I have been thinking lately about sexual profiles. I think that it was Kinsey who created a profile of the gay straight continuum. While this was a big step forward for the time, it is time to step further. For one thing I doubt that the gay straight line is a single continuum. It is more likel a complex made up of many variables. Certainly the overall complex of human sexuality is much more complex than this. Yet I have not seen much in the way of matrix profiles that seek to deal with this aspect of our nature as has been done with other personality (Myers-Brigs) Profiles and behavioral (DiSC) profiles.

The popularized personality and behavior profiles seem to be part chaos theory and part astrology. These profiles each take four basic attributes placed in a continuum and they create a matrix that supplies ratios and relationships between these continuums that provide highly detailed and fairly complex information about the individual. A small sample of the personality pattern is projected onto the larger field with the assumption that the overall pattern is going to be similar to the smaller pattern. This seems to work fairly well. Of course within the range of the single measures of the matrix the descriptors are rather vague. People are always amazed at how well these tests describe them, but I’m fairly certain people would be able to project themselves into almost any reading. Most of us could easily see ourselves as being described as an introvert or an extrovert. When someone tells you that you are an introvert, even if you are an extrovert you are going to think of those aspects of your personality that do not fit the extrovert concept, even if those aspects are few and far between.

But I am not a complete naysayer about these profiles. While I’m inclined to view them with a certain level of skepticism, I also think that they do provide some general information that can be helpful. But most significantly they provide a lexicon for speaking about personality and behavior in more complex and sophisticate ways. With these profiles we begin to think about personality as a complex of interacting ratios. With deeper understanding people tend to feel more in control.

More than anything we need a better lexicon for speaking about sexuality. We need a lexicon that encourages us to think of sexuality in less linear terms. Anyone who thinks that there is a single continuum going from gay to straight with bi being a single rare point in-between has not thought about sex very deeply.

But if we were going to create a four variable matrix from which to read our sexual make up, what would these measures would be? As we think about an answer to this question it might be helpful to think about some various aspects of sexuality. One such aspect might be a distinction between what in sexuality is given to free will and environmental circumstances and what is given to genetics. There has, for some time, been a debate raging that sex has to be one or the other. But I’m pretty sure that it is both. Don’t get me wrong, I find the suggestion that people choose to be and can be “cured” from being gay as intellectually and socially reprehensible. But by the same token, I see the rebuttal as being overly reactive. There is a component of free will in the sexual equation.

As someone who is narrowly and restrictedly straight, I have, nonetheless, been able to expand my sexuality and find aspects of physical intimacy that I can enjoy sharing with men. No doubt some of this has to do with finding different ways of thinking about and defining intimacy. An example here, not from my own experience, is homophobic men going to a tit bar. These men do not seem to recognize that even though they are looking at the women, they are sharing the experience with their buddies. These are typically guys whose limited perspective hampers their ability to relate to and connect with women on anything but a purely physical level so they are left to find a rather twisted intimate connection in sexuality by sharing a sexual experience with their hunting buddies who they can better relate to. A gay friend once told me that the surest, if not most dangerous, place to find a cock to suck was at a tit bar after midnight when these guys are drunk and horny and looking at going home to a lonely and angry wife.

Buddies slapping each other on the back while laughing and stuffing dollar bills into a girl's G-string is a bisexual experience. While I have never found it desirable to share intimacy with men in quite this same setting, I have, nonetheless, found similar connections. For example I love sharing my wife with another man. While I don’t want her to be enjoyed only as an object like the impersonal dancer, I do crave the camaraderie of sharing her with another man.

I once had a relationship with a married couple. On Friday nights I would go to their house around 8:00. He and I would sit and have a drink while listening to music or watching a ballgame, while she puttered getting ready for the nights festivities. She would set candles out in the bedroom and put music on. She would put their child to bed and put something nice on and eventually join us in the living room for a drink and some conversation on the way to erotic play. He and I enjoying each other’s company without her was a part of the seduction of the evening. When she would join us in the living room there was a sense that she was joining an already established bond. While I felt connected to him within the context of this sexual dance, it was nothing like the connection I had with her that was more passion driven and directly erotic. I had no desire, for example, to kiss him. And while I enjoyed his touch within the tangle of bodies it was not like her touch. Nor did I desire to hold him in my arms. But only within a narrow and unsophisticated analysis could one say that I did not have a sexual and even intimate relationship with him.

My connection to her was significantly a factor of biology. Even thought the nature of my attraction to her was colored by the circumstances the basic attraction would have been there regardless of those circumstances. It was biological. I had no such attraction to him. What I desired and enjoyed from my relationship with him was wholly a construct of the circumstances.
As we think about a sexuality profile this distinction between these aspects may be a factor. A ratio between these influences may be meaningful.

