{"id":37530,"date":"2011-10-24T12:00:27","date_gmt":"2011-10-24T17:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=37530"},"modified":"2013-11-09T05:13:03","modified_gmt":"2013-11-09T10:13:03","slug":"how-useful-is-the-concept-of-sexual-orientation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2011\/10\/24\/how-useful-is-the-concept-of-sexual-orientation\/","title":{"rendered":"How Useful is the Concept of Sexual Orientation?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I often find myself bemused at our insistence on using sex (i.e., male or female) as the defining thing that describes our sexual orientation. \u00a0We are homosexual, heterosexual, or bisexual, right? \u00a0These words supposedly mean that we are sexually attracted to the same sex, the other sex, or both. \u00a0Right?<\/p>\n

No! Not by a long shot! Essentially no one is attracted to men<\/em>, for example, no matter what their sexual orientation. \u00a0I’m straight and female, but I am attracted to a very, very, very <\/em>small subset of men. I’m generally only attracted to men within a certain age range, with kind faces (I find the chiseled look a bit intimidating); also, I prefer them to be relatively clean. \u00a0If I can add non-physical characteristics, then being aggressive with buddies or rude to waitstaff or prone to jealousy are all turn-offs, as are certain politics. \u00a0I’ll stop here. \u00a0Suffice to say, suggesting that I’m attracted to men is a vast overstatement. \u00a0Sexual orientation, as we think of it, simply doesn’t describe my proclivities. I suppose this is true for most of us.<\/p>\n

I was reminded of this idea when I came across an OK Cupid post. \u00a0Christian Rudder drew on the profiles of over 250,000 heterosexual users, discovering that a large percentage of them had (positive) sexual experiences with people of the same sex, or wanted to (source<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Thirteen percent of self-identified straight men have had a sexual encounter with another man. \u00a0Seven percent of them enjoyed it. \u00a0Another 5% haven’t had the pleasure, but they would like to.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Significantly more self-identified straight\u00a0women, 33%, \u00a0have had a sexual encounter with another woman. \u00a0Twenty-six percent of them enjoyed it. \u00a0Another 18% haven’t, but they would like to. \u00a0Less than half reported that they hadn’t and figured they never would.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Reported sexual orientation, then, simply doesn’t map perfectly onto desires or behaviors, in addition to failing to capture the full complexity of our sexualities.<\/p>\n

For more of OK Cupid\u2019s data, see our posts on\u00a0the racial politics of dating<\/a>,\u00a0what women want<\/a>,\u00a0how attractiveness matters<\/a>,\u00a0age, gender, and the shape of the dating pool<\/a>,\u00a0older women want more sex<\/a>, and\u00a0the lies love-seekers tell<\/a>.<\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I often find myself bemused at our insistence on using sex (i.e., male or female) as the defining thing that describes our sexual orientation. \u00a0We are homosexual, heterosexual, or bisexual, right? \u00a0These words supposedly mean that we are sexually attracted to the same sex, the other sex, or both. \u00a0Right? No! Not by a long […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[23384,55,778,54],"class_list":["post-37530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-social-construction-discourselanguage","tag-gender","tag-intersectionality","tag-sexual-orientation"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37530"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37530\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58634,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37530\/revisions\/58634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}