sexual spectrum

[Dudette]

Is it possible to be only sexually attracted to specific type of people?

I was thinking if calling yourself heterosexual is correct if you are only attracted to older people or only to blond people.

Sorry, but I was talking to some people who I know, and they argue that they are heterosexual even though they find only very specific people sexually attractive.

I am aware that heterosexuals and homosexuals have their preferences like bisexuals (but only for one gender).

Even I have my preference when it comes to romantic attraction, but I still have romantic attraction to people who are not in my preference (weaker, but still).

[Xenobot]

If it's a super specific attribute and they won't even consider anyone who falls outside of that description because they are not sexually attracted to anyone who does not have that attribute, you might be dealing with some kind of fetish or a "chaser". Otherwise, having a general type that one prefers or finds most attractive is pretty normal for a lot of people.

[borkfork]

I have to agree with @Xenobot. Outside of a preference like preferring brunettes, or those with masters degrees it becomes it a sort of fetish. I prefer to interact with people who aren't that interested in football or basketball, but I can tolerate the occasional Lakers or Clippers fan so long as they know when to STFU.  

 

It's anecdotal, but I have known people like this (i.e. would only date blonds) who just sort of grew out of it. I don't have any way of explaining it because they certainly didn't overcome it in therapy. 

[Allegra]

Yup, what @Xenobot says makes sense. What you're describing sounds like a pretty well- or narrowly-defined "type" or even a fetish, if especially specific. But with the example of people with blond hair, I think it's more a very specific type, unless it's the hair itself that you're into -- I think then it would be a fetish.

 

Edit to add, since @borkfork replied a second before me: At least I think fetishes denote super specific features like the hair itself, or feet, etc? (Vs. "I like blonds" but still meaning the whole person?)

[gisiebob]

is it possible that humans come in various flavors of human? 

[Xenobot]

18 minutes ago, gisiebob said:

is it possible that humans come in various flavors of human? 

Nah. We all taste like pork.

[gisiebob]

your sample size?

[Xenobot]

I'm afraid it's all anecdotal. "Long pig" is well-known slang for human meat, because apparently many cannibals say we taste like pork. I doubt there would be much variation in our flavor.

[Evren]

Although fear makes meat taste acidic so it's possible that if you killed somone calmly, like knocked out or somthing it could taste different. (Im inherntly doubting that the tribes of aforesaid cannibals put much thought into calming their victims.)

 

As to the original question fetishes are obssessions with specfic things, usually sexual but not always. So your only turned  on by feet and the rest of the person doesn't matter so much. People do tend to have prefrences for some reason though. I think people with black hair and red hair are usuasly more attractive than the rest of the population, but I am not limited to people with black hair and red hair, if that makes sense.

[Dudette]

8 minutes ago, Evren said:

I think people with black hair and red hair are usuasly more attractive than the rest of the population, but I am not limited to people with black hair and red hair, if that makes sense.

exactly, but what happens if you are limited to people with black hair for example?

would it be consider a fetish or even a preference?

[Evren]

16 minutes ago, m_p_w said:

exactly, but what happens if you are limited to people with black hair for example?

would it be consider a fetish or even a preference?

It would depend upon whether or not the hair was the only thing that was important to them. Do they care if the person is intellegent or if they are friendly or do they only care about the fact that they have black hair. That's the difference. On first sight if i had to pick between a black and a blond haired guy. I would pick the black hair. But if he turned out to be a horrible person I would drop him. Somone with a fetish wouldn't care so much if he was a horrible person because the only thing they're worried about is his hair.

[Star Bit]

2 hours ago, m_p_w said:

Is it possible to be only sexually attracted to specific type of people?

 

I was thinking if calling yourself heterosexual is correct if you are only attracted to older people or only to blond people.

Yes, it's called having a type, and some people don't diverge. Yes, being attracted to people of such specifics is called a fetish (which isn't actually a sexual word, it's just popularly used in reference to that). Preference makes it sound like it can be done without.

 

Age, hair color, the orientation of the other person, etc, do not change the meaning of your orientation/the prefix (i.e. sexually/romantically desire the same gender [homo], opposing gender [hetero], both/all genders [bi/pan]); it's still just that and nothing more, eventhough each person has their own fine print requirements/preferences.

[Alejandrogynous]

I'm not so quick to jump on saying your acquaintances have fetishes, they probably just have a 'type' and that's not really uncommon, but my answer's the same regardless.

Orientation is about the gender you are attracted to. That's all. Hetero doesn't mean you're attracted to EVERY member of the opposite gender, and even if you do have a fetish, your orientation is still based on the gender of those it manifests toward. So (for example), if your friend is a guy and he has a fetish for blonde hair, unless he finds blond men just as sexy as blonde women, he's still straight. Being a fetishist doesn't give you your own orientation.

