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rfmcdonaldA couple of days ago, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dobrovolets made an interesting post regarding the vexed question of just how many people aren't straight, proportionally--10%? 4%? 2%? something smaller? After pointing out that one-in-twenty is just as significant fraction in its way as one-in-ten, dobrovolets concludes that current figures aren't indicative of actual orientation so much as they are of our social reality.
This brings us back to the subject of the "man-crush". Whether personal characteristic or mode of essence, one thing that seems to be constantly overlooked is the emotional component of sexual orientation. Yes, the sex is nice, why should I deny it? The emotional attachments are also enjoyable, they do in fact exist.
I'm not sure why people overlook this. Non-straights might want to minimize the risk of getting attached to someone, so as to maximize the likelihood of abundant sex. Straights might want to politely ignore the presence of this emotion, recognized by themselves in their own lives and in the lives of other people, for the convenience of their heterosexual identities. Everyone might still be operating under the assumptions that homosexual and other non-heterosexual orientations aren't real or fully equal, an extension of the same sort of mindset that held that gay sex wasn't adulterous.
Of course, I'm painting groups in broad strokes; individuals and individualism do in fact exist. Inasmuch as we're all human we do share certain things in common, mind. It's critically important not to buy into the old myths that we don't.
dobrovolets made an interesting post regarding the vexed question of just how many people aren't straight, proportionally--10%? 4%? 2%? something smaller? After pointing out that one-in-twenty is just as significant fraction in its way as one-in-ten, dobrovolets concludes that current figures aren't indicative of actual orientation so much as they are of our social reality.Instead of thinking of being gay as a mode of essence that exists independently of consciousness, think of it rather as a component in our social self-awareness, as mediated through an individual. Responses to a survey become not simply a statistical aggregate of individual mental states, but a measure of the gayness--the freedom in matters of sex and family--of our society as a whole. In that framework, the right to be gay is a universal right, and that 4% are those who, by virtue of a felt necessity, have seized that right from out of the teeth of oppressive opposition.
This brings us back to the subject of the "man-crush". Whether personal characteristic or mode of essence, one thing that seems to be constantly overlooked is the emotional component of sexual orientation. Yes, the sex is nice, why should I deny it? The emotional attachments are also enjoyable, they do in fact exist.
I'm not sure why people overlook this. Non-straights might want to minimize the risk of getting attached to someone, so as to maximize the likelihood of abundant sex. Straights might want to politely ignore the presence of this emotion, recognized by themselves in their own lives and in the lives of other people, for the convenience of their heterosexual identities. Everyone might still be operating under the assumptions that homosexual and other non-heterosexual orientations aren't real or fully equal, an extension of the same sort of mindset that held that gay sex wasn't adulterous.
Of course, I'm painting groups in broad strokes; individuals and individualism do in fact exist. Inasmuch as we're all human we do share certain things in common, mind. It's critically important not to buy into the old myths that we don't.
