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NO MORE CUBES: Depicting Attraction with a Radar Chart


Hallucigenia

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Seien Hananosei

I don't really understand the whole fetish/events green line or whatever. Can someone explain how you can even incorporate that into the eight categories?

radarscaleme.gif

But the fantasy section doesn't apply to actual people for me. It's more like how people interact in the stories that exist in my mind. And it's more emotional than sexual, really. :/ I dunno how that figures in.

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Seien Hananosei
Here is a new version of the radar chart that distinguishes between attraction and desire a la Rabger's model:

radarscale2.gif

And a sample:

radarscale2sample.gif

I don't like it as much because, well, it's just not as pretty. Decagons are a lot harder to draw than octagons. With octagons you can just use the grid. <_<

Um.... Yeah, I like to old one better, too. This one just confuses me even more. :/ Besides, you can never present a perfect way of describing sexuality because it's so fluid. Best to just do the best you can without cramming too much together.

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A decagon? Well all right, here goes nothing...

sexualitything-1.png

Hmmm, still lop-sided. Possibly more lop-sided.

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Personally, I prefer the 10 sided one - I don't differ much from a normal sexual otherwise; in the right circumstances the only thing that separates me is that I am not sexually attracted to the person.

I tried to fill in my chart, but found that I can't choose between genders at the moment. So I'll leave it at that.

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Well, those defs and terms of yours seem awfully familiar. If I didn't know any better I'd swear I've seen them before. Hmm...

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Well, those defs and terms of yours seem awfully familiar. If I didn't know any better I'd swear I've seen them before. Hmm...

Obviously that's because your system was so awesome we end up using it implicitly everywhere! :lol: I'll bug Hallu about putting a citation though.

I think this is great :D

For the decagon, what's the difference between sexual desire and attraction?

Yeah, er.... Hallu uploaded that in a rush at my place, hence things being in a silly order and with no explaination. Sorry, my fault, I bugged her to do it.

Primary sexual attraction is an instant attraction to people based on instantly available information such as their looks or smell. It may or may not lead to arousal or sexual desire.

Secondary sexual attraction is an attraction that develops over time based on a person's relationship and emotional connection with another person.

Primary sexual desire is the desire to engage in sexual activity for the purposes of personal pleasure (either physical or emotional or both).

Secondary sexual desire is the desire to engage in sexual activity solely for the sake of the happiness of the other person involved, or for another ulterior motive such as the conception of children. Most sexuals in romantic relationships feel both primary and secondary sexual desire.

I asked for it, primarily because Primary Sexual Attraction is where I differ the most from the average male. My old graph looks more or less like a rather laid-back sexual male. Check out my new one though....

Zealscale2.gif

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I don't really understand the whole fetish/events green line or whatever. Can someone explain how you can even incorporate that into the eight categories?

Ok, here goes.

Primary Sexual - You want to do sexual things involving your fetish because they'll feel good to you. (A "sexual thing" in this context does not only mean sexual intercourse. For example, if you can have orgasms simply by, I don't know, running your hands over a particular object, then that counts as a sexual thing for the purposes of the green line.

Secondary Sexual - It's harder to define this one in terms of an object or other fetish, but it could happen. Maybe some people feel that they have an emotional relationship with the subject of their fetish, even though it's not a human. Or maybe some people have the desire to bond with other people by sharing their mutual fetish.

Primary and Secondary Romantic - I'm not honestly sure about these ones, or Platonic, but I've seen people putting the green line way up to a high number in the Platonic category, so it's possible. I'd be curious to know what some of those people have experienced.

Aesthetic - I'm surprised that more people haven't put a line for this one, actually. Aesthetic attraction to a person is just wanting to feast your eyes (or ears) on someone because they're so pretty. So I imagine it would be fairly common to experience aesthetic attraction to music, paintings, sunsets, and so on. I'm not just talking about a momentary "Oh, that's pretty," but sort of a feeling of being drawn to the beauty of whatever it is - but I bet there's still loads of people who feel that way about, say, a particular opera or story. I do, anyway.

Physical - This is the feeling of wanting to cuddle and touch whatever you're attracted to. For instance, you can be physically attracted to a cat if you have a strong enough desire to hold them and pet them.

Fantasy - If you have sexual fantasies about something nonhuman, it goes in here. I expect this to be a more common green-line category than actual sexual attraction, because plenty of people like to have fantasies about stuff they wouldn't want to actually do. And sexual fantasies can include things that don't actually exist, like dragons or battle robots or whatever.

