Ryan Castellucci :nonbinary_flag:
Homosexuality, in a strict semantic sense of being attracted to only to exactly the same gender as oneself, requires gender to be categorizable within a finite set.
If gender is represented as a vector, the idea of any two people having completely identical genders is absurd.
In this essay, I will
Ryan Castellucci :nonbinary_flag:
Gender does require a vector to represent, the only question is how many dimensions it exists in. A gender "spectrum" with female at one end and male at the other is not sufficient to describe, for example, agender people.
Ryan Castellucci :nonbinary_flag:
There was an old tweet describing gender as a loosely bimodal point cloud in n-dimensional space. This seems sufficient, and there's nothing wrong with labeling the major clusters, but they are clusters, and I doubt there is any actual duplication of points.
Ryan Castellucci :nonbinary_flag:
Pragmatically, then, homosexuality actually refers to sexual attraction exclusively within one's own local gender cluster.
The clusters don't really have clearly defined boundaries, though, so it can get a bit weird.
Ryan Castellucci :nonbinary_flag:
Where I think it gets interesting is when you try to define heterosexuality under this model. Is it attraction between different cluster, or does it strictly refer to attraction between the two largest clusters?
Ryan Castellucci :nonbinary_flag:
Even weirder - if we accept this model, are "straight" and "heterosexual" still the same thing?
Ryan Castellucci :nonbinary_flag:
If one is a member of a smaller cluster, and not pansexual, describing sexual orientation effectively requires enumerating the clusters which one experiences attraction to.
Ryan Castellucci :nonbinary_flag:
As far as my own experience goes, pansexual is a reasonable approximation, but it's really just, as the youths would say, "how are the vibes?".
Ryan Castellucci :nonbinary_flag:
I'm not sure whether this thread is a shitpost or not.
Ryan Castellucci :nonbinary_flag:
@jerclarke I made it exactly 300 characters to match the skeet limit on bluesky, lol.
I am a bit uncomfortable with "philia" as it may have some negative connotations, but I've seen, e.g. androsexual and gynosexual used by nonbinary people who have more discerning attraction than my own.
Jer Clarke
@ryanc Love the ending 😂
Seriously though, once I came out as non-binary it really hit me how bad the labels are. People had questions and all I could give them were rants.
Personally I think we should focus on "what you like" rather than “what you are” as a starting point, and the “philia" words work best for that.
E.g.
Androphilia: into dudes
Gynophilia: into dudettes
Ceterophilia: into etcetera
The last one is the most controversial but I'm always hoping to make it happen anyway 🤷🏻♀️
Ryan Castellucci :nonbinary_flag:
@jerclarke and also there are can be differing levels of predisposition towards experiencing attraction to members of different clusters.
There are subclusters within the two big ones that I am entirely uninterested in.
Ryan Castellucci :nonbinary_flag:
@drsbaitso ...I see what you did there.
Ryan Castellucci :nonbinary_flag:
@drsbaitso sexual attraction can be represented as a set of scalar values describing one's level of attraction to specific clusters and/or vector components
Ryan Castellucci :nonbinary_flag:
@drsbaitso way more complicated than gender itself, tbh
Ryan Castellucci :nonbinary_flag:
@drsbaitso you can also model fluidity with a friction factor and/or functions over time
Ryan Castellucci :nonbinary_flag:
@f4grx I'm currently stuck in imperial genderspace. 😫
F4GRX Sébastien
@ryanc define a metric over the genderspace
Ryan Castellucci :nonbinary_flag:
@f4grx I managed to find an adapter, but the government is trying to confiscate it!
F4GRX Sébastien
@ryanc 🤣
GNU social JP is a social network, courtesy of GNU social JP管理人. It runs on GNU social, version 2.0.2-dev, available under the GNU Affero General Public License.
All GNU social JP content and data are available under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.