Category: Sexual Orientation

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The Queer Victorian Doctors Who Paved the Way for Women in Medicine

In an era when women were discouraged from entering the work force, these women forged ahead in a profession normally exclusive to men.

English doctor, teacher and campaigner for medical education for women, Sophia Jex-Blake, c. 1865.

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In the mid-19th century, Sophia Jex-Blake struggled against constant roadblocks as a woman trying to earn a medical degree—so she decided to establish a school of her own.

Founded in 1874, the London School of Medicine for Women was the first and only place a woman could earn a medical degree in the UK for many years. Between its opening and 1911, the number of women doctors in the country skyrocketed from two to 495. Jex-Blake was also the first woman M.D. to practice in Scotland. The hospital she established in Edinburgh provided women doctors with jobs and women patients with high-quality care for 80 years.

While Jex-Blake’s legacy as a medical pioneer is well established, one aspect of her personal biography is commonly left out—her romantic partners were women. And Jex-Blake was far from the only notable lesbian in the medical movement.

Outspoken Pioneers

Some might argue that Jex-Blake’s sexuality was an asset in her role as a women’s rights trailblazer. Other women in the movement could be hampered by their desire not to step on men’s toes. In The Excellent Doctor Blackwell: The Life of the First Woman Physician, biographer Julia Boyd writes the first UK female doctor Elizabeth Blackwell “wished to see her sex enjoy wider opportunities … but not at the expense of men.”

Jex-Blake, on the other hand, saw no reason why women shouldn’t have it all, and have it now. Heavy-set, stubborn and hot-tempered, yet blessed with a sharp wit and eloquence, her contemporaries often cringed at her outspoken bluntness. She wrote responses to articles that objected to women doctors in medical publications and got into heated arguments with her professors at public meetings.

In her essay in the 1869 anthology Women’s Work and Women’s Culture, Jex-Blake demanded to know: “Who has the right to say that they [women] shall not be allowed to make their work scientific when they desire it, but shall be limited to merely the mechanical details and wearisome routine of nursing, while to men is reserved all intelligent knowledge of disease, and all study of the laws by which health may be preserved or restored.”

She may have startled some with her words, but it was hard to argue with Jex-Blake’s results. The publicity she garnered translated into significant public support for women’s right to become doctors.

Victorian Era Set Strict Limits for Women

Photograph shows Dr. Rosalie Slaughter (1876-1968), co-founder of the American Women's Hospitals Service, with philanthropist Anne Tracy Morgan (1873-1952), who worked to provide relief in World War I.
Photograph shows Dr. Rosalie Slaughter (1876-1968), co-founder of the American Women’s Hospitals Service, with philanthropist Anne Tracy Morgan (1873-1952), who worked to provide relief in World War I.

Medicine was one of the first professional battlegrounds where women pushed back against the era’s norms dictating a woman’s proper place. Early Victorian vocation options left much to be desired. When it came to professions, teaching was essentially the only acceptable career. For upper class women, to work was considered an embarrassment to their family; jobs were for women who didn’t have husbands to provide for them.

Rosalie Slaughter Morton’s aristocratic father was so scandalized by the thought of his daughter earning money that it wasn’t until after his death that she attended the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1893. Since he left her no inheritance, she used money she’d been saving since childhood and eventually earned degrees to become a physician and surgeon.

Florence Nightingale’s family lodged similar objections to her nursing career aspirations. Whenever she brought up the topic with her mother and sister, they reportedly required reviving with smelling salts.

Jex-Blake’s father had only permitted her to become a math tutor—if she didn’t accept a salary. Even if a woman had a career before marriage, she was expected to quit upon tying the knot.

These stringent societal standards left some women in a special quandary. What if you weren’t planning on marrying a man? How could you support yourself financially? This challenge drove queer women to lead the way in the push to prove their gender could pursue any profession.

19th-Century Women Who Led the Way in Medicine

Susan Dimock, Queer Victorian Doctors Who Paved the Way for Women in Medicine
American physician Susan Dimock. In 1872 she was appointed resident physician at the New England Hospital for Women and Children in Boston where she immediately organized a training school for nurses, the first of its kind in America.

Nineteenth-century doctors Emily Blackwell, Marie Zakrzewska, Lucy Sewall, Harriot Hunt, Susan Dimock, Sara Josephine Baker, and Louisa Garrett Anderson all preferred women (and many of their romantic partners were also physicians). And while there may have been a stigma around women working, some argue there was less societal scorn attached to women loving women.

“Such relationships enjoyed a level of acceptance greater than what many experience today,” historian Arleen Tuchman writes in her biography of Marie Zakrzewska. Tuchman says that, in her writings, Zakrzewska “blurred the line between conventional marriage and same-sex relationships with great confidence and ease, providing further evidence that the anxieties that would surface later in the century about lesbians were not yet present.”

Tuchman also believes our modern preoccupation with whether these partnerships were sexual, “reveals more about our own understanding of companionship and intimacy than that of women in the past.”

Women’s Hospitals Fulfill a Need

English-born Dr. Emily Blackwell, c. 1860, one of the first women to practice surgery on a major scale.
English-born Dr. Emily Blackwell, c. 1860, one of the first women to practice surgery on a major scale.

Blackwell and Zakrzewska were among the first women in the United States to earn M.D.s, in 1854 and 1856, respectively. Together with Blackwell’s sister Elizabeth, they established a women’s hospital in New York. It was forever expanding, never quite big enough to accommodate all the women who wished to be treated there. Later, they added a women’s medical college to their offerings. Blackwell met Elizabeth Cushier when she became a student at her college. Cushier then began working alongside Blackwell at her hospital.

“I do not know what Dr. Emily would do without her. She absolutely basks in her presence; and seems as if she had been waiting for her for a lifetime,” a colleague gushed of Cushier. Blackwell and Cushier raised an adopted daughter together. By the time Blackwell closed the college in 1899, 364 women had earned M.D.s there. In 1981, Blackwell’s hospital relocated and merged with another institution. It’s now known as the New York-Presbyterian Lower Manhattan Hospital.

Soon after establishing the New York women’s hospital, Zakrzewska went to Boston to repeat the experiment. In 1862, she opened the New England Hospital for Women and Children. That same year, Julia Sprague moved into Zakrzewska’s home, and they soon began a relationship that lasted until Zakrzewska’s death 40 years later.

Women flocked to her hospital, which was one of the first in the country to institute sanitation and sterilization protocols. Boston’s top physicians were agog at its singular success in preventing the spread of disease. Before sterilization was standard, a visit to the hospital could leave patients sicker than before. Zakrzewska’s hospital remains open as the Dimock Community Health Center.

When Jex-Blake visited the Boston hospital, she met resident physician Lucy Sewall and the two started to plan a life together. Those plans were interrupted when Jex-Blake’s father died, forcing her to return to the U.K. Like Blackwell, she finally found lasting love with a former medical student-turned fellow physician: Margaret Todd.

By establishing women’s medical colleges and hospitals, these 19th-century pioneers helped open the profession of medicine to women. One of the biggest hurdles for women medical students at the time was finding a place to receive practical training and internships, and then a job. Most establishments invariably turned women away. These hospitals filled that need.

By the end of the 1800s, some new terms had emerged in the English language: “new woman,” to describe educated, independent career women, “Boston marriages,” to describe two professional women sharing a home, and “sapphist,” to describe women who loved women. By pursuing careers, toppling norms and offering their personal roadmaps as examples, these women ensured others like them could flourish both in their private and professional lives.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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The push for LGBTQ equality began long before Stonewall

The value of restoring the LGBTQ rights movement’s radical roots

By Aaron S. Lecklider

The annual raising of rainbow flags outside America’s strip malls and the bounty of LGBTQ-friendly swag being hawked inside them can only mean one thing: Pride month is upon us. Ostensibly commemorating the birth of the gay liberation movement, Pride also points to the outsize influence of Stonewall as a singular catalyst for sparking LGBTQ liberation.

And yet, there were activists advocating for LGBTQ Americans decades before the gay liberation movement of the 1960s. This history has been largely forgotten, because their work was tied to a radical social movement critiquing capitalism.

Thanks to the Cold War and the “Red Scare,” gay rights activists made a calculated decision in the 1950s to cut ties with this movement and to purge this history from the story of the fight for LGBTQ rights. While that strategy might have been politically advantageous for some, reclaiming radical queer history is essential to understanding the full scope of LGBTQ lives and politics in the 20th century.

In 1932, leftist journalist John Pittman published “Prejudice Against Homosexuals” in his radical Black newspaper, the Spokesman. “What Negroes and homosexuals both desire,” Pittman wrote, “is to be regarded as human beings with the rights and liberties of human beings, including the right to be let alone, to enjoy life in the way most agreeable and pleasant, to live secure from interference and insult.”

Prejudice against gay and lesbian Americans, Pittman argued, was anathema to social justice. As a Black leftist who was committed to revolutionary politics, Pittman well understood how prejudice structured American life, and he was unyielding in his opposition to all its forms.

One reason that leftists — communists, socialists, anarchists and labor organizers especially — concerned themselves with sexual politics was because radicals often found themselves in shared urban spaces with gay men and lesbians, notably local YMCAs and public parks. According to Jim Kepner, a gay leftist journalist, places such as Pershing Square in Los Angeles were available for “public open-air debate, officially designated as a ‘free speech area,’ ostensibly free from police harassment of people whose views they might find offensive, and also popular for gay cruising.”

These spaces reflected how marginalization from mainstream American life made leftists and LGBTQ Americans into strange bedfellows.

Once gay men and lesbians and radicals found one another, new worlds opened up to them. John Malcolm Brinnin and Kimon Friar, both members of the Young Communist League, developed an intimate partnership and observed other Depression-era same-sex couples who were also “consciously trying to mold the course of their relationship in channels that will fit their new sense of responsibility since they have become Marxists.” Betty Millard described her shared passions for radicalism and same-sex intimacy in her diary. “Socialism & sex is what I want all right,” she wrote in 1934. “I just didn’t happen to explain to him which sex.” The line between sexual and revolutionary desire was so often blurred.

LGBTQ people were drawn deeper into the orbit of the left because they, too, were cast as deviant in American society. “I’m a gay fellow, so what do I care about social position?” a gay man wrote in a 1949 letter. “I don’t want to go to any tea parties.” Allying with the radical left was less marginalizing to those who already lived on the margins of American society. In fact, sexuality and communist leanings were both things that kept people closeted.

One such man was Ted Rolfs, a member of the Marine Cooks and Stewards (MCS), a radical labor union that was well-known in the 1940s for its disproportionately Black and gay membership. “On the San Francisco waterfront,” one member reported, “the word was that the Marine Cooks and Stewards union was a third red, a third Black, and a third queer.”

That unique composition shaped the politics of the union. “If you let them red-bait,” Revels Cayton, a prominent Black MCS member cautioned, “they’ll race-bait, and if you let them race-bait, they’ll queen-bait. These are all connected, and that’s why we have to stick together.”

