reasons i don't like defining sexuality in no particular order: gender
the terms homosexual or heterosexual mean, to use the greek roots, samesexual or othersexual (although homo means "man" as well as "same")
in this way it's pretty obvious that defining a person's gender is intrinsically linked with how our society defines sexuality (and vice versa), which, imo, shouldn't be the case
i started thinking about this when i saw a woman being referred to as "homosexual" in one of my textbooks. this jarred in my head, partly because of the alternate greek root of "homo", but also because women are mostly referred to as lesbians if they are sexually attracted to other women.
which is kinda weird.
gender shouldn't really come into sexual orientation. i know my mum gets confused about this. i had this trans friend in secondary school, born a girl, and after he had gone through his operation my mum asked after him. i said he was very happy and had a boyfriend. this really confused my mother. if he's attracted to guys, she said, why didn't he just stay a girl?
of course this is also dipping into transgender territory, but without analysing very much we can see by my mother's initial response (she totally understood after thinking about it, but it's interesting that this was her immediate reaction) how wrapped up our ideas of sexuality are in traditional gender concepts.
here's an alternate way of defining sexual attraction without having to bother about gender, and they are definitions i prefer.
androphilia or androsexuality is sexual attraction to males (or masculinity)
gynephilia or gynesexualty is sexual attraction to females (or femininity)
and there we have it. a way of defining sexual attraction without bringing the gender of the subject into the equation.
of course i'd prefer if there were no definitions at all, but this way seems fairer to me.
#half-arsed intellectual posts