Well, those defs and terms of yours seem awfully familiar. If I didn't know any better I'd swear I've seen them before. Hmm...

XD Yeah, sorry about that. I've edited to include a much clearer credit to you.

And Zeal, your new radar chart looks like a butterfly! Kind of.

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I like the new charts. Differentiation between attraction and desire seems like a good idea to me.

Aesthetic - I'm surprised that more people haven't put a line for this one, actually. Aesthetic attraction to a person is just wanting to feast your eyes (or ears) on someone because they're so pretty. So I imagine it would be fairly common to experience aesthetic attraction to music, paintings, sunsets, and so on. I'm not just talking about a momentary "Oh, that's pretty," but sort of a feeling of being drawn to the beauty of whatever it is - but I bet there's still loads of people who feel that way about, say, a particular opera or story. I do, anyway.
Maybe people just don't think that "counts" for a chart about attraction?
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If I actually made a radar chart for myself, my green line would be 7 (or pretty close to it) for Aesthetics. Forcing myself to take my eyes off of the ocean or the moon is extremely difficult at times (especially when the ocean is particularly blue and roiling, or when the moon is at its fullest).

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Well, those defs and terms of yours seem awfully familiar. If I didn't know any better I'd swear I've seen them before. Hmm...

XD Yeah, sorry about that. I've edited to include a much clearer credit to you.

Thanks. Not to be a butthole or anything, but I worked hard on those! And they still need work.

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I don't see what was wrong with the good old-fashioned triangle. It gave a better sense of identity to me, since gays and lesbians use a triangle I wanted one of my own.

It's too hard to classify and explain with the radar map. I've known what they are for some time, and even though I love statistics I think it over-sciences sexuality. How do I arrive at the numbers for the scales? What kind of objective measure of attraction and sexuality is used to graph myself? I don't think you can use something like this to "prove" asexuality any more than you can use any other scientific model, because sexuality is highly subjective and personal.

Even though I'm not sure where I stand according to any classification model, it seems like this model is going to confuse me and sexuals we're trying to explain things to more than ever. It was bad enough that you needed a degree in sociology to understand human sexuality; now you need a degree in math or statistics as well.

It's much simpler for me to say "I like girls, but I don't want to have sex with most of them" than to carry an arbitrary chart around in my wallet that outlines every detail of my mind. Even though I believe simplicity is a difficult and dangerous concept, I'd still have an easier time explaining myself if I tried to simplify as much as possible.

On top of all this apply-to-everyone stuff, we have the personal issue of my identity defined by my mental health. I'm dealing with a total lack of identity brought about by my inability to trust my own perceptions of anything, including my views of myself. I NEED cubes, and black and white, and little boxes to stick myself in, because I'm so mired in gray area that it's impossible for me to say anything conclusive about myself. As I've said before, I'm not even sure if I like girls. I could be getting false positives of attraction because of my hair fetish.

So while it's not healthy to define my life by my schizophrenia, I find myself forced to because it's one of the few things about myself that I know for certain. If I say "I'm schizophrenic" it's easy to list my symptoms, talk about underlying causes, and other aspects of the illness. But to say "I'm asexual" and have to plot everything on a graph to talk about it is very hard for me. You don't "fix" schizophrenia any more than you "fix" asexuality, because both are permanent. But both change over time, and you have good days and bad days, and some days you think you know exactly who you are. Then you question every aspect of your reality and suddenly you don't know anything again.

It would be nice if I could have some aspect of my sexuality reduced to simple terms instead of having to pull out the calculator to figure out what I am.

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Incidentally, what would the "Platonic" category mean for the green line? The only meaning I can come up with boils down to "do you like stuff?"

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Even though I'm not sure where I stand according to any classification model, it seems like this model is going to confuse me and sexuals we're trying to explain things to more than ever. It was bad enough that you needed a degree in sociology to understand human sexuality; now you need a degree in math or statistics as well.

There's not actually any math that goes into these. What they're useful for is an attempt to capture nuances of personal preferences, without having a gigantic conversation with each person bringing up all sorts of squicky questions. For example, here's my Ten Point Graph:

Zealscale2.gif

From this graph, here's what you can tell instantly, without any math....

