So many different meanings of sexuality and not one of them.

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Reptillian
Snowy Owl
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01 Jan 2013, 12:53 am

Not one of them is without problem. The dictionary definition of X-sexuality is _ is sexually attracted to X. Here's the problem, you have so many different interpretations of attracted with different degree of emphasis on the immutability assumption, exclusivity assumption, and durability assumption along with whatever age counts. Not only that, even if you try to expand on defining heterosexuality/homosexuality/bisexuality/etc, you're going to need to have so many criteria that it can be arguably be too arbitrary to understand while a simple idea has a lot of holes to it.

Here's some few examples-

Homosexual:
(of a person or animal, especially a male person) Preferring romantic or sexual partners of the same gender or the same sex.)

-This definition has its set of problems as it ignores scenarios where a person is actually sexually attracted to the gender in which the person does not get involved as much as the less preferred one. There are people who are less inclined to perform sexual activities with their much more preferred genders and have 0 problems with doing it. So, that example kinds of undermines the validity of this meaning.

Homosexual: a person, regardless of sex, is a homosexual, if and only if that person engages in, attempts to engage in, has a propensity to engage in, or intends to engage in sex with another person of the same sex.

-It has it's own set of problems as it seems to assume that actions determinate one's sexuality and there are forced scenarios. So now onto showing my example of how you must have to expand and it still remains having holes.

Homosexual: a person, regardless of sex, is a homosexual, if and only if that person willingly engages in, attempts to engage in, has a propensity to engage in, or intends to engage in sex with another person of the same sex.

-This ignores the fact that there are people who are willingly to engage into homosexual acts without actually being attracted to them such as people who don't mind going against their own sexuality and/or porn actors. Not to mention that this also ignores celibate people.

Homosexual- “a person, regardless of sex, is a homosexual, if and only if that person willingly engages in, attempts to engage in, has a propensity to engage in, or intends to engage in sex exclusively with another person of the same sex.”

-This has it's problems as it ignores closet case and one could question what is propensity plus the attempts to engage in could be easily shown to have the above problem. It also ignores scenarios where a person may have desire of the opposite sex, but the person in question still intends to engage with the same sex.

And then, we go into different definitions and not one of them is without problems.



RazorEddie
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01 Jan 2013, 8:35 am

I think you are over analyzing this:

Quote:
The dictionary definition of X-sexuality is _ is sexually attracted to X.

That is all you need. Just because someone is attracted to x doesn't mean they have to act on it. A lesbian can have sex with a man for a multitude of reasons while still not being attracted to them. For social/religious or other reasons people may well never act on their attractions.

Just to confuse the issue even more sexuality is a spectrum. A heterosexual person may occasionally be slightly attracted to someone of the same gender and a homosexual may be attracted to someone of the opposite gender.

To summarize: People are complicated.


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Reptillian
Snowy Owl
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01 Jan 2013, 7:56 pm

RazorEddie wrote:
Just to confuse the issue even more sexuality is a spectrum.


I'd like to address this post by pointing out that sexuality can't be quantified and there is fluid sexuality, so there isn't any actual way to confirm this thesis statement when it seems to be unfalsifiable, but then again, the social construction viewpoint is also unfalsifiable, and then you have this viewpoint of the supposedly existing undetectable combination which is the gay gene. There's some few more issues I'd like to address, but I'm sure you know where I'm getting at.