Jump to content

heteroflexible


bard of aven

Recommended Posts

bard of aven

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic...0-2004Jan4.html

boa

2012 Mod Edit: The above link doesn't work anymore, but part of the content can be found here. For future reference:

FREE Article Preview

dochead.gif

Partway Gay?; For Some Teen Girls, Sexual Preference Is A Shifting Concept [FINAL Edition] The Washington Post - Washington, D.C. Author: Laura Sessions Stepp Date: Jan 4, 2004 Start Page: D.01 Section: STYLE Text Word Count: 2555

[David Shapiro] is head of the Edmund Burke School, a private, college- preparatory program in Northwest Washington. In 2002, [Edmund Burke] held a "diversity day" assembly in which students and teachers stood together in a circle. An adult leader took the group through various exercises, and in one of those, participants were asked to move inside the circle if they defined themselves as gay or lesbian.

As it becomes more acceptable to be gay or gayish, will heterosexual girls in such friendships wonder whether they're gay, feel pressure to act gay or even shy away from same-sex relationships for fear of being seen as gay?

The number of student-organized, gay-straight clubs, formed to promote understanding of sexual orientation issues, jumped from 1,200 in 2002 to 1,970 in 2003, according to reports filed with the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, a national organization that works with schools on behalf of gay youth. In poll after poll, proportionately more young people than old people (and more girls than guys) say they accept homosexuality as a legitimate lifestyle, whenever it occurs.

Sorry guys:

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission.

Buy Complete Document

Link to post
Share on other sites
VivreEstEsperer

Wow, very interesting article.

Definitely a complicated issue, isn't it? I'd say those girls are either bisexual or just bicurious, I'm not sure if a whole other label is needed, but it does seem that the notion of a flexible sexuality is becoming more and more accepted, and it does raise more and more questions about the origins of sexual orientation.

One thing the article didn't make clear: can this "heteroflexible" apply to boys as well, or just girls (seeing as how female homoerotic relationships seem to be more accepted than for males)?

Kate

Link to post
Share on other sites
Worthless Poster
...setting off a furor among a student body that, the year before, had chosen a lesbian pair as the school's cutest couple.

Well, that's cool, at least.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Worthless Poster
Girls have grown up with shows like NBC's "Will & Grace" and recently saw Karen, the show's bisexual socialite secretary, plant a 14-second kiss on the straight Grace.

I missed that?!?!?!

Link to post
Share on other sites
VivreEstEsperer

lol, my thoughts exactly, Ann. But I usually end up missing good stuff like that!!

Link to post
Share on other sites
Cate Perfect

I saw it. It was amazing. I couldn't believe they'd air something that long. One of those mouth agape moments. Apparently they filmed two versions: a really chaste peck and a great long smooch, just in case the studio had a problem with it. They aired the great long smooch. The audience was *dying* it was pretty damn great. It had to be more than a year ago, though, as it was when I still had tv.

*wonders if she taped that episode*

EDIT: On topic, I agree with Kate in the question of why they need a new name. Are people so attached to the prefix 'hetero' that they want to be able to do whatever they pleased, but still be straight? Or are they only attached to the rights that go along with being straight. 'Sure, sure I did that girl. And that one and that one, but I'm not gay or bi, I'm heteroflexible.' Me: 'Uh huh, we like to call that homophobic.'

Cate

Link to post
Share on other sites

I think that a new term is necessary. Kate's idea of bicurious sounds more accurate than heteroflexible.

Link to post
Share on other sites

heteroflexible is a horrid term!! and is homophobic; a person is born with a sexuality not with heterosexuality!!! :twisted:

aheterohomobitransexualty reads a little better :D

Link to post
Share on other sites
Cate Perfect

'Bicurious' is a good term, but it's not new. It's been around for ages. That's why I'm confused about why these people have decided they need a new term.

Cate

Link to post
Share on other sites
bard of aven

I had no idea what to think of this when I posted it. After a day of reflection, I come back to my same old tired theory: it's not the girls at Union Station that are the problem; it's the words and categories we use to discuss and describe them and what they are doing. If they are looking for emotional and sexual gratification in the context of a secure relationship without regard to physical gender or at least without primary regard to it, maybe we need a name for that sexual orientation. Maybe orientations are towards more than external manifestations of chromosonal sex determinants.

If orientation is only about the physical sex of people you do or don't want to fuck/suck/whatever, it's a very simplistic way of describing a very complex set of phenomena. Most people are, I think, looking at the whole package of relationship, not just what is or is not hanging off the chest or crotch. Isn't the basic question more "What kind of people can I live in a healthy relationship with?", and aren't the sex acts and sexes only a part of that? It is only relatively recently in history that we became so phobic about certain sex combinations in relationships that that became the most important factor.

