sexual orientation

Refereeing Kevin Drum and Andrew Sullivan on the Propriety Prying Into the Sexual Orientation of Public Figures

Posted by figleaf | Tags:
Wed, 2010-05-19 11:37

Kevin Drum of Mother Jones challenges uuber blogger Andrew Sullivan’s justification for prying into Attorney General and Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan’s sexual orientation. He challenges Sullivan’s further assertion that it’s actually homophobic not to pry.

Andrew Sullivan explains why he thinks it’s OK to ask public figures if they’re gay:

If someone’s entire private life is on the table except that, it’s a function of homophobia. Period. A gay person is free to adopt such a homophobic veil; but a reporter need not enable it. So when does Benjy Sarlin write a piece on his own magazine’s “ethics”?

Look. I get why Andrew feels this way. And if that really were the only thing off the table, he’d have a point. But here’s a short sample of other questions that are generally off limits when you’re interviewing public figures:

  • So, have you ever had an affair?
  • Do you masturbate when your wife isn’t around?
  • Have you ever had a three-way?
  • Do you download a lot of porn from the internet? Or do you prefer buying it old school on the newsstand?
  • I think Asian guys are really hot. How about you?

Notice a trend? They’re all related to your sex life. And [unless the interviewee brings it up] they’re all generally off limits.

He said it here.

I think that’s about right. For better or worse (I agree slightly with Sullivan that it’s worse) sexual orientation is classified as a type of sex one can be interested in (i.e. part of a continuum that includes threeways, masturbation, and, say, oral sex) when instead sexual orientation more accurately categorizes who you’d want to do some or all of those activities (threeways, masturbation, oral sex, etc) with!

I’d disagree with Sullivan, though, that the confusion of categories is evidence of homophobia.

So even though I completely get his point, in defense of Sullivan I’m going to give Drum a very mild ding for not using even more bland but still quite off-limits questions such as “Do you use insertable weights when you do Kegels?” or “How long is your refractory period after ejaculation?”

Repost or Like this

That's Asexy Beast, Not A Sexy Beast

Posted by figleaf | Tags:
Sat, 2007-12-15 22:03

In the face of my recognition of cool men manage to have sex lives (or not) without being ruled by it, I’d like to reiterate my recognition of asexuality as well. I got radicalized to asexuality years ago in a sexuality section of a progressive discussion site. A perfectly well-adjusted, non-abused woman piped up that she had no, zero, none interest in sex… and it just freaked everybody out.

And it’s not even a mistake that it freaked anyone out because by and large asexual people just usually don’t talk about it any more than I as a non-stamp collector talk about not collecting stamps.

So anyway, once I got over my initial shock and started listening to her I learned a heck of a lot not just about asexuality but about sexuality as well. (And also, obviously, a lesson about how people can talk about orientation and tolerance until you run into someone who’s just not interested.)

Same when I read Joan Sewell’s I’d Rather Eat Chocolate: Learning to Love My Low Libido. Despite a few quibbles dealing largely with her assumption that it’s mostly women, I still think it’s the most interesting sex book of the year.

And now I’ve just happened across Ily of asexy beast who’s put together an “Asexuality 101” post.

Okay, so it’s not exactly the next New York Times #1 Bestseller, but it is an advanced reading copy…of something. This is my draft for the Stanford LGBT group’s info card about asexuality. So if you’ve been wanting some basic information, read on…

She lays out the details here.

Anyway, because there are so few asexuals blogging about it, even though at any point up to 15% of the adult men and women may be practicing temporary or lifetime asexuals, I’ve added to my blogroll.

Repost or Like this

The "no-sex" class: Enforcement

Posted by figleaf | Tags:
Fri, 2007-06-29 15:33

Binsk of A.K.A. Binsk took some kind of test on CNN.com that was supposed to demonstrate that homosexuality is innate rather than acquired. She doesn’t provide a link to the CNN page but for the purposes of this post her conclusion matters more than CNN’s.

Researchers say this is further proof that gay is a gene, not a choice.

I got your proof right here researchers.

Do you think I would actually choose to like males if I sat down and really thought about it?

Uh no.

Kidding.

Sort of.

More details of the study itself here.

When I talk about men consistently perceiving women as the “no-sex” class — possessed of no innate interest in sex and therefore perpetually requiring sexual shepharding from men — I try to focus on the consequences that has for men. I focus on it because I believe it’s a paradigm created and enforced largely by men and therefore it’s up to us to try on another world view.

Now the weird thing about the “no-sex” class paradigm is that, unlike the classic feminist theory of women as the sex class (instead of the “no-sex” class) is that there’s really no benefit for men.

Take street harassment. Guys do it for a wide variety of reasons including, heavily, a wishful sense of resentment that whistling from a passing car is the only contact they’ll ever have with their victim. And yet… and yet… were we to refrain from setting women’s teeth permanently on edge that way we might have a) a better chance of closer connection leading to b) less of that sense of resentment that c) leads us to catcalls that d) lead to remarks from women like Binsk: “Do you think I would actually choose to like males if I sat down and really thought about it?”

Guys, I…

Guys, I just…

Guys! I… just… have this feeling that if we stopped behaving towards women as if they’d never willingly have sex with us then… they might be more willing to have sex with us!

I mean, it’s just not that complicated! Women, being people, enjoy sex. Unless someone gives them deep and profound reasons not to. And who exactly is the main source of those profound reasons not to…? And who exactly benefits from this situation? (Trick question: the answer is “nobody we know, and maybe nobody period.”)

Repost or Like this

User login