Everything you wanted to know about sexuality but were too dumb to ask

[sqbr]

ithiliana made a locked post(*) asking her flist what GLBT people wish was better known by their peers at uni, and what straight people wish they'd known at uni. I found this a really interesting question, since by uni most people have gotten past the basic "Gay people exist and aren't evil" stage. EDIT: I haven't included stuff on non-monogamous relationships and other misunderstood aspects of sexuality like S&M etc since that wasn't part of the original post. Feel free to discuss them in the comments anyway :)

So, this is my answer, including stuff I've seen other people get consistently wrong:

1) On the whole GLBT people look and act just like straight people, there's no such thing as reliable "gaydar"(**). Don't freak out when a "normal" person turns out to be GLBT (especially T) or make assumptions about a "gay acting" person.
1a)Straight is not the default, don't just assume any "normal acting" person is interested in people of the opposite sex and not in those of the same sex (or that those distinctions even apply). No, not even if they have/had a partner of the opposite sex.
1b)Don't freak out if people don't assume you're straight. They're just covering all bases, not "accusing" you of being lesbian or gay.

2)Asexuals exist. They are not going to grow out of it. They are not secretly gay. They don't need to "try it and see".

3) Straight people do not get to "reclaim" "gay"/"fag" etc as insults/negative adjectives etc. Not even if the context has nothing to do with sexuality.

4) Intersex and trans* people exist and have feelings. It doesn't suddenly become ok to make fun of them if you use words like "hermaphrodite" and "shemale".

5) Sexuality and identity are complicated and a matter of personal choice. You don't get to say "She had a boyfriend, she's not a lesbian" or "He said that guy is cute, he's not an asexual".
5b) These things also change. Someone can be enthusiastically straight, and then become gay/lesbian, and then identify as a pansexual etc, and not be "lying".

6) GLBT doesn't begin to cover it. (I'm not 100% up on all the varieties of sexuality myself, I must admit)

7) (After reading comments on that post) Sexuality is not actually just about sex. As with straight people, it's all mixed up with love and companionship and all that stuff in a sometimes very complicated way.


So what do you guys think?
EDIT: I'm not going to correct this post since I'd be rewriting it forever and I think it acts an interesting snapshot into the brain of a well meaning but somewhat clueless straight person. But it's definitely flawed, and there's lots of important additions and discussion in the comments.

(*)to keep answers private, she said it was ok to mention it existed
(**)Well, not for straight people, anyway :)

Comments

[alias_sqbr]

Certainly it's reasonable to assume that any given person is probably straight. But at the same time you should keep in mind the possibility they're not, and if talking to a large group of people should work on the assumption that some of them probably aren't.

Perhaps "default" was the wrong way to put it.

Given the attitudes to homosexuality in a large portion of society, it also seems to me that assuming that someone is striaght is much less likely to cause offence than assuming otherwise.

Just because homophobia exists doesn't mean we have to pander to it.

I'm also kind of imagining now a kind of multi-dimensional Kinsey scale as a projective plane, with asexuality being the "point at infinity" at which all lines intersect

When I first encountered the term I was thinking something like that as well :) I don't know much about asexuality (beyond "it exists"), so have no idea about your questions.

for a mathematician, your livejournal doesn't contain anywhere near enough maths. :-p

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