Jacqueline has a cute post on Coming Out day:
For most of my life I’ve identified as straight because I really, really, really like men. A lot. Yum — men. But I have to admit that a small part of me thinks Gillian Anderson is pretty hot too. Now, I’m talking about young Gillian Anderson, from early X-Files, before she sprogged, because stretch marks just don’t do it for me. But yeah, if you put me alone with young Gillian in some romantic setting, and got me drunk, and she tried to seduce me… I might just go for it.
So, I am redefining my sexual orientation as “99% straight, 1% somewhat intrigued by Gillian Anderson.” And I will fight to protect my rights as a member of a minority sexual orientation group.
This reminded me of a conversation that an old friend and I used to have. 
I’ve believed for a long time that the three major classifications of sexuality — straight, gay, and bisexual — are inherently limiting, and fairly unrealistic. Rather than lumping everyone into one of three categories, I’ve always figured it’s more of a sliding scale…or possibly something along the lines of an inverse bell curve, with same-sex attraction on one side and opposite-sex attraction on the other.
Basically, it seems far more realistic to me to assume that while some people are “all straight” or “all gay” — attracted only to members of the opposite sex — there are a lot of people (possibly a majority) who actually fall somewhere in between (and if you really want to extrapolate, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if my posited inverse bell curve were a product of culture and religion, and without the incessant “homosexuality is wrong” attitude of our society, something closer to a more natural bell curve might emerge, with only a few people being entirely one or the other, and most falling somewhere in between).
My friend and I got to talking about this at some point, and ended up half-seriously coming up with percentages rating how straight we were. I don’t remember quite what they were at the time (though I’m pretty sure that I remember that his “straight” percentage was higher than mine), but since then, I’ve often placed myself at somewhere between 85-90% straight.
Never having been particularly homophobic (if at all), having ended up spending all four of my high school years involved in the theatre department (yes, it’s a stereotype — but just because it’s a stereotype doesn’t mean that it’s not true), and having had friends that were gay, lesbian, and/or bisexual for practically as long as I can remember, it’s never been a particularly big issue for me. While I’m generally far more attracted to women than I am to men, I’ve never had a difficulty in admitting that there are some damn good looking men wandering around this planet.
The percentage of men that catch my eye is fairly small, admittedly, and the chances that I’d end up in a situation that might encourage a little hanky-panky is even smaller. But really, part of the fun of sex (that is, physical intimacy — I’m not one to define “sex” solely as “penetration”) is, well, that it’s fun — and given the right person and the right situation…well, if I were to end up in a situation where everything seemed comfortable, why worry about which way the genitalia are assembled?
So, as the saying goes — “straight, but not narrow,” and perfectly comfortable placing myself somewhere in the 85-90% straight range. Besides…while I’m not in the same situation she was (nor do I forsee myself in a similar situation, between being primarily attracted to women and having a girlfriend who I’m quite happy with), the thought process in Alyssa’s speech from Chasing Amy has always struck a chord with me:
Alyssa: You know, I didn’t just heed what I was taught, men and women should be together, it’s the natural way, that kind of thing. I’m not with you because of what family, society, life tried to instill in me from day one. The way the world is, how seldom it is that you meet that one person who just gets you — it’s so rare. My parents didn’t really have it. There were no examples set for me in the world of male-female relationships. And to cut oneself off from finding that person, to immediately halve your options by eliminating the possibility of finding that one person within your own gender, that just seemed stupid to me. So I didn’t. But then you came along. You, the one least likely. I mean, you were a guy.
Holden: Still am. Alyssa: And while I was falling for you I put a ceiling on that, because you were a guy. Until I remembered why I opened the door to women in the first place: to not limit the likelihood of finding that one person who’d complement me so completely. So here we are. I was thorough when I looked for you. And I feel justified lying in your arms, ‘cause I got here on my own terms, and I have no question there was some place I didn’t look. And for me that makes all the difference.
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p>Hopefully this hasn’t veered too far into TMI territory for anyone (I doubt it, really — I’ve had this same conversation with most of my friends at one point or another, so this shouldn’t be much of a surprise to anyone who’s known me for a while [though those of you who just started reading me because of the Microsoft fracas might be sporting a raised eyebrow or two…]) — but hey, it’s “coming out” day, right? Why should I let all of you people who really are gay have all the fun? 
CJ
Brandon
Tim Who?
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One of the funny and interesting things about this post, in addition to being probably more “right” on the money than you or anyone realizes, is how the graphic struck - because, of course, one sees it first and then reads the post. At first I thought it looked like a cod piece then after a few paragraphs I thought it looked like stretch marks and then somewhere near the middle I realized it was an inverse bell curve, but it still carries the Male-ness and Female-ness with it - which is sort of the point of the post anyway. as stated - both amusing and interesting and somewhat Zen-like in concept. You are from another world, right?
What an interesting post and — if I may say so — courageous. I don’t know how many guys who identify as straight would identify as anything less than 100% straight. My hat’s off to ya.
As for me, I’m one of those who fits into the “Kinsey Six” category. At most, I’m 100% gay. At the very least, something like 99.99999995% gay. Just the way I’m built, I guess.
