clichéd tastes), "Surely this proves all straight men are paedos or poofs…"

I like the fact that so many dfft ppl on ILE are comfortable discussing and exploring their active and their fantasy tastes. I'd be sad if ppl felt intimdated or moralised into shutting up abt same, or worse disguising and lying abt same, not least becuz I think this is EXACTLY how this kind of "socially approved symbol" shielding gets started in the first place.

That's what I think. Back to work now: "financial statements for year ended 31 March 2001" woop-de-doo.

Now i'm sure a lot of male-peoples will have the same problem I do which is that i'm not interested AT ALL in many of the default boy- talk things: football, cars and vacuous tv-presenting tarts. BUT, i do feel estranged for not wanting to buy magazine soft porn.

Now taking the confessional a bit further, i DO get off on erotic literature, even the cheap stuff and the stuff that claims to be for women. e.g. cliterati.co.uk stuff -- or am I being duped, is this a clever scam to lure voyeuristic men.

WHAT SORT OF SICK FULE R I?

For whatever reason, I'm not. I think I'm reticent about this because it seems...*thinks*...it's not wrong, natch, but it's almost an imposition on people. *thinks again* Maybe that's not the term. Maybe I'm just private in that area! The most I can say is that I've been hugely attracted to people of all backgrounds and appearance, but that the real attractions lay in whether such people were smart, good, kind and so forth. I think to specifically have types to fall for...well, perhaps it is something that can't be controlled, maybe even something hardwired? But it seems odd to me.

Some theories/perspectives through which I view these issues:

1) As far as I know, there is no tradition of porn targeted to women that depicts women as being welcome to join in on man-on-man sex -- no counterpart to mainstream porn's big-haired lipstick lesbians who are presented as potentially being available to men.

2) I tend to assume that a man who has come to terms with the concept of having sex with another man -- especially if he's "out" -- has so thoroughly accepted his homosexual inclinations that he will almost never be interested in having sex with a woman. (I admit that according to this scenario male bisexuality exists only as a phase before a man recognizes his "fundamental homosexuality.")

While I sometimes like looking at man-on-man porn, my assumption (which has yet to be challenged by my experiences) is that gay/bi men wouldn't wan't anything to do with me. Heck, as it is I can't even find a minimally tolerable heterosexual schlub who shows any signs of being interested in me.

- In college, my wife was propositioned by a male gay couple she met at a club. She turned them down. However, she really enjoys watching "Queer As Folk", particularly when the clothes start coming off.

- A very good friend of mine was in a serious relationship with a woman for a good 18 months after he came out. One of the reasons the started dating was because she was turned on by the fact that he was attracted to men and he thought she was really cool.

The moral of the story is that sexuality isn't binary. Every truism that a person can come up with has a counter-example. It may not be as prevalent or socially acceptable (and I believe it's more the latter than the former), but I firmly believe that there are just as many women out there who would get excited watching two guys get it on as there are men who would get excited watching two girls get it on, AND there are people primarily into the same sex who wouldn't mind changing it up every now and then.

But anyhow, these are all salient points. I mean, the bottom line here is that Dan is right, there is no such thing as hardwiring, ie you can't say because x does y x always = y and y=x. It doesn't work that way in human psychology. So basically this discussion has to, for logistic purposes, come down to socially accepted norms and "standards". If we want to use this board as our social structure to base norms and standards on, we would get a very different result than if we used the whole of, for example, American society.

Which I suppose is always the case when you take a much smaller group not handpicked by statisicians.

And yes, Tracer, I agree, as long as everyone involved is happy with the situation, it's wonderful. My personal problem comes in when certain guys impose their ludicrious belief that lesbians/bis are porno sluts upon the rest of the world and try to pressure and insult women into doing things they don't want to do, something I'm sure you agree with.

I always assumed that's all it was (lesbian pornography = no cocks)

Though I don't think it's anything to do with feeling inadequate, but for totally-one-hundred-per-cent-no-I've-never-even-thought-of-it-are you-calling-me-queer straight men, they don't want to be watching men with cocks having sex with women because OH NO what if I start getting turned on by the big spurting cock!

Blimey, I've used the word cock three times (four times) in this post.

Along the same lines, the qualities which attract me to someone are not features of the person so much as of the attraction. When the love is for the intellectual concept more than the person, is it still love? I don't know of course, I'm not in love, but I say yes because the intellectual concept takes the form of attraction to the person in the same way as an admiration of them does. Is this demeaning to them? I don't think it has to be. Of all this, my friend said "relationships as amusement, how novel", which is half-serious and cheapening to the whole approach, but it does get to the root of the matter. Due to whatever inherent flaw or lifelong chain of fucked up occurrences, I need to feel aesthetically viable, and if someone else fulfills that need for me, there's nothing less than genuine about my attraction to them. I can't articulate how this is relevant to the topic at hand, indeed it probably isn't, but it seems to me to be so inasmuch as what I'm saying is straight out of The Thief's Journal by Genet, arty gay porn which ought to be a joke but instead seems to be a blueprint for how I'm attracted to women. It's also the most erotic thing I've ever read.

Lesbian porn where it's obvious the women aren't really into it (i.e. 99% of it) isn't really a turn on. Lesbian porn where they make a good fist of looking like they actually fancy each other is much more arousing. But that would be the same for straight porn, and (quite possibly, though my experience of it is very limited) gay porn. Love (or at least genuine lust) is a real turn on.

i see lesbian sex as politically subversive, firstly because gays are an oppressed group, and secondly to illustrate that women need not rely on men for pleasure, need not pander to men to get what they want. to let a man into that defeats the purpose.

-- di (ladydi...), November 5th, 2001.

Okay, I'm mainly intrigued by the section i see lesbian sex as politically subversive.

To me this looks like di is suggesting lesbianism is a choice. It's something some women do to be politically subversive - they are lesbians because of other beliefs they have.

Off-board I know (or know of) many women who are lesbians and staunch feminists, but I really don't see that there should be a connection - the first is about fancying women, the second a political viewpoint.

Um, er.

I suppose what really interests me is the thought that a woman might become interested in feminism for whatever reason then, say, campaign for equal rights in the workplace, argue feminisms' cause in convestaions, read the literature, study the art... any other activities associated with being a feminist... then somehow 'become' a lesbian because it fits with her other views.

To me all of those things EXCEPT lesbianism are a choice, sexuality is not up to you (it's certainly not up to me!)

I'd really like to know what other people think about this.

Or is there another reason why being a lesbian and being a feminist seem to be linked so often?

That said, it seems likely that some people are in a position to choose their sexuality, and certainly there are situations (the most common is prison) where people will choose a different sexuality than they would have chosen elsewhere.

And I've heard it argued that since men have the importance of maintaining their pure sexuality lest they be seen as weak and powerless -- much more than women have -- that therefore they aren't as "hung up" and can be more choosy about their sexuality.

From the more limber sexualities I've seen in men my age and especially younger, this might be the case. Or perhaps not.

Anyway as for why lesbianism is so closely tied to feminism: I think it might have to do with lesbians being some of the most outspoken feminists at one point (the 70s) though I'd have to reread the history of feminism book I have to be sure.

Dunno if that's what the other poster meant.

What's wrong with girls in magazines by the way? You tellin' me you wouldn't drag your nuts through a mile of broken glass for a date with Holly Valance?