The existential threat posed by the rise of Nazism shifted the focus of American radicals away from revolution to anti-fascism, which meant building alliances with liberals promoting democracy. Edward Dahlberg published a radical novel, “Those Who Perish,” in 1934 — one year after Hitler’s rise — depicting a gay man at the center of the anti-fascist struggle. Willard Motley, a Black radical writer, gave an anti-fascist speech in the 1940s in which he listed gay men and lesbians among other groups whom Americans “love to hate.” Gay men such as Will Aalto and David McKelvy White joined international soldiers in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade to fight fascism in the Spanish Civil War.

In 1951, it was out of this populist milieu that a group of former communists built on their experiences opposing fascism to form Mattachine, an organization explicitly advocating for gay rights. In 1954, a writer in ONE Letter, a movement newsletter, described its founders as “young communists with a rage to get out and do something active like picketing and get themselves clobbered and perhaps laid.” In one of its earliest actions, Mattachine teamed up with the Los Angeles chapter of the Civil Rights Congress, an organization with deep connections to the U.S. Communist Party, to protest the entrapment of five Mexican American boys arrested in Echo Park.

Yet this alliance was short-lived. In 1953, Mattachine’s founding members were ejected from the organization over concerns about their histories with the Communist Party, and the organization shifted focus to positioning gay men and lesbians as upstanding citizens. The Cold War’s impact on LGBTQ Americans is often remembered through the lens of the “lavender” scare that purged gay employees from the U.S. State Department. But its influence was no less significant in shaping the fledgling homophile movement, an emergent coterie of new organizations sharing the goal of advancing gay rights through full-throated claims to citizenship.

Anti-gay and anti-communist conservatives invoked historical connections between radicals and gay men and lesbians to discredit both groups. “The Homosexual International began to gnaw at the sinews of the state in the 1930s,” one right-wing journalist correctly, but perniciously, wrote in 1960. These sorts of attacks prompted homophile activists to distance themselves from earlier leftists who had spoken out in defense of gay men and lesbians. “Communism and homosexuality,” the editors of ONE Magazine, a nationally circulated homophile publication, declared in 1960, “are contradictory and inimical.”

By the 1960s, members of Mattachine were fully enlisted as stalwart Cold Warriors, using these anti-communist credentials to push for citizenship rights. While earlier leftists had folded gay men and lesbians into a movement advocating for the end of predatory capitalism, the advance of racial justice and the liberation of the working class, the homophile movement sided with those who saw gay rights as disconnected from broader revolutionary struggles. Full incorporation into mainstream American life became their primary goal.

The post-Stonewall gay liberation movement restored some of the radical energy that animated earlier leftists seeking to align sexual politics with radical social change. There is much in that moment that is worth celebrating. Yet ongoing debates about the radical roots of contemporary queer politics too often overlook connections between LGBTQ rights and the left that appeared in the decades before the 1960s.

That’s because the powerful effects of McCarthyism continue to shape which stories get told and whose lives are remembered. The radical LGBTQ political tradition, both its rise and fall, is a history we can take pride in, but one that might require us to take stock as well.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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41 homophobic things straight people say every day without realising

‘Okay but who’s the man and who’s the woman?’

By Izzy Schifano, Georgia Mooney & Harrison Brocklehurst

You’re probably homophobic. Even if you don’t think you are, or if you don’t mean to be, I guarantee that on a regular basis you say homophobic things you don’t even realise are actually incredibly rude and harmful. LGBTQ+ people get these casually homophobic questions and comments from straight people every single day, and we’re sick and tired of it.

From playground stuff loads of people still seem to have not grown out of, like “no homo” and “that’s so gay”, to calling us your “gay best friend”, questioning if our sexuality is legitimate, or asking in-depth questions about our sex lives. If you’re really an ally, pay attention when we ask you not to say these things; actually listen and understand what we’re explaining to you; and please, please, just stop saying all of them.

Here are 41 homophobic things straight people say to us every single day:

‘That’s so gay’

Sorry, I didn’t realise we were still in primary school – not that it was acceptable to say this then, either. I can’t quite believe we still need to explain this, but if you’re using “gay” in a negative way when what you really mean is “that’s so annoying/stupid/lame”, you’re literally just being homophobic.

‘I wish they were fully straight’

The only thing bi people “fully” are, is fully bi.

‘Queer’

Yes many LGBTQ+ people have reclaimed the word – but you can’t say it if you’re not gay, hun.

And whilst we’re at it, don’t use ‘dyke, poof, fag or twink’ either

Just because some queer people choose to use these words when referring to themselves, again – it’s not a free pass for you to say it. If it’s not you, you can’t say it. They’re literally slurs, and we use some of them very loosely than their original meanings.

‘What does [insert gay slang here] mean?’

Not every queer person is a homosexual dictionary. If you really want to know, Google it.

‘You’re gay? What a waste’

This really isn’t the compliment you think it is – it’s just prejudice. Why can’t I be attractive and gay? Sorry I didn’t realise I existed literally just for you to try and get with.  It’s a selfish thing to say, it’s an insult with casual homophobia thrown in there.

‘Omg you have to help me decide what to wear’

Sweetheart just because I am gay, it doesn’t mean I double as the cast of Queer Eye.

‘I bet I could turn you’

You really couldn’t, trust me.

‘Who’s the man and who’s the woman?’

I hate to break it to you, but we’re both the same gender – that’s kind of the whole point.

‘But you look straight/you don’t look gay!’

A lot of masculine queer men and feminine queer women get this and even though it’s almost always intended as a compliment, it doesn’t feel like one to us. Gay people come in all shapes and sizes, there’s no need to be patronising and tell us we don’t fit the stereotypical queer person.

Also if you’re literally saying we don’t look gay as a good thing – that means you think it’s bad to look gay. Careful hun, your homophobia is showing.

‘I wish I was a lesbian! You’re so lucky you don’t have to deal with men’

If I had £1 for every time a straight girl said this to me, I’d be able to go live on a private island where I never had to see a heterosexual ever again. Okay so we all get men are annoying, but you wish you could have a girlfriend and risk getting hate crimed every time you walk down the street? Cool cool cool.

‘It’s fine you’re gay, but don’t hit on me’

And “do you fancy me?” – I promise you luv, you’re not that attractive.

‘I always knew you were’

What gave it away?

On a real though, so many queer people get this when they come out – and it’s not a compliment. Okay so you reckon you clocked something that took me literally years to figure out and accept about myself? Do you want a medal?

‘When did you decide to be gay?’

Around the same time you made the conscious choice to be straight, I think!

No one chooses their sexuality, it’s who we are – just like you. Grow up.

‘What was it like when you came out?’

What makes you assume I feel comfortable enough around you to share such a personal detail about me? I get it, some queer people like talking about stuff like this to help normalise it, but not all of us are.

Coming out is incredibly emotional and difficult – like with anything personal, a lot of us need to establish a relationship with someone before answering these questions.

homophobic things straight people say

‘It’s just a phase’

Yes sexuality is fluid and can change over time, that’s fine. But how would you feel if I told you being straight and being attracted to your boyfriend was “just a phase” you were going to “grow out of” soon?

‘Are you like 50/50?’

See also, bi people being asked: “So what percentage do you like men, and what percentage do you like women?”

‘Why are you single? You’re bi’

Some people literally say that it should be easy for bi people to find partners, just because they’re bi. Just because someone’s attracted to more than one gender, that doesn’t mean they don’t have standards.

‘Are you a top or a bottom?’

I don’t ask you for in-depth details of how you and Tom have sex, Ellen, so you really don’t need to ask me for mine.

‘Lesbian sex doesn’t count’

There are loads of different ways different people can have sex, and they all count. If we say it’s sex, it’s sex – it’s not up to you to question it.

‘How does sex with girls work?’

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: GOOGLE IT XX

‘I watch lesbian porn, but I’m not gay’

Ah yes, I remember my first post-lesbian porn panic. We’ve all been there. You don’t need to worry, I’m not going to try and graft you just because you’ve seen two women have sex on the internet. But I appreciate you confirming your heterosexuality nonetheless.

‘But don’t you want to have children?’

You might not know this but queer people can actually have children, biological or not, the same as straight people.

‘Omg I love gays!’

You “love” gays?? Right but you saying this makes me feel like you don’t love me one single bit.

‘Will you be my gay best friend?’

Why do I have to be your “gay” best friend? Can’t we just drop the category and be friends? Or should I call you my “straight” best friend???

‘How far have you transitioned?’

The only genitals you should be concerned with are your own. Fuck off.

‘Bi people are just selfish’

Being bi doesn’t make you greedy, selfish, or anything else. And while we’re at it – bi people are no more likely to cheat than anyone else, gay or straight.

homophobic things straight people say

‘Can I watch you have sex?’

Um, no?

‘Have you tried the other gender? You might actually like it’

Have you tried sleeping with the same gender? You might actually like it x

‘I like gay people, but not when they’re too in your face with it’

Okay so we’re not allowed to hold hands, talk about being gay or even think about mentioning going to Pride, but when Fiat 500 Lucy and Football Twitter Jack start pretty much shagging in a club, we’re meant to be okay with that?

‘You’re gay but you don’t have to make it your whole personality’

Okay well I can assure you it isn’t – but who even cares if it is? Sexuality is a massive part of your identity, and if you think there’s something wrong with being out and proud then you’re just homophobic.

Using someone’s deadname

If you don’t know what a deadname is, it’s the name someone was given at birth, which a trans person has changed as part of their transition.

Using someone’s deadname, or their wrong pronouns, is just straight-up transphobic. Deadnaming is so harmful. It can cause discomfort that could be associated with that person’s old name. It’s not that hard to just use whatever name someone prefers, trust me.

‘He’s a bad type of gay’

You can be bad and gay, just like you can be bad and straight. But the two aren’t linked and there’s literally just no such thing as a “bad gay”.

‘You’re not asexual, you just haven’t met the right person yet’

If someone is asexual, their sexual feelings won’t just magically appear out of thin air one day. Just like gender, sexuality is a spectrum too. Some asexuals have sex and some of them don’t – it’s not your job to comment on it.

homophobic things straight people say

‘No homo’

Same energy “that’s so gay”, it’s mainstream and very immature. It’s homophobic and offensive. It usually follows something which men aren’t stereotypically ‘meant’ to do, like crying or showing their mates affection. It doesn’t make you less of a man if you show emotion, just like it doesn’t make you less of a man if you’re gay. Just grow up.

‘I experimented with girls in first year!’

My sexual identity isn’t your experiment.

‘I don’t want to put my pronouns in my Insta bio in case people think I’m gay’

Right so first things first – everyone has pronouns, whether you’re straight or gay, cis or trans. Putting yours on your social media, email signature and other places helps normalise it, which can massively help trans and non-binary people and make things more inclusive for everyone.

Secondly – who cares if anyone thinks you’re gay, trans or anything else? If you’re worried about people saying that to you, it means you think there’s something wrong with being gay that you don’t want to be associated with.

‘How do you know you’re gay?’

How do you know you’re straight?

‘Are you sure you’re gay?’

This is just incredibly rude to ask. A lot of us have found it extremely difficult getting to the place we’re at now, we go through a lot of uncertainty and internalised homophobia to reach a place of comfort.

