Conclusion: What I learned.

Before I did this project I never thought or asked about how the culture of attraction works within different sexual orientations/genders, particularly homosexuals. The most interesting connection I made is that the whole idea of desire being different in different groups of people is not wholly true. In homosexuals of both genders, attraction is based on traits which are associated with what we, as a society, deem "masculine" or "feminine." 

Typically the assumed dynamic in heterosexual relationships is that men are masculine, aggressive, dominant and women are feminine, passive, submissive. In sexualities where the partners are the same gender, the exact same traits apply. People who have "masculine" traits are typically attracted to "feminine" traits, and vice versa, the only difference is whether the object of your affection is a man or woman. Knowing that, it's upsetting to see that more people don't understand how similar we all are.

In the cases of homosexuals of both genders, the sub-orientation groupings of masculine/feminine, "top"/"bottom" in gay men, likely emerged in order to help individuals define the way they see themselves and who they are attracted to. If these individuals fell into the trends described by the categorization, it is logical that the recognition and vocabulary to define these trends would follow. 

The stereotypes of heterosexuals are already well defined, which is perhaps why there isn't as strong of a trend in sub-categorizing sexual orientations in heterosexual culture. Women are assumed feminine and men are assumed masculine; there is little perceived variation within each of these gender/sexuality combinations. Of course not all people follow these trends, but many people do, or at least feel that they are supposed to. It's less acceptable in our society as a whole for a woman to be dominant/masculine, or a man to be submissive/feminine, which is why there is less open discussion of classification of these groups. 

Homosexuals have already kind of shrugged off what society as a whole deems to be acceptable, which may be why there is more open discussion and classification of the way that gay culture operates. Indeed, the homosexual individuals that I talked to seemed much more comfortable talking openly not only about the group dynamic of their sexuality, but their own experience and preference as well. 

The sub-orientation of "tit man" vs. "ass man" that started this whole project is a little bit frivolous compared to what I learned about the inner workings of homosexual culture. The practical meaning of that distinction is virtually non-existant in dealings with women; most women that I spoke to about the issue either thought it was funny, didn't care, or thought it was offensive. Men don't usually talk to women about it, and if they do the women don't really care. In comparison, the sub-orientations in gay culture are very important in determining what type of person you end up being attracted to.  The "orientation" of "tit man" or "ass man" turns out to not be very important when dealing with relationships. It's more of a somewhat meaningless argument that men usually have exclusively with each other. 

On the whole, I kind of feel good from learning this. It's a relief to see some type of sociological grouping emerge from a group, for a group. "Tops" and "bottoms" aren't terms invented by doctors as they dissect homosexuals trying to find out why they're inferior, which is sometimes the case with the invention of terminology to describe groups of people in history. They're simply terms invented by members of the gay community to facilitate communication about their interests and desires. 

Conversation with a homosexual man.

S.N. is a gay man who is in his early 20's. He is not a close friend of mine, but was referred to me by my sister. 

When I spoke with him, he reiterated many of the ideas introduced to me by R.S., my lesbian friend with regards to masculinity/femininity governing attraction in homosexuals. He said that gay men are rarely "dick men" or "ass men." Rather, they are defined within the gay community by whether they are more "masculine" or "feminine." On top of that, masculine and feminine men are associated with dominance and submission, respectively, and referred to as "tops" or "bottoms." There is also the "vers" distinction, which stands for versatile. A "vers" man is one who can be either dominant or submissive in a relationship, and men who are "vers" make up a relatively large proportion of men in the gay community.


The traits that define these categories are mostly personality traits. S.N. said that being a "top" or "bottom" is rarely associated with attraction to one specific body part as much as it it associated with whether you're dominant/masculine or submissive/feminine in a relationship. Sometimes though, tops are bigger and more "masculine" looking men, while bottoms are smaller men. This is, of course, an observation of some people and by no means an always-true statement.


He said that discovering which type of person you are is a very important step when defining yourself within the community and a relationship with a man. The terminology is also used in the community in a somewhat light-hearted context. He said that, for example, he might be at a bar with a friend and see an attractive man and say to his friend "Do you think he's a top or a bottom?" 


Finally, I learned that the terminology and discussion, as it is with most women, is not competitive. This makes sense since "opposites attract." Being a "top" means you are typically attracted to a "bottom," so there is no reason to argue about which one is better. The both are necessary. Meanwhile, "tit men" and "ass men" have no real practicality in relationships, so it is obvious that men tend to argue about which is better. 


