From: joe@spdcc.com (Joseph Francis)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Multi-Index Characterization (Re: your sexuality as an organism)
Date: 25 Aug 92 17:45:50 GMT
Article-I.D.: spdcc.1992Aug25.174550.24822
Organization: S.P. Dyer Computer Consulting, Cambridge MA

In article <1992Aug12.185652.2663@cis.ohio-state.edu> amz@iguana.cis.ohio-state.edu (Arnold M Zwicky) writes:
>time.  and with the very clear sense i have that when i was 16 i was
>in fact straight - that this was a simple, accurate description of my
>orientation - and then when i was 30 i was bi (in this same sense),
>and that when i was 46 i was gay (again in this same sense), that i

Something I've never seen come out of academia W.R.T. sexuality,
emotion theory, etc., is a qualitative and quantitative study of
self-indexed sexualities, that is to say, the codings which are used
informally to measure what one is for attractiveness and desire for
specific sexual behaviors. You see, I find what are commonly called
'paraphilias', like foot fetishism, bear fetishism, urolagnia,
tribadism, scatophilia, voyeurism, oral fixation, etc. simply other
dimensions of sexual experience. I don't like the word, so often used
by researches like Money, 'paraphilia', because I think to a degree
all people have reactions to a fairly large set of sexualities, and
they shouldn't be thought of as extraordinary.

James Weinrich, in his book "Sexual Landscapes", approaches the idea
with his discussion of sexuality as a two-dimensional measurement
rather than one-dimensional, like Kinsey. I won't go into the details,
but his system accounts for such things as asexual people, which
Kinsey can't, and people who are functionally heterosexual, but
socially homosexual (the "fag hag", and the male converse a "fag stag"
are accounted for).

He also takes off from Tennov "Lust and Limerance" sexualities, and
developed an interesting pattern which Arnold just spoke of. The
younger person whose initial sexual interests are dominated by strong
'pre-programmed' stimulants with one sex, but with time, and the
development or maturing of other routes of sexual stimulus possibly
with another gender, become bisexual, and eventually incorporate a
'complete' hetero- or homo- sexuality into their sexual repertoire. It
would also seem to have antecedents in the classical Greek model of
male sexuality.

Getting back to the original point, personal ads are interesting
because it is a place where people self-index not just for gender and
orientation towards gender, but also: dimensions of violence, interest
in bodily secretions, degrees of obsession with clothing,
role-playing, etc. I can think of the comparisons among "GP",
"Bottom", "Heavy Bottom", "To the Elbow", etc., light/heavy bondage,
straight-looking, clean-cut, well-groomed, all-american, to leather,
heavy leather, military uniforms, oiled jockstraps, hooded shit-slave.
I think of Pat Califa writing that she would rather have S&M sex with a
man than vanillsex with a woman. Straight men who like to get fucked.

It really seems much richer than anyone can imagine, not just the
gay/straight thing. Why, the bear codes alone!

-- 
US Jojo; damp, slighly soiled, but tasty nonetheless.
Newsgroups: soc.motss