Instead of trying to separate out the elements and trying to deal with sexuality and sexual attractiion and sexual acts and all of the other elements separately, maybe it makes sense to look at the whole picture as real people at railroad stations and wherever else actually experience it. If we are not dealing with that, we are not dealing with anything. Think of it as a way of deemphasizing and defying the tyrannic grip that sex has on our freedom to talk about and engage in relationships. It's only an element, and often not the most important. Anyone who looked at all the variety of couples at my office Christmas party, at least, could not help but conclude that physical, sexual attraction was not what was holding most of them together.

(We already have names for some of these obvious categories. Guys who only want to fuck beautiful women and have no emotional entanglements are commonly referred to as pigs. Not too scientific, but everyone knows what it means. )

And if our needs and desires do not change with our age and situations, we are a bit stagnant. If we look at the wider package of supposedly descreet phenomena that make up an attraction or a relationship in a gestalt perception, all at once, as an organic whole that is more that the sum of its parts, we would be hopelessly stagnant if it did not change as we aged and as our social, economic and other situations changed.

Life is fluid and constantly changing. So is what we need from the relationships we develop at different times of life. Relationships that adapt survive. Those that don't die. Within certain genetic constraints (and no one yet knows what they are or if they exist), why shouldn't the various constituent parts of our relationships, including, for some people, the sex of the people we relate to, change also? And if it does, why should we see that as the most important and most telling element in the whole complexity of how we relate to each other?

It is not time to blow this pop stand. It is time to blow it up.

boa, whose head hurts

Link to post
Share on other sites
Anyone who looked at all the variety of couples at my office Christmas party, at least, could not help but conclude that physical, sexual attraction was not what was holding most of them together.
I think almost all relationships, in order to really last, must have more to them than sex, and sex for that matter need not be part of the relationship at all, though it can be.

Once again a lot of the arguments come down to the terms used. I don't think these girls would fall under the straight category nor a homosexual category. I would say they would fall under the sexual category (vs. asexual) and also the bisexual category. Even though they may *switch* their attraction from time to time doesn't mean that they in general don't have the capacity to be attracted to people of either sex. If someone were to be 100% straight, they would not be attracted to people of the same sex for relationships, nor would someone who was 100% homosexual be attracted to someone of the opposite sex. Also remember that different people are attractive at different times for different people, and also someone who is attracted to one person of a sex is not attracted to every person of that sex either. Just because at a certain time they are attracted to a specific sex does not mean they are either homosexual nor heterosexual at that time. Bisexual also does not mean that a person will be attracted to anyone at anytime.

One off my biggest personal debates about orientation also is whether or not sexual orientation is based on gender or sex. I'm not sure where it really fits, though I feel that it shouldn't matter (even though it does :( ). For me, I know that in my attraction to others (note: attraction, not sexual attraction), my attraction is partially affected by gender, not sex. This is because gender does play a role in personalities. There are also drag-queens and drag-kings, who do in a way try to confuse you as to their sex... When you start getting into that you begin to deal with attraction based on gender as well as attraction based on physical appearance, not attraction based on sex, as the sex of a person may not be known. If someone was attracted to someone of the opposite sex of their normal attraction, who came across in the person's mind as a member of the sex they normally are attracted to, what effect does that have on their sexuality? There is more going on then just attraction based on sex, as sex doesn't (or shouldn't) define how you should act/dress/etc...

While I also see heteroflexible as being a problem, in that it is trying to avoid being recognized as *queer* due to the use of *hetero*, thus is to some extent homophobic, I do like the fact that it suggests that sexuality is much more complex than a lot of people believe. *Flexible* unfortunately though, suggests an element of choice, which I do not believe exists, and will cause a number of problems.

Link to post
Share on other sites

frankly, i couldn't care less what people do w/ themselves & other people. fuck, if these girls/guys want to have "intimacies" w/ each other, it's not my problem.

Link to post
Share on other sites
frankly, i couldn't care less what people do w/ themselves & other people. fuck, if these girls/guys want to have "intimacies" w/ each other, it's not my problem.
Yep..as long as it doesn't involve me, whatever they choose to do is none of my business, nor should it be, and I see no real problem with it (as long as everyone involved is fine with it of course)
Link to post
Share on other sites

That indifference was one of my chief reactions to the article. Homosexual interests in girls that the society says should be "heteroflexible" really don't interest me at all. I'm not involved, my interest is not piqued.

I am sensitive to unfairness and particularly to the unfairness and inaccuracy of the term heteroflexible.

But to care about this or identify with it is just well, beyond me.

I went swimming today like a good amoeba. It was great!

Link to post
Share on other sites
Cate Perfect

It reminds me of a girl who wanted to 'date' me a few years ago. She kept telling me she was 'theoretically bisexual' so it was all right for us to sleep together even though she had a boyfriend of three years. She kept using the phrase 'theoretically bisexual'. Look, if you want to sleep with me then you ARE bisexual, sister. If you can't even admit to being the slightest bit not completely hetero then you're being a bit homophobic, don't you think?