If someone tells you they’re gay, it is not your place to question or unpack how they feel. Just accept us as who we are and what we tell you.

‘You fancy everyone, you must have loads of threesomes’

Maybe I do have threesomes, but I’m not about to have one with you and your crusty boyfriend, Emily.

‘You can date girls, I don’t mind’

Bisexual woman are often told by the straight men they date that they can also kiss/sleep with/date other women. If they’re also cool with you doing this with men, if you’re poly or in an open relationship, that’s fine.

But more often than not, these men who are encouraging you to get with women would kick off if you did the same with men. They let you do it because they think girls kissing each other is “hot”, and also often because they don’t see queer female relationships as “serious” or legitimate.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Yes, You’re ‘Queer Enough’

— So Call or Label Yourself Whatever Feels Right

by Gabrielle Kassel

This article is for anyone who’s ever asked themselves “Am I queer?” or “Am I queer enough?”

(Spoiler alert: The answer to the first Q = the answer to the second Q).

Here we go!

Typically an umbrella term, “queer” is an identifier that means outside the norm of society, explains Eva Bloom, a queer peer sexuality educator, sex science communicator, and creator of F*ck the Patriarchy, F*ck Yourself, a shame-busting program for non-men.

The so-called norms of society that they’re referring to are cisgender, allosexual, and heterosexual.

“If you’re anywhere outside those identifiers — even a little bit! — you can be queer,” they say.

Sometimes people who are “not straight” or “not cisgender” or “not allosexual” might identify “just” as queer.

And sometimes they may layer “queer” alongside another identity. For example, someone might be a queer bisexual dyke, or a queer trans man, or a queer biromantic asexual.

“Historically, ‘queer’ was used as a slur against the queer community,” says Rae McDaniel, a licensed clinical counselor and gender and sex therapist based in Chicago.

Starting in the 18th century, the word started to get slung at people assumed to be “homosexual” or “engaging in homosexual activity.” Folk who fell outside the acceptable versions of “man” and “woman” also fell victim to the word.

However, in the late 1980s/early 1990s, LGBTQ+ communities began to reclaim the term both as a personal identifier (“I am queer”) and as a field of study (queer theory), says McDaniel.

What fueled this reclamation? Mainly, anger. During the AIDS epidemic, LGBTQ+ communities were (rightfully!) pissed at the lack of response (or compassion!) from doctors, politicians, and unaffected citizens.

Out of spite and in power, LGBTQ+ people began using the word as both an identity and a rallying cry. “We’re here, we’re queer, we will not live in fear,” for example, became a common march chant.

“For some people, especially those alive at a time when queer was used exclusively as a slur, queer is still a dirty word,” says McDaniel.

As such, you should never call someone queer unless that’s a word they would use to refer to themselves.

Due to its history as a slur, many (queer) people see it as having political power.

“For many, identifying as queer is a way of saying ‘I resist cis-hetero patriarchal society that stuffs people into tiny cisgender, heterosexual boxes,’” says McDaniel. For these folks, queerness is about trying to disrupt the people, systems, and institutions that disadvantage minorities.

For them, “queerness is about freedom to be yourself while also working towards others’ freedom as well,” they say.

For the record, you don’t have to be queer to be invested in actively disrupting systems of oppression!

Straight, cisgender, allosexual individuals can and should be doing this activist work, too.

That’s a question only you can answer!

If you answer yes to one or more of the following questions, you may be queer:

  • Does the term “queer” elicit feelings of excitement, euphoria, delight, comfort, or joy?
  • Does it give a sense of belonging or community?
  • Does the fluidity of queerness feel freeing?
  • Does your gender exist outside of society’s understanding of acceptable manhood or womanhood?
  • Is your sexuality something other than straight?
  • Do you experience sexual attraction somewhere on the asexual spectrum?

Remember: “You don’t need to have gone through a physical transition, have a particular kind of gender expression, or even have a queer dating or sexual history in order to claim the label,” says Casey Tanner, a queer licensed clinical counselor, certified sex therapist, and expert for pleasure product company LELO.

“It refers to a sense of self, rather than any behavior or appearance,” adds Tanner.

If you’re queer, you’re queer enough. Full stop.

Unfortunately, many people who want to identify as queer worry that they’re somehow not adequately queer or queer enough to take on the term for themselves. (Tanner says this is known as “queer imposter syndrome.”)

Bloom notes this is an especially common phenomenon among bi+ women and femmes — especially those who have a history of dating men or are currently in a relationship with a nonqueer man.

“Often, the question of ‘Am I queer enough?’ is the result of internalized biphobia and femme-phobia,” she says. Blergh.

While this feeling of inadequacy is common, they say, “You don’t have to worry, sweetie, if you’re queer, you’re queer enough.”

That stands if:

  • You’re in a so-called “straight passing” relationship, aka a relationship others assume to be heterosexual.
  • Nobody knows you’re queer but you.
  • You’re a new member of the LGBTQIA+ community.
  • You’re not physically “clockable” or identifiable as queer.
  • You don’t have any queer friends.
  • You have no sexual or dating history.
  • Your sexual and dating history doesn’t “confirm” your queerness.

PSA: Your current relationship doesn’t dictate whether you’re queer

“People who’re in straight appearing relationships but identify as queer often feel like they aren’t queer or aren’t queer enough because their queer identities aren’t always visible at first glance,” says McDaniel.

But this doesn’t change the fact that they’re queer!

Self-identification — *not* your relationship status (or dating and sexual history) — is what determines whether someone is queer.

No doubt, there’s tremendous privilege that accompanies “passing” as straight (aka not being publicly identifiable as queer).

But, “on the flip side, queer (and bi+) invisibility is associated with increased depression and anxiety and decreased access to affirming healthcare,” says Tanner.

Why? “We all crave being seen and accepted for who we are, and if we aren’t seen, we aren’t accepted,” she says.

Further, not feeling queer enough to enter queer spaces isolates people from the opportunity to make queer friends and join a queer community, says McDaniel.

“And connection to community is an important part of resiliency,” explains McDaniel. “So not feeling able to enter, welcomed by, or seen as queer by the people in your life can have profound impacts on mental health, self-esteem, and self-efficacy.”

The short answer: Connect to the queer community. These avenues can all help.

Read queer books

“Consuming a wide variety of queer stories is an excellent way to normalize queerness for yourself, and even see yourself in the pages,” says Bloom.

Queer memoirs in particular can be powerful for identification. For example:

Watch queer movies and TV shows

“If you’re constantly consuming cisgender and or straight images and media, it becomes easy to forget to affirm the queer part of you,” says McDaniel.

On top of that, it can expedite feelings of inadequacy and otherness.

Listen to queer podcasts

From raunchy to educational, there are queer podcasts for every queer listener’s taste.

Trust, you’ll like all the below!

Follow queer people on Instagram

“Filling your feed with people who are unapologetic in their queerness, can both normalize queerness while validating your own queerness and identity,” says Bloom.

Following people who show off their queer joy, in particular, can be pretty damn invigorating, she says.

Get on TikTok, and maybe even participate

One of the great things about TikTok is how excellent the algorithm is at showing you the content you want to see.

To get on queer TikTok, mass-follow a bunch of the suggested accounts that pop up after following your fave queer comedian, celeb, sex educator, podcaster, or influencer. Then, enjoy falling down the rabbit hole of your now very queer For You feed.

“When you feel comfortable, you might participate in one of the TikTok sound overlays that applies to you,” says Bloom. “This may help other queer people find you, which may lead to friendships or community.”

Attend a queer event online

Thanks to the pandemic, there continue to be all sorts of online queer dance parties, matchmaking games, book readings, and performances, says Bloom.

“For some queer people, these online events feel less intimidating than in-person events because you can leave when you want, keep your camera off, and stay anonymous if you choose,” they say.

If that’s you, she says, “Attend, attend, attend!”

Keep hunting for community until you find one that affirms you

It’s important to remember that the queer community isn’t a monolith.

So, if you attend an event and don’t find queer people who affirm your queerness, keep looking, suggests McDaniel.

“I guarantee there are people out there in the world who will believe and affirm your queerness just because you tell them who you are,” they say. “And when you find them, it can be incredibly affirming and euphoric.”

Identity gatekeeping, which is the act of trying to limit access to who can use an identifier, happens with most gender and sexual identities. And every (!) single (!) time (!) it’s not only disgusting but potentially life endangering.

“Telling queer people that they aren’t queer enough or that they shouldn’t have access to the queer community is no small potatoes,” says Bloom. “It can be detrimental to someone’s mental health.”

So, if you’re reading this and you’re being an identity gatekeeper, cut it out.

There are times that queer imposter syndrome and gatekeepers may make you feel otherwise, but if you’re queer, you ARE queer enough.

Queer is queer is queer is queer enough. We promise.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Pride 2021

Happy Gay Pride Month!

gay-pride.jpg

It’s time, once again, to post my annual pride posting.

In my lifetime I’ve witnessed a most remarkable change in societal attitudes toward those of us on the sexual fringe. One only needs to go back 50 years in time. I was 17 years old then and I knew I was queer. When I looked out on the world around me this is what I saw. Homosexuality was deemed a mental disorder by the nation’s psychiatric authorities, and gay sex was a crime in every state but Illinois. Federal workers could be fired merely for being gay.

Today, gays and trans folks serve openly in the military, work as TV news anchors and federal judges, win elections as big-city mayors and members of Congress. Popular TV shows have gay and trans protagonists.

Six years ago this month, a Supreme Court ruling lead to the legalization of same-sex marriage throughout the whole country.

The transition over five decades has been far from smooth — replete with bitter protests, anti-gay violence, backlashes that inflicted many political setbacks, and AIDS. Unlike the civil rights movement and the women’s liberation movement, the campaign for gay rights unfolded without household-name leaders.

And yet some still experience a backlash in the dominant culture. I don’t relish the idea, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention it. And while we endure this be reminded that it won’t smart nearly as much if we know our history. And we should also remember the immortal words of Martin Luther King, Jr. “The moral arc of the universe bends at the elbow of justice.”

In honor of gay pride month, a little sex history lesson — The Stonewall Riots

The confrontations between demonstrators and police at The Stonewall Inn, a mafia owned bar in Greenwich Village NYC over the weekend of June 27-29, 1969 are usually cited as the beginning of the modern Lesbian/Gay liberation Movement. What might have been just another routine police raid onstonewall.jpg a bar patronized by homosexuals became the pivotal event that sparked the entire modern gay rights movement.

The Stonewall riots are now the stuff of myth. Many of the most commonly held beliefs are probably untrue. But here’s what we know for sure.

