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Questions for people only sexually attracted to one gender


Snao Cone

Thoughts towards people of the gender you're not attracted to  

27 members have voted

  1. 1. Do you have a sense of whom you'd be into if your orientation were the opposite? (see post for clarification)

    • Yes
      14
    • No
      8
    • Maybe/very vaguely
      5
  2. 2. Do you think someone having a sense of to whom they'd be attracted in the opposite orientation makes them a little bisexual?

    • Yes
      4
    • No
      17
    • "Only YOU can determine your true orientation"
      6
  3. 3. Assigned sex at birth

    • Male
      11
    • Female
      16
    • Intersex
      0
  4. 4. Gender

    • Man
      10
    • Woman
      14
    • Nonbinary or agender
      3


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Okay, so I'm curious to see if monosexual people (ie hetero or homo, not bi/pan) can imagine themselves in the opposite orientation and have an idea of what kind of person they'd be attracted to if they were. For example, would a straight man have an idea of what other men he'd be attracted to if he were gay? Gay man -> women? Gay woman -> men? Straight women -> women? (If you consider yourself androsexual or gynosexual instead of hetero or homo, obvs pick the other side.) I'm curious to see if it's a reasonable assertion that a notable portion sexual people can imagine other circumstances.

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The thing is, the part that makes you wonder if you're technically bisexual might just be you being able to imagine what guys you would be into if you weren't so very much into women. 

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Grumpy Alien

I think I know what kind of women I’d be into if I liked boobies and flesh pockets. But I don’t think I’m at all bisexual. I just think certain looks are more beautiful in a totally subjective way. Shrugsies.

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7 minutes ago, Telecaster68 said:

The upshot is that I very, very much fancied pretty much all the female characters in West Wing, and would imagine if I was gay or female, I'd have had much the same feelings about all the male ones.

I don't know why, but my immediate thought was revised Van Halen lyrics: "Got it bad, got it bad, got it bad, I'm hot for Sorkin" and that makes me feel like I should apologize.

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Grumpy Alien
16 minutes ago, CBC said:

Lol, how poetic. 

I am nothing if not flowing with romantic poetry... 

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AceMissBehaving

I absolutely have a type when it comes to women, but I’m also realizing that now, knowing I can take sex out of the equation I’m probably much more bi-romantic than I am hetero-romantic. 

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AceMissBehaving
17 minutes ago, CBC said:

Random life tip: if you ever find yourself trying to flirt with the ladies, "flesh pocket" probably won't go over so well.

If someone mentioned my “flesh pocket” I’d assume I was being hit up for a potential smuggling operation.

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40 minutes ago, AceMissBehaving said:

I absolutely have a type when it comes to women, but I’m also realizing that now, knowing I can take sex out of the equation I’m probably much more bi-romantic than I am hetero-romantic. 

I have had a type for women aesthetically for my entire life, and a type for men as well. With women I struggled more in my youth on whether it was sexual or aesthetic because I had early experiences with girls in my pre-teens where there was a little bit of experimenting that didn't affect me profoundly. Heteronormativity led me to treat my lack of being pulled towards sex with men differently; after all, it's acceptable for straight women to think other women are beautiful while still being heterosexual. 

 

But it turns out I don't want sex with any gender. I can tell, though, that if I were sexual, I'd be into the types that I'm aesthetically attracted to now, or certain personality traits that I find charming in different genders. I see a lot of asexual people saying that they can't envision that, so I'm wondering if anyone would perceive that as meaning I'm bisexual. 

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AceMissBehaving
3 minutes ago, Snao Cone said:

I have had a type for women aesthetically for my entire life, and a type for men as well. With women I struggled more in my youth on whether it was sexual or aesthetic because I had early experiences with girls in my pre-teens where there was a little bit of experimenting that didn't affect me profoundly. Heteronormativity led me to treat my lack of being pulled towards sex with men differently; after all, it's acceptable for straight women to think other women are beautiful while still being heterosexual. 