I also found it somewhat interesting that out of all four types of desire (man-man, man-woman, woman-man, woman-woman), there emergence of vocabulary words to describe these self-imposed groups only occurred within groups of men. The terms "butch" and "lipstick lesbian" are sometimes used to describe "masculine" and "feminine" lesbians, but I have scarcely heard these terms used when discussing lesbian culture with women, so I'm not completely sure whether these were invented by lesbians to describe their own sub-orientation orientations, or invented by observers. 


Click here to see the full conversation

Conversations with some straight women.

I went on to have three conversations with different straight women, mostly because the first two women I talked to had slight conflicts of interest. One was my girlfriend (L.I.), and the other didn't seem to have much to say about the topic (C.C). 

From talking to the first two, I learned a handful of things. They had even more body parts of men that they discussed than P.Y. mentioned. Beards, muscles, body fat, body hair, hands, eyes, penis size, etc, are all discussed from time to time. What I learned is that women will discuss all of these things, just as men will discuss any part of a woman's body, but none of the conversation of any part is recurring enough or strong enough that the women define themselves by their fixation with that one aspect. I also learned that women typically will enjoy something, such as beards, but also will know "ways it can look good or bad." They enjoy "good" beards, but not beards as a category.

Click here to see the full conversation with my girlfriend

Click here to see the full conversation with our friend

After speaking with those two, I spoke with my older sister for quite a while. She is older and has been with more men and in more communities of women, so she had a bit more to say. She finally put a good term on the way that women discuss their attraction: a "comparison of notes," "Oh, you think hands are sexy? For me it's legs!" 

It took a bit of time trying to get a clear picture of the way women define their own sexuality to decide that there isn't quite a clear answer. L.O. pointed out the idea that straight women's sexuality isn't as expressed in their appearance as it is for lesbians, who express their masculinity/femininity in order to attract the opposite sub-orientation. Perhaps this is because among heterosexuals of both genders, the masculine/feminine traits/stereotypes are pretty clear cut. Most men are assumed masculine in relationships and most women are assumed feminine. 

L.O. added, again, that women's tastes also change with partners. They may become attracted to a feature after dating a man with that feature. But it doesn't seem that any guy will ever date a girl and change his mind over whether he prefers "tits" or "ass." Some of the men who are very impassioned about the debate haven't been with many women at all, if any, so their opinions are based in theory rather than practice. 

Click here to see my conversation with my sister

Conversation with a Lesbian

As P.Y. suggested, I spoke with her ex, another old friend from high school who has a bit more experience in the lesbian community. 


She immediately pointed out that lesbian attraction is based on a scale of masculinity, an idea which I didn't know much about and thought was a stereotype if anything. She mentioned the ideas of "butch" and "lipstick lesbian," which I assumed were derogatory descriptions of assumed stereotypes. But, in reality, she said that "feminine women look for masculine women and vice versa. Maybe they would look for [physical] features that are considered feminine or masculine."


She added "It's rare to see a lesbian couple and be unable to take a guess as to which one is the manlier one." She defined feminine features to her as being traits of both mind and body. examples in clude "long hair.. flattering clothing...attachment to inanimate objects." Of course, these "masculine" and "feminine" traits are not intrinsic to either gender, rather they are classified as being manly or womanly by society. This is an idea that I developed a stronger opinion on later. 


As far as the way lesbian communities discuss it, she said that they rarely argue. The only argument that might happen is perhaps two feminine women arguing over whose masculine girlfriend was more ideal. 


And for the way that these distinctions are based on physical features, she said that it varies. There is no well defined argument about two features. She prefers breasts, P.Y. preferred legs. R.S also knows of women who are attracted to necks. When women talk about these things, she says it is more of a calm discussion than anything. 

Click here to see the full conversation

Conversation with a bisexual woman

One of the first people I spoke with was an old friend of mine. I chose to refer to everyone I spoke with by their initials, so that the feel more comfortable speaking about these ideas. Her initials are P.Y. She is bisexual, though she has only been with one woman. She is pretty active in sexuality issues to my knowledge, so I figured that speaking with her would be a good place to start.

Because of her relative inexperience within the community of women attracted to women, she had little to say about lesbian attraction besides what her preferences are, and what she believes the preferences of her ex-girlfriend are. 

She had much more to say about women's attraction to men and discussion of said attraction. Within her group of friends, they frequently have non-argumentative discussions of various features of men's bodies. Typically, she said, her friends are "arm-women," "ab-women," or "ass-women." She described herself as an "ass-woman with a bit of arm." However, after speaking to other women, it seems that these distinctions are more referential with respect to well known distinctions among men, and that the majority of women would not describe their selves as any type of "____ woman"  

Also in discussing with her, I learned that women's discussions are less polarizing, and even in the classifications that her and her friends hold of themselves, they are not as strong as men's. For example, a man would rarely say he is a "leg man with a bit of ass." Men are usually a "tit man," or "ass man" through and through. 