- that I'm into girls much more than guys

- that my sexual levels are relatively low but higher than most asexuals

- that my most distinguishing trait is a lack Primary Sexual Attraction (meaning I never get the hots for girls I see on the street). - that I like physical touch

- that I like oogling boys more than girls

- that I like making friends with girls more than boys

- that I'm not particularly into romance

Or, let's take a friend's graph.....

Toni-RadarChart.jpg

From this graph, here's what I discovered, without any math....

- she's bisexual

- she likes boys and girls equally in theory

- she tends to find that things somehow work better with girls in practice

- she's a little bit selfish, sexually

- she loves relationships, both romantic and otherwise, and is probably very lonely.

Point is, I think these things are wonderful expressive tools. To cover all the points that it reveals in conversation would take ages and likely be very awkward for each person. Showing a Radar Graph is still a little personal, but much easier and much easier to comprehend because you can see all the information in one place. I, personally, plan on keeping this and would want to go through it with anyone I was considering a relationship with, just so we understand where the other is coming from.

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Octagon style:

octagontx9.png

Fantasy: Okay, one thing I want to make abundantly clear here. I have an overactive imagination and thus fantasize a lot. However, the vast majority of them involve emotional connections, with nothing more sexual occurring than kissing. I thought it included said emotional connections because of the 'romantic' spokes. If I've misunderstood and this applies to only fantasies of a sexual nature or involving sexual acts, then drop the 7 down to a 1 for male. Female is still 0. As far as I can remember, I've never had any fantasies about a female (sexual or otherwise).

Primary sexual: Very rarely, I'll think that I might at some time try something or other, because I'm curious as to how it would feel and whether or not I would enjoy it.

Secondary sexual: I think that if I love someone enough, I might be willing to try/do stuff because they want it.

Primary romantic: While I do enjoy the freedom that being single affords me, I definitely want to be in a (preferbly non-sexual) relationship with someone I love.

Secondary romantic: Like I already said, I do want to be in a (again, preferably non-sexual) relationship. If I'm comfortable with someone and they wanted a relationship, I would be open to trying it out. I put it lower down than primary because I would prefer a relationship with someone I love than an 'open' relationship.

Aesthetic: As a general rule, I find women more aesthetically pleasant to look at than men. I find androgynous men more pleasant to look at than androgynous women, and androgynous women more pleasant to look at than non-androgynous men. Basically, non-androgynous woman > androgynous man > androgynous woman > non-androgynous man. Though each is aesthetically pleasant in its own way, I rarely find someone pleasant enough to stare at.

Platonic: I love having friends, and I love getting to know people.

Physical: This should really be 'slightly above absolute 0' for girls, and slightly higher for guys, but this is the easiest way to express it. I have a problem where I am extremely uncomfortable with any and all physical contact, even from my own family. For some reason, though, I'll find that with some people (even if I don't know them at all), I'm not quite as bad about touching. It's very rare that that happens, but I love it when it does, since I hate having that problem.

Decagon style:

decagonvc3.png

Pretty much exactly all the required explanation went into the octagon. What you can see, though, is that while I'm happy enough with romance, sexual attraction just does not exist, and desire very little. I think it's reasonably obvious that I'm pan-romantic...I just have a few aspects where I favour one gender over the other.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Cynic At Heart

radarscale.gif

Mine seems to be Heavily directed towards one half of the scale. I may rethink some of them if i have the time but for now it seems suiting.

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  • 2 weeks later...

radarscale.gif

Probably quite inaccurate as it's not based on a great deal of experience - however so far in life I've had no real attraction romantically, and certainly not sexually, towards random women, only ones that I have known for some time (probably 2-5 depending on exact definition, some certainly more than others). I'm guessing as far as sexual attraction goes for them, since I'm kind of confused about that right now but, I've never felt attraction towards men either romantically or sexually, but like being friends with people or either gender (unfortunately that tends to be pretty rare).

Not really sure about objects/events etc. so I'll leave that for now.

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herdthinner

{{blank stare :mellow: as the chart is explained, then:}}

(best Chevy Chase Impression you've ever heard!): I was... told there would be no math, on these forums.

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Seien Hananosei

Even though I rate both men and women equally on the aesthetic spokes... I find that I think the female body is actually more attractive in theory than the males body is. I think it's mostly because women have all their plumbing on the inside whilst men have theirs out for all the world to see. In my opinion, the best looking body would be a genderless body. Anybody else have thought about this?