 

But it turns out I don't want sex with any gender. I can tell, though, that if I were sexual, I'd be into the types that I'm aesthetically attracted to now, or certain personality traits that I find charming in different genders. I see a lot of asexual people saying that they can't envision that, so I'm wondering if anyone would perceive that as meaning I'm bisexual. 

I feel the same way

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2 minutes ago, CBC said:

Redheads? We're absolutely charming, ya know. :P 

 

#nohomo #nothittingonyou #justtomakethatveryclear

Not gonna lie, disproportionate representation for a while in my late teens...

 

Spoiler

MAdM-sized-300x419.jpg

 

81w0J5H2-rL._SX385_.jpg

 

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I think I can imagine being attracted to men, not women, even though I'm not.  I just imagine I'd think about men the way I do women now, and vice versa. 

 

It may help that while I'm not bisexual, I'm not gay-repulsed (if that is a thing), except for a weird thing I have about men kissing. 

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9 minutes ago, CBC said:

I don't have any repulsion issues with two dudes kissing, or having sex for that matter, but I find it about as sexually appealing as watching a pair of grasshoppers going at it. (Just to make it clear: I don't have a "thing" for grasshoppers.) Any other combo... two girls, hetero stuff, two-girls-and-a-guy threesomes... will do the trick. But I can't get enthused about watching dudes get hot and heavy with each other. My brain just kinda nopes on that.

I don't get turned on by it, but gay sex scenes in otherwise entertaining shows/movies make me feel happy, in an ideological way. Gay porn is just...flesh in photo/video form? 

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Grumpy Alien

I don’t think I’ve ever purposely flirted in my life. I’m not romantic or poetic 😂

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21 minutes ago, CBC said:

I don't have any repulsion issues with two dudes kissing, or having sex for that matter, but I find it about as sexually appealing as watching a pair of grasshoppers going at it. (Just to make it clear: I don't have a "thing" for grasshoppers.) Any other combo... two girls, hetero stuff, two-girls-and-a-guy threesomes... will do the trick. But I can't get enthused about watching dudes get hot and heavy with each other. My brain just kinda nopes on that.

For me, I can't "get" gay romance.  I don't object in any way, but it just doesn't reach me.  Hetero or lesbian romance works just fine for me (even non-sexual romance), but the idea of two men in a romantic relationship doesn't connect with me at all.  I actually find gay sex to be more accessible (if dull) than gay romance - I can imagine the sex acts being physically pleasurable. 

 

But for this discussion, I'm imagining that if my orientation switched, my feelings about gay romance and sex would be like my current feelings for heterosexual romance. Maybe that is a bad model? No way to know. 

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anisotrophic

This has been confusing for me. I haven't met and interacted with any androsexual NBs. It sure feels like most NBs are either ace or bi/pan... or gynosexual, with female bi/pan partners. (I wonder if some of it is an opportunity issue. Fewer bi/pan men, an orientation that seems most suited for NB gender expression.)

I've come to confront my own challenge to the binary nature of gender, hopefully in a physical way soon (my first medical appointment for T at the clinic is just days away now). And now I have to wonder, "who am I attracted to? why am I attracted to certain people? why are those people always male?"

Is it some array of personality traits that happen in men? Something physical? Would I fall for a transman? A transwoman?

The men I've fallen hard for have not been entirely cishet -- a bit challenging of gender norms -- but still mostly masculine. Am I attracted to masculine people that challenge a traditional conception of masculinity?

I've never felt a twinge of romantic feeling towards women, and only rarely to some men. I'm like @uhtred in saying, I don't feel repulsed by it... but an absence of attraction. (Was I just not open to the possibility?)

I'm pretty sure I could have sex with women, and potentially enjoy it, but... I think enjoyment would be complex -- related to kinks, or my conception of my gender identity as it relates to sexual expression, or to some secondary interaction with a male that I'm emotionally interested in. (e.g. in a threesome; but of course I'd prefer my threesome to have two other men.)