Basically, it seems far more realistic to me to assume that while some people are “all straight” or “all gay” — attracted only to members of the opposite sex — there are a lot of people (possibly a majority) who actually fall somewhere in between
you aren’t the only one that has come to this conclusion. You’re probably already aware of Kinsey’s findings on the actual sexual practices. He found that when it came to behavior, that for many (perhaps even a majority) had sexual experiences with both men and women. So he developed the well known Kinsey Scale to catagorize behavior as totally heterosexual (0) or totally homosexual (6) , with many points in between where he found a lot of his participants. Klein further adapted the kinsey scale to better describe people’s experiences and had one scale for experience and another for attraction, resulting in a grid, and found that behavior didn’t always correlate with attraction. I believe it was Klein that suggested that without cultural influences, everyone would be bisexual to some degree.
My opinion is that both are inaccurate as they fail to recognize the changing nature of sexuality over the life span. I have moved all over the kinsey/klein scale over just the last decade and I doubt I will settle anywhere permanently. So I have thrown out sexual identities as meaningless labels and no longer will apply one to myself. I see sexual orientation as a culture not a a biological destiny, but that is only my opinion.
I posted this over at Terance’s as well.
10% are 100% straight. 10% are 100% gay.
The other 80% fall somewhere in between and your bell curve is a good example. Though few of the 80% would admit publicly that they have had homosexual thoughts or they have played around once or twice. This is due to many reasons including religion, public perceptions, peer pressure and good old fashion denial. (And many more) This dirty little public secret is what fuels AIDS. Straight married men are fooling around on the side with other men and refuse to admit to it. They refuse to tell the Dr and even themselves that they enjoy sex with other men on occasion.
This is where all the misinformation about AIDS comes from. Such as getting it from a toilet seat or a public pool (all false). The publics fear and misunderstanding is so out of line with the facts that we allow the government to alter FACTS to fit our comfortable view of right or wrong. Morality winning out over facts.
After 10-15 years of data the CDC knows, KNOWS that oral sex is safe. But to publicly announce such is financial death to the agency. The President (Bush) has made it clear to the CDC that any announcement along those lines will result in a slashing of their budget. Keep your mouth shut or I’ll cut off your funding.
With this kind of warped sense of values we have removed scientific data and replaced it with moral and biblical rhetoric. This has put us in a position to have more cases of AIDS and more deaths because we are unable or unwilling to accept the fact the homosexuality is normal behavior and is practiced by almost 90% of the population.
With this kind on denial built deep into the church and the government is it any wonder that Bi-sexual men and women are loathe to admit it.
When I was sexually active I often stated “I have had more sex with straight men than gay men.” A statement I still stand behind. It always amazed me that a man could be naked in bed with me and engaged in sexual acts and stop to turn to me and say “I’m not gay…I’m straight” How deep is the denial that allows one to make that statement at that time? Too bad the public is unwilling or unable to accept 95% straight.
The reality is very few of us are 100% anything
Great post. I was trying to decide on something to do for COD and was stumped. This just gave me a grat idea. Thanks for sharing.
My parents don’t seem to think so, but there are days I wonder…;)
Thanks. It didn’t strike me as something that I’d have any qualms about when I started writing it — then about halfway through I started to wonder just where it was going to end up, and if I really wanted to post it. As I said, the conversation itself I’ve had with quite a few friends over the years…but there was something a little daunting about writing it all out and posting it here.
I didn’t figure it would really offend much of anyone, especially if they stop by regularly (I have enough interest in gay rights that anyone truly homophobic probably would have stopped reading me long ago). The only slight worry was that not only do I know that my parents read this site regularly, but I recently learned that my girlfriend’s family stops by on occasion (and has passed on quite complimentary remarks, which was very flattering), and there was the momentary “what will people think?” concern.
In the words of the great modern philosopher Popeye, though, “I yam what I yam, and that’s all that I yam,” and really, when I can stop babbling about politics, movies, and random crap strewn across the ‘net long enough to actually talk about me (something that I want to keep working on, actually), that’s what the site is all about.
Only vaguely, to tell the truth. I know roughly who Kinsey was, and have seen the Kinsey Report mentioned enough times to have a decent idea of parts of it, but I’ve never really investigated it or read it. One of the many things I need to add to my “to do” list (and hopefully actually get around to one of these days).
I noticed that you mentioned the upcoming movie Kinsey a few days ago. I hadn’t even heard of this until Prairie and I stumbled across the trailer last week, but we’re both looking forward to seeing it — it certainly looks interesting enough, and I might pick up a bit more information (albeit somewhat fictionalized and summarized for the purposes of film).
Kind of sums up this entire administration, doesn’t it? Such a shame that these days, “moral” seems to equate to whatever the religious right wants it to — I consider myself a fairly moral and ethical person, but I have no doubts that there are many out there who would strongly disagree with that assessment.
I could probably babble on a bit more about all this, but I’m out of time on my lunch break. Thanks for the kind comments so far.
Funny that this started from a simple “hey, that reminds me…” moment.
Continuing the Discussion