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How common is grayness? Where is the "cutoff"?


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So...something I've been thinking about lately...ugh, this is going to require some explaining, bare/bear (which is it, I always forget...) with me.

Oh whoa, I just looked this up and I was interpreting it right...neato.

Anyway...so perhaps you've seen the AVEN triangle?

150px-Ace-logo4.svg.png

This represents the asexuality spectrum. Asexuals are the black tip, sexuals are up top in white. One point on top represents heterosexuality, the other homosexuality, and bisexuals are in the middle (pansexuals, unfortunately, have to simplify this somehow down to the biological gender binary for it to work).

Grays are in the middle in the spectrum there.

Okay, here's where the thoughts start.

Asexuals are easy to define as "people who do not experience sexual attraction", so there is a very distinct cutoff there, where asexuality ends and grayness begins. Basically, if you experience sexual attraction at all, you're some sort of gray unless you're fully sexual. So that's easy.

But - where is the "cutoff line" between gray and fully sexual? When can one think, "alright, I experience this much sexual attraction, so I'm sexual now"?

One definition I've heard of grayness is that grays only experience sexual attraction "under specific circumstances" - but how do you tell if it's only under specific circumstances? And what circumstances are those - they really seem to vary a lot...

By extension, do you think that grayness is a lot more common than everyone thinks?

Let me elaborate on this a bit. One theory related to sexual fluidity says that most people do not fit perfectly into an orientation. In this case, using the AVEN triangle as a model, that means that most people do not fit at any of the points or on any of the borders of the triangle. And a bisexual gray wouldn't be dead-center in the triangle. This theory says that sexuals who say things like "I'd go gay for so-and-so" are actually experiencing sexual attraction "outside" of their orientation, pulling them away from that point a bit.

So if nobody fits at the points or the borders, that implies that everyone is somewhat gray...But to approximate, people identify to whatever point on the triangle they are closest to. For asexuals and sexuals, it's a lot easier to approximate because they're really close to those points.

But for us - grays in the middle of the triangle...identification is a bit harder...we have to go by romantic orientation a bit I guess...ehh, this part is still fuzzy in my brain.;

So I guess this complicated post is just some things I've been thinking about...:wacko:

Any input, thoughts?

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I've actually put the triangle on a graph somewhat related to the Kinsey scale.

If you use the prefix part of the scale as the x-axis and use the sexual attraction of the scale as the y, then you could probably manage to come up with a cutoff that would work. I'm still working on the triangle graph in paint but I'll post it here and in demigrace when I finally get everything worked out.

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Sorry, I'm having a hard time grasping that...

By "prefix", do you mean the hetero/homo/bi etc. prefix for sexual attraction?

Then the other axis is the gradient of asexual to sexual?

...doesn't that just make the AVEN triangle, basically, on a coordinate plane?

With a proper idea I can make a 3D gradient thing with a combination of AutoCAD and Photoshop...

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The cut-off line is exactly where certain person feels it is.

I know for sure I´m much closer to asexual than to sexual. When there are so many labels on AVEN I can take gray-A because it is the most detailed label. If I had to choose between asexual and sexual, I would take asexual and it would be still apposite enough.

As for specific circumstances, it means for me not to be forced to do anything what I don´t want to do. And there are many things which would turn me off in one second and I would never be willing to try to have sex again. Not even with Eric (poor guy, he would have very hard work with me... :lol: )

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Grayness is certainly more common than it appears to be on AVEN. Unlike aces, who are motivated to find out more about why they don't feel the need for sex at all, grays might think of themselves as "not very interested" sexuals, semi-repressed sexuals, or sexuals with other kinds of issues, therefore never even browse for a place like AVEN.

I believe grayness still retains a sort of division between sexual and romantic attraction. That is, a gray can see why and how they don't always go together. Sexuals usually can't. Plus, I'm prone to thinking sexual attraction often comes before romantic attraction in sexuals, even though the opposite can be true as well... whereas I wouldn't be surprised if a gray felt sexually attracted to someone only after knowing them well, or didn't feel romantically attracted to someone they're sexually attracted to... I think the line between sexual attraction and romantic attraction is a lot easier for grays to distinguish.

Then again I'm just an ace, so all of this is guessing.

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Sorry, I'm having a hard time grasping that...

