The issue of labels.

How about queer? That kind of encapsulates all of sexuality spectrum, as far as I'm concerned.

But I've got another question - I'm dying to know! Why do you only like odd girls? :rolleyes:

 

Why don't you just stick with Pete... Or whatever your name is. Does there have to be a label at all? If you aren't comfortable with one than don't use it. My experience is that less people care than you think-- especially if there's chemistry.

 

Some guy 82.... Bit of a smartass, huh? Love it.

 

Since I am not out to many the question of my sexuality doesn't come up often. I have been liking the word queer and considering using it when I do come out. Its kinda militant too, rebellious towards the establishment if you will. I like taking the word back. Anyway the question of my sexuality has only come up when I visited gay bars. I suppose the closeted boy inside me came out good and strong. So I am often asked if I am Gay. And my answer is usually like "yeah, pretty much". So you like men??? "OOOHHHH, YES". I hate calling myself bisexual in a gay bar. I just get a bunch a guys telling me I am gay and just don't know it yet. I have also thought about "gay lite" but I think that could be taken wrong.

 

I'm with you.... Not big on labels. I like the "dereksexual" tho. Lol! I am not fully out but when I hear people talk about others or if somebody in the past has asked me I simply throw it back in their court by saying "does it matter?"

 

I do feel like labels pretty much suck, and I avoid using them if I can. I still cringe just the tiniest bit using the word "gay" because of the stereotypes and connotations that I perceived with the word 30-35 years ago, which were largely inaccurate even then, and were based almost entirely on one or two isolated experiences AND the stereotypes and connotations that OTHER people fed me. It's ridiculous and it annoys the hell out of me, but those gut reactions are hard to bleach out of the brain completely. If you hold the white shirt up to the light, you can still see that slight shadow of an old stain. And I stumble a bit on "queer" because I feel like I am finally figuring out what my "normal" is, and calling myself "queer" would seem to suggest that my "normal"...isn't!

But then, I've never been very good at coming up with a one-word description or label for anything, much less a person or a whole group of people. I can always find some obscure reference that renders it awkward or inaccurate or incomplete in my brain, which is probably why I end up describing instead of labeling. (No wonder my 7th grader can write a 4 page essay describing her dog, while the other kids have problems coming up with more than a paragraph or two! There must be some gene for verbosity on the same chromosome as the music, trivia and nosebleeds.)

In the end, I've found myself most comfortable just saying I'm "into guys" to the few people I've come out to. It seems the most accurate and the least charged.

 

At 20 I did not like labels for myself. At 46 I like gay because its original meaning is happy.

 

We can definitely go overboard with labels...for some reason "inflatosexual" popped into my head...

But seriously; I did find that avoiding the label, gay, also permitted me to avoid confronting some hard truths. Am I gay in the way that other people understand it? Probably not, but it does save time in certain social situations. Whoever wants to know me better will eventually know what I mean by "gay".

 

Ok googled "inflatosexual". It is a real word...

 

Well of course...some of my best friends are inflatable...

 

:roflmao: Oh wait...Is that insensitive? Not judging! You know your one of my favorite people,gw!(*hug*)

 

The problem with labels is the problem of 'identity.' I like Queer cause it's more in-your-face and less apologetic to hetero-normativity than 'gay.' One of the reasons I like 'faerie,' as in, 'Radical Faerie,' ... being into genderfucking and tearing down binaries and borders, it becomes an identity that defys identity... or classification.

 

:lol: OMG, when I first read "inflatosexual" in Greatwhale's original comment, I immediately thought of those ED aids - penis pumps, but the above? :eek: I thought those things were only for driving in the HOV lane!!!

---------- Post added 10th Oct 2013 at 08:30 AM ----------

I think it all has to do with your personal frame of reference. While I absolutely love the concept of the genderfuck, and in fact, incorporate it into my daily life, using radical faerie in exchange really disturbs me. Because when I think the word "faerie", I immediately imagine little girls on Halloween with faerie wings, and to apply your concept of the term, DesertTortoise, beside that image just feels so incredibly wrong - but that's to me, again, because of my own frame of reference.

