Gender Preference

This is one i have struggled with for years , what is important to you in love , do you let your gender preference stand in the way of "real love" i always feel i let the woman of my dreams, my better half , walk away because i really like men more , what say you ? Was i wrong , how do you deal with this? Is there a way ?

I think everyone is a little different. For some it's not a 'preference', some people only like men/women. For others, they're somewhere in between.

I myself treat gender just like any other physical characteristic. For me, it's like hair colour. I prefer blondes, but if I meet an amazing brunette, it isn't go to be a deal breaker :laugh:

So I prefer women, but if I meet a really nice guy it [strike]isn't[/strike] hasn't been a deal breaker :laugh:

I thought that , that it would not be a deal breaker , and maybe i just did not feel sexually attracted to my girlfriend at the time , but i am still sad about losing her over this , i just wonder how important it is to me then , i think i really need to get to the bottom of this before i start ANY serious commitment now

I feel that there a many, many factors to consider there. But I'm not sure (at this moment) why I feel that way ...

I've had a lot of sexual partners through the years, but very few long-term (lasting a year or more) relationships. I also prefer men, but having come of sexual age in a cultural vacuum, I tried very hard to prefer only women through most of my youth (or, from a more honest perspective, I didn't try that hard -- I was just more secretive about the experiments with boys). The result was shockingly, although there is a preference for men, sex can be pretty good with anyone as long as they aren't scary (one can, with the help of a good therapist, define "scary" for oneself). It took me a long time to learn that there is an enormous difference between what "looks" sexy and what actually is.

Sex can be amazing with either men or women as long as the context is authentic and honest. Given a wide variety of situations, one could quite unabashedly admit that when two people of either gender can candidly engage ( Huxley) in erotic play, it can be very satisfying. When it is merely wanting to get off and any old body will do (and they'd better keep their mouth shut about it afterwards), then it is about on par with using someone else's body to masturbate ... And there's nothing attractive nor psychologically sound about being someone's dildo (for men or for women).

With me, that could be summarised as follows : make me laugh - even at myself -, we can have a go ; try to cast me as an actor in a porno, I'm going home ...

Then again, there's a flip-side to that scary assessment : making love to someone one is in love with is going to be a little scary just because there's something else at stake here. Something big and important. When seducing or acquiescing to a casual sexual partner, the consequences are less drastic because the emotional investment is less of a risk. (Here one might want to consider the nuance between being awe-struck and being frightened.)

These days (if ever) reproduction is not what we're thinking about when we consider our intimate partners. There is all sort of scalar preferences that have been conditioned into our attractions. Thus we find a paradox : what we consider meaningless sex is very often imbued with meaning, much of that of a non-sexual significance. Also meaningful sex does not always carry the same meaning. And in both arenas, "promiscuity" and "fidelity" have taken on wildly different meanings as the world has changed also ...

So, regarding preference. The question that we may want to pose here is "what am I preferring ?" What am I bringing to an intimate encounter, and what does this encounter bring to me ? Is the (current) partner someone with whom I can enjoy a friendship, and where ought the boundaries of that friendship be placed ? As friendship and love are composite moments of Joy ("love" being a meta-emotion arising by repetitions of "joy" brought about by another), what mental elements are going into establishing the boundary ?

Now, this is, of course, only concerning preferences of sexual partners. The multiple instances of "Joy" that bring about Love are much more obscure -- to the extent that even with biochemical and neuro-scientific analyses, fMRI scans and a monster-load of qualitative analysis data*, to the mystery of "why" this person and not another remains : "because it's him/her ; because it's me" (Montaigne) On this, I feel that Plato, although he didn't have to deal with post-post-modernism's omnimedia mass-hypnosis effects, had it about pegged :

"True love is admiration." Generally, the men (or in some larger sense "people") I find the most adorable - including sexy - are people that in many ways I would like to be like. Not via some vicarious role-playing, but someone with whom the addition of his strengths amplify mine and his character flaws click well enough with my own that all around something beneficial comes out of the union. It is rare enough (in nearly 50 years, I've experienced it twice) that should I ever find that to be the case with a woman, should I reject it just because she's a woman ? One would think not.