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Seien Hananosei
I don't really understand the whole fetish/events green line or whatever. Can someone explain how you can even incorporate that into the eight categories?

Ok, here goes.

Primary Sexual - You want to do sexual things involving your fetish because they'll feel good to you. (A "sexual thing" in this context does not only mean sexual intercourse. For example, if you can have orgasms simply by, I don't know, running your hands over a particular object, then that counts as a sexual thing for the purposes of the green line.

Secondary Sexual - It's harder to define this one in terms of an object or other fetish, but it could happen. Maybe some people feel that they have an emotional relationship with the subject of their fetish, even though it's not a human. Or maybe some people have the desire to bond with other people by sharing their mutual fetish.

Primary and Secondary Romantic - I'm not honestly sure about these ones, or Platonic, but I've seen people putting the green line way up to a high number in the Platonic category, so it's possible. I'd be curious to know what some of those people have experienced.

Aesthetic - I'm surprised that more people haven't put a line for this one, actually. Aesthetic attraction to a person is just wanting to feast your eyes (or ears) on someone because they're so pretty. So I imagine it would be fairly common to experience aesthetic attraction to music, paintings, sunsets, and so on. I'm not just talking about a momentary "Oh, that's pretty," but sort of a feeling of being drawn to the beauty of whatever it is - but I bet there's still loads of people who feel that way about, say, a particular opera or story. I do, anyway.

Physical - This is the feeling of wanting to cuddle and touch whatever you're attracted to. For instance, you can be physically attracted to a cat if you have a strong enough desire to hold them and pet them.

Fantasy - If you have sexual fantasies about something nonhuman, it goes in here. I expect this to be a more common green-line category than actual sexual attraction, because plenty of people like to have fantasies about stuff they wouldn't want to actually do. And sexual fantasies can include things that don't actually exist, like dragons or battle robots or whatever.

Oh, thank you. I think I understand now. ^_^

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Ah, I finally got around to downloading a paint program for my lappy so I could do one of these. Behold! ...or... something... ish.

radarscale.gif

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  • 2 months later...

2507cqa.png

I have no innate concept of what makes people aesthetically attractive, so that cuts me down a lot.

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At least with the cubes they don't look like stats in a video-game. I'm not an Armored Core, damnit! :D

Thats what makes this system all the better. It should have a spoke for HP.

I tried and tried but I could never fully grasp the concept of a hypercube, not the one for measuring sexuality, but just hypercubes in general. The movie was pretty good though. I guess theoretical physics and myself don't mix.

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chart.jpg

Fantasy kinda threw me off because I like yaoi, but I'd never want to be involved. I also haven't knowingly met any other genders, so it's hard to say.

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I don't know how to post images but As mine is simple i'll describe it

Women

6 platonic

3 aesthetic

Men

5 platonic

2 aesthetic

All others 0

it looks like a very bare radar chart!!!

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emmarainbow

I've worked out my graph now...

graphimajig.jpg

I chose 'both/other genders' to mean people who look pretty androgenous. I'm another one who's glad of the primary sexual attraction bit!

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I'm kind of confused about what "both, or other genders" means. I understand the "other", but wouldn't "both" just mean that male and female sit at the same point on that spoke?

But otherwise, I think it's a really interesting concept.

Some web designer ought to design a page that you fill out like a survey, that creates one of these for you.

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Hallucigenia
I'm kind of confused about what "both, or other genders" means. I understand the "other", but wouldn't "both" just mean that male and female sit at the same point on that spoke?

Yes, it would. So if you feel completely the same way about males and females, you could just draw them in with the purple line, instead of trying to figure out how to combine the blue and pink.

I've had that thought about the web page, too. I think I know enough Java to do something like that, presuming I found a good place to put it. The only trouble is how to make a set of good enough questions that would accurately figure out how much attraction you've got...

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Yes, it would. So if you feel completely the same way about males and females, you could just draw them in with the purple line, instead of trying to figure out how to combine the blue and pink.

Ah, I see. But then how come people have male, female, and "both/other" at different points on the same spoke? I guess that must refer to the "other" part of it?

I've had that thought about the web page, too. I think I know enough Java to do something like that, presuming I found a good place to put it. The only trouble is how to make a set of good enough questions that would accurately figure out how much attraction you've got...

Oh, I wasn't thinking of questions to determine how much attraction you've got. I was thinking of something much simpler than that... Just a choice of 0-7 (None-Extremely High) for each category and sex/object.

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