{"items": [{"author": "Sam", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/268475276611888?comment_id=268476233278459", "anchor": "fb-268476233278459", "service": "fb", "text": "I, for one, find bisexuals from the future quite attractive.", "timestamp": "1357095310"}, {"author": "Mac", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/268475276611888?comment_id=268486889944060", "anchor": "fb-268486889944060", "service": "fb", "text": "Is this a trick question? Heterosexual preference is the primary means of propagating the human race. With artificial insemination, not an absolute necessity, but strong evolutionary preference.", "timestamp": "1357097537"}, {"author": "Laura", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/268475276611888?comment_id=268489533277129", "anchor": "fb-268489533277129", "service": "fb", "text": "In a way, it could be said that I identify as a pan/bisexual woman for whom being male is a \"type\". I generally am attracted to members of all genders, but I tend to seek out men to date far more often than women. I think a lot of people would label me as straight, but it doesn't really seem right to me.", "timestamp": "1357098052"}, {"author": "Brice", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/268475276611888?comment_id=268490179943731", "anchor": "fb-268490179943731", "service": "fb", "text": "sexuality is just like cuisine. you could spend your life playing with recipes and still knowing very little about nutritional content or what it grows from. i sure hope the future is full of healthy bodies and minds.", "timestamp": "1357098191"}, {"author": "A", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/114855363824787514897", "anchor": "gp-1357104480285", "service": "gp", "text": "Gender preference is \"special\" as a result of politicization, which is itself a result of politicalization (which is to say, marginization). Gender itself (which is necessary for the words \"heterosexual\" \"homosexual\" and \"bisexual\") is a result of competing politicalizations.\u00a0\n
\n
\nAn ideal future might look like a world that modern society considers \"everyone as bisexual\" but I doubt they'll see it like that.", "timestamp": 1357104480}, {"author": "Allison", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/103741579182942078941", "anchor": "gp-1357105902295", "service": "gp", "text": "In addition to the evolutionary preference that was mentioned, for some people there is a strong\u00a0emotional\u00a0preference to parent a child with a loved partner. \u00a0If an individual sees that as a significant part of their life with said partner, it seems like sex should have greater weight than something like ethnicity in choosing them.\n
\n
\nPeople of religious groups tend to intermarry because their religion shapes their lives and views; having common goals and values is important. \u00a0In my experience,\u00a0nobody thinks it's terribly strange when somebody is only willing to consider partnering with someone of their same faith. \u00a0Why should the sex of one's partner be any different?\n
\n
\nThere are many other deal-breakers out there: political affiliation, smoking, athleticism, etc. \u00a0I'm fine if the potential partner's sex becomes a less common deal-breaker, but I don't think it should or will come off the table entirely.\u00a0", "timestamp": 1357105902}, {"author": "Daniel", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/268475276611888?comment_id=268567959935953", "anchor": "fb-268567959935953", "service": "fb", "text": "Walker -- in a world where humans were not already vastly overpopulated, that would seem relevant to me. In the real world, it is not only okay but highly preferable that many couples choose not to have children. A world where only half of all long-term couples produced children (whether that happened through half of them choosing same sex partners, or for totally unrelated reasons) would be much better than the one we live in today, and would have a much better outlook for the environment/world. Of course, your comment perfectly explains how it came to be, in terms of evolution, that most of us have a VERY strong preference for the opposite gender, but it is no longer important in the modern world. I'm not sure that gay is all that much more common than bi, though I'd need to see statistics to be confident that it isn't.