Then again, if I ever found that in anyone, I very likely could not reject it no matter what my mind was computing about the situation by the standard the too old, too ugly, too stupid categories.

Long story already long -- preference alone is a poor criterion for the prognosis of a relationship. It makes us disqualify people who would be really good with us and choose some who - as most of our love-lives have indicated - are not particularly advantageous over the long haul.

But then, what the hell do I know ... ?


* Based on reading the work of Francesco Alberoni, Helen Fisher, Alan Downs, Steven Bereznai, Marina Castañeda et al. on this topic.

Long story already long -- preference alone is a poor criterion for the prognosis of a relationship. It makes us disqualify people who would be really good for us and choose some who - as most of our love-lives have indicated - are not particularly advantageous over the long haul.

But then, what the hell do I know ... ?

thats what happened to me indeed , i let her get away and got married to a guy who proved to be toxic in the end , and i agree , what the hell do i know , i want to figure this out , because i worry about it , i worry because someone is in love with me and i cannot decide where to go from there no..i dont know where to go from here , and its not nice on the person who has these feelings , and i dont know anymore what i am feeling...

I think that when it comes to attraction, YOU DO YOU!!!

Attraction and sexuality are not always neat little ticky boxes that you can check off. They're a spectrum, and for many, an ever-changing spectrum.

I was exclusively heterosexual for a long time, but now, I'm on the bisexual spectrum.

That being said, I don't believe they're is just one person out there for you. I believe in true love, but also that it doesn't only happen once. If you missed your chance with one soulmate, find another one!

Leah Starspectre wrote: I think that when it comes to attraction, YOU DO YOU!!!

Attraction and sexuality are not always neat little ticky boxes that you can check off. They're a spectrum, and for many, an ever-changing spectrum.

I was exclusively heterosexual for a long time, but now, I'm on the bisexual spectrum.

That being said, I don't believe they're is just one person out there for you. I believe in true love, but also that it doesn't only happen once. If you missed your chance with one soulmate, find another one!

I do agree with you , well my head does , but my heart ....

That being said, I don't believe they're is just one person out there for you. I believe in true love, but also that it doesn't only happen once. If you missed your chance with one soulmate, find another one!

Ah this one bothers me , and i will give an example , in my village men dont smile at me much in "that" way , when i went into Einhoven ( town 250,000 inh) i notice men smile more like they want something from you, i used to like that attention , but now i live in a village for 7 years i think : "why do you think a stranger can make you happy? " Can a stranger make you happy , do they believe that , its confusing for me ...i somehow think i already Know my soulmate ..

MartaLina wrote:

Leah Starspectre wrote: I think that when it comes to attraction, YOU DO YOU!!!

Attraction and sexuality are not always neat little ticky boxes that you can check off. They're a spectrum, and for many, an ever-changing spectrum.

I was exclusively heterosexual for a long time, but now, I'm on the bisexual spectrum.

That being said, I don't believe they're is just one person out there for you. I believe in true love, but also that it doesn't only happen once. If you missed your chance with one soulmate, find another one!

I do agree with you , well my head does , but my heart ....

Yes, me too ...

Contrary to what has been so wildly and erroneously echoed before, it is not a numbers game !

We get so intently focused on "meeting" someone, that we forget that there is a lot of shared everyday life experiences which fall way outside of anything considered remotely romantic that have to be taken into account. The "getting together" point is just the launch pad. Does your relationship have enough essential fuel to make the trip after that, or do you just run out of enthusiasm after discovering that the one who was so "wonderful" is just a human being ?

MartaLina wrote:

That being said, I don't believe they're is just one person out there for you. I believe in true love, but also that it doesn't only happen once. If you missed your chance with one soulmate, find another one!

Ah this one bothers me , and i will give an example , in my village men dont smile at me much in "that" way , when i went into Einhoven ( town 250,000 inh) i notice men smile more like they want something from you, i used to like that attention , but now i live in a village for 7 years i think : "why do you think a stranger can make you happy? " Can a stranger make you happy , do they believe that , its confusing for me ...i somehow think i already Know my soulmate ..

Everybody is a stranger until you get to know them.