 

I don't totally agree. I'm fine with the fact that some people don't label themselves if they do not want to. However, as for myself, i'm entirely attracted to men and not to women. well i can't find the latters pretty but i'm not sexually attracted and i'm sure about it. I can't define myself other than "gay". So i'm a bit annoyed when i heard all the "everybody is bi" or "labels should be prohibited" speeches. -_-)

 

'Cause we're the only ones worth knowing, silly!

---------- Post added 10th Oct 2013 at 03:36 PM ----------

I think people get too hung up about labels...both their importance and their unimportance.

Labels are a tool and nothing more. When they are appropriate, there's nothing like 'em. When you don't need them, keep them in the toolbox.

On the one hand they are an important was of asserting one's identity and truth. People call me lesbian, and it just sends a chill down my spine, and I have to correct them, because to chalk me up as a lesbian denies some aspects of my reality that are very important to me. It oversimplifies me in a sense (not that I consider lesbians simple or any of that rubbish).

On the other hand, if you are experiencing shifting attractions, or exploring your sexuality, it's not like you should feel you have to belong to a club. Even if you're *not* experiencing those things, you needn't belong to a club. But when people are exploring and obsess over what label to use, I always say screw the label and just do things that sound and feel good to you. Then by the time you need a label in the future, the right one will probably suggest itself.

But to the OP: a note on your associations with the word "bisexual". It is a common stereotype in our society that bisexuals are equally attracted to both sexes at all times. For the vast majority of us, though, that is way off from reality. Most bisexuals I've spoken to and heard from seem to consider sexuality on a spectrum...the Klein Grid lays out a scale from 0 (totally straight) to 6 (totally gay). I come out at about a 4. You could be a 5.5...who knows? Peoples' sexualities also shift and change over time (some bisexuals think this is a critical part of the definition of bisexuality as well)...so you may have been a 6, but are shifting leftward on the scale.

Because of the stereotype that all bisexuals are 3's, I can understand your reluctance to use that label liberally...it sounds like it might confuse more than clarify. So I get your frustration. But again, in most cases in society, it just isn't necessary to apply a label to yourself at all. I'm like DesertTortoise myself...when I'm in mixed company and I have a need to label myself, I often just use "queer" as a generic term...but when people make explicit assumptions about that, then I have the option to haul out the bisexual label...but usually there's been a bit of conversation by that point and I can give the explanation about what that label does and doesn't mean.

 

Dragonbait,

,The Radical Faeries are a kind non-movement movement. There have been RF gatherings since 1979, and one of those who brought this together, Harry Hay, was fighting for gay rights going back to the 50's. Hay did research into the history of queers in different cultures--like the Two-Spirit people in some American indiginous peoples, and resisted the idea that queers should aspire to acceptance in the hetero-normative world--that we have a role we can play in history, as creative ungendering outsiders. Hay had been a communist, and applied Marx's idea of class consciousnes to queers.... that if we become conscious of who we are and what we can be, we can create a new consciousness and culture that will benefit, not just queers, but everyone--as hetero people are as imprisoned in oppresive patriarchal exploitive structures as queers--and all minorities.
There are sancturaries in several states, in Europe... and one in Thailand: probably more than 50, many of them, like Short Mountain in Tennessee and Wolf Creek in Oregon, are self-sustaining, growing food, caring for animals... chickens and goats. I was at the fall gathering in the santuary in Tennesse last week. Some 300 RF's. In the spring, there are close to 800 at Short Mountain Santurary.
That's the context for me. "Fire in the Moonlight" is a good introduction--a collection of pieces by Faeries going back to the first gatherings. Faeries are as varied as the rest of the queer world--muscle boys, bears, sissy boys, 'leather-wings' ... I self-identify as a Radical Faerie--and having a desert tortois as my spirit animal very much goes alongside being a Faerie.
The Wiki piece on RF's is not bad.