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Winged Whisperer

Hmmm at first I wanted to stay out of this since this seemed like it was made for sexuals, but since some aces answered, I guess I'll throw in my 2 cents. I think I definitely am bi/pan aesthetic (and I think most people would be), like if you give me someone beautiful to stare at I can tell. The less masculine and more personality-gentle a guy is the more I can feel aesthetically attracted to them. Going off fictional characters, Alucard would be in my boat. As a heteroromantic, I guess I'd then be romantically attracted to the same dudes that I have that aesthetic attraction? 'Tis a weird topic for me. Even as an asexual my experiences with gay sex were more positive than het sex, despite being pretty firmly heteroromantic.

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Hm, tough question. I have such a broad spectrum of aesthetic attraction for women that I can't define a type, and I certainly can't translate that to men. Outside the face... Not the buff broad shouldered thing, though. And I have absolutely no interest in butts, so I really don't know what else to look at in a man. Just the overall look and body language?

 

Oddly, hair seems to be a trigger for me, though.

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11 minutes ago, CBC said:

I'm curious how common it is for people to have a physical type. Because I just... don't. Like I can absolutely look at someone and think "Nope", but appearance is literally never the reason I've felt interested in someone. It's about the interpersonal connection and how I relate to them. It's unmistakable when I feel it. I know if there's, like, "sexual tension" or whatever... and all the people (er, save for one... weirdly, the one I married... god I don't know how that ever came about now) I've connected with in a more-than-platonic way, I've felt that. I suppose I could come up with a list of the personality traits that generally lead to that sort of connection? But yeah, I've never envisioned an ideal mate of any gender.

For me there are a fairly large number of different physical "types" that I find attractive, but also for me a fair number that I don't.   Physical attraction is more binary for me than most people - I tend to find people either sexually attractive, rather than having some sort of scale of hotness.

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I'm curious how common it is for people to have a physical type. Because I just... don't. Like I can absolutely look at someone and think "Nope", but appearance is literally never the reason I've felt interested in someone. It's about the interpersonal connection and how I relate to them. It's unmistakable when I feel it.

Yep, I don't either.

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8 hours ago, CBC said:

I'm sorry Snow, I voted in your poll after all since I'm veryyyy drunk right now and hella bored. 🙃 It's kind of irrelevant since the whole "technically bisexual" thing, but.

 

Like... knowing who you'd be into can include personality stuff, right? Since I have no physical type other than "please have decent personal hygiene and don't be super duper icky looking".

 

I dunno, I just can't do the whole... emotionally vulnerable love shit... with dudes. Maybe I've just met the wrong guys, lol. My experience with men more or less includes Very Emotionally Unavailable And Way Too Into Cars And Just Wants To Bang Me™ (but he was a massive smartass, so that was kind of appealing... we argued about politics a lot, though) and Obnoxiously Asexual™, so. I had a crush on a gay guy once though. I didn't know he was gay. I'm not sure he did at that point either. He used to put egg yolk on his hair to make it shiny, I don't know how I didn't figure that one out. 🤷🏼‍♀️

It make me wonder - how often to people form opinions of an entire gender based on a few dating experiences?   It easy to do - if you date a couple of guys with similar traits, your brain forms patterns and thinks it has a global description.  

 

I see on relationship sites discussions of how "all men / women want XYZ".   

 

I certainty got the idea early on that women generally have very little interest in sex - based on one data point.  But somehow that stuck in my brain. 

 

BTW not pointing at you @CBC in particular about this, it just got me thinking.  Many people may only have a couple of serious relationship in their lives and so its easy for them to form opinions like this.   For the record, I'm a straight male and I'm nothing like they guys you met - though of course have my own set of what I'll choose to call "quirks". 

 

 

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9 hours ago, CBC said:

Like... knowing who you'd be into can include personality stuff, right? Since I have no physical type other than "please have decent personal hygiene and don't be super duper icky looking".

Sure. I have an idea of that too. I think my aromantic nature makes it harder for me to see that, though. With sexual attraction based on looks, I can deduce it from my aesthetic preferences. But with sexual attraction based on personality it's a tad harder for me to imagine. I can think of a few traits that would probably turn me on if I were sexual, but then I'd imagine living with the person and hating their guts because of domestic habits.