[AshenPhoenix]

Sexual orientation is, technically, in the scientifically recognized sense, limited to only gender and attraction or lack of attraction to those genders.

 

As others have mentioned, having a preference is commonly colloquially called having a type, and having a very specific and sometimes required "type" usually ends up being classified as a fetish. As Star Bit mentioned, a fetish by definition does not have to be sexual. Typically, a fetish essentially means something a person derives pleasure or gratification from in some form and develops an affinity for it, which a majority of people do not specifically relate to such gratification. It can also, in some terms, refer to a idol used for religious purposes. Which sometimes makes conversations about the occult very awkward to discuss with friends  

[Dudette]

On 4/5/2017 at 4:36 AM, Star Bit said:

Yes, it's called having a type, and some people don't diverge. Yes, being attracted to people of such specifics is called a fetish (which isn't actually a sexual word, it's just popularly used in reference to that). Preference makes it sound like it can be done without.

 

Age, hair color, the orientation of the other person, etc, do not change the meaning of your orientation/the prefix (i.e. sexually/romantically desire the same gender [homo], opposing gender [hetero], both/all genders [bi/pan]); it's still just that and nothing more, eventhough each person has their own fine print requirements/preferences.

 

On 4/5/2017 at 4:43 AM, WindyAce said:

I'm not so quick to jump on saying your acquaintances have fetishes, they probably just have a 'type' and that's not really uncommon, but my answer's the same regardless.

Orientation is about the gender you are attracted to. That's all. Hetero doesn't mean you're attracted to EVERY member of the opposite gender, and even if you do have a fetish, your orientation is still based on the gender of those it manifests toward. So (for example), if your friend is a guy and he has a fetish for blonde hair, unless he finds blond men just as sexy as blonde women, he's still straight. Being a fetishist doesn't give you your own orientation.

 

18 hours ago, AshenPhoenix said:

Sexual orientation is, technically, in the scientifically recognized sense, limited to only gender and attraction or lack of attraction to those genders.

 

As others have mentioned, having a preference is commonly colloquially called having a type, and having a very specific and sometimes required "type" usually ends up being classified as a fetish. As Star Bit mentioned, a fetish by definition does not have to be sexual. Typically, a fetish essentially means something a person derives pleasure or gratification from in some form and develops an affinity for it, which a majority of people do not specifically relate to such gratification. It can also, in some terms, refer to a idol used for religious purposes. Which sometimes makes conversations about the occult very awkward to discuss with friends  

 

 

But what about this scenario. you live in china, and you are only sexually attracted to women from east Africa.

Then in a way you will never feel sexual attraction in your entire life unless you move to east Africa.

[Guest]

5 hours ago, m_p_w said:

But what about this scenario. you live in china, and you are only sexually attracted to women from east Africa.

Then in a way you will never feel sexual attraction in your entire life unless you move to east Africa.

1) sexuals very commonly have sex with people they aren't "sexually attracted" to. Some people may only find East Africans attractive to look at and THINK they only want sex with East Africans, then may fall in love with an Asian and desire sex with that person as a result of that love. That's relatively common.

 

2) if you live in Asia and are only attracted to African women, you can watch porn with African women in it. You go on African dating sites to maybe find an online relationship with an East African woman. You fantasize about African women when you masturbate. You could eventually meet a lady who perfectly matches your preferences either in Asia (pretty sure there would be some East African women in Asia), you have a distance relationship, maybe you move to East Africa.. or you fall in love with someone who isn't East African (people do often fall in love with people who fall outside their established preferences) and like I said, desire sex with that person as an intimate aspect of the love you have for them.

 

3) Sexual people have an innate desire to connect sexually with certain other people under specific circumstances (those circumstances vary from sexual to sexual), that's what makes them sexual. They don't all just walk around having one type of person that turns them on, or getting turned on all by all people of a certain gender, or never getting turned on because they never "saw the right person". Many sexual people don't even get "turned on" from looking at other people no matter how attracted they find that person. You seem to be equating sexual attraction with wanting sex with specific people based on appearance - only some sexuals experience that.

[Dudette]

20 minutes ago, Pan. said:

1) sexuals very commonly have sex with people they aren't "sexually attracted" to. Some people may only find East Africans attractive to look at and THINK they only want sex with East Africans, then may fall in love with an Asian and desire sex with that person as a result of that love. That's relatively common.