  • In 1969, it was illegal to operate any business catering to homosexuals in New York City — as it still is today in many places in the world. The standard procedure was for New York City’s finest to raid these establishments on a regular basis. They’d arrest a few of the most obvious ‘types’ harass the others and shake down the owners for money, then they’d let the bar open as usual by the next day.
  • Myth has it that the majority of the patrons at the Stonewall Inn were black and Hispanic drag queens. Actually, most of the patrons were probably young, college-age white guys lookin for a thrill and an evening out of the closet, along with the usual cadre of drag queens and hustlers. It was reasonably safe to socialize at the Stonewall Inn for them, because when it was raided the drag queens and bull-dykes were far more likely to be arrested then they were.
  • After midnight June 27-28, 1969, the New York Tactical Police Force called a raid on The Stonewall Inn at 55 Christopher Street in NYC. Many of the patrons who escaped the raid stood around to witness the police herding the “usual suspects” into the waiting paddywagons. There had recently been several scuffles where similar groups of people resisted arrest in both Los Angeles and New York.
  • Stonewall was unique because it was the first time gay people, as a group, realized that what threatened drag queens and bull-dykes threatened them all.
  • Many of the onlookers who took on the police that night weren’t even homosexual. Greenwich Village was home to many left-leaning young people who had cut their political teeth in the civil rights, anti-war and women’s lib movements.
  • As people tied to stop the arrests, the mêlée erupted. The police barricaded themselves inside the bar. The crowd outside attempted to burn it down. Eventually, police reinforcements arrived to disperse the crowd. But this just shattered the protesters into smaller groups that continued to mill around the streets of the village.
  • A larger crowd assembled outside the Stonewall the following night. This time young gay men and women came to protest the raids that were commonplace in the city. They held hands, kissed and formed a mock chorus line singing; “We are the Stonewall Girls/We wear our hair in curls/We have no underwear/We show our pubic hair.” Don’t ‘cha just love it?
  • Police successfully dispersed this group without incident. But the print media picked up the story. Articles appeared in the NY Post, Daily News and The Village Voice. Theses helped galvanize the community to rally and fight back.
  • Within a few days, representatives of the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis (two of the country’s first homophile rights groups) organized the city’s first ever “Gay Power” rally in Washington Square. Some give hundred protesters showed up; many of them gay and lesbians.

stonewall02.jpgThe riots led to calls for homosexual liberation. Fliers appeared with the message: “Do you think homosexuals are revolting? You bet your sweet ass we are!” And the rest, boys and girls, is as they say is history.

During the first year after Stonewall, a whole new generation of organizations emerged, many identifying themselves for the first time as “Gay.” This not only denoted sexual orientation, but a radical way to self-identify with a growing sense of open political activism. Older, more staid homophile groups soon began to make way for the more militant groups like the Gay Liberation Front.

The vast majority of these new activists were under thirty; dr dick’s generation, don’t cha know. We were new to political organizing and didn’t know that this was as ground-breaking as it was. Many groups formed on colleges campuses and in big cities around the world.

By the following summer, 1970, groups in at least eight American cities staged simultaneous events commemorating the Stonewall riots on the last Sunday in June. The events varied from a highly political march of three to five thousand in New York to a parade with floats for 1200 in Los Angeles. Seven thousand showed up in San Francisco.

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Why some straight men have sex with other men

Sexual encounters with men do not affect how these straight men perceive their identity.

By

Sexual identities and sexual behaviours don’t always match because sexuality is multidimensional. Many people recognize sexual fluidity, and some even identify as “mostly straight.”

Fewer people know that some men and women have same-sex encounters, yet nonetheless perceive themselves as exclusively straight. And these people are not necessarily “closeted” gays, lesbians or bisexuals.

When a closeted gay or bisexual man has sex with another man, he views that sex as reflecting his secret identity. He is not open about that identity, likely because he fears discrimination. When a straight man has sex with another man, however, he views himself as straight despite his sex with men.

In my book, Still Straight: Sexual Flexibility among White Men in Rural America, I investigate why some men who identify as straight have sex with other men. Large nationally representative surveys show that hundreds of thousands of straight American men — at least — have had sex with two or more other men. This finding represents a disconnect between identity and behaviour, and researchers from around the world – in the United States, Australia and the U.K. – have studied this topic.

It involves two related but separate issues: first, why men identify as straight if they have sex with other men, and second, why straight men would have sex with other men in the first place.

Skirting around cheating

As part of my research, I spoke with 60 straight men who have sex with other men, and specifically looked at men in rural areas and small towns. The majority of men I interviewed were primarily attracted to women, not men. So why would they have sex with other men?

My findings revealed several reasons as to why straight men have sex with other men. Several men explained that their marriages did not have as much sex as they wanted, and while they wanted to remain married, they also wanted to have more sex. Extramarital sex with men, to them, helped relieve their sexual needs without threatening their marriages.

Tom, a 59-year-old from Washington, explained: “I kind of think of it as, I’m married to a nun.” He continued: “For me, being romantic and emotional is more cheating than just having sex.” And Ryan, a 60-year-old from Illinois, felt similarly. He said: “Even when I have an encounter now, I’m not cheating on her. I wouldn’t give up her for that.”

These men felt as though extramarital sex with women would negatively affect their marriages, whereas extramarital sex with men was not as much of an issue. Most men had not told their wives about their extramarital sex, however.

Legs together in bed
Straight men who have sex with other men are not necessarily closeted, because they do genuinely see themselves as heterosexual.

Identities reflect sexual, nonsexual aspects of life

In order to answer why men would identify as straight despite having sex with other men, it’s important to know that sexual identities indicate how people perceive the sexual and nonsexual aspects of their lives. Connor, a 43-year-old from Oregon, noted:

“I think there’s a definite disconnect between gay and homosexual. There’s the homosexual community, which isn’t a community, there’s the homosexual proclivity, and then the gay community. It’s like you can be an athlete without being a jock. And you can be homosexual without being gay, or into all of it. It just becomes so politically charged now.”

The men I talked to identified as straight because they felt that this identity best reflected their romantic relationships with women, their connections to heterosexual communities or the way they understood their masculinity. Straight identification also, of course, meant that they avoided discrimination. They felt that sex with men was irrelevant to their identities given every other part of their lives.

Living in small towns and in more rural settings also shaped how the men perceived themselves. Larry, 37, from Wyoming explained: “I would say straight because that best suits our cultural norms around here.” Most of the men I talked to were happy with their lives and identities, and they did not want to identify as gay or bisexual — not when people asked them, and not to themselves.

It may come as a surprise, but internalized homophobia was not a major reason the men I spoke to identified as straight. Most supported equal legal rights for lesbians, gays and bisexuals. Other research also shows that, on average, straight men who have sex with men are not any more homophobic than other straight men. Additionally, while most men knew bisexual is a valid identity, they felt that bisexual did not describe their identity because they were only romantically interested in women.

Many factors beyond sexual attractions or behaviours shape sexual identification, including social contexts, romantic relationships and beliefs about masculinity and femininity, among others. Straight men who have sex with other men are not necessarily closeted, because they do genuinely see themselves as heterosexual.

Sexual encounters with men simply do not affect how they perceive their identity.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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What does it mean to be Queer?

Definition and history explained

The word ‘queer’ can represent an orientation, a community, a form of activism – and often, all three.

By Annie Hayes

Over the last few decades, the word ‘queer’ has been reclaimed as an expression of empowerment by a large part of the LGBTQ+ community. For people who exist outside the gender or sexual norm, it can represent an orientation, a community, a form of activism – and often, all three.

Unlike labels such as ‘lesbian‘ or ‘non-binary’, which focus on a single aspect of someone’s identity – sexuality or gender, respectively – the term ‘queer’ encompasses both. However, since the term means different things to different people, its definition transcends any meaning that is pinned to it.

We spoke to Dr Kate Tomas, a spiritual empowerment mentor for women and non-binary people, Philip Baldwin, an LGBTQ rights activist, and Liz Edman, leading LGBTQ+ theologian and author of Queer Virtue, about what ‘queer’ means today:

What does queer mean?

Queer is predominantly used as an umbrella term to describe sexual orientations and gender identities other than heterosexual and cisgender (people whose gender identity and expression matches the sex they were assigned at birth). For people across the LGBTQ+ spectrum, the word ‘queer’ can also convey a sense of community, acceptance, kinship, and represent a revolutionary, political rejection of heteronormativity.

‘Queer can be used in a range of contexts by LGBTQ+ people,’ Baldwin explains. ‘It can be used by people who want to reject specific labels of romantic orientation, sexual orientation and/or gender identity. It can also be used by people who want to challenge perceived norms of the LGBTQ+ community – for example, seeking to reject racism, sizeism or ableism.’

Queerness can convey a sense of community, acceptance, kinship, and represents a revolutionary rejection of heteronormativity.

Up until very recently, the word ‘queer’ was exclusively a homophobic slur. ‘It was first reclaimed in the late 1980s,’ says Balwin. ‘A younger generation of LGBTQ+ people now increasingly use the term. It can be empowering – some LGBTQ+ people associate the word with a sense of community and acceptance.’ Not everyone feels this way, he adds, so it’s important to listen to LGBTQ+ people and find out how they identify.

Not only is the word ‘queer’ interpreted in different ways by different people, but it can mean many different things to an individual, too. As an author, says Edman, ‘One of the first questions people always ask me is ‘how do you use the word ‘queer’? The word ‘queer’ means two things to me. It is an umbrella term comprising various iterations of Queer sexual identity and experience.

‘Basically, it’s a neat and nifty way to communicate what is otherwise an increasingly cumbersome list of initials that begin LGBTQIA,’ she says. ‘I like ‘queer’ in this sense because it can hold identities and preferences that are being felt and named now and into the future.’ In addition, Edman’s work ‘draws on the academic discipline of Queer Theory, where “to queer” is to rupture false binaries – or put another way, to disrupt rigid, black and white thinking.’

Is ‘queer’ an insult?

‘The label “queer”, when used by people hostile to difference, is a slur,’ says Dr Tomas. ‘All slurs act in the same way: it is a way of labelling someone as sub-human, indicating to the world that they do not deserve to be treated with humanity or respect. Sometimes the most powerful way to fight back from such an act of violent labelling is to reclaim the term itself.’

Using the label is a choice that can only be made by the individual. ‘One can self-identify as Queer, but it is not appropriate to label others as Queer because of the history of the word,’ Dr Tomas explains. ‘So, if you know your friend identified as Queer you can talk about your queer friend – but if you think someone is gay, it is not appropriate to refer to them as queer.’

The history of the word ‘queer’

The word “queer” hasn’t always related to sexuality and gender. When it entered the English language in the 16th century, queer was a synonym for strange, odd and eccentric. ‘It wasn’t until the 1940s that the term was used a slur against gay people, or anyone who wasn’t gender-conforming,’ says Dr Tomas. ‘To be labelled as “a queer” was extremely dangerous, and would often result in violence, abuse and sometimes death.

Three decades ago, Queer – with capitalisation to denote a proper noun – was reclaimed, Dr Tomas continues. ‘Reclaiming words that have been used as slurs and weaponised against oppressed communities is a form of resistance,’ she explains. ‘There is power in taking back a term used to shame, humiliate and violate, but that reclamation can only be done by members of that oppressed and marginalised group.’

How to be more inclusive of Queer people

It’s easy to make the world a more welcoming, safe space for Queer people. Here’s some pointers on being more inclusive that are actionable right now:

🌈 Don’t miss the ‘Q’ in LGBTQ: Whenever you talk about sexual orientation and gender identity, make sure you include the word queer.