She also proposed a reason for men having two strict distinctions while women have more varied taste/debates. She believes it could be because women have been shown to have hte ability to multi-task more, which is why they are able to direct their attention to more than two parts of a man's body at a time. I think that is interesting and plausible, and fits with my idea that men's competitiveness in their sexual orientation is related to their competitiveness in other areas of sexuality. 

Click here to see the full conversation

Straight Men

This entire project was actually inspired by an experience I had earlier this fall. I spent most of my free time this semester pledging for a fraternity. As part of that experience, we were asked to interview as many of the members as possible with a set of seven pretty basic questions, the last of which was "make your own question." 


Unfortunately, I had already interviewed most of the brothers by the time I could've thought to use it to my advantage for this project. However, one of my pledge mates asked nearly every brother the same question, which of two sexualized parts of women's bodies do they prefer. Or, as he put it colloquially: "Tits or ass?" 


This turns out to be a very polarizing question for many men, I've witnessed more than a few arguments over whether it makes more sense for a man to be, colloquially, a "tit man" or "ass man." 


I feel that it's important to elaborate a little bit on these distinctions. It doesn't necessarily mean that a man of either orientation fetishizes the respective body part, nor does it mean that he doesn't find both body parts, as well as the rest of women's bodies and minds to be attractive. The idea is that a given man's preference influences whether he is attracted to women, but it isn't necessarily some strict benchmark that he imposes upon every woman he looks at. 


The distinction is somewhat irrational as well. Most men will say that they are one of the two types of "men," but still admit they are attracted to both features and many others. In fact, most men who have been with a woman are likely to say that the part of a woman's body they receive the most pleasure from is neither of those two. But for some reason the orientations within orientations persist, as do their arguments.

The arguments I've witnessed tend to range from whether breasts or butts are more aesthetically pleasing, to which one is more important during actual sexual encounters. The arguments often include raised voices and exaggerated body movements. The competitiveness of having this distinction between two types of "men" and then not just debating, but arguing about who is superior reminds me of the articles in class about penis size, and how men's insecurities stem from the competitiveness instilled in them by our culture. 


When I first thought about these experiences in my head, I thought they were rather funny: men getting so fired up over an argument about which of two idealized body parts is superior. I didn't initially consider it as a project topic because it seemed somewhat vulgar. But the more I told the story and thought about it, and with some encouragement from my girlfriend, I decided to consider how other genders/sexualities debate about their attraction and subsequently form into de facto groups from it. So as I went on to explore these ideas through conversations with individuals from different sexual cultures, I decided to explore a few central questions:

-What types of discourse do groups of a given sexual orientation have about the targets of their attraction? By this I mean what TYPE of discussion: talking, debating, arguing? 


-What characteristics does a given group focus on during this discourse? Is it usually physical or personality characteristics? Both? Does the discussion tend to focus on the same characteristics over and over, or is it different every time?

-Do any types of official or unofficial groupings of people within a given sexual orientation form based on these discussions? 


So in the case of straight men, the answers to these questions based on my experiences are that men tend to be very competitive and argumentative when discussing sexual attraction. They often focus on women's bodies, although it is not uncommon for some men to talk about what type of personality they find attractive. Men will debate what the best "type" of any body part or personality trait is best in women, but the only argument that I've seen which results in the emergence of invented vocabulary to describe the preferences is the argument between "tit men" and "ass men." 

Introduction

For my project, I decided to explore how contemporary youth cultures define their sexual orientation beyond simply which sexes they are attracted to. As we've learned throughout the term, there have been a vast range of sexual orientations throughout history. Typically these orientations are defined by third parties: Masturbators, Nymphomaniacs, Homosexuals all were at some point defined and subsequently considered inferior in some way by society. 

In modern times, most people think of Homosexual, Heterosexual or Bisexual when they hear "sexual orientation." These are widely accepted terms when referring to sexual orientation in contemporary society.

 

I decided to zoom in on these distinctions and find out how different communities further define their sexuality within the invented categories of straight/gay. The important point in this is that I wanted to see how these communities defined their own sexual orientations, hopefully in a positive way, rather than by third parties, as orientations have been historically formed.

I already had a pretty good conception of the way that straight men relate to and divide one another within their communities, so I decided to talk to a handful of people from other communities: homosexual men/women as well as heterosexual women.