By "prefix", do you mean the hetero/homo/bi etc. prefix for sexual attraction?

Yep

Then the other axis is the gradient of asexual to sexual?

...doesn't that just make the AVEN triangle, basically, on a coordinate plane?

Pretty much

With a proper idea I can make a 3D gradient thing with a combination of AutoCAD and Photoshop...

If you do I may steal it for demi-grace (Yes that was a shameless plug :P). Right now I basically have this:

Teagraph.png

I haven't gotten the points on either axis done yet (and there are aesthetic fixes that I'm working on X_X) but for doing it in paint it's a good start ^_^

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Tea, that's basically what the triangle already symbolizes with labels. Not trying to sound bitchy as it is useful. *shrug*

The Kinsey scale is basically represented here by the invisible gradient present on the heterosexual to homosexual line. Maybe making that more visible would help...

I don't know why this is so interesting to me really. I mean, it's not really possible to show the cutoff between asexuality and grayness on a graph either, because as soon as there's sexual attraction, it breaks, but there's no way to show that really. It's referred to as a spectrum, and grays can be really close to asexual, so the gradient needs to be there...it is a fluid thing and the labels are just applied...you can't cut it or that spectrum is lost. I guess I just don't really know what I'm trying to do. Something that can show more. *shrug* But I don't know what I'm trying to show. Ehhh. I give up for now.

I guess I'm mainly wondering about how to tell whether one is gray or fully sexual.

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One definition I've heard of grayness is that grays only experience sexual attraction "under specific circumstances" - but how do you tell if it's only under specific circumstances? And what circumstances are those - they really seem to vary a lot...

By extension, do you think that grayness is a lot more common than everyone thinks?

Nearly everyone is only attracted under specific circumstances. I kind of want to say literally everyone, but I'm sure there's some lone guy out there who is perpetually attracted. But otherwise, yeah, most people are only attracted to certain people in certain situations.

Honestly, unless you're close to the asexual side of things, grayness is normal. I'm not sure how to even conceptualize it, except to say that it's somewhere between asexual and sex addict... which again, is the vast majority of people. We used to just call it "low sex drive". And low sex drive is pretty common.

In re: Silver's description of a sexual's inability to comprehend the difference between romantic and sexual attraction... It really depends on the person. Some people are more sexually/ visually focused, and some people are more emotional/ socially focused. I have seen no evidence that one's preference for romantic or purely sexual attraction has much bearing on their sex drive. I've seen romantics with both high and low drives, etc. There may be some correlation, but its definitely not a clear cut division.

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Edit: Tea, that's basically what the triangle already symbolizes with labels.

Not trying to sound bitchy as it is useful. *shrug*

I guess I just don't really know what I'm trying to do. Something that can show more. *shrug*

Like I said, I'm still working on the triangle idea and I know that Tegid is doing something as well. I just like the triangle mainly because it explains how grey-as exist which isn't really explained in many other scales (Kinsey scale, Klein Grid, etc). It's a starting point basically.

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Edit: Tea, that's basically what the triangle already symbolizes with labels.

Not trying to sound bitchy as it is useful. *shrug*

I guess I just don't really know what I'm trying to do. Something that can show more. *shrug*

Like I said, I'm still working on the triangle idea and I know that Tegid is doing something as well. I just like the triangle mainly because it explains how grey-as exist which isn't really explained in many other scales (Kinsey scale, Klein Grid, etc). It's a starting point basically.

There’s also Storms’ model which someone on Apositive once modified like this:

storms_gradient.jpg

It isn't perfect because among other things, it ignores non-binary genders and romantic orientation, but it remains my favorite over-simple sexuality diagram, and it does imply a continuum

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You can add the concept of romantic attraction if you make it a sort of quarter-sphere...

AutoCAD crashed but I'll work on the concept and post it later.

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I don't think there is a cut off, it's just wherever you feel it is for you. I don't really think trying to make a clear cut off is useful. I don't really think there is a clear cut off between asexual and grey either: if someone has felt sexual attraction once, long ago, and never again, and identified as asexual: that is fine. Same as if a man is usually attracted to women, but has been attracted to one man, once, long ago; and he wants to identify as straight, that is fine. The labels aren't clear cut, we just identify how feels best for us.

