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[–][deleted] 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 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.

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

Yes, all the data can be used for is to capture sexual behaviour at the point the data was taken. Especially if it's just a one-off, with no follow up over several years, it tells you absolutely nothing. You simply cannot draw any meaningful conclusions. And if it's not taking into account all the complex social and political factors, it becomes even more useless.

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

I think bisexuals should really be militant about getting studies of them in particular, because they have different experiences from lesbians and straight people and research calling everyone “fluid” and so forth actually stigmatizes them. At least true bisexuals like my best friend who is a febfem and married. Really, homosexuals being included in studies with bisexuals that are meant to make general claims about all people are really inaccurate.