So I’ve given my thoughts on sexuality before: there are only four sexualities, depending on whether (all other preferences being met) you’d be sexually interested in the same sex as yourself, other sexes, neither or both. These are homosexual, heterosexual, asexual and bisexual respectively. And I think in logical terms of sexuality, this still stands. If you’ve ever done Boolean algebra, you’ll know that there are four possible permutations of two binary possibilities. You’re either some degree of same sex interested or you’re not. You’re either some degree of other sex interested, or you’re not. Four possible outcomes.
But I’ve come to realise that’s overlooking the nuances of what people consider to be sexuality. And people very much see a second spectrum in addition to anatomical preference. This, I believe is the gay/lesbian, pan, straight spectrum, and furthermore, it runs independently from the four logical sexualities outlined above.
So where Kinsey’s famous scale runs from 0 (completely heterosexual) to 6 (completely homosexual) with different degrees of bisexuality filling in the 1-5 range, I see a second scale running A (other gender attracted) through to G (same gender attracted) which is based largely on gender presentation and identity of the respective parties concerned.
Suddenly a lot of things make sense. The bisexual male who is interested in both women with vaginas and women with penises is still ‘straight’ – he’s likely an A1 to A5 on the matrix. We know he’s not traditionally bi, because he can’t get excited about a masculine presentation, no matter how tight the cycling shorts or how ripped the six pack. The trans woman who is only attracted to other women is still a lesbian, regardless of who has male or female physical anatomy. She’s going to be a G1 to G5. Equally, the male who is interested in both men and women, as long as they also have male anatomy, gets to be B6 through to F6.
For this to work, we need to stop considering ‘gay’ and ‘lesbian’ synonymous with ‘homosexual.’ We need to stop considering ‘straight’ to be synonymous with ‘heterosexual’ and we need to stop considering’ bi’ to be synonymous with ‘pan.’ And that’s going to be difficult. But once you detach gender preference from anatomical sexual preference, a lot of things that previously didn’t make sense suddenly do. The scale doesn’t run conveniently as a 45 degree line from A0 to G6. People can appear absolutely anywhere on the chart.
