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Do you find labels useful or restricting?


The A Life Team

  

52 members have voted

  1. 1. Do you find labels useful or restricting?

    • I love labels, there just aren't enough of them!
      19
    • I find labels useful and that's why I use them
      232
    • I dislike labels, but use them because I feel like I have to
      52
    • I don't use labels
      17
    • I hate labels and so should you
      13
    • Other
      24


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i loathe them. i utterly loathe them and everything they stand for. in a perfect world, i would not need them. but last i checked, this was far from a perfect world, and i not only need them to explain myself, i require them, completely and absolutely.

so. panromantic asexual trans man here. demisexual if you know me well to need the clarification; grey-A if the previous is true and we've had a few drinks together.

hello.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Labels are just words used for communication with others. They have no other meaning to me.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I hate labels, but I used them to simplify things. Labels do not fit people perfectly, but they do give a general picture at times. At least I do not have to introduce myself as a "male gendered, female sexed (now without a uterus) person who romantically seems to prefer women but gender and sex are not an issue, but is the most sexually attracted to cismales" when there are labels. I get to say "pansexual post-op ftm" or if I am feel particularly wording "heteroromantic homosexual post-op ftm".

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Well, my labels usually end up using dashes. Like pan-grey-romantic asexual, or genderqueer-transguy. They are unfortunate, and never describe the full scope of who I am. For instance, I would probably say I'm somewhere inbetween agender and male, but for some reason, thats not a valid id since I'm trans anyway.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I tend to look at labels as "Oh, there's a word for what I am/what I feel/what I believe!"

I like knowing the correct word with the correct connotation for as many situations as possible.

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I like labels. I like words and word games. I like to reduce things to their basic components by tearing them apart in my mind. I like to concoct names for things and it bugs me if something has a name that doesn't fit. If something doesn't have a word for it at all, it impairs my thinking, therefore I make up one and change it according to what I learn about it. When somebody wants to remain unnamed, unmarked, and uncategorised, I struggle against the perception that they're trying to stop me from processing them in my mind, which is very restricting. At the risk of being arrested for thought crimes in the future when we figure out how to read each other's minds, I slap mental, tentative labels on them anyway.

Not being important or interesting enough to think about is the only escape.

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  • 3 months later...
Mr_Charles

I know labels can be generalised and restrictive, and it's everyone's personal choice as to whether they use them or not, but I happen to love the things. I think part of the problem is that we haven't got enough of them specific to asexuality: we've only just carved out labels for romantic orientations, and there's whole areas, like queerplatonic relationships, that are barely defined at all. More specific labels might help the people who feel they don't fit in anywhere at the moment.

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Sophiatrist

I think labels are useful, just as long as they remain loose characterizations and not a rigid box that you try to cram someone/thing into.

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I like labels it helps me identify with others that are like me hello to all Gray-A's.

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  • 2 weeks later...
evigmidnatt

i hate getting boxed,

Geek, Goth, Mosher, Freak, Dyke, Queer, whale, Amoeba i've had them all.

and labels kill. look at what happened to Sophie Lancaster,

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I love labels; I feel the need to be really descriptive and numerous hyphenated words do the job. Plus, explaining a label is not a bad thing; the other person is learning something. I just dislike when there's not a label to use to describe something. For example, my own political beliefs, I've gone through so many labels to try to describe them and it just confuses other people when you change a label you use to describe youself.

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I am me i have to many labels that i fall under i prefer put it all under one banner one label and thats that i am an Anomaly compaired to the rest of the human species i dont think of or refer myself as being one with society and this suits me just fine i am different and unique.

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I don't like labels, because if I do I just confuse myself and say something different each time. I've been called asexual before, my ex/boyfriend calls me bisexual and I just protest that I'm straight. In reality I have no clue what I am. I don't have much experience in the field of sexuality... *shrugs* so screw labels xD

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm strongly cerebral and verbal in the way I relate to the world. I understand that labels aren't, and can never be, perfect descriptions of identities/behaviors/etc., but I certainly love them and am happy every time I find a new one that fits a phenomenon I know, but couldn't mentally grasp yet without a label for it... so, very clearly the first option in the poll, for me. :)

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General Apple

For the most part, I don't like labels. They overly generalize and using them tends to lead to thinking of things as binary, rather than as a spectrum or even as varying among separate instances. That's not to say I don't find labels useful. If you use them with the understanding that they're just umbrella terms for something more specific, they can simplify things very well.

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Boo42069yomomma

I find them useful. How else would we know what's in cans and boxes at the market?

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  • 5 months later...

This poll is being locked and moved to the read only Census archive for it's respective year. As part of ongoing Census organization, and in an attempt to keep the demographics of the polls current with the active user base at the time, the polls will last for one year from now on. However, members are allowed and even encouraged to re-start new polls similar to the archived ones if they like them.

Lady Girl, Moderator

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