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

submitted by [deleted] from self.LGBDropTheT

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[–]panderichthys 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

I don't think I'm channeling eloquence tonight, so suffice to say that while he explains himself well, the "ascribed" viewpoint is complete hogwash. The bayonet replica is just that — a flawless imitation of an invaluable historical artifact. Is a penis a flawless imitation of a vagina? Do they even have half their parts in common? This person is simply yet another self-hating gay man.

I will say though, one point on which I agree with him, and something extremely unpopular on this sub, is that you can be attracted to someone without caring about their genitals. I am NOT saying that the people for whom only one set of genitals is "correct" can be conditioned into liking the other set. Just that, as someone who finds sexual intercourse pointless all around, the urinary receptacle you own doesn't factor into my attraction

[–]Not_a_celebrity 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

I will say though, one point on which I agree with him is that you can be attracted to someone without caring about their genitals ... Just that, as someone who finds sexual intercourse pointless all around, the urinary receptacle you own doesn't factor into my attraction

Doesn't that just mean you're bi or asexual? 🤔 Some bisexual people say they don't care about genitals. Asexual people don't care about sex so some of them don't care about genitals either.

[–][deleted] 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Asexuals are a heterogeneous group, discussing them is difficult on account of this. Largely, they're people who correctly surmise that heterosexual, homosexual, and bisexual have something to do with (pardon the word, it's just works so well...) fucking, which does not interest them for... reasons, plural.

Lack of a copulatory, procreative interest does not necessarily make a person asexual. Some of them have atypical sexuality, such as fetishism, but end up "asexual" because they only have het, homo, bi, and ace to choose from. "Fetishist" would be a better label, for example. Their sexuality is directed in whole or in part to an abstract concept, activity, or object that isn't sex. They break the mold of the binary model of sexual orientation, but often try to shoehorn themselves into that model because they don't know any better. This is one way you can achieve a person who considers the sex of their partners to be irrelevant, but you see, we're in different territory here than how the overwhelming majority of people work. Sometimes they're "asexual" or "bisexual" identified.

It does logically work the other way around however, a person who is asexual won't have a copulatory interest. I think some ideal-type asexual people do exist, people who are otherwise normal and just lack sexual interest. For this ideal type, yeah, genitalia shouldn't matter. Asexuals love to talk about their "romantic orientations..."

Similar to this, heterosexual men like women because they're women. Bisexuals, like men and like women because they're men and because they're women. But if you find yourself in a spot where it's irrelevant if the other person is a man or woman, then it's a bit different then, isn't it? Maybe that's the mythical 50/50 bisexual.

If you're not interested in the sexy parts of a person, but still sexually interested, be that man or woman, that's probably not bisexuality, in a technical sense. "Bi" in this case would describe the who, but not the necessary "how" that is required for bisexuality--a copulatory interest in phenotypically normal, adult, consenting partners of either sex.

Some bisexual people say they don't care about genitals.

Yes, and some of them are woke. Trying to appeal to the trans discourse.

[–]Not_a_celebrity 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

May I know what you think of the split attraction model? Split attraction model allows for identities such as homosexual heteroromantic, which means someone is sexually attracted to the same sex, isn't romantically attracted to the same sex, is romantically attracted to the opposite sex, but is not sexually attracted to the opposite sex.

The model was used by 'asexuals', and later on others started using it too. E.g. a woman who likes sleeping with other women but doesn't like having romantic relationships with them, but has romantic relationships with men would say she's a homosexual heteroromantic.

Are there such identities? Is romantic attraction separate from sexual attraction? If they are not separate why do many people feel like they are only romantic with one sex but only sexual with another sex, etc?

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

It's in its infancy. I would like to be able to objectively measure romantic feelings. fMRI is capable of this, and there has been preliminary work on "love" in general. Nothing on SAM. The outcomes thus far lead me to a belief that romantic love is in fact a physiological drive, same as hunger, thirst, or sexual desire.

It is however overwhelmingly concordant with sexual orientation, so an ideal-type asexual person who claims a romantic orientation, especially such a person who is say "asexual homoromantic" is highly suspect to me that they have a high degree of self-awareness. Likewise, an asexual person that claims a romantic orientation to the opposite sex, do they actually have that configuration, or are they being pressured to follow a heteronormative script? When they say "romance"--do they know what that means/have a consistent definition of it? Are we talking about a physiological drive, or merely the sex of a person one would choose to partner with, bereft of the typical motivations that cause people to partner?

Ultimately, the way people use it, to me, strikes me as the latter. It's just used to explain a preference, and not necessarily a phenomena.