That said, I don't expect it ever to occur that we all become bi. I think that as social taboos on homosexuality gradually fade away (which will take a long time), bisexuality will become substantially more common. But straightness and gayness are not likely ever to disappear.", "timestamp": "1357113352"}, {"author": "Josh", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/118273920476267337216", "anchor": "gp-1357137049918", "service": "gp", "text": "I think so, but a lot of people don't.\n
\n
\n(In particular, people who think that you're \"born\" with a particular innate unchanging sexual orientation; that seems to me to be hard to reconcile with the idea that gender is just a preference like hair color. And there's a huge pile of identity politics wrapped around that idea.)", "timestamp": 1357137049}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/268475276611888?comment_id=268698983256184", "anchor": "fb-268698983256184", "service": "fb", "text": "@Walker: that applies nearly as strongly to age. But perhaps because age doesn't have as clear a boundary as sex then the preference didn't end up absolute the same way?", "timestamp": "1357137927"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/103013777355236494008", "anchor": "gp-1357138609802", "service": "gp", "text": "@Allison\n\u00a0\"In my experience, nobody thinks it's terribly strange when somebody is only willing to consider partnering with someone of their same faith. \u00a0Why should the sex of one's partner be any different?\"\n
\n
\nThat's more or less what I'm saying, but in the opposite direction. \u00a0We wouldn't expect someone who only wants to date other Baptists to only find Baptists sexually attractive.", "timestamp": 1357138609}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/103013777355236494008", "anchor": "gp-1357138864529", "service": "gp", "text": "@Allison\n\u00a0\"I don't think it should or will come off the table entirely.\"\n
\n
\nHmm. \u00a0My \"In the ideal future is everyone bisexual?\" is too strong. \u00a0I think I mean \"In the ideal future do people treat gender as just one of many factors in what makes people attractive?\"", "timestamp": 1357138864}, {"author": "Josh", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/118273920476267337216", "anchor": "gp-1357138867028", "service": "gp", "text": "> We wouldn't expect someone who only wants to date other Baptists to only find Baptists sexually attractive.\n
\n
\nJa; or to describe themselves as Baptistsexual, and to say that this is an inherent immutable orientation that they've had since birth.", "timestamp": 1357138867}, {"author": "Josh", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/118273920476267337216", "anchor": "gp-1357138978322", "service": "gp", "text": "> In the ideal future is everyone bisexual?\n
\n
\nI'd say that in the opposite direction too: In the ideal future, no one is bisexual, or homo- or heterosexual, just like today no one is redheadsexual or whiteskinsexual or greeneyesexual or baptistsexual or any of those other things.", "timestamp": 1357138978}, {"author": "Allison", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/103741579182942078941", "anchor": "gp-1357139799037", "service": "gp", "text": "I think sex is more complicated than the color of a partner's hair, mostly\u00a0because\u00a0it more directly impacts the physical act of sex. \u00a0What you find attractive in that regard has much to do with your own sexual history.\n
\n
\nThere's something about talking about the ideal future's sexuality that rubs me the wrong way...like we're deciding for them.", "timestamp": 1357139799}, {"author": "Mac", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/268475276611888?comment_id=268725363253546", "anchor": "fb-268725363253546", "service": "fb", "text": "Agism has a much milder evolutionary effect. Children of young adult couples have a higher probability of survival then those of couples where one or both of the adults is significantly older. But mixed age couples are going to be infinitely more successful at reproduction than couples that cannot conceive. However, Daniel's point is well taken: The Earth is a different place now.", "timestamp": "1357141328"}, {"author": "Robert", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/268475276611888?comment_id=268745773251505", "anchor": "fb-268745773251505", "service": "fb", "text": "Using \"age\" analogously is also a little tricky. Everyone's age changes, continuously, unceasingly, and monotonically, throughout their lives, and one might expect their preferences in a partner's age to change along with it (although it doesn't always). Some people's sex does change, but it's far from universal, and it's extremely unlikely to be continuous and unceasing.", "timestamp": "1357144570"}, {"author": "Robert", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/268475276611888?comment_id=268748403251242", "anchor": "fb-268748403251242", "service": "fb", "text": "@Jeff: I notice that nobody has directly addressed the your question \"Should we stop?