Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Tomorrow on Bilerico: Fluid Sex - Schedule it for 2020

You will have to go to Bilerico tomorrow after 10:30AM to find my response to the following:



Father Tony, it'd be great to have you write in more depth about why you hope the 'straight vs. gay' dichotomy has gone stale. What kind of potentialities do you imagine? Grounding 'fluidity' in some practical, lived way is always of interest.

Leo


3 comments:

Birdie said...

I can just see you sitting gleefully awaiting the charged comments this is certain to bring.

Your analysis, while based on extensive experience with men, lacks any real knowledge of women’s sexual appetites and behavior. Honey, you may be sweetly clue-free when it comes to women. Don’t worry; most men are. But most men desire women and are willing to work hard to find out how to please them. That’s a good thing, because it’s damned hard to please a woman sexually. And the next woman is completely different. And she’ll be different the next hour and the next minute. Ask any man who’s learned how to do it. It’s so much easier to please a man that surely any man inclined toward men would seek them out. Biology wins.

Women have already “evolved” to the point of having personality play the strongest role in sexual attraction. Appearance is secondary to personality, and women have more of the qualities women seek than do men. Yet women remain mostly attracted to men, who have yet to evolve to the same level. Biology wins.

In Born Gay, the authors quote a study of sexual preference for men and women that surprised me. I’ve always thought that, given the fluidity of preference I’ve seen in women, that it would be mirrored in men. But their study shows that men’s preference is an inverse bell curve: the spikes are at the far ends, fully homo- or fully hetero-. The lowest numbers are for truly bisexual males. Women are pretty much level across the spectrum.

Our culture defines more the number of partners we have rather than their sex. Relaxing expectations can lead to more experimentation, but I think our preferences are hardwired. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

But in case you’re right, I’ll wait patiently for Liam Neeson and Harrison Ford to walk hand-in-hand into my boudoir. Eleven years? Totally worth the wait.

Tony Adams said...

Dear Birdie,
Not much gets past you, and yes, I am waiting gleefully for yadda yadda, bring it on. Sometimes, that is the best way to spur some thinking.
I certainly do know more about the sexuality of the male of the species, but I think those studies you mention are skewed by straight men saying what they want to believe rather than what is in their heart.I daily see how comfortable straight men are among men and how that comfort evaporates when they are with women.There are some straight men who love women and luxuriate in their presence. They are not so common.

Birdie said...

I see that same effect the minute I walk up to a group of men. I have to tell you how discouraging it is to be considered a cloud of repression. And no matter how much I wish it were not so, no amount of talking will convince men otherwise. I believe the one gift women can give men is permission. Men want to be who they are, and they believe they cannot with women. Who perpetrated that nonsense? And how can we get people to stop it?