I understand that everyone uses words in his or her own way, but really. Theoretically bisexual would mean that you understood the concept of bisexuality in a cognitive way, but it didn't apply to you. Either way, I wasn't interested, though I was a bit offended that she thought sleeping with me was no threat her relationship with her boyfriend (who knew she liked me and didn't care if we had sex) as it wasn't 'real'.

Cate

Link to post
Share on other sites

Cate, many people in the world seem unable to accept the fluidity of sexuality, the ancient Greeks knew little of our (other) worldly definitions.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Look, if you want to sleep with me then you ARE bisexual, sister. If you can't even admit to being the slightest bit not completely hetero then you're being a bit homophobic, don't you think?
Yeah :? People really need to get over the fear of being *different*. Everyone is different in their own way, and that's great :) But it does get to me when people seem to say that anything except one way of being is wrong bad :evil:
Link to post
Share on other sites

Linguistic sociology is a spectator sport.

*grabs popcorn*

I agree that the term means roughly the same thing as alot of other terms, so the question is what about those terms DOESN'T work so that a new term has to be created? I've got to agree alot with Cate's analysis, that it's about trying to get around hetero limitations while keeping hetero priviledge. The process of this, though, has alot to do w/ what BOA was saying about relationships. The implication of the term seems to be "I'm questioning even though I know that straight is the answer." It allows people to form lightly erotic, lightly intimate relationships regardless of gender while only forming "real" sexual/romantic relationships (with the potential for marraige, etc) heterosexually. In some ways it's the opposite of bicurious. To be bicurious is to act straight and think you might be bi, to be heteroflexible is to maybe act bi but "know" (perhaps for reasons of social priviledge) that you're straight.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Cate Perfect

*munches on AVENGuy's popcorn*

I like that theory. when looked at that way it does appear to be something of the opposite to bicurious. Whatever happend to everyone knowing their position on the Kinsey Scale?

Cate

Link to post
Share on other sites

Bicurious is a silly term. Because someone straight, who wants to try out the own sex is homocurious. And vica versa. People are only bicurious if they want to fuck hermaphrodites.

Link to post
Share on other sites

society = conformity

AVEN = NONCONFORMITY!!! :D

i have no problem w/ gays or bi people, hell, i think they're cool as fuck. however (& i'm going by experience here), if someone who bi (a female, say) was only interested in being my friend because she wanted to get into my pants, then that bitch has got to go. not to say i'm homophobic, or raising a double standard, cause i'll do the same thing to men, too. i'm just saying that it all has to do w/ a level of respect, especially if the "friend" in question knows you're asexual.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Either way, I wasn't interested, though I was a bit offended that she thought sleeping with me was no threat her relationship with her boyfriend (who knew she liked me and didn't care if we had sex) as it wasn't 'real'.

Cate

It sounds like selective unsophistication- perhaps a means of manipulation.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Cate Perfect

LOL@skidd! Right on!

Aury, I agree. ANYone who is only being friendly to get into my pants isn't going to last long in my life.

mindlife, I love the phrase 'selective unsophistication'. *Writes it in her book of words to use for the rest of her life*

Cate

Link to post
Share on other sites

Aury: Completly agree :P Just because one person who identifies in a category is a jerk and I can't stand them, doesn't mean I hate the whole group... any group is going to have it's share of annoying people, and disliking them make me hate the whole grouple then at this point I probably hate every group on earth.... ;)

Link to post
Share on other sites
VivreEstEsperer

I want popcorn. movie theater popcorn! y'all are making me hungry.

Edit: this is so weird. This is the third thread tonight for which my post has brought it onto the second page. When it's on the second page it makes it look like you clicked the wrong button and said new post instead (which I have done before) so it makes me worried for a sec. Weird!

Link to post
Share on other sites
Worthless Poster
Maybe we should try calling them homoflexible and see how they would respond...

I like that idea....

Link to post
Share on other sites
bard of aven

Maybe we should let them define themselves instead of trying to jam them into our categories. Maybe we should accept them as who they experience themselves to be. Maybe they are like us in that that is all they really want. Maybe I'm the only one who thinks it's the symbol system, not the symbolized, that's broken. Maybe I missed the point. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you should all move away from the pop stand in a slow, orderly fashion.

boa

Link to post
Share on other sites
underminethewalls

Of course you're right, boa. Its entirely their right to attach what labels they want to themselves, and the fact that they are free enough to explore non-het relationships is a step in the right direction. On the other hand, if it is the symbol system that is broken, the ornery side of me can't help but want to jam it even more. Meme warfare is a powerful thing!

Link to post
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...