sexuality

[desh]

Inspired by today's Gene Weingarten chat and by talking to a few friends of mine, here's a poll:


But first, to define some terminology: "Gal" is what I'm saying since neither "woman" nor "girl" is as age-nonspecific as "guy". Please ignore whatever patronizing connotation you may think "gal" has.

If "gay", "straight", and "bi" aren't specific enough for you, then consider "gay" to be kinsey 5-6, "bi" to be kinsey 2-4, and "straight" to be kinsey 0-1.

There are limits to the number of choices any poll can give (especially on LJ), but not limits to the number of different answers that are actually possible, especially with a charged question like this. Please, wherever possible, choose the closest answer even if it's not perfect. Feel free to elaborate in comments.

Now, then:
[Poll #1104392]
(As always, LJ lets you edit your poll results if you misclicked or something.)

Comments

[dagoski.livejournal.com]

Step bravely into the mine field my friend. I've only ever met on guy who was actually bi. Most who identified as bi were actually in the processing of accepting their homosexuality. Then again, quite a few of my friends who identify as either straight or gay have had experiences on both sides of the fence indicating some plasticity in orientation. I'm purposely leaving out two people I know who are far outliers on the topic of sexuality because they'd really mess the study up so to speak. Also in my experience there are quite a few women who identify Lesbian but are actually bi. There's also a lot cultural issues in that discussion that really muddy the waters of orientation. In other words, there's way more than biology at work there based on my experiences in one relationship. I'm still processing that one.

[evr1bugsme.livejournal.com]

I've only ever met on guy who was actually bi. Most who identified as bi were actually in the processing of accepting their homosexuality.

Same here. And I agree that the social/cultural issues are seriously muddying the waters.

The identifying lesbian piece is interesting. I was really frustrated with a friend who would still talk about how hot guys were and how interested she was in them, but she identified as a lesbian. Like, if you are openly talking about how you are attracted to guys....doesn't that make you not solely interest in girls and therefore not a lesbian? But I think the social pressure is heavy for lesbians as well to be absolute in their identity, even if it their feelings are not as absolute.

I think these social pressures are why you cannot always take someone's self-identification at face value. And I also think it's perfectly understandable to self-identify in ways that don't perfectly match your feelings or to self-identify as different things at different times in your life or at different points in the discovery of your sexual orientation.

But, since it is a huge social leap to identify as bi, without more information, I would assume he was processing.