Upcoming Adventure

We will soon be going to Vegas for a few days. While Vegas does not exactly fit into most aspects of my value set there are certainly some aspects of this trip that I am looking forward to. I love watching people and there is no place better than Vegas for that. People are away from home and free to do things that they otherwise would not. I remember being at Circus Circus with my father when I was about 12. My father was on the floor and I was walking around upstairs. I was watching the action below when I noticed a woman in a fishnet pant suit with nothing on under it. I spent the rest o the night running around the balcony trying to keep my eyes on this fascinating sight. While we do not expect to spend any time where there will be children, I do expect Lindi to be well exposed for most of the trip. With any luck we will find someone for her to play with. Vegas is the kind of place where she can escape some of her inhibitions.

I had put an ad on the LV Craig’s List in hopes of maybe chatting up some potential candidates ahead of time, but after a few shallow and even rude comments I stopped even opening the replies. When sexuality is thrown out as a possibility it becomes the main focus and the whole dynamic is changed. Far better to meet people there and let circumstance that unfold according to the situation and not what you hope the situation will be. In Lindi’s adventures she has enjoyed being with friends more than with strangers and acquaintances. But after college the likelihood of hooking up with friends diminishes.

You often hear that sex ruins a friendship. That has not been my experience. Sex has always made us closer to those friends that we have hooked up with. I have to admit that this has not happened all that often.

Anyway, I will have a camera with me in Vegas and hope to document any adventures that we have. No matter what else happens I expect to watch her pulling a long rigid handle and hoping to for a climatic response. Let’s hope that there will be more excitement than just from the slots.

Whoremone

This week a very kind person offered to give us a PRO account on Flickr. While tremendously honored, I, nonetheless, had to turn it down. As I understand it, a pro account allows for a higher volume of pictures to be posted. Unfortunately, we have very few pictures and not a lot of opportunity to take more. My wife is both low libido and rather shy. She hates having attention of any kind, and especially a camera, pointed in her direction.

One of the few things that does tend to play a part in the moments when she becomes more adventurous is gifts. It is not that she is shallow or overly materialistic - she is not at all. I suspect that there may be some sort of biological aspect of the connection between women being given gifts and their libido. A biochemical component of women getting gifts and becoming horny would explain a good deal in history and in life, including the first occupation. This would make sense on several levels. Most animal mating rituals equate to the male showing the female that he is the best provider or protector - with humans that equates to money or gifts.

From the archives of my own experience, I can relate a couple of fun experiences. I am always trying to get my wife to connect with other men. There are two primary reasons for this. For her, she connected with me when she was a seventeen-year-old virgin and missed out on the sexual exploration of a young single life. For me, I deal with rejection issues and this is the odd counterintuitive way that we are given to do it.

But the point here is, to put it bluntly, gift giving and putting out. About 15 years ago my wife wanted us to take a vacation that we could not really afford. I suggested that I would do it if she would sleep with a friend that we would be visiting. She shocked me by agreeing. This conversation took place in the car, and 15 years later I can tell you the exact location of where we were when she said that.

Another time we were on vacation, visiting a friend, who was taking us out to a nice restaurant. On the way to the restaurant I convinced my wife to stop at a little boutique and pick out something a little sexier than what she had on. We found a nice dress that clung appealingly to her fit body and was somewhat low cut. Through dinner I noticed that the top was becoming looser. Soon her breasts were visible to anyone walking by and our friend and I were gazing as openly at her breasts as if they were a painting in a museum. Most amazingly she did not cross her arms and cover up as she usually does when she is wear something even slightly revealing. No doubt the wine had a lot to do with this as did the fact that we were on vacation, which is a mixture of relaxation and spending money. But I am convinced that my wife was more unabashed than she has ever been partly because someone was buying her an expensive dinner and expensive wine.

In a sense I am suggesting that perhaps all women are whores. Certainly I’m not the first to consider such a hypothesis, though I hope that my suggestion may be a little less crass than some.
Obviously, I am making this statement based on the very narrow data set of my own experience, which is completely confounded by my own wishful thinking. Do others know of research that may have explored this question? I will be thinking of additional research to do on my own.

I'm back at least for this single post. As this blog is on my profile at Flickr, I occasionally get responses about it. I will try to do a better job of keeping up and maybe even promoting the blog. I encourage comments. If you have something that you would like to put on the top level please send it to me at sextex@gmail.com.

