GC: Is sexual attraction only based on genitals, or is there more to sexual attraction (e.g. attraction to secondary sexual characteristics, "femininity", "masculinity", etc)?

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[–]MezozoicGaygay male 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

what singular anatomical feature or biological process is then the sole determiner in all existing cases?

Why there should be a singular one? There a lot of biological processes, that are starting in womb that are determening sex and which are making people of different sex have different processes in the future. You know that we can determine if kid is male or female (and even predict most intersex conditions) by just mothers blood test and ultrasound when kid is just a foetus in mother's womb and only 10-11 weeks old? Changes are already noticeable, long before birth.

If you mean not just process, but factor, the definition - there is exactly one such factor - development of body to support one or another gamete type. That feature is so universal, that it works for determening sex for every single mammal and multicellular living organism, even when their chromosomes are exactly the same (Turtles, where sex depends on temperature of the egg, as example) or different from humans. That is why we know that it is male Seahorses, who are carrying eggs after being produced by female and fertilized by male. That is how we know when Clownfish have male and female function and when they change it. It is so simple and covers every single case, that it is unclear how it can be an object of discussion at all.

[–]Taln_Reich 1 insightful - 3 fun1 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 3 fun -  (2 children)

Why there should be a singular one? There a lot of biological processes, that are starting in womb that are determening sex and which are making people of different sex have different processes in the future. You know that we can determine if kid is male or female (and even predict most intersex conditions) by just mothers blood test and ultrasound when kid is just a foetus in mother's womb and only 10-11 weeks old? Changes are already noticeable, long before birth.

precisely. There is not a singular biological process/anatomical feature that determines biological sex, but it is a composite of a lot of biological processes and anatomical features, that may or may not be alligned. In the vast majority of cases, they are aligned. This is where the conception of "biological sex as a spectrum" does come from.

If you mean not just process, but factor, the definition - there is exactly one such factor - development of body to support one or another gamete type. It is so simple and covers every single case, that it is unclear how it can be an object of discussion at all.

The object of the discussion is on how to define what gamete the body is supposed to support. That's why I bought up müllerian vs. wolffian ducts as those are the respective anatomical features dealing with the gametes released from the gonads.

[–]MezozoicGaygay male 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

This is where the conception of "biological sex as a spectrum" does come from.

And it makes no sense, because in every single case body is still aimed to support one or another gamete. We are not magically producing third gamete, or gamete that is "on spectrum".

Short man is not becoming a woman or "in-between sexes", infertile woman is not becoming a man.

Dysfunction of one or few of the many systems is not cancelling the rest of them, not cancelling where oganism is aiming to develop or was aimed to be developed before was stopped by either problems in development or outter factors like surgery or car crash. Especially when those disfunctions are happening so rarely and in a such small minority of people, that their amount in percents is below statistical margin of error.

And again, even intersex conditions are almost all sex specific (only few are affecting both sexes, but often one sex is strongly affected, while other sex is just carrier to future generations). And again - on 10-11th week of a baby we already know will baby be male or female, before the genitals even appear.

[–]ColoredTwiceIntersex female, medical malpractice victim, lesbian 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

gamete on spectrum

What about 8 gametes?! Clownfishes never even dreamed about such diversity!

https://twitter.com/Iamthisnotthat1/status/1361257104942784512