What Does It Mean to Have "Sexual Fluidity" Really?

I saw one that showed extremely good correlation between rates of consumption (or was it sale of) of organic food and rates of autism.

 

I don't wish to contribute to the empirical part of this conversation, as this isn't a matter I've researched or read much about. I can only point to my own personal experience. I tell most friends (the ones who don't get the full complexity) that I'm bisexual, because it's the category that comes closest to what I feel and how I act. I wouldn't really call my sexuality fluid. My desires don't change over time, although I am aroused by different dimensions of it at different times. What I would call it is multifaceted. My most intense desires are for a certain type of man, yet I'm attracted to a far wider range of women. Either way, my desires are based on kink and fetish. My desires are determined not by the gender of the partner but by the possibility of "playing" together.

 

I’ve heard of it. Never understood it but more power to you if you believe in it. Now, what makes people gay and straight and this, that and the other is very complicated and has nothing to do with hormones from my understanding. I understand there is a theory of “genetic markers” passed down from female to male and male to female and certain genes straight people have that gay people do not. Now, with that being said who knows if that is even 100% the cause of it but yeah. Google Scholar is good to use with lots of citations if you’re curious about research and studying and stuff.

 

While I get what you are saying about hormones, who and what I’m attracted to, and the sort of fantasies and sex I want to have definitely differ depending on the time of the month. Although my orientation doesn’t change, hormones can fluctuate lots over a month for a woman and definitely have an influence. And if you are Bi I think it makes sense that at different times you may be more attracted to men or women.

 

I don’t know if this is a weird coincidence. I just stumbled upon this thread and reading the content of it all couldn’t help but notice the topic of hormones being brought up. I just had the same thoughts about them the other day. About the correlation between them and sexual desire and attraction. My knowledge is very limited on this subject. But There was a time when I did feel hyper sexual and I was attracted more to men. I don’t how to describe it. Something exactly like @Digdogger described it. Also @dirtyshirt84 mentioned something similar to do with this subject. Maybe according to studies or research that has been done there is no correlation or no science based evidence. But I know I did feel what I felt. That’s why i even created a new thread about this and it’s relation to changes in sexual behavior or attraction. Now my attraction is leaning more towards the opposite sex I don’t what to make of things. But what I know is It felt good sharing this.

 

Or maybe it could be that in my mind I just felt a kinship or a connection and related my sexual energy to that of other males. I don’t know if that makes sense or not.

 

Another good one is the birthday paradox. In a randomly chosen group of 23 people there is more then a 50% chance people will have the same birthday. In a group of 70, 99.9% chance of a shared birthday. As you can see even though it adds up on paper it is a logical fallacy.

 

Sigh, what misguided beliefs?
I never said that I have any kind of belief or opinion... I was just exploring thoughts.

I don't understand why you have to be so agressive and go into a rant when you obviously didn't even really read what I wrote, otherwise you would know that I was not trying to sell any ideas, I was just thinking out loud and didn't realize that the subject was controversial, if I did I would never even have touched it because that's just not why I came here.

Guess what: I am one of these people who come here to make sense of my feelings and sexual orietation, that's the reason why I was questioning the subject of hormones.

You Made me feel very unwelcome here.
Again, I'm sorry if I offended anyone or crossed any lines, I didn't mean to, but please, next time just read what I wrote with Some empathy instead of just assuming stuff.

 

@Digdogger : Please don't feel unwelcome. At no point did you act with arrogance or convey certainty. You speculated without pretending to conclusively know things that, with one hundred years more research, may look entirely different than they do today. I enjoy hearing people explore thoughts without cutting others down. Thank you for your posts.

 

I know maybe I went off topic in my earlier posts on this thread. So here is the post to rectify that.

Sexuality is one of those concepts that’s difficult to understand completely. But maybe we don’t need to. Maybe society and people always want to put a label on things so they can figure out who is what and in relation to whom. So what if everyone is just able to be themselves and express themselves as they see fit without having to declare anything.

I think that’s the main premise and idea behind sexual fluidity. That not everything has to be fixed in stone.

Some people just don’t want to be pigeonholed or define and redefine all their sexual activities they also don’t want to let their sexuality define who they are as a person.

Some other interesting information from what I understood about fluidity:

It is not a sexual orientation per say but an aspect of sexuality and sexual expression.

It does not negate other established and well known sexual orientations.

So a person can be a fluid no matter his underlying sexual orientation so when someone is fluid and straight for example that translates to the term “Mostly Straight”

Also i have read that it is not a completely new thing. While the term “fluid” or fluidity was first introduced in 2009 by Lisa Diamond, Ph.D., professor of psychology and gender studies at the University of Utah. It had its roots in much earlier studies and research including what they call “Erotic Plasticity”.

Other researchers have published works mentioning this including Chris Donaghue,
Ph.D., L.C.S.W. and author. Also Justin Lehmiller, Ph.D., a research fellow at The Kinsey Institute and author. This is what he said. "Sexual fluidity refers to a general capacity for fluctuation in sexual attraction, behavior, and identity over the lifespan”

 

I agree, @Bastion. I believe that the term could be used in the sense of sexuality being experienced as unfixed and expressed in varying ways. This is not to say that one's orientation fundamentally changes over time, but that our experience of its components fluctuates. (Thank you for the above citations.)

The problem with my statement here is that it suggest a binary between "actual" orientation and "experienced" orientation. (I would love to hear people comment on this!) If sexuality is hard wired into us, then the distinction makes sense. But if sexuality is, at its core, something that we know and feel in our lives, then there is no valid distinction to be made.

 

Why assume that people who see things differently from you don’t comprehend your point?

 

When someone insists that 2+2=5 we do not say that they just have a different point of view, we say that they do not comprehend math.

 

I’m so enjoying reading this forum and educating myself. Have been questioning whether I’m lesbian and/or bisexual. Learning about being gender fluid is fascinating. I’m 60 and learning a whole new world to me. After much reading here and online, having felt I was a lesbian trans woman, I’m now thinking omnisexual womxn. This just blows my mind.
❤️
Marci

 

Also I have read some bi people talk about something called the bi-cycle. Perhaps sexual fluidity can shed a light on this. Because you can be also bisexual and experience a certain kind of fluidity. Which means that you enter a period were you are attracted only to same sex people or opposite sex people. Or you prefer one binary over the other. Off course this does not apply to bisexual people who are 50/50 all the time.

This is a possibility not a fact.

By the way am not trying to push a specific perspective or point of view on anyone. Each person is free to agree or disagree or form his own opinions. I just try to discuss and share matters that I came across or read related to the subject of the thread.

 

I think that this is more like some days preferring chocolate ice cream and on others preferring vanilla. The fact that someones preferences might vary on occasion does not change their orientation. It seems to me that when people try to talk about fluid sexuality they are trying to say that over time their actual orientation is changing which I do not believe happens.

 

Hey @QuietPeace,

Thanks for your post. But this does not have anything to do with vanilla or chocolate. Nor am I suggesting a drastic change in orientation. Most studies do not indicate that.

Here is another explanation that may or may not appeal to you. Sexual Fluidity can describe an interim period between sexual orientaciones that you may resonate with at various points in life. This doesn't erase any past relationships or attractions nor does it mean you're lying or trying to cover up your sexuality or advocating free love just to be intimate with someone. As I said probably in a recent post. No one chooses how they feel. They just do. It is what it is.

 

It is called an analogy, I was not speaking of actual ice cream.

As far as the rest I am walking away.