I am always fascinated by the integrity disconnect that people have with their sexuality. To a large degree there are two camps of people: those who fully embrace, at least certain aspects of their sexuality, and those who build a brick wall around their sexuality, or at least a well fortified bedroom door.

Those who embrace their sexuality tend to be high libido people, and they seem to have no choice in the matter. They tend to bring little attention to any aspect of sexuality other than the purely physical. It seems, for example, that swingers are almost always a couple with two high libido partners.

Most of the rest of society seems to view their own sexuality as taboo. Sexuality contains too much vulnerability for most of us to be comfortable bringing it out in the light of day or with more than the one person that we must trust. For many the vulnerability is too great even for self-examination. People are embarrassed by their sexuality.

I believe that overcoming fear of vulnerability is the key to the next great paradigm shift in actualizing human potential. Sexuality is the most direct conduit other have to our inner identities; as such it is the focal point of vulnerability. Luckily it is also something that we are biologically drawn to.

If we look at the history of human sexuality, it has been a progression from strictly biological function to something that connects us in more sophisticated ways. Certainly the development of romantic love has been transforming. The next step in which romantic love becomes a less guarded link but becomes a more abundent link between wider networks of people will, I believe, provide a new paradigm. One in which relationships become more sophisticated and sustaining of the individual and the community. This paradigm will provide a model of security in which human creativity is free to more fully blossom. Unfortunatley most people remain as open minded about monogomy as they are about politics and religion.

What has been deemed “the sexual revolution” was, I believe, the precursor to the real sexual revolution, which we are on the cusp of. I consider myself a sexual revolutionary. Well okay maybe revolutionary is too bold a word. My goal is to convince people that sexuality is an amazing and beautiful aspect of humanity to be embraced and practiced. Not surprisingly, any efforts along these lines have always been very academic. It is necessary in the academic, scientific, objective to isolate ones own perspective and keep it out of the equation. The academic approach is a safe copout.

We are in need of a social transformation. Most people would agree with the statement that sexuality is a beautiful and even powerful aspect of humanity. However, if you describe most any nuance of some one elses sexual preference, they will make a face and say, “ewwwue.” In comparison take that same person on a nature walk and show them the vast variety of flowers, something that they also recognize as beautiful, and they will immediately find the beauty with fascination.

One of the truly amazing aspects of sexuality is its power of healing. It seems that fetishes are often an aspect of dealing with past injuries. Take BDSM for example, a large percentage of people who are active participants in this lifestyle have experienced traumatic sexual experiences as a child. This is fascinating, beautiful and potentially very significant.

But in order to develop the kind of environment in which people can easily access and explore their sexual identities, we must stop turning our noses up at the unique aspects of individual's sexual make up.

This is important so that we can each embrace with joy our own sexual profile. It is also an important aspect of community building. Take for example the issue of pedophilia. This seems to be a very prevalent aspect of human sexuality. Anyone who spends any time at all on the naughtier side of the internet soon realizes that teens and other aspects of a hunger for youth is probably the most common theme. And this is not simply an aspect of our sick modern society, as evangelicals would have us believe. Certainly the Greeks and other societies embraced it more fully and acceptingly than do we.

I am not prepared to provide apologetics for pedophiles. To the contrary, I believe that one of the ways that culture advances is in the protection of the week and vulnerable. Children should be protected, not from sex, but from those who would prioritize their own sexual preferences. This includes any aspect of coercion. As a liberal I am ashamed of Bill Clinton, not because he had sex in the oval office, lied about it, or jeopardized the integrity of the presidency, but because he had sex with a subordinate. I am disappointed in the liberal community for not calling him on it. Should sexual harassment in the work place be tolerated at any level?

The problem is that we so often fail to distinguish between desires and actions in our hyper judgmental society. It seems that pedophilia is hugely common; it is probably an aspect of dealing with our own experiences as children, yet there is no tolerance for people to deal with it in anyway. If, as a society, we could accept that people have these desires and realize that these fantasies are a mechanism of healing then maybe we could provide outlets that did not involve victimizing children. Pedophiles need to deal with their urges. If we do not provide a means of doing that, they will do it in the worst way possible.

Fortunately, pedophilia is not one of my fantasies, so I have very little to offer in terms of suggestions of how we might create a society that allows for people’s sexual feelings to be accepted in away that does not victimize children. I do know that the fantasies I have are not a matter of choice. They are as much a part of me as my arms and legs. It makes no sense to make people ashamed of who they are. It does make sense to prevent them from victimizing others. Repression seems to be the best predictor that there will be victims. Yet repression is what we insist on.