🌈 Increase your understanding: Do your own research. ‘Listen to LGBTQ+ people, learn about LGBTQ+ identities and challenge homophobia, biphobia and transphobia whenever you hear it,’ says Baldwin.

🌈 Don’t make assumptions: Open your mind to the possibility that any person you ever meet might identify as Queer. Avoid drawing conclusions based on your perceptions of who they are.

🌈 Share your pronouns: ‘Making a point of sharing your own pronouns – “Hi, I am Kate, I use She and Her pronouns” – and not assuming any one else’s are two powerful and impactful ways to make Queer people safe and welcomed,’ says Dr Tomas.

🌈 Ditch dualisms: Make an effort to use non-gendered language whenever you can, like ‘people’ instead of ‘men and women’ and ‘children’ instead of ‘boys and girls’.

🌈 Fly the flag: Quite literally, if you can. ‘Displaying the rainbow flag in your businesses will instantly let Queer people know you are safe for them,’ says Dr Tomas.

What is Queer Theory?

Queer Theory (QT) explores and challenges the various ways society perpetuates gender-, sex-, and sexuality-based binaries, such as feminine/masculine, man/woman, and heterosexual/homosexual. These binaries reinforce the notion of the minority as abnormal and inferior, Encyclopaedia Britannica writes, ‘for example, homosexual desire as inferior to heterosexual desire, acts of femininity as inferior to acts of masculinity.’

‘Thus,’ the text continues, ‘Queer Theory is a call to transgress conventional understandings of gender and sexuality and to disrupt the boundary that separates heterosexuality from homosexuality. Instead, Queer Theorists argue that the heterosexual-homosexual division must be challenged to open space for the multiple identities, embodiments, and discourses that fall outside assumed binaries.’

In essence, Queer Theory focuses on dismantling oppressive cultural norms. ‘Whether or not you are considered to be “a man” or “a woman” directly impacts how much power you have access to, how much respect you are given, and therefore how safe you are in the world,’ says Dr Tomas. ‘If you happen to not confirm to either of these options for gender presentation, or you are neither a man or a woman, the world is not a safe place.’

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Feminism’s legacy sees college women embracing more diverse sexuality

By , , and

Most adults identify themselves as heterosexual, meaning they report being attracted to, and engaging in sex with, only members of the other sex. However, women ages 18 to 29 are increasingly rejecting exclusive heterosexuality and describing their sexual orientation in other ways. These changes in women’s sexuality are not mirrored by their male peers.

That’s the primary finding in our most recent report on nine years of surveys at the Binghamton Human Sexualities Research Lab, just published in “Sexuality in Emerging Adulthood.” Together with our Binghamton University colleagues Richard E. Mattson, Melissa Hardesty, Ann Merriwether and Maggie M. Parker, we conclude that changes in young adults’ sexual orientation are not just as a result of increased social acceptance of LGBT people – but also are related to feminism and the women’s movement.

LGBT progress

These findings align with recent polling by the Gallup Organization, which found that American adults are increasingly identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or more than one of those. The Gallup report attributed these changes to increasing public awareness and acceptance of people who identify as LGBT, as well as the influence of a 2015 U.S. Supreme Court case legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide. Another potential factor was proposed federal legislation banning discrimination on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation.

But our study goes beyond those poll results, showing that young American adults are shifting away from heterosexuality not just in how they identify themselves when asked about their identities, but also how they describe whom they are attracted to and with whom they have sex. That indicates something more is happening than an increasing willingness to “come out” and identify as LGBT.

The fact that these differences are larger among women than men indicates, we believe, that feminism and the women’s movement have, in fact, begun to change female sex and gender roles.

Compulsory heterosexuality

In the early 1980s, lesbian feminist Adrienne Rich argued that what she called “compulsory heterosexuality” was the primary cause of gender inequality. She said that because social pressures and threats of violence – as well as actual violence – force heterosexuality on women, that made women dependent on and subservient to men in all areas of life, including gender roles and sexual expression.

Our research indicates that one outcome of more than a century of feminist activism and progress may be women’s increasing resistance to compulsory heterosexuality and its consequences. As a result, more women under 30 are moving away from exclusive heterosexuality than men in the same age group.

In a related development, we found that women in this age group are also reporting more open attitudes toward sex than previous generations of women. They are separating sex from traditional love relationships, describing themselves as enjoying casual sex with different partners and more likely to have sex with a person before being sure the relationship would become serious or long term. These attitudes are more akin to those of their male peers.

The shift is more pronounced among women who are moving away from exclusive heterosexuality, and less obvious among women who report they are exclusively heterosexual.

There’s much more to learn

We still have a lot of questions about these trends. We wonder how they affect the ways that these young adults engage in sex and relationships. We also don’t know how women who identify themselves as not exclusively heterosexual negotiate and navigate sexual relationships with men – or whether these trends will continue as they age.

We are also interested in why men in this age group are less likely than women to reject exclusive heterosexuality – but are more likely to report exclusive homosexuality. And we’d like to know whether, or at what point, those who are not exclusively heterosexual might come out to family and friends – and if they deal with things like anti-LGBT prejudice.

As human sexuality becomes increasingly diverse, it remains unclear whether the political and social landscape will affirm these changes or threaten those who are expressing that diversity. We are hopeful that the continued success of the LGBT and feminist movements will push society toward an affirming future.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Sex Ed Often Leaves Out Queer People.

Here’s What To Know

By

Sex can be a nerve-racking experience no matter what. That’s especially true if you have no clue what to do. And since LGBTQ+ topics are often left out of the conversation in school sex ed classes, many queer people know this feeling well.

There is no national mandate for sex education in the U.S., and even in the states that do provide courses, homosexuality is often disregarded or vilified. According to the organization SIECUS: Sex Ed For Social Change, nine states require educators to portray homosexuality in a negative manner or do not allow them to speak about LGBTQ individuals, while only 11 states require classes to include affirming sexual orientation instruction. That number shrinks to seven when SIECUS accounts for states that mandate affirming instruction about both sexual health and gender identity.

It’s a hotly debated topic being taken up by state legislatures now.

Aside from leaving some queer people in a panic searching for “how to have sex” online, there are consequences when students don’t receive a proper sex education. For example, lesbian and bisexual youth or those with both male and female partners experience a higher rate of unintended pregnancies when compared to their heterosexual peers.

Some sexuality educators are pushing for comprehensive sex education, which would include topics relevant to queer students, that leave behind abstinence-only and shame-based messages.

Life Kit spoke with sexuality educators to understand what sex education could look like for queer students.

Get to know your body and discover what pleasure feels like to you.

Ericka Hart, a sexuality educator with a focus in racial, social and gender justice, reminds us that messages about sex in education and in the media are typically for a white, cisgender and straight audience. To get a better understanding of what you like, “I think it’s a matter of just taking in messages that you’re receiving from the world and seeing if they are fit or not,” they say. If those messages don’t fit or affirm you, Hart suggests masturbation as a way to unlearn that in order to discover what does please you.

Another way to figure out what you do or don’t like can be through watching porn. If this is your preference, consider watching porn created by queer performers — and make sure it’s made ethically, by paying performers and using safe practices.

There isn’t a singular or “right” way to have sex.

Historically, sex education in the U.S. has revolved around the idea that sex involves a penis and vagina. However, it can involve different kinds of genitalia, body parts or none of the above. Sex is whatever brings you pleasure.

“Just because you are queer doesn’t mean that there’s such a thing called queer sex,” Ericka Hart says. “We all have sex differently. It’s really just [however] you are defining it.”

Sexuality educator Melina Gioconda Davis, who also goes by their stage name “Melina Gaze,” is co-founder and director at Vulgar, a sex education project in Mexico. “When we’re looking to explore our sexuality, or our pleasure, it’s a really great tool to think of our explorations as pleasure-oriented instead of goal-oriented,” Gaze says. In other words, the end goal doesn’t need to be an orgasm.

Communication should be ongoing with sexual partners to make sure everyone is comfortable and satisfied.

Of course, consent is always necessary. Hart says how you communicate what you want is also important. “I” statements are good to communicate what you find pleasurable. Be forthright about what you want and discuss with your sex partner(s) where you all agree. If someone draws a boundary, respect it and move on. This communication will evolve over time. Ensuring that a person is comfortable with terms or sexual acts that continue to affirm their identity is crucial.

Hart recommends Scarleteen’s “Yes, No, Maybe So: A Sexual Inventory Stocklist” to discover what your physical and non-physical boundaries are. It reviews questions like whether you are comfortable with your top off with a partner, whether you want to be the one to put on the condom, whether you want to share your sexual history with your partner and more. (Life Kit has a whole episode on navigating consent, too.)

Don’t let shame or stigma prevent you from caring for your sexual health.

Melina Gaze believes a big priority for sexuality educators should be to reduce the stigma and shame surrounding STIs. Gaze says testing is important and a great way to check your status. They recommend speaking with a trusted physician to decipher what your individual risk assessment looks like. “Risk is not a moral judgment,” they say, “it’s kind of like a statistical equation.” If you don’t have access to healthcare services, you can also visit a community clinic like a Planned Parenthood for testing and treatment.

Gaze also believes that sexual health includes mental, emotional and physical health. “I think sexual health has to do with general bodily well-being,” Gaze says. “Are the social conditions present for me to be able to feel good as a sexual being?”

And, it’s important to remember that sexual health is intersectional. “We’re not just individuals, right? We’re inserted in structures that go beyond just individual social structures, like racism, like classism, like ableism. And those things impact how we have sex. They impact whether we feel entitled to our bodies or not.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Am I BiSexual?

16 Signs That It Ain’t No Lie, You’re Bi Bi Bi

by Lianna Bass

Bisexual (aka bi) peeps are romantically or sexually interested in more than one gender. But NGL, that definition is a bit basic. The sexual spectrum is a vast, beautiful, and sometimes confusing thing.

“Our culture is so oriented to binaries, it can be easy to feel pressured to ‘pick a side’ when it comes to sexual orientation,” says Dove Pressnall, MA, LMFT. “The reality is that, across cultures, human sexual experience and identity fall along a spectrum.”

Bi folks might be interested in one gender more than the other. Or they like all genders equally. It’s also totally normal for your feelings to change over time.

Here are 16 signs that you might be a bi babe.

1. Gender doesn’t matter to you

Can a person be attracted to someone regardless of the junk they’re rocking down under? Heck yes! For bi peeps, it’s more about how you feel about a person. Their gender doesn’t always matter as much.

PSA: This doesn’t mean you’re going to be romantically or sexually interested in everyone.

2. You think TV or movie characters are hot

If you’re into Ross and Rachel… or Jim and Pam… etc. you might be attracted to multiple genders. Maybe you even noticed this when you were a kid.

Obviously, this isn’t a definitive test. But it could help you start an internal chat about what you want, what you really really want.

3. Conflicting feels

Bisexuality — or any sexuality — isn’t black-and-white. So bi feelings can be uber confusing, especially if you’ve preferred one gender your whole life.

These feelings are 100 percent normal. The confusion should get better over time once you explore your feelings and desires a bit more.

