
Originally Posted by
Manynames

Originally Posted by
Numsgil
When you were an early teenager, like 12 or 13, before your first crush even, and you first start developing sexual attraction, it's "formless". It isn't a desire to "do" anything, it's just a general "appreciation". I don't really have the words to describe it better than that. It's a seed which later develops form as we're taught how to behave and what we're supposed to do. And then those behaviors are reinforced through sexual pleasure (masturbation fantasies, sex, etc.)
It "forms" into a desire for love, or sex, or whatever. But before that it's just a magnitude of feeling without a direction.
I disagree. Your sexual desires according to a theory i cannot remember the name of now, suggests that it is nothing but ''genes'' in the ''need'' to procreate.
Well sure, but those genes are way older than the human race.
What we find attractive can't be entirely coded in the genes because animals' appearences change way too rapidly. When we are young we are "imprinted" by our parents, extended family, and community about what we "should" desire.
Take for instance family pets. I think everyone has anecdotal evidence that our pets can develop... sexual attraction for us. Or at least for our legs
When i was younger, i know my genes never found the female attractive, nor was any sexual desire forming.
I don't think this was genes, for reasons I outline above. I think it's imprinted psychology. But your point is taken.
The illusion was that i already had the desire. Now if you mean by ''experimentation'' we seek out what we find attractive and desirable, then perhaps you could understand my disappointment when i tried to hit it with a girl at the age 16... but in no way was anything still developing. I was developed as far as sexual attraction goes... I knew even before trying to hit it off with the woman i did not find any element of it... arousing to say the least. I never did.
By "experimentation" I mean we're seeking to find out what it is we find sexually stimulating. We don't just know at 13 when puberty hits what we like. Or I certainly didn't, and I "experimented" with things like self bondage which I don't do anymore and no longer find particularly stimulating. Puberty is a time of massive psychological changes, and the wiring of sexual stimulating is still raw and being written.
Your account is about not being attracted to women. This is actually not the same thing as being attracted to men. It's not an either/or. You could be asexual, with no latent sexualality. Or zoophilic and find horses arousing. Or fetishistic and be into domination or submission. I think that's the core of society's issues with sexuality. You're either gay, straight, or bisexual. But actual sexuality is extremely varied and not nearly so easily defined. Or on even a linear scale. We're born not only with latent bisexuality, but latent anything sexuality. We're born with the ability to find anything at all sexually arousing, depending on how are brain ends up wiring itself. Usually we're imprinted with an Oedipal complex, where we seek out our parents as sexual partners (ie: I want a girl like mom). This is presumably how mammalian sexuality is set up. But it's hardly a clockwork process and it can result in all sorts of varied sexualities.
So if you are saying when you where younger you certainly had ''mixed'' feelings for both genders, then you may yourself to this day be facing an identification problem of your own sexuality. It is very likely that most bisexuals find one sex more attractive to another, but for those who there is no choice, then there is no comparisson.
There is no identification problem, I understand my sexuality fully. Probably far more so than most people, because I've specifically tried to understand it with an open mind. Actually as a child homosexual attraction was extremely rare. I can probably count on one hand the number of instances I can remember. The vast majority of men never sexually interested me. But there were rare exceptions. As an adult I'd have to say I'm specifically more open to my homosexual side and so am more aware of it, so if anything it's increased.
I would say I am 9-10 parts heterosexual to 1 parts homosexual. I greatly prefer the female form, largely because of its foreignness. There's a certain amount of fetishism involved. But this is what I mean by latent bisexuality. I don't mean bisexuality as an equal preference for either gender. I mean it as a non zero sexual attraction to the gender they would not normally consider.
It's known that most who have mixed feelings do grow up as bisexuals, but have actually either chosen one desire over another or have grown to find one desire... well... more desirable. I find it very hard to believe in the ''seed'' hypothesis you bring forward. we actually learn from very young ages (when sex becomes important to body) what sexuality we are. We often experiment however, either being blind of knowing that it won't lead to anything, but usually that we often experimenting to see for sure that the body we have is indeed ''wired'' that way in the blood, so-to-say.
Certainly the broad strokes are set up by the time we enter puberty. It's unlikely that if, at the beginning of puberty, you find men exclusively attractive you'll suddenly switch sexual orientation in your early 20s. But the finer details are still being constructed during the process of puberty. Things like preferred hair color, eyes, body type, personality type, etc. are still somewhat fluid. But by the time we reach our early 20s our exact preferences have largely settled into a static pattern and we're largely familiar with that pattern.