Sexual orientation: in which direction does your compass point?

Sexual orientation can be simply described as the type of sex a person is attracted to and in what ways. The American Psychological Association describes sexual orientation as follows: “Sexual orientation refers to an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions to men, women, or both sexes.” It is an integral part of who we are as human beings, although it may not be evident in a person’s behavior, activities, or appearance. There are many factors that go into one’s orientation, and it usually encompasses a combination of environmental, emotional, hormonal, and biological factors.

While there are numerous guidance groups, there are four that are agreed upon in scientific circles. These terms were coined in the 19th century and we use them to this day.

Heterosexual
This defines the group that is attracted to the opposite sex, examples being a man attracted to women or a woman attracted to men. This is also known in slang terms as “straight” or “straight”.

homosexual
This term is used to define the group that is attracted to people of the same sex, examples being a woman attracted to women or a man attracted to men. Gay men sometimes use the term “gay” and gay women often use the term “lesbian.”

bisexual
Those who associate with this group do not fall within the heterosexual or homosexual definitions, but rather are emotionally romantic and/or sexually attracted to both men and women, whether they themselves are women or men. People who have a distinct (but not exclusive) attraction to one gender may also fall into this category; an example would be a woman who prefers men, but she will also consider attraction to another woman.

Asexual
Classical ideas about sexual orientation have been constantly changing in recent years to fit the term “asexual.” An asexual person is someone who does not feel any type of emotional, romantic or sexual attraction. In essence, it is a lack of interest in sex or sexual attraction to others.

Asexual orientation has only recently been adopted as an orientation and many still disagree with it. Some interpose that, for there to be an orientation, it must point in a certain direction, and that the lack of sexual desire is a disease or dysfunction. The image of a compass is used as a metaphor: while a compass can point in many different directions and even change direction, a compass that has no needle points nowhere and is, in fact, broken. Again, we’re talking about other people’s opinions here. If a person is happy and healthy and functioning properly, who is to say that being asexual can be compared in any way to a broken compass? It cannot and should not be. If a person is happy with who and what they are, why suggest that something is broken in the first place?

additional guide
There are many more variations of sexual orientation, and some guesses that we have yet to discover them all. Among these are pansexuality, attraction to all sexes and/or gender identities; polysexual, attraction to multiple sexes and/or gender identities; and intersex, which is someone who is neither biologically male nor female, and may or may not include a missing sense of sexual orientation.

Although these additional orientations are not widely accepted, taught, or mentioned, they do in fact exist and are just as valid a form of orientation as any of those mentioned above.

Lack of mutability in sexual orientations
For many years, it was rumored (and widely believed) that a person’s sexual orientation could change and change based on how they were raised or the type of sexual or emotional experiences they had while growing up. However, with the recognition by scientific professionals that sexual orientation is not a choice, also came the recognition that people have an orientation and it does not change. While there are many who hide their orientation or are sometimes confused about their true orientation, this does not mean that the orientation is changing.

It has been agreed that no matter how hard one tries to “change how one feels”, in the long run there has been no evidence that this results in the desired result. In fact, psychologists have shown that trying to force someone to feel sexually toward a gender they’re not attracted to can have long-term mental repercussions.

Social influences on sexual orientations
It could be said that sexual orientation goes hand in hand with identity and social orientation. This means that one’s social environment, such as the behavior, thoughts, and orientation of the people around an individual, is often what helps define one’s sexual orientation. The example can be used that, because an individual’s family is of a certain religion, he will be predisposed to a certain form of sexual orientation. This is debatable due to the fact that many people have come out of social environments that disparage their sexual orientation and the person is forced to hide it or reject that social environment.

Kinsey’s scale
Also called the “Heterosexual-Homosexual Rating Scale”, this scale was created by Alfred Kinsey in an attempt to further describe and define sexual orientation. Based on one’s sexual history, they can find their place on the scale and describe themselves based on it. The scale goes from 0 to 6, where 0 is purely heterosexual and 6 is purely homosexual. Therefore, the numbers from 1 to 5 indicate some scale of bisexuality. Kinsey described the reasoning behind his scale: “The world should not be divided into sheep and goats. It is fundamental to taxonomy that nature rarely deals with discrete categories… The living world is a continuum in each and every one of its parts.” While emphasizing the continuity of gradations between exclusively heterosexual and exclusively homosexual stories, it seems desirable to develop some sort of classification that can be based on the relative amounts of heterosexual and homosexual experience or response in each story. [… ]. An individual can be assigned a position on this scale for each period of her life. [… ] A seven-point scale comes closest to showing the many gradations that actually exist.” These days the Kinsey Scale is seen as a step in a better direction, but it is by no means a complete reference as it is too linear. Rating sexuality on a 0-6, in an up or down method, does not even begin to describe the uniqueness of each sexual orientation.

So as we begin to explore the uniqueness of each individual, I hope that from the brief descriptions given above, we can at least see that people come into this world with their compasses pointing in different directions. In fact, even acknowledging and accepting those who don’t have a compass needle!

Copyright Piaras O Cionnaoith 2013