4. It doesn’t have to be 50/50

Sexuality isn’t one-size-fits-all. Everyone has their own romantic preferences and sex styles. Bi peeps are no different.

You don’t have to evenly divide your interest between all genders. You can go through periods where you’re more interested in one than another. Or you can prefer one gender romantically and another gender sexually. There’s no exact science here.

5. You question your dreams

You can analyze your dreams all day long but sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Your dreams don’t have to mean much or anything at all. But if you can’t stop thinking about a bi-tastic dream, there might be a reason.

6. You dig the label

Sometimes the label “bi” just fits. If you feel comfortable with this label it’s a good indicator that you’re bi.

Keep in mind, you DO NOT have to label yourself as bi. You could also relate to labels like bicurious, biromantic, cupiosexual, fluid, queer, omnisexual, pansexual, panromantic, olysexual, or something else. You can also just say “no” to all labels which is totally cool too.

7. You relate to other bi or queer people

When a celeb comes out as bi or queer, do you feel a sense of pride? Or maybe there’s a new bi character on your fave show and you think, “IT ME!”

While this doesn’t mean you’re bi (you could just be stoked someone is coming out as their authentic self) it could be an indicator.

8. You dig different types of porn

TBH porn may not count for much. You can find a genre of porn super hot but also might not be into it IRL. But if you’re super drawn to porn actors of any gender it might be a sign you’re down for a bi experience.

9. You can’t stop thinking about it

If you’re daydreaming about a beautiful bi love affair on the reg, it might be a sign you’re into any gender.

10. You like how it feels

Fantasizing about sex can be the bomb. But until you do the deed for realz, you might not know if you actually like it. Plus, everyone is different. Maybe you just didn’t vibe with the person you hooked up with.

11. You took a quiz

Taking an online “AM I BI?” quiz prob isn’t the best way to see if you’re a card-carrying LGBTQA+ member 🏳️‍🌈. But sometimes these quizzes can help you understand how you really feel which is a good thing.

12. You have a crush or are in luv

A crush can hit you like a ton of bricks. But it can be even more “WHAT IS HAPPENING?” vibes if you have romantic or sexual feelings for someone of a different gender than you’re used to.

Even if your crush doesn’t turn out to be “the one” it could still be a sign you’re interested in that gender in general.

13. You take it personally when someone disses #BiLife

Bi folks have to deal with A LOT of smack from all sides of the sexuality spectrum. Plenty of people assume that bi people are extremely sexually charged and that is why the whole “gender doesn’t matter” thing exists. There’s also the stigma of “you’re not gay enough” or “you’re not straight enough.”

If you’re bi you might take these unfair stigmas personally or feel hurt or attacked by them:

  • “It’s just a phase.”
  • “You’re just greedy.”
  • “You must be slutty.”
  • “You’re down for threesomes.”

And the biggie: “Bisexuality isn’t real.”

Well, let’s end the debate right now:

Bisexuality 👏 is 👏 real 👏. You do you.

14. You can picture a long-term relationship with any gender

A good way to tell if you’re bi is to visualize a long-term partnership with someone from any gender. You might feel more comfortable with one gender than another. Or, it all sounds great.

FYI: Bisexuality doesn’t vanish when you’re with a new person. When a bi person is in a gay or straight relationship, they’re still bi.

15. The bi flag is a source of pride

When pink, purple, and blue are combined it’s a glorious thing 💖💜💙. (Yet there’s still no bi flag emoji UGH!)

When you start to accept and love your bi-mazing self, it’s pretty clear that you know who you are. And you should be proud!

16. It just feels right

At the end of the day, the most important thing is doing what makes you happy. If a bi lifestyle is what works for you, then go for it!

If you’re questioning your bisexuality, here are some things you can ask yourself:

  • Am I attracted to two or more genders?
  • Is thinking about bi experiences fun or exciting?
  • Does the thought of being bi make me feel good?
  • Can I see myself being with any gender in the long-term?
  • Does gender matter to me in terms of a romantic or sexual partner?
  • Do I self-identify with other bi ppl (celebs, characters, or people I know)?

In 2013, the Pew Research Center asked 1,197 LGBT adults which orientation they most identified with. They found that 40 percent of participants identified as bi. Meanwhile, 36 percent identified as gay men, 19 percent identified as lesbians, and 5 percent identified as trans.

Granted, this is just one study. But it does shed a light on how many bi folks are out there!

“While some people will certainly strongly identify as either gay or straight, far more people fall somewhere in the middle,” says Pressnall.

Coming out is a super personal event. You don’t have to tell everyone (or anyone!) you know that you’re bi. But if you do want to come out, here are some tips to make it easier.

Come up with a plan. There’s really no right or wrong way to come out. It’s all about what you think is best. You might want to tell people face-to-face, in a letter, or via text.

Ease into it. You might want to tell a few trusted folks first. This might be easier than telling everyone all at once.

Figure out what you want to say. You can totes just go with the, “hey I’m bi, bye” text. But a lot of bi folks want to fully explain their feelings and emotions when they come out. Again, it’s about what feels right for you.

Decide if you want to give them a heads up. If you go with the in-person route, you can send them a text first. Here’s an example:

“Hey. I have something very important to tell you. But I would prefer to do it face-to-face or on the phone. Please let me know when you have a moment to talk. And don’t worry… it’s great news!”

Be prepared for their reaction. In a perfect world, your friends and family will all be super supportive and happy for you. But this doesn’t always happen. Just know that you’re valid, wanted, and loved no matter what anyone says.

Where to find support

Not everyone has a bisexual sherpa in their life. But you can find solace in other bi peeps on platforms like Reddit, Instagram, or YouTube.

Talk to a mental health care provider if your sexuality — or life in general — is making you feel stressed or sad. A queer-inclusive therapist might be best since they may have a deeper understanding of what you’re going through.

You can also look for local support groups or try a therapy app.

And remember… you’re far from alone ❤️.

The only person who gets to decide you’re bi is YOU! Don’t let anyone else tell you how you should feel about your sexuality. But if you are bi… CONGRATS, WOO!

Keep in mind, you don’t have to tell anyone if you don’t want to. Just remember that you’re perfect exactly as you are.

Reach out to a mental health specialist if you feel sad or confused about your sexuality. You can also find TONS of amazing, supportive bi communities online or in your local area.

You can check out the Bisexual Research Center to look for local support groups and connect with other bi peeps. There’s also lots of fab LGBTQA+ resources on GLAAD’s website.

P.S. There’s a thriving bisexual community on Reddit.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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You shouldn’t feel pressured to define your sexuality

By Peyton Jeffers

How do you know if you’re gay or bi?

If you were like me at 12 years old, no amount of anxiously Googling “Am I gay?” or frantically taking quizzes that promise to reveal your true sexual orientation gave any insight into what your sense of sexual identity or lived experiences would be.

I turned to the internet for information because the messages I received in school or from popular culture about sexuality were not congruent with my thoughts and feelings. I felt I didn’t fit in either category I had been exposed to at the time — “gay” or “straight.”

So, if you’re asking yourself this question, you’re probably trying to describe your sexual identity to yourself and the people around you in a way that makes you feel comfortable. 

Questioning or challenging your sexuality can feel both confusing and isolating, but take a breath. You’re not alone.

Traditional models of understanding sexuality tend to center around one aspect: our sexual orientation. This model says you can be attracted to the same sex and/or gender, the opposite sex and/or gender, or people of either.

These models are limiting because their language and definitions often assume gender and sex are binary. They don’t account for aspects of sexuality outside of gender, such as the different kinds of sex or sensations we like or the levels of physical or emotional attraction we experience with others.

It might be helpful to consider who you are attracted to in these ways. 

Are you attracted to same-sex, different sex or intersex people? People who are androgynous, masculine or femme presenting? Are you attracted to people who are genderqueer, genderfluid, transgender and/or nonbinary? Simply people regardless of their gender presentation or sex?

If you’re afraid of claiming a specific identity because you’re unsure, then know you can also identify as gay, bisexual, questioning or otherwise without any experience or desire for physical intimacy. 

Relationships require vulnerability and an understanding of how to be romantically or emotionally available with other people, and sometimes these feelings don’t align with our behavior or sexual attraction.

Genevieve Labe, a Ph.D. student and adjunct faculty member teaching human sexuality at the IU School of Public Health, said they don’t think there’s a clear answer to the reader’s question because the way people ascribe labels to themselves varies person-to-person.

“How I might feel or determine how I identify could be so different for someone else,” they said. “I think whatever feels right in the moment is good. My question back to you is why do we need that label?”

Labe said labels can help us make sense of the world, but it’s important for us to think about the trauma labels have inflicted on people in the queer community, whether it be lingering stereotypes or forcing ourselves to stick to labels once we’ve claimed them.

How we interpret ourselves is dependent on the tools we have available. Knowing this, we can accept our sexualities are subject to change as new information and experiences become available over the course of our lives.

For example, if you’re someone who has identified as gay but end up feeling attraction to someone of a different gender, you shouldn’t feel pressured to prohibit that based on a label, Labe said.

On the contrary, it’s also completely valid to want to identify yourself with a label that feels most affirming to you when you use it.

“Labels should not be boxes into which we feel we must squeeze ourselves, but rather tools with which to communicate and to begin conversations,” Robyn Ochs, bisexual activist and editor of “Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals Around the World and Recognize,” said on her website.

If you feel safe and comfortable confiding in someone close to you, opening up about these feelings might alleviate some pressure. Your sexuality is also yours to share on your own terms — when and with whoever you want to.

Overall, whatever feels comfortable, makes you feel good about yourself and gives you a sense of community is what is right. You’re always allowed to change and reevaluate your needs and desires if you feel your identity doesn’t suit you anymore.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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What does it mean to be heterosexual?

Being exclusively attracted to people of the opposite sex is a surprisingly recent phenomenon.

By Annie Hayes

While heterosexual sex is certainly nothing new, heterosexuality – the quality of being sexually attracted exclusively to people of the opposite sex – is a surprisingly recent phenomenon. In 1901, Dorland’s Medical Dictionary defined heterosexuality as an ‘abnormal or perverted appetite toward the opposite sex’, which is a far cry from how the term is viewed today.

In a few hundred years, the term heterosexual has transformed from obscure medical jargon into an expression of sexuality that is considered the cultural norm. The pervasive belief that straightness is the default mode of sexual orientation is known as heteronormativity, and it perpetuates gender stereotypes that can do more harm than good.

Therapeutic relationship coach Pascale Lane, love, relationship and sexuality coach at Zoe Clews & Associates Emma Spiegler, and founder of AM: Appointment Nadia Deen, delve into heterosexual meaning, discuss the trappings of heteronormativity, and reveal the key to a happy, healthy relationship:

Heterosexual meaning

A heterosexual person is usually said to be attracted to the ‘opposite’ sex, ie men are attracted to women, and women are attracted to men. Heterosexual orientation operates on the basis that sex is binary: you’re either born male or female. However in truth, biological sex is more of a spectrum, as scientists are discovering.

