Is sexuality knowledge or belief?

When it comes to sexuality, it isnt as simple as i am _____. It is always diffrent for everyone. For example i am bisexual. I have never been in a sereous relashonship win anyone, but i still know i am bisexual, and it is a simple fact that makes me, me. To be a part of this community, there is absolutly NO need to prove yourself. All you need to do is identify as part of the community and anyone who trys to make you prove it is a jerk that needs to leave you alone. I hope this helped.

 

Oh my, what a rumble-jumble of words!

When it comes to sexuality, that squishy ill-defined morass of primordial soupy urges, whose definition defies explanation, the absolute best you can do is feel it!

 

Maybe as greatwhale suggested, and I tend to agree, it is to 'feel'. Feelings though are often (without wanting to cast we males as unfeeling), something a little outside the square of we males. We (as a stereotype) like bricks and mortar - tangibles, hard and fast rules, logic. Until that is, that we 'feel'... and that being experiential, our world view evolves too.

While labelling is useful, it is also problematic, dependent on our own logic systems, experiences, beliefs and internal views - ala, we find what we are looking for, like or don't like, even if we do not necessarily recognize it at first.

But take away the label, the need to 'put a ring on it' (as Beyonce danced and sang) and what have you got - male birth and form, and all that comes and goes with it. Then add choices, intentions, your moral compass, and you guessed it, feelings. No questions, just knowing, nothing to prove. Just be you for awhile... And as the adage goes 'If in doubt, don't.'

I'm gay, I'm not gay, I'm both, I'm neither, this gender that gender, whats today... not flippant at all, but rather, does it really matter.

Well done to you for mulling it over. All the best.

 

There is this word: let's call it "gay", upon which we place the entire burden of another word, called "sexuality"...this teeny-weenie three-letter word, gay, this abstraction, as all words are, is supposed to somehow convey the vast and rich and variable spectrum of a sexuality that tends toward attraction to the same gender.
Like all words, it is an abstraction, and an impoverished one at that! The mistake is identifying oneself with an abstraction instead of being and living that which we are...there are ways of getting to the essence of that truth, but it is not by means of other abstractions..

 

Well of course you are!

 

Sexuality isn't that black and white and super-scientifically deduced with equations and a set, scientific principle- I agree with everyone, you just feel it, even without having dated anyone. It's just who you see having a future with in general (mainly the same gender, mainly opposite gender, both genders equally or unequally, etc). And even that alone has many variants.

I know I probably sound unnecessarily harsh because I admit, I've never struggled to pinpoint or find my sexual preference like many do, so I am really ignorant to alot of that struggle, what it feels like, what one goes through. I apologize if my comments seem to glaze over other people's confusion and frustration, I really don't mean to. I just wanted to put a disclaimer to my two cents and apologize to anyone who has a better understanding of what it's like to struggle with this.

But it sounds like (and I really may be off in my perception) you're just struggling to understand yourself better, in which case, I think you just need to look at yourself. Think about with whom you can see yourself being happy in general. And there are alot of ways to do that, although I can't really say, having never had that experience, but I do know there are alot of ways. And what's right for one person is not necessarily right for another, I do believe there is no universal, across-the-board way to figure it out.

 

I think you would have had a better reception to what you're trying to say if you had stated up front that you were presenting a philosophical premise.

I get what you're saying, but the presentation made it hard to follow. That said? The human without emotion is no human at all... thus why the theory of knowledge you mention is flawed.

As a side note, I see sexuality as.... instinct.

 

All I know is that I never considered it wrong for boys to marry boys or girls to marry girls if that is what they wanted and most of the world is far more confused about sexuality than I am.

 

You skipped over the word "Queer" deary. That clearly would identify you as not heterosexual but uniquely different in your attractions or gender identity.

Also on black swan friend, they say call a spade a spade. Maybe your hetero friend aint so hetero after all but could be queer? Which leaves them uniquely different and wonderful.

 

You started an interesting thread, a philosophical musing on the proof of sexuality.

Since you like the cause-effect model, I would suggest that you read "World Hypothesis" by Stephen Pepper. The problem with Descarte is the tendency toward utter skepticism. It's the "How can I really know anything?" argument that in itself becomes a dogmatic approach and ultimately reveals nothing. Pepper presents 4 models for a worldview that are better approaches. His ideas on contextualism make the book worth reading alone. The most important aspect of it is the advancement of Skinner's basic model of Stimulus - Response (SR) to a model that incorporates Consequences.

Now that I've bored everyone, why does any of this matter? Simply put, Stimulus - Response - Consequence is the sum total makeup of your behavior. All of it, not just your physical behavior but also your internal (thinking) behavior. Everything we do follows this model for our physical and internal behaviors. Each time a stimulus presents itself, experience grows as the response and consequence follow, thereby setting up the next stimulus. Just as a batter gains experience each time she is up to bat through her response and the consequence that follows, so too is the gay man as he journeys through his existential crisis. How can I know I'm gay? Because the experience of all of my past consequences tells me so.

While Pepper isn't strictly Philosophy, and his work is more in the area of Behaviorism, I like his ideas over many in the Philosophy department.

Oh, and I like the rainbow flag. Doesn't that mean I'm gay?

 

Sexuality isn't a logical process. It is a biological desire. Clearly, we can not perfectly label ourselves so it is pointless debating that our sexuality is knowledge because it's not something we can ever know perfectly. Just like we will never know the exact amount of matter in this dimension because there are places that we would never be able to reach. So this is a pointless philosophical debate.

That said, I think Descartes is completely wrong in his attempts to prove things and almost nothing he ever wrote makes any sense logically. I do however think we can quite easily figure out if you are sexually attracted to somebody by measuring the amount of testosterone, oxytocin, and other such chemicals and neorutransmitter s that are released into your body and brain (or even just watching your brain with a brain scan, measuring pulse, etc...) And determine if you are aroused by the same sex in a scientifically accurate way and by testing that certain scenarios with the other gender do not aroused you to a level that determines heterosexuality or bisexuality you can determine yourself as gay in completely scientific way.

 

Beautifully explained and expressed..."How can I know I'm gay? Because the experience of all of my past consequences tells me so." ....shall add the book you mention to shall read list. Ever learning... and a waver of flags of many colors...!!!

 

Clearly if we are doing something we exist, even if we exist only as a thought or a piece of data inside of another thing, we still exist. The fact people try and argue otherwise is literally retarded because they use false logic to argue that we don't exist, clearly they can not argue that they don't exist if they don't exist so their point is utterly irrelevant If they don't actually exist to voice it. Now, we might only think we die when we are dead, which is theoretically possible, and we could be sentient beyond our bodies, but there is no way to disprove it therefore science says it is not a relevant topic.

 

Technically that is a very standard philosophical work, if you listened to all of crash course philosophy you would know it.

 

Thank you...