 

2) if you live in Asia and are only attracted to African women, you can watch porn with African women in it. You go on African dating sites to maybe find an online relationship with an East African woman. You fantasize about African women when you masturbate. You could eventually meet a lady who perfectly matches your preferences either in Asia (pretty sure there would be some East African women in Asia), you have a distance relationship, maybe you move to East Africa.. or you fall in love with someone who isn't East African (people do often fall in love with people who fall outside their established preferences) and like I said, desire sex with that person as an intimate aspect of the love you have for them.

 

3) Sexual people have an innate desire to connect sexually with certain other people under specific circumstances (those circumstances vary from sexual to sexual), that's what makes them sexual. They don't all just walk around having one type of person that turns them on, or getting turned on all by all people of a certain gender, or never getting turned on because they never "saw the right person". Many sexual people don't even get "turned on" from looking at other people no matter how attracted they find that person. You seem to be equating sexual attraction with wanting sex with specific people based on appearance - only some sexuals experience that.

Thank you, it was very informative.  

"You seem to be equating sexual attraction with wanting sex with specific people based on appearance - only some sexuals experience that." yea I do that because friends told me, this is how it works. But thanks for telling me  (maybe they don't know what is the difference between sexual attraction and wanting sex with specific people based on appearance).

 

[Guest]

10 minutes ago, m_p_w said:

Thank you, it was very informative.  

"You seem to be equating sexual attraction with wanting sex with specific people based on appearance - only some sexuals experience that." yea I do that because friends told me, this is how it works. But thanks for telling me  (maybe they don't know what is the difference between sexual attraction and wanting sex with specific people based on appearance).

 

It depends on the age of the friends and how sexuality works for them personally. Many sexual people just assume sexual attraction and desiring partnered sex are one and the same thing because it's not something they ever have any deep discussions about to view it from a different perspective, and some literally can't believe anyone would experience sexuality differently than they do. So if they only want sex with people they find attractive, they can't see how anyone else could feel differently. However if you asked older sexual people (many women espeically) something like "would you rather have sex with someone you find attractive or someone who doesn't meet your aesthetic preferences but that you're romantically in love with" many would answer they'd rather the sex with the person they love. Also, many women don't experience "getting turned on" from looking at attractive people. Their heart may skip a beat or flutter a little when seeing an attractive movie star for example, but it's quite common for women to need to be 'warmed up'  through foreplay for them to become aroused enough to actively desire and enjoy partnered sex, and many still need to have a romantic/emotional bond with that person to want to have sex with them. A lot of younger people aren't aware of this sort of thing, but if you talk with older people who have a lot of sexual experience, many will be well-aware of this.

[Sally]

On 4/4/2017 at 6:04 PM, Xenobot said:

I'm afraid it's all anecdotal. "Long pig" is well-known slang for human meat, because apparently many cannibals say we taste like pork. I doubt there would be much variation in our flavor.

Some of us might taste like chicken.

[gaogao]

On the cannibalism stuff.. imo we don't have individual flavours or types so much as I'm fairly certain that our flavour may be somewhat influenced by our diets, habits and our activity level. Someone who is healthy and eats well would taste much better than someone who eats only junk, smokes six packs of cigarettes a day and never exercises. I wouldn't be surprised if there were some differences in taste based on genetics / biology as well.... but that might be getting too speculative.

 

On the other stuff about sexuality, I generally agree with what Pan said. Sexual "attraction" can be very shallow and based on appearance/type, but actually acting on that attraction and actively desiring partnered sex with that person is a different story altogether. Most people never feel the need to think about it and think they're similar, but if you question someone deeply you'll find that while some sexuals might find people sexually attractive based on their appearance, that likely isn't the only thing they take into account when it comes to the actual desire to sleep with someone.ETc. Etc. I actually just wanted to reply to the stuff about cannibalism

[IntellectualAsexual]

Is it possible to be only sexually attracted to specific type of people?

I was thinking if calling yourself heterosexual is correct if you are only attracted to older people or only to blond people.

Sorry, but I was talking to some people who I know, and they argue that they are heterosexual even though they find only very specific people sexually attractive.

I am aware that heterosexuals and homosexuals have their preferences like bisexuals (but only for one gender).

Even I have my preference when it comes to romantic attraction, but I still have romantic attraction to people who are not in my preference (weaker, but still).

 Like this

 

In nature, there are lots of possibilities. There is something called "natural selection" in science. There is loads of variety in the natural world. To some creatures, they love ants. To others, they might like a peacock with lots of colors, and maybe one could be attracted to bluish plumes. I think in natural selection, it's about selecting the variety most likely to up the genetic qualities of each individual. It's about selecting the ones most likely to survive. Some people might be purely homosexual, others bisexual, but others could like an object.