Not born that way!
I wish people would stop saying that those who identify as x-sexual (where x equals any aspect of the sexuality spectrum) are born that way.
I know it's used as a way to shut up haters, in an effort to both justify and normalise those sexual identities traditionally vilified by the mainstream. I get it, okay. But I think it's breeding an updated form of sexual intolerance.
The whole notion of being born that way is problematic and demeaning, because it implies our sexual identity is somehow set in the womb, and we have some "right" default setting we need to discover. It implies that if we change our identification from hetero to bi, or hypsersexual to asexual, or as a man desiring women to a woman desiring women, then somehow we were performing our sexuality "wrongly" in the beginning, because it wasn't who we were born to be. Ugh.
Ugh, ugh, ugh.
That is still pathologising sexuality! It's still denying that there is a behaviour component as well as a genetic component to sexuality, and that the behaviour component does not actually need bullshit excuses to make it okay. All a sexual identity requires to be okay is consensuality when it's expressed with (a) partner(s).
Can we stop this narrative of genetically predestined sexual identity now, please. It's served its purpose. Time to move on. This entry was originally posted at http://cupidsbow.dreamwidth.org/400495.html.
I know it's used as a way to shut up haters, in an effort to both justify and normalise those sexual identities traditionally vilified by the mainstream. I get it, okay. But I think it's breeding an updated form of sexual intolerance.
The whole notion of being born that way is problematic and demeaning, because it implies our sexual identity is somehow set in the womb, and we have some "right" default setting we need to discover. It implies that if we change our identification from hetero to bi, or hypsersexual to asexual, or as a man desiring women to a woman desiring women, then somehow we were performing our sexuality "wrongly" in the beginning, because it wasn't who we were born to be. Ugh.
Ugh, ugh, ugh.
That is still pathologising sexuality! It's still denying that there is a behaviour component as well as a genetic component to sexuality, and that the behaviour component does not actually need bullshit excuses to make it okay. All a sexual identity requires to be okay is consensuality when it's expressed with (a) partner(s).
Can we stop this narrative of genetically predestined sexual identity now, please. It's served its purpose. Time to move on. This entry was originally posted at http://cupidsbow.dreamwidth.org/400495.html.