Generally, people are assumed to be heterosexual unless they state otherwise. This assumption is known as heteronormativity. A real-world example might be finding out that your female friend is in a relationship, and blindly presuming that she’s dating a cisgender man (cisgender means your gender identity correlates with the sex you were assigned at birth) when she may in fact be dating a woman or a non-binary person.

What is compulsory heterosexuality?

Coined by the feminist poet Adrienne Rich in her 1980 essay, Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence, the term “compulsory heterosexuality” describes the idea that heterosexuality is a political institution enforced by the patriarchy to make women dependent on men for their wants and needs.

This, Rich said, has led to ‘inequality of power, not only between men and women but also non-heterosexual people,’ says Lane. In her essay, she makes the case that heterosexuality ‘is not “normal”, or even inherent to humans, and that women actually do better by having relationships with other women,’ says Deen.

What is heteronormativity?

Heteronormativity is the belief that heterosexuality is the default sexual orientation. It’s upheld by social, legal, economic, political, educational, and religious institutions, which reinforce the presumption that people are inherently heterosexual and that gender and sex are natural binaries through their processes and cultures.

Heteronormative ideology ‘refers to the belief that there are two separate and opposing genders (women and men) with associated natural roles (masculine and feminine), which are in line with their assigned sex (female and male), and that heterosexuality is a given, rather than one of many possible sexualities,’ a review by Leiden University, Utrecht University and the University of Exeter states.

When we decide that something is normal or natural, anything outside of those boundaries becomes unnatural and abnormal.

This exclusionary view can be harmful to the LGBTQI+ community. ‘When we decide that something is “normal” or “natural”, anything outside of those boundaries becomes unnatural and abnormal,’ says Deen. ‘Basing a society on the notion that everyone fits into a cisgender heterosexual box will not only exclude a large portion of people, but it can also become harmful and even dangerous for them.’

It’s still illegal to be gay, bisexual or transgender in many countries, with punishments ranging from jail time to death, Deen continues. And while this is no longer the case in the UK, LGBTQI+ people still frequently feel unsafe going about their daily lives. According to a YouGov poll, one in five LGBT people – and two in five trans people – have experienced a hate crime or incident due to their sexual orientation and/or gender identity in the last 12 months.

Heteronormativity in heterosexual relationships

Heteronormativity can also be harmful to heterosexual people, as it seeks to normalise behaviours and values that reinforce negative stereotypes. This includes gender roles and sociocultural expectations that are based on the sex you were assigned at birth. For example, men are breadwinners, women are home-makers. Men are aggressive, women are nurturing. Men are tall and muscular, woman are thin and graceful.

These ingrained beliefs ‘have far-reaching consequences,’ the aforementioned review states, because they ‘may serve as a straightjacket for those adhering to them. As an illustration, a straight cisgender man who endorses the heteronormative view that children need a breadwinning father and a caring mother, for example, will likely perceive a same-sex couple as lesser parents but also feel uncomfortable taking up paternity leave himself.’

Heteronormativity can also lead to toxic dynamics in heterosexual relationships. A couple may conform to how they ‘ought’ to be behaving and acting in the relationship, says Spiegler. ‘They can end up relating to constructed stories and roles, rather than authentically relating with each other. This can cause a whole host of issues that, if not inquired into and communicated, can cause resentment, conflict and tension.’

For example, when men believe they need to be ‘strong’ and a ‘provider’, there’s little space for emotionality and vulnerability, Spiegler explains. ‘If a man is feeling like he has to repress or hide his emotions, it can have a significant impact on his mental wellbeing,’ she says. It’s no coincidence that suicide is the single biggest killer of men under 45 in the UK.

Another pervasive stereotype is that women are complicated when it comes to sex, Spiegler says. This causes a disparity in the bedroom. Straight women are the least likely to orgasm during partnered sex, despite straight men reaching the Big O almost every time, according to a study of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and heterosexual men and women published in the Archives of Sexual Behaviour.

5 tips for healthy heterosexual relationships

Challenging heteronormativity can have a positive impact on your relationships, regardless of your sexual orientation. ‘It is important to note that the need to challenge heteronormativity is not a challenge on heterosexuality,’ says Deen. It’s not about tearing down heterosexual relationships, but building happier, healthier ones:

1. Consider your dating preferences

Take stock of any ways your dating preferences are influenced by gender roles and stereotypes – perhaps you “only date tall men” as a rule, or feel put off when a woman initiates the conversation on a dating app. Rigid dating preferences can actually hinder your chances of future happiness.

2. Make your own rules

Setting gendered dating rules can reinforce negative stereotypes and prevent you from meeting new and interesting people. ‘We can do this in so many ways – from having “rules” around who pays for the bill on the first date, to who initiates the first kiss, and who organises the date,’ says Spiegler. ‘The important thing to remember is that what looks “perfect” on paper might not actually work in real life. Ideally you are looking for both a match in compatibility and values, and if you are heavily focusing on gender roles you may miss the person behind the role.’

We are all responsible for changing stereotypical behaviours in order to bring about equality, not just for ourselves but for generations to come.

3. Challenge stereotypes

In heterosexual relationships, there can be assumed roles about who pays for dinner, cooks, cleans up, does the laundry, instigates sex, and so on. ‘It’s all stuff that we are raised to see as totally normal, and yet intellectually we know is not,’ Lane says. ‘We are all responsible for changing these stereotypical behaviours in order to bring about equality, not just for ourselves but for the generations to come.’

4. Communication is key

If you’re looking to redress the balance in an existing relationship, the key is honest, open communication, says Lane.’Whether your struggles are around sexuality, sexual practice or gender stereotyping, taking the time to really explain your thoughts and feelings to each other is almost guaranteed a positive outcome,’ she says. ‘If you are both invested in each other and both want the relationship to work, nothing is insurmountable.’

5. Break the heteronormative cycle

Heteronormativity is not an easy concept to overcome. ‘These attitudes and behaviours have largely been in place for generations and are handed down to us not only from our families but from society and media as a whole,’ Lane adds. But by making a conscious effort not to hold others to heteronormative standards, you can help to break the cycle.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Sex between straight men challenges traditional sexual identities

Attractions, behaviours and identities do not always align, says UBC professor Tony Silva

By Craig Takeuchi

If straight men have sex with other men, that means that they’re closeted, and have internalized homophobia, right?

Not necessarily, according to University of British Columbia sociology professor Tony Silva.

Silva’s new book Still Straight: Sexual Flexibility Among White Men In Rural America (New York University press, 264 pages, $28), poses a challenge to and questions those notions about straight and LGBT people.

Drawing upon interviews with 60 white men from rural areas in the United States over three years, Silva delves into the sex lives of straight men who have hookups, sexual friendships and secretive loving relationships with other men, but remain mostly attracted to women and strongly identify with straight culture.

Although straight men have been known to have sex with other men in all-male environments, such as prison or the military, this murky area of sexual identity and experience has been clouded by issues of secrecy, privacy, homophobia and denial.

Also, though this isn’t the first look at this subject, examination of this area remains limited.

Silva makes the assertion that the men he focuses on in his book aren’t closeted, bisexual or experimenting, and that they aren’t a version of the tortured love story in Brokeback Mountain.

In a recent Q&A with the University of British Columbia, Silva explains differentiations about sexual behaviour, attraction and identity, and addresses issues of homphobia.

Why do straight-identified men have sex with other men?

The majority of the men I interviewed reported that they are primarily attracted to women, not men. Most of these men are also married to women and prefer to have sex with women. They explained that although they loved their wives, their marital sex lives were not as active as they wanted. Sex with men allowed them to have more sex. They don’t consider sex with men cheating and see it as a loophole in their marriage contract.

Some of them also have stereotypical beliefs about women’s sexuality and think that if they have extramarital sex with women, the women could become “emotionally clingy” and that it could threaten their marriage. People who live in small towns and rural areas typically consider marriage as an important part of their identity. These men think that sex with men is a lot less complicated with no attachment. I find it particularly interesting and ironic that their conservative beliefs about gender actually encourage them to have sex with men.

Other men chose to have sex with men for reasons related to masculinity. Some men enjoyed receiving anal sex from other men because this act allowed them to experience pleasure, but without the pressure they felt when they had sex with women. For example, several men explained that they felt like they were expected to be in control when they had sex with women, but not with men. Several single men were lonely or wanted to experience human touch, but were unsure how to do so platonically in a way that felt masculine. Sex helped them connect with other men in a way that felt masculine to them, ironic as that may sound.

Why do these men still identify as straight? Why are they not considered bisexual?

Most of the men identified as straight because they felt that this identity best reflected their romantic relationships with women, their integration in communities composed mostly of straight people, or the way they understood their masculinity. Identifying as straight also meant they could avoid stigma and feel connected to a socially dominant group. Many felt that sex with men was irrelevant to their identities given other aspects of their lives. They felt that heterosexuality and masculinity were “normal” and expected of them.

Furthermore, sexuality is multidimensional and attractions, behaviours and identities do not always align. Sexual identities may describe how individuals perceive themselves, but they do not always indicate a person’s attractions or sexual behaviours.

For example, when a “closeted” gay or bisexual man has sex with another man, he views that sex as reflecting his secret gay/bisexual identity. When a straight-identified man has sex with another man, he views himself as straight despite sex with men.

While many people understandably think that men are “closeted” if they have sex with other men yet identify as straight, this is not exactly true. These men are secretive about their sexual behaviour, but not their identity. In fact, sexual encounters with men are mostly irrelevant to their identity.

How do these men view homosexuality and LGBTQ2+ rights?

A minority of the men I interviewed were homophobic and held prejudice against LGBTQ2+ people and this prejudice makes the thought of an LGBTQ2+ identity unappealing to them. However, the majority of the men, supported same-sex marriage and the right for same-sex couples to raise children.

To confirm these interview findings, I analyzed one nationally representative survey called the National Survey of Family Growth. I looked at the responses of straight-identified men who reported consensual sex with at least two other men, compared to those who had not, on questions about LGBTQ2+ rights and masculinity. They were similar in their attitudes to other straight men. In other words, straight men who have sex with men are no more prejudiced than other straight men.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Is the Kinsey Scale of Sexual Behavior Still Valid?

The decades-old classification system for the study of sex may still have value, but new frameworks offer more.

The Kinsey scale.

By Sophie Putka

Alfred Kinsey’s imprint on the world of sexuality has — and continues to — inspire criticism, fascination, even outrage. It’s a captivating legacy for a man who spent the first half of his career studying the gall wasp.

Depending who you ask, Kinsey — the creator of the Kinsey Scale of sexual behavior along a continuum — either ignited a radically progressive understanding of human sexuality; created a scale that doesn’t come close to encapsulating the range of human sexuality; or even, according to one critic, “spent his lifetime ripping down the institution of the family.”

First published in 1948, Kinsey’s eponymous scale classified people according to their degree of attraction or sexual behavior toward the same or other sex: 0 being “exclusively heterosexual” and 6 being “exclusively homosexual” — with a big swath of gray in between. But for the first time, scientific inquiry had acknowledged that there weren’t just two options.