\", and maybe I'd be better off letting it lie, but it's unclear to me what it means. Are you saying \"should we stop identifying people (ourselves or others) as 'heterosexual', 'homosexual', or 'bisexual'\"? I presume you're not suggesting that we \"stop\" *being* in such categories.", "timestamp": "1357144892"}, {"author": "Daniel", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/268475276611888?comment_id=268748829917866", "anchor": "fb-268748829917866", "service": "fb", "text": "Robert, I assume Jeff was asking whether we should stop considering gender as an immutable, black-and-white condition for a romantic partner (as opposed to one factor among many, like the majority of our other preferences.)", "timestamp": "1357144982"}, {"author": "Robert", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/268475276611888?comment_id=268749679917781", "anchor": "fb-268749679917781", "service": "fb", "text": "Daniel: Very likely. Of course, some people already don't consider at is such. And for some people, it probably actually is.", "timestamp": "1357145132"}, {"author": "Daniel", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/268475276611888?comment_id=268750099917739", "anchor": "fb-268750099917739", "service": "fb", "text": "True, Robert. This is addressing, however, the way the majority of our culture thinks of gender in relationships. I'm pretty confident there hasn't been a widespread shift on this, but congratulations to those ahead of the curve.", "timestamp": "1357145240"}, {"author": "Karla", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/268475276611888?comment_id=268760806583335", "anchor": "fb-268760806583335", "service": "fb", "text": "I already generally tend to assume that everyone is bi- / pansexual; I don't really understand how it works not to be. For people who are decidedly straight or gay, it certainly seems to be a more categorical thing than the statistical statement \"Everyone I have thus far been attracted to have been of this gender.\" I guess what I'm trying to say is I really wonder about the answer to your question as well.", "timestamp": "1357147144"}, {"author": "Daniel", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/268475276611888?comment_id=268762799916469", "anchor": "fb-268762799916469", "service": "fb", "text": "Karla -- yes, however if you're past a certain age and have really NEVER had any sort of attraction to someone of a given gender, it's not likely to change, is it? That said, I think that the way we see ourselves affects how we respond to certain emotions, and not acknowledging/responding to some of those attractions is not the same as not having any. I think sexuality is basically a spectrum, with very few people on the end points, but many close enough that they don't notice the difference.", "timestamp": "1357147543"}, {"author": "Karla", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/268475276611888?comment_id=268764386582977", "anchor": "fb-268764386582977", "service": "fb", "text": "Daniel : Agreed, esp. re: the Kinsey scale etc. But I still don't really understand *why* gender is a special category, as Jeff asks. For the first 20 years of my life I had never been attracted to a light-haired person, then a met a cute blonde boy and couldn't say that anymore. I'm certainly willing to believe that sexual orientation is far more powerful and categorical than something like that, but I don't really understand why.", "timestamp": "1357147915"}, {"author": "Daniel", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/268475276611888?comment_id=268765396582876", "anchor": "fb-268765396582876", "service": "fb", "text": "It is more categorical than that for many/most people. I think \"why\" might go back to Walker's point about evolution, but it has very little bearing in the modern world.", "timestamp": "1357148126"}, {"author": "Laura", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/268475276611888?comment_id=268828756576540", "anchor": "fb-268828756576540", "service": "fb", "text": "For Americans (and Westerners more broadly), gender preference has only been \"special\" in the contemporary sense-- as the defining characteristic of sexual orientation, which is in turn the defining characteristic of our sexual lives/selves*-- since the late 19th century at the earliest. So yes, it's cultural, but it's also historical, mutable, and only one means of sexual categorization among many. Since American conceptions and understandings of sexuality were different pre-1890 from now, I'm willing to believe they'll change just as radically again in the future.", "timestamp": "1357158736"}, {"author": "Laura", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/268475276611888?comment_id=268828823243200", "anchor": "fb-268828823243200", "service": "fb", "text": "*not necessarily my view", "timestamp": "1357158745"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/268475276611888?comment_id=268843453241737", "anchor": "fb-268843453241737", "service": "fb", "text": "@Laura: could you elaborate? Are you saying that pre-1890 it was not generally assumed that women would be strictly attracted to men and vice versa?", "timestamp": "1357161204"}, {"author": "Adam Yie", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/114873051319510815414", "anchor": "gp-1357171195609", "service": "gp", "text": "\"In the ideal future do people treat gender as just one of many factors in what makes people attractive?\"\n
\n
\n\"Being the wrong race or ethnic group might be -10 points but being the wrong gender is something like -10,000.\"\n
\n
\nSeems the ideal future has arrived.\n
\n
\nSlightly more seriously, don't most people treat gender this way already? While being pretty gosh-darn straight, if forced to choose between a more-or-less-normal man or a brain-dead woman, I might go for the guy. Among the characteristics discussed gender seems the odd one out only because people have already assumed a number of qualities like 'human', 'alive', and 'doesn't worship Teletubbies'.\n
\n\u00a0", "timestamp": 1357171195}, {"author": "Todd", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/112947709146257842066", "anchor": "gp-1357171839439", "service": "gp", "text": "I basically agree with \n@Adam Yie\n. My only quibble is with:\n
\n
\n\"While being pretty gosh-darn straight, if forced to choose between a more-or-less-normal man or a brain-dead woman, I might go for the guy.\"\n
\n
