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What's the general consensus on sexuality being a choice?

submitted by SexualityCritical from self.GenderCritical

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[–]yousaythosethings 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (9 children)

Sexuality is built around male objectification of women (or her substitute)---men doing the objectifying and women having to deal with it via a array of responses which include both acceptance and rejection. Sex is a political act--or how women are made inferior and how men achieve dominance.

Said no actual lesbian ever.

It would also end gender altogether, and those hundreds of labels that are supposed to derive from “natural” or “cultural” “sex attraction” to this or that sex and gender--although there would, undoubtedly, be far more lesbians.

Lol no. “Gender” in terms of femininity and masculinity and expectations and associations with them very much exists among lesbians. Our innate sexual orientation is not a political or ideological choice. Nor is it some egalitarian misogyny-free utopia.

[–]xandit 10 insightful - 7 fun10 insightful - 6 fun11 insightful - 7 fun -  (2 children)

I guess gay men are gay because we reject the "male objectification of women" lol, we are superfeminists!!

[–]SexualityCritical[S] 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

That's part of the reason I'm exclusively androphilic, yes.

You might say you don't like what you like because of political reasons, but there is a preference, set of preferences, you hold which derive from your own individual opinions. It is like liking art, or films, or sort like that. Not like having taste buds.

[–]xandit 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

That's the thing, sex drive is the taste buds. What foods you like are the preferences you choose. But the buds will always function as buds.

[–]MarkTwainiac 8 insightful - 2 fun8 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 2 fun -  (3 children)

Sexuality is built around male objectification of women (or her substitute)---men doing the objectifying and women having to deal with it via a array of responses which include both acceptance and rejection. Sex is a political act--or how women are made inferior and how men achieve dominance.

So all sexuality and sex acts are heterosexual? Masturbation isn't sex?

According to your portrayal, women have no innate desire and sex drive that comes from within ourselves; we're just passive beings who respond to the sexual overtures of men. We never get horny, sexually pursue others, initiate sex. We don't masturbate. And no women have sex with other women.

Moreover, to you every act of heterosexual sex must involve the woman being made inferior and the man achieving dominance.

Sorry, these generalizations tell us more about you than about human sexuality.

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

You didn't understand a word I said, but assume you understood everything I said. Typical social media response. ??????? You re-write my every word and misinterpret every sentence. But this said, I do believe you would burn Adrien Rich's essay on "Compulsive Heterosexuality," which I don't think even went far enough in its recognition of how CH affects ALL SEX. What to hell is wrong with me saying that if sex objectification ended, we would be living in an unrecognizable world, an egalitarian one... no prostitution, no porn, no wars, no earth destruction...

[–]MarkTwainiac 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

But it was the first part of what you said that I took issue with, not the second part. I didn't say anything about your conclusions/solutions. I objected to your premise.

You know that even back in the 1970s, not everyone even amongst the world of feminism thought that everything Adrienne Rich said was the incontrovertible truth, particularly when it came to her depiction of heterosexual relations. I think she was brilliant, but not necessarily the world expert on everything she wrote about.

If my misunderstanding of what you meant is my fault, I sincerely apologize. But since other posters here with different POVs and different sexualities to mine and to one another also "misinterpreted" what you said, maybe some of the fault is with your POV and the way you stated it. I think your characterization of my post is actually more "typical social media response" than what I said. All you did was accuse me of not understanding, of rewriting your "every word" and misinterpreting your "every sentence" like I'm a moron with deficient reading skills.

Human sexuality is complex and diverse. I simply said your simplistic portrayal of all human sexuality and all heterosexual acts doesn't ring true to me.

As someone who is not a lesbian or a gay man, but who is very close to many persons of those sexualities and knows a fair bit about the vast range of their views and experiences, I would never presume to say that het and bi people are the authorities on gay and lesbian sexuality. Nor would I suggest that gay men are the ones who best understand lesbian sexuality. So why do I and others have to accept that the views that Adrienne Rich and some lesbians have about heterosexuality and ALL human sexuality in general constitute the one and only "correct" characterization?

[–]yousaythosethings 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Because female homosexuality already exists naturally and not politically and it’s not some egalitarian utopia. It’s bizarre and very short-sighted that you think it would be. I also don’t want to live in a world where I have to deal with fake “lesbians” who are not inherently attracted to women saying they’re the same thing as me and infiltrating my dating pool. You’re no better than transbians.

[–]jkfinn 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

You are on a totally different political or thought wavelength than I am, so my words mean nothing to you and yours have no meaning to me. I never said any of what you assume I said.

[–]SexualityCritical[S] 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

'Said no actual lesbian ever.'

I've heard it be said before, but I think I should say it now. I think that, honestly, a lot of women who say they're radical feminists are really just gender critical liberal feminists. This criticism of compulsory heterosexuality - that one is, by genetics, forced to be heterosexual, which is what 'sexuality is not a choice' would imply - is entirely unique to radical feminism, or was anyway, as many MGTOW, pro-male types have also understood sexuality to be derived from political ideology.

Why do you think it's the case that most radical feminists aren't heterosexual-identified, but most women in general are? Clearly, ideology. I have no clue what this 'non-political lesbianism' is, as it implies that a woman's choices aren't based upon any reason, any logical sense, but are pointless, driven by hedonistic matters, or absent altogether of thought. It is, in essence, to divorce an entire person's journey from purpose, to state that there's no difference in quality, grounded by objectivity, between the romantic/sexual relationships which subsist between women and men and women and women.

Radical feminism has, for a long time, criticised heterosexuality as a political prison created as the norm by patriarchy to keep women in bondage with men. Prior to Christianity (there's nothing inherently wrong with Christianity or being a Christian, but more with how it's interpreted by reactionaries: i.e., the anti-gay sentiment), in the continent of Europe, sexual expressions between individuals of the same sex were not only socially acceptable, but normalised, and actually rather widespread. Heterosexuality exists because marriage exists. Heterosexuality exists because natalism and the family exist. Heterosexuality can only ever be political.