Bisexuality

 January 1st, 2013
gender
We treat sexual orientation as categorical in a way that we don't treat other mate preferences. If Pat is most strongly attracted to mid-30s atheist Greek-American men who are witty and good swing dancers, one of these is a sexual orientation while the others are just "turn ons" or "having a type". Our expectation is that if Pat met someone who was perfect in all other ways except that they were female that would be a absolute deal breaker in a way that being the wrong age would not be. Being the wrong race or ethnic group might be -10 points but being the wrong gender is something like -10,000. Why is gender preference special? Is this just cultural? Should we stop? In the ideal future is everyone bisexual?

(I can imagine a society where the idea of being attracted to people of a different race/caste is like being gay in our society. Do any like that actually exist?)

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