\nThe reason that you can, in practice, treat gender as a deal-breaker, is that you're never forced to choose. We can imagine scenarios in which you would be, but since we're not actually in that situation, we can afford to have extremely strong preferences when those preferences don't cull too much of the population (which gender does not, but many of the other preferences mentioned might).", "timestamp": 1357171839}, {"author": "Josh", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/118273920476267337216", "anchor": "gp-1357184939197", "service": "gp", "text": "> we can afford to have extremely strong preferences when those preferences don't cull too much of the population (which gender does not, but many of the other preferences mentioned might)\n
\n
\nWell, but in practice in our current society, being gay culls a lot of the population, because your possible partners are now limited not merely to \"boy persons\", but \"boy persons who like boy persons\" (or s/boy/girl/). And yet gay people do say \"well, I prefer redheads, but I'm happy to date blonds\", and don't say \"well, I prefer boys, but I'm happy to date girls\", even though being flexible on either of those axes would give them lots more options.", "timestamp": 1357184939}, {"author": "Todd", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/112947709146257842066", "anchor": "gp-1357185270270", "service": "gp", "text": "@Josh\n Sure, but there it's not gender itself, or even one's own preference, that is narrowing the field. It's the other person's preference, and that's not something you can control.\n
\n
\nOf course, I also think your own preferences are not easily controlled, but that's a separate point. ", "timestamp": 1357185270}, {"author": "Laura", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/268475276611888?comment_id=268973539895395", "anchor": "fb-268973539895395", "service": "fb", "text": "To condense and oversimplify by way of example, in colonial America most kinds of sex (especially non-procreative acts)=sin, people were always subject to temptation, and the temptation could plausibly involve men or women independent of the gender of the person being tempted. Broadly speaking, sex acts were more defining than sexual object choice. There has been some scholarship suggesting that at least some colonial Americans noted some gender preference in others, but probably not in a manner that constituted or defined a sexual identity in the modern sense.", "timestamp": "1357186025"}, {"author": "Josh", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/118273920476267337216", "anchor": "gp-1357186260800", "service": "gp", "text": "I agree that one's own preferences aren't easily controlled; despite my general feeling that I ought to be perfectly willing to date men, in practice I don't find myself feeling attracted to men. I sort of feel like if I met a guy who I was really attracted to, I'd be as much willing to go for it as if I met a woman who I was really attracted to; but in practice, it's never come up, so it's easy to speculate. :^)\n
\n
\nIn any case, insofar as our preferences are flexible, I took your earlier point to be that we're more willing to have strong gender prefences because those preferences don't limit our options much. My point is that if we're evaluating how our preferences will limit our options, and picking our preferences accordingly -- again, very unclear whether/how much we can actually do this -- then \"other people's preferences\" seems like a factor we ought to consider. If I'm looking for a job that will make me happy, I have to consider what kind of work I''m unwilling to do, but I also have to consider what kind of people will hire me. Same here: If I'm deciding whether to categorically rule out dating girl-persons, then I have to take into account whether any boy-persons will actually want to date me.", "timestamp": 1357186260}, {"author": "Todd", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/112947709146257842066", "anchor": "gp-1357187427102", "service": "gp", "text": "@Josh\n\u00a0My comment was meant more as a response to Adam's point about being \"forced to choose\". We need not worry about treating our gender preferences as non-absolute because we \naren't\n forced to choose between a small set of options- we can just keep looking. It's also a response to Jeff's question about whether we should stop treating gender preference as special.\n
\n
\nIn terms of simple optimization, obviously being more flexible would present more options, but it would also decrease your happiness with your choice. I'd guess that, if you hold preferences as static, people probably already optimize pretty well (the stronger your preferences, the less willing you should be to compromise on them, and many people have very strong gender preferences).", "timestamp": 1357187427}, {"author": "Allison", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/109502185221418876252", "anchor": "gp-1357198816995", "service": "gp", "text": "To add to Laura Keeler's point on Facebook, even when sexual orientation as such enters the Western consciousness in the late 1800s/ early 1900s, it is not really what we think of as sexual orientation now. For instance, the word \"homosexual\" is used for awhile more or less synonymously with \"invert\", which refers to someone who exhibits characteristics of the opposite sex. So if an effeminate guy and a masculine guy have a sexual encounter, you might seem them (and others) identifying the effeminate guy as homosexual, but not the masculine one. This goes on through about the 1930s or 40s to some degree; I'm currently reading a nonfiction book about lesbian bars in Buffalo in the 40s and 50s, and some of the narrators say things like \"a lesbian and her girlfriend\", always meaning that the lesbian is the butch.", "timestamp": 1357198816}]}