The "Sexual Spectrum": Why I Think It's Bunk

submitted by writerlylesbian from self.Lesbians

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[–][deleted] 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Exactly. I was telling someone it was more like a Venn diagram of overlapping factors. A “spectrum” is just black and white thinking with extra steps, and it’s extremely reductive.

If all you are measuring with it is exact sexual behaviour for a given point in time (the time of the survey or whatever tool used to record the info) then MAYBE you can place someone on a behaviour spectrum. But that is literally all the spectrum idea can be used for, and even then it is not the best.

I HATE spectrum breakdowns of anything. The only way you can use one is it there are no poles. Like, measuring ONE activity, like skiing, people who ski a lot are at one side and people who don’t ski are at the other.

If you want to measure things that are deeply influenced by social rules and even LAWS, like sexual activity and desire etc, you would have to take many difference measures into account and plot them all. The evaluative tool would have to be very complex.

People have sex for many many different reasons, and unfortunately, desire itself doesn’t always enter into it. I read a study on all of the reasons people reported for having sex (I think it was a study of straight ppl, I forget) and the reasons were astounding.

[–][deleted] 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Also, is a woman who kisses women when she’s drunk at the bar considered “bisexual” on a spectrum? What about a man who gets off on feet, but it doesn’t matter whose feet they are? Is he bi if it’s a man’s feet? Or AGPs who get of on themselves as a woman, so they sleep with a man, but they themselves are still the focus of the sex, the man is equivalent to a blow up doll? Is this person bisexual? What about a woman in a homophobic country who is married to a man and can’t act on feelings toward women? Is she bi? Is she actually a lesbian? What does “mostly straight” even mean?

[–][deleted] 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Also also: autism shares characteristics with loads of other mental health diagnosis so it’s not easy to fit in a goddamn spectrum either. It’s not even easy to diagnose and varies from doctor to doctor, all of the mental health stuff does. But linear thinkers gonna linear I guess.

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

Oh yes, I completely agree about autism. It is in no way a simple and straightforward diagnosis where an individual can be easily slotted in along a line like looking at a ph soil test result. I think the point my friend was trying to make (badly) was that autism wasn't thought of as only being the very extreme/non-verbal condition it was 20/30 years ago. But there are a whole lot of other factors that have gone into that change in thinking, not just, all the doctors woke up one day and realised it was a spectrum all along!!