I think it's difficult when thinking about the difference between being grey and sexual, because really it's about under what circumstances/how often we feel sexual attraction. But there is no "normal" way to feel sexual attraction for sexual people, people are just too complex for that. I think it's mostly about (for me anyway) "do I feel like I don't fit enough to use another label?" I sometimes feel that if we had a more diverse and realistic view of sexuality in general, I wouldn't feel like I didn't fit, and maybe I wouldn't need to use another label. Don't know if anyone else feels that way?

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The problem is that the lack of a cutoff makes gray-a an ambiguous term. It includes people all the way from virtually asexual to virtually sexual. The more ambiguous a label is made, the less useful it becomes... but also, making a label too specific (such that only a handful of people fit it) also makes a label less useful.

I hate labels. And yet, they're necessary in order to distinguish asexuals from sexuals, etc. And distinguishing people using ambiguous labels is almost as difficult trying to do it without them.

Or maybe there is no good labeling system.

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I don't think there need to be any cutoffs because these aren't quantitative matters. What matters is the label-concept that the individual feels comfortable with and relates to because it provides them an understanding of themself.

EDIT: I don't think that gray-a is all that ambiguous. It just means that you relate some amount to both asexuality and sexuality that's of significance to you.

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The problem is that the lack of a cutoff makes gray-a an ambiguous term. It includes people all the way from virtually asexual to virtually sexual. The more ambiguous a label is made, the less useful it becomes... but also, making a label too specific (such that only a handful of people fit it) also makes a label less useful.

Eh...there is the same debate over the word "queer." Some think it is too vague and loses meaning. But some identify solely *as* queer, because it is stretchy but asserts non-heterosexuality/non-heteronormativity. So, I like grey to indicate non-sexual-normativity. More specifically, I like "ace" as an umbrella term for non-sexual-normatives, and then there are clear cases of asexuality (as there are clear cases of homosexuality under queer), but not everyone needs to be more specific.

The best policy is to trust people who self-describe as grey or queer, unless it becomes clear they're trolling. Again, it's about it working for an individual, not about being a neatly defined community. That certainly becomes tricky in activism (and especially political lobbying), and there are various opinions on how to handle that, but I firmly believe we should err on the side of supporting people rather than restricting ourselves artificially.

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Great Thief Yatagarasu

Grayness is certainly more common than it appears to be on AVEN. Unlike aces, who are motivated to find out more about why they don't feel the need for sex at all, grays might think of themselves as "not very interested" sexuals, semi-repressed sexuals, or sexuals with other kinds of issues, therefore never even browse for a place like AVEN.

I believe grayness still retains a sort of division between sexual and romantic attraction. That is, a gray can see why and how they don't always go together. Sexuals usually can't. Plus, I'm prone to thinking sexual attraction often comes before romantic attraction in sexuals, even though the opposite can be true as well... whereas I wouldn't be surprised if a gray felt sexually attracted to someone only after knowing them well, or didn't feel romantically attracted to someone they're sexually attracted to... I think the line between sexual attraction and romantic attraction is a lot easier for grays to distinguish.

Then again I'm just an ace, so all of this is guessing.

That first part is ALL ME. People keep telling me that all the time - that I just need to meet the right boy, which, considering I use the label of being demisexual, is kinda the truth...maybe. But I've been doubting myself a lot about all this, actually. Sometimes, I think I'm more asexual than anything else, and sometimes, I just think that I'm somehow deluding myself into thinking that I'm demi or grey-A, and that I'm just repressed. Or shy. Or overly moral. Or something like that. I keep thinking these doubtful things, I think because I've not really had much evidence that I'm one of the other. I may have felt tiny amounts of sexual attraction, or maybe I haven't. Not only that, but for my whole entire life, I've held sex as this sacred, beautiful thing that's only meaningful when done with someone you truly love - I don't have any kind of "primal urges", but according to people I know, not many people do. I have these doubts sometimes, but it's the label I'm using right now, because right now, it's the truth.

I'm not sure there's really a division, as such - I've felt crushes where I've had no sexual attraction, or sexual attraction so minimal that it's gone unnoticed by me (and only discovered in hindsight), but I just feel that I could only get strong sexual feelings with someone I love. I dunno, I actually look at the quote in my signature and think "yeah, that pretty much says it."

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