 

But there are things like wit and values and behaviour I find really endearing, which would probably translate to wanting sex if I were sexual. 

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10 minutes ago, CBC said:

@uhtred Oh yeah, I agree with all that. I think my comment was kind of a... drunken and joking musing. My dating experience is indeed fairly limited, however I truly don't think I've formed negative opinions of men as a whole by any means. The one dude when I was a lot younger... he's an alright guy I think, he's smart and hardworking and married now with a couple kids. Not someone I would've been compatible with, but he's an ok person. Just, we were young and it was a bad time for someone with my character to be involved with anyone. The asexual guy I married, well, he's one of the kindest and most easygoing and overall awesome people I've ever met, and not much at all like the guy friend I dated briefly when I was younger -- it's just that somehow, bizarrely, what should've been a really great platonic friendship became a marriage. But I know loads of other men who are awesome people, whether they're friends or family. I certainly don't have any opinions of any gender as a whole, and I have no underlying issues with men. I guess I've just never met one where the sexual energy and some sort of sense of deep, loving emotional connection go together.

Didn't mean to imply you had formed that opinion... sorry online discussions make it tough to get tone across 

 

There are men with sexual energy and emotional connection - but unfortunately that is not easy to discover until you are in a serious relationship.  

 

I realize I'm wandering off topic.  Maybe I'll start a thread on how to find compatible people or somethign. 

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I don't make blanket assumptions of men based on bad experiences, but I do make jokes. And the good experiences I've had (like with guys who checked in throughout foreplay and sex to make sure I was enjoying it, since I wasn't exactly showing enthusiasm through my actions) don't apply blanketly to men either. It shows the decency people are capable of during sex and why the worse experiences of sex with people who don't do that need to be part of a conversation on sexual culture. And of course, in a heteronormative culture that still has a lot of gender contrasts, a lot of that will end up being differences between men and women. That's where jokes come in, because I'm not actively involved and can't really affect changes through action, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ being facetious and ironic is a coping thing. But through that - through knowing what types of gender differences come up in hetero relationships based on the experiences of others - I get more of an idea of the kind of person I'd want to be with if I were into it. That's for men and women and nonbinary people. 

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Just now, CBC said:

I think I'm kinda the reverse, more or less. I can try really hard and probably conjure up some physical traits that I like, but I don't know that any of them would really turn me on sexually (and truthfully this goes for both men and women) so much and just be more aesthetically pleasing than other traits.

 

On the other hand, sexual attraction based on personality traits is ridiculously easy for me to imagine. 

Well, the physical traits I find the most appealing suggest some aspects of personality. Androgyny and motifs of personal style usually suggest certain values, which is part of what I like about it. I don't expect someone who plays around with artistic cross-dressing to own five MAGA hats. And if I find out they're TERFs then I know I would lose any sexual interest I had. But I would also imagine that a mullet, 40 facial piercings, and parachute pants would turn me off. 

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Side note, there's a guy I see in my office building a lot who has a long mullet ponytail, a buzz cut on the top, and a fancy moustache. He's really nice. I'm sure many people would overlook the eccentric appearance for a good personality, but I don't think it would appeal enough to me for an intimate relationship. (And his wife probably likes how he looks.)

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Grumpy Alien
3 hours ago, Snao Cone said:

Well, the physical traits I find the most appealing suggest some aspects of personality. Androgyny and motifs of personal style usually suggest certain values, which is part of what I like about it. I don't expect someone who plays around with artistic cross-dressing to own five MAGA hats. And if I find out they're TERFs then I know I would lose any sexual interest I had. But I would also imagine that a mullet, 40 facial piercings, and parachute pants would turn me off. 

What is a TERF??

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AceMissBehaving
1 minute ago, disGraceful said:

What is a TERF??

Trans exclusionary radical feminist 

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Grumpy Alien

Oh wow... okay... I didn’t even know that was a thing.

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1 hour ago, CBC said:

(As an afterthought, @Snao Cone, feel free to find a way to surreptitiously take a photo of this guy. I'm curious, in a slightly horrified way.)

I have one from a few years ago...

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