And though it’s unlikely that a visit to a therapist will earn you a number on the Kinsey Scale today, the legacy of Kinsey lives on in new models of sexuality. But they’ve outgrown him, too. Professionals and researchers say that sexuality is tied up with many other factors — and isn’t necessarily a point on a straight line. Today’s understanding still relies on so much of what Kinsey described, but adds so much more.

Kinsey’s Brave New World

One thing is undisputed: Kinsey’s work was unlike anything his world had ever seen before. In the 1940s, homosexuality was considered a felony in every state because of what were called “sodomy laws.” It wouldn’t be until 1962 that the first state changed that. It wasn’t until 1973 that the bible of psychiatry, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), removed “homosexuality” from its list of diagnoses.

“It’s been just enough decades now that it’s hard for people who were born since 1980 to understand the world in which the Kinsey Reports dropped kind of a bomb,” says Carol Queen, a sociologist, educator, co-founder of the nonprofit Center for Sex & Culture and staff sexologist at Good Vibrations.

Kinsey and his team meticulously collected the accounts of over 11,000 people and their sexual behavior in one-on-one interviews. He ran statistical analyses based on his methodical data collection. Some of his methods have been called into question — such as his omission of sample data from non-white people — and others would have been unheard of today.

Exactly what happened, and whether it should serve to discredit some of his research, is hard to verify today, but accounts include his correspondence with a pedophile to collect descriptions of child sexual behavior, or encouraging and filming sexual relationships between his staff.

With the reports that came from this research — Sexual Behavior in the Human Male in 1948 and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female in 1953 — Kinsey shattered the idea of sexual behavior as binary, showing that the sexual habits of thousands of Americans were as varied and diverse as a field of wildflowers.

Kinsey found that 37 percent of men had had a same-sex sexual experience by age 45. Women, too, turned out to be sexual beings with same and different-gender attraction and behavior — 13 percent had had a same-sex experience. The Human Female report caused such a backlash that Kinsey’s funding from the Rockefeller Foundation was cut. The scale’s function, when it first appeared in Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, was as a way to visualize the information in the text.

“That somebody doesn’t have to be only one sexual orientation, that’s super basic now, right?” says Queen. “It was not super basic back then … Your life could be destroyed if you were discovered to be homosexual, and plenty of people’s were.”

Where the Scale is Off

Current scholars of sex and sexuality don’t deny the Kinsey Scale’s place in history, but can easily identify its blind spots today. “The Kinsey scale … served a really important purpose in moving the field forward at a time when people thought about sexuality in a simplistic, binary, two-categories kind of way,” says Brian Feinstein, an associate professor of psychology at Rosalind Franklin University, whose research focuses on bisexuality and sexual and gender minority health. “But I think at this point that it is largely kind of outdated, and I don’t think it’s sufficiently nuanced to capture the complexity of sexual orientation and sexuality.”

For one, Kinsey’s scale sits along a single axis: it’s a line, and implies that the more one is attracted to one sex, the less attraction there is to the other. “We now know that that’s not really the case. You can be very attracted to both sexes or not attracted to either sex,” says Brendan Zeitch, an associate professor at the University of Queensland’s School of Psychology, who has studied the genetics of human sexuality. “It doesn’t really capture the full range of what’s going on.”

As John Sylla of the American Institute of Bisexuality and Chicago University’s law school put it, “Just because I like Chinese food [that] doesn’t mean I dislike Italian food. Just because I like one sex [that] doesn’t mean I dislike a different one.”

Then there are factors of sexuality that Kinsey conflated, but that don’t always overlap. Sexual attraction — to whom you’re attracted — and sexual behavior — how you actually behave — don’t always agree, but Kinsey lumped the two together on his scale, which ostensibly is a measure of both combined. Kinsey also excluded sexual identity — how one labels oneself — which is now considered a third layer altogether.

For example, today one might identify as “gay” in a same-sex relationship simply out of convenience, even if they feel attraction to other sexes besides their own. Or one might feel attracted to the same sex but have never acted on it, and meanwhile, label themselves as “straight.” In these scenarios, sexual behavior, sexual identity and sexual attraction don’t match up.

There are also problems when it comes to the limiting framework of binary sex within which the scale sits. The scientific community understands sex itself as more than just a set of XX or XY chromosomes. If it were as simple as that, intersex people would not exist. Gender may not line up with a given sex, further complicating Kinsey’s neat scale.

A More Complex Understanding of Sexual Reality

Today, it’s generally understood that sexuality exists in shades of gray, but modern frameworks go beyond the single-line continuum Kinsey provided toward a concept of sexuality that contains much more. New tools have emerged in the years since his breakthrough.

One is called the Storms Sexuality Axis from 1980, which expands Kinsey’s concept to a two-axis scale that accounts for attraction to same or opposite sexes, but also levels of “asexuality” and “bisexuality,” thus partially accounting for what Kinsey overlooked. 

Moshe Rozdzial is a psychotherapist and sex therapist at GLOW counseling in Denver, with a focus on LGBTQ+ issues. He says that one newer tool he works with is the Klein Grid, conceived by Fritz Klein in 1978, who went on to found the American Institute of Bisexuality. The tool encompasses numbered scales for sexual attraction and behavior, but also incorporates social relationships, sexual identity, and lifestyle among other factors in the past, present and future.

Rozdzial says he uses the Klein scale to help clients understand themselves better, and there’s no limit on even the seven factors Klein included. He’ll add questions of his own, on politics, for example. “Nobody’s watching over my shoulder and saying, ‘oh, you can’t add anything to this,’” he says. “It’s just the starting point of … a conversation about how each person is intersectional in all the ways of their existence, including their sexuality and their sexual orientation and attraction.”

Tools and Labels Have Their Uses

One might wonder why today, with our quickly evolving tapestry of sexual alignments, we’d need tools of this kind to begin with. Haven’t we moved beyond graphs and charts?

Queen says that identifying with a word to describe one’s identity allows people to find community. “For so many of us who didn’t feel safe … finding our people has been lifesaving,” she says. “And the Kinsey Scale helped us think in those terms, even if we’re doing it this year, where there are forty sexual orientations that the name for didn’t exist back then.”

According to Feinstein, we can use tools like these today to, in part, help identify problems like health disparities and fix them. “Being able to capture a person’s sexual orientation in a way that is sort of concrete, and being able to collect that data, ultimately ends up informing the research that goes into helping to promote policies that are more equitable,” he says. Research on sexuality can contribute to issues like marriage equality or HIV treatment, he adds.

For others, the Kinsey Scale serves to remind us of the many things we still do not know. “The Kinsey Scale is basic, but it does a good job of teaching us and reminding us [of] that Shakespeare quote: ‘there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy,’” Sylla says. “We live in very exciting times with increasing knowledge and acceptance of diversity, and more freedom to explore our potential.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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How gay do you feel?

When it comes to sexuality, younger generations prefer the wine, not the label

Dan Levy as David Rose in the Golden Globe-winning comedy ‘Schitt’s Creek’

By Jo Ellison

This week I’ve been wondering whether I might become a lesbian. Or whether I should have been one in the past.

The speculation was prompted by the findings of an Ipsos Mori survey of 1,127 British adults that suggests when it comes to gender and the subject of relationships, the points of differentiation are increasingly now blurred. The Sunday Times poll (accompanied by another poll in the US in which the findings were quite similar) found just over half of 18- to 24-year-old respondents saying they were “only” attracted to people of the opposite sex: 35 per cent of Generation Z respondents checked categories that said they were mostly, or equally likely, to swing either way. Older respondents were far more rigid in their sexual preferences: 81 per cent of Baby Boomers claimed they were committed heterosexuals and 76 per cent of Generation Xers said they were “only” attracted to the opposite sex.

While only a tiny sample of the population, the survey represents a huge shift away from the binary expectations that have traditionally straitened our relationships. The biologist Alfred Kinsey first alighted on his sexual spectrum in 1948. But it has taken three further generations for his enlightened thinking to really percolate through the mainstream, with same-sex relationships now being seen as no big deal.

When I asked my own resident Gen Z representative (aged 15) how she felt about relationships she was similarly fluid. While she would probably tick the “only” attracted to the opposite sex at this point in her life, she could well imagine having a same-sex relationship sometime in the future, but she did still imagine herself getting married to a man. She attributed the spike in bi-curiosity to the growing visibility of same-sex relationships on television and in the media, before adding that she thought some women engage in same-sex liaisons to appease the male gaze. Using a same-sex relationship to titillate the bounds of heteronormativity seems a bit retrograde and twisted (very stag-do circa 1995) but I guess the patriarchy wasn’t built on men and woman indulging in the missionary position.

Mainly, the findings illustrate how comfortable young people are with almost any kind of sexuality. Neither do they share the obsession of older folk in naming things. It reminds me of the first season of Schitt’s Creek, in which David Rose explains his pansexual preferences: “Um, I do drink red wine. But I also drink white wine. And I’ve been known to sample the occasional rosé. And a couple summers back I tried a merlot that used to be a chardonnay, which got a bit complicated . . . I like the wine and not the label. Does that make sense?”

One explanation for the current vogue in bi-curiosity falls back on the traditional and, for many, maddening assertion that young people have always been open to “a phase” of experimentation before they “settle down”. But whatever the possible reason, it’s heartening to see the stigmas and insecurities around our sexual preferences eroding with such velocity. While straight people may assume that same-sex relationships have been legalised for decades, gay sex only ceased to be a crime in the UK in 2013, with the repeal of Scotland’s anti-sodomy laws, and sodomy is still technically outlawed in several US states.

Culturally also, it’s only comparatively recently that same-sex relationships have been normalised: Schitt’s Creek, which won another clutch of awards at the Golden Globes last Sunday, has been instrumental in projecting what would once have been a “gay best friend” into a fully rounded leading character. Russell T Davies’s It’s a Sin dared to suggest that gay sex is really fun. And I’ve lost count of how many same-sex relationships I’ve seen dramatised among the Bafta longlist. Most of those relationships were incidental to the drama: it just so happened that the character was gay. Having said that, lesbians have not been treated quite so kindly: currently there’s Kate Winslet, grunting over fossils in the lumpy Ammonite, and Rosamund Pike, platinum haired and evil as a lesbian con-artist in the solipsistic I Care a Lot.

Would I have preferred the wine and not the label had I been 20 years younger and less conditioned to be straight? At school, I was voted the classmate most likely to become a lesbian, and while I have yet to fulfil that early promise, I feel that in the current climate I shouldn’t rule it out. Mostly, when I look back on my relationships with homosexuality, I recall most clearly mooning over flop-haired individuals such as Hugh Grant in Maurice, Rupert Everett in Another Country, and Daniel Day-Lewis as the street punk in My Beautiful Laundrette. Each fixed on love affairs that were clandestine, illicit and always tortuously romantic, and each captured perfectly what I thought true love should be about.

It is the teenage girl’s prerogative, I think, to overly identify with heartbreakingly beautiful Merchant Ivory movies (see also Call Me By Your Name for a more contemporary example) in which the main protagonists will give not one single thought to girls. Some might read that as a sign of unconscionable repression: I would argue it sets in motion a habit of falling helplessly in love with unavailable gay men. Where was that box in the poll?

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