Sex Questions from the Twittersphere: Sexual Orientation
By Dr. Carol Queen • Jul 22nd, 2009 • Category: BlogDr. Carol Queen answers sex questions from our social networks.
Q: can a gay encounter, as a virgin’s 1st ever – shape their life long sexual preferences? i’m str8, first f** was with a man – STILL curious
There are two distinct ways to look at this. In this culture we hear sexual orientation referred to in such exclusively binary terms most of the time that this question essentially asks if one orientation can supersede or overlay another one — and actually, that’s one of the conservative worries about homosexuality and other sexual variation: that too much exposure will take a “normal” person and turn ‘em kinky. Certainly all our sexual experience (and other experiences, for that matter) are part of each person’s overall lifepath, and many things can influence us in one direction or another as far as sexual, relationship, and other choices go (our college major, where we choose to live, what job we pursue, what we read… this list is really pretty endless, because all these experiences and choices in the aggregate make each of us an individual).
However, some elements of your identity are understood to be built-in and not subject to simple choice. This is why many in the gay community (and many sexual scientists) now dislike the term “sexual preference” to refer to a person’s sexual orientation: this makes it sound like a choice, and many argue that orientation is inborn.
Even if you take piano lessons, you’re not a musical prodigy unless you’re wired to be; even if you’re given hot chilis to eat, if you don’t like the experience, you may avoid eating them for the rest of your life. One sexual experience, including your first one, does not make you gay or straight. (Loads of gay people had straight sexual experiences before they came out, and they aren’t interesting in repeating them.) But if an experience is pleasant or curiosity-provoking, or if one identifies around it in some way, it might become an experience you consider important, even one you choose to repeat.
Which brings me to the other way to look at the question: If you are interested in the other sex (I don’t use the term “opposite sex,” I don’t think we ARE opposites), have had an experience with someone of the same sex, and are open to having more such experiences, the word “bisexual” might be a more appropriate label than either “straight” or “gay.” Now, you don’t have to take on any label at all (lots of people say “I’m just sexual,” or call themselves “bi-curious” or “open”) — your sexual feelings are your own, your orientation yours to define, and the way you integrate sexual feelings into relationships can also take many forms. For some people, sexual feelings are fluid and subject to change, and as you accumulate more sexual experience, the balance of your interests may shift. Or that may not describe you at all, and you may remain a straight person who had one same-sex experience (and you would be far from alone in this). The more informed you become about sexuality, the better you will understand and feel comfortable about your options — and the more you accumulate adult sexual experiences, the more your first experience will be put into the context of your ongoing sex life.
–CQ
Related at Good Vibrations:
Bisexual’s Guide To The Universe
LGBT / Queer Sexuality Book Selection
Dr. Carol Queen >> Carol Queen is a writer, speaker, educator and activist with a doctorate in sexology. First as an organizer in the lesbian/gay community, where she helped found one of the first gay youth groups in the United States, and later in the emerging international bisexual community, as a sex worker and a practitioner of alternative sexualities, she typically teaches and writes from her own experience and that of her communities even as she references academic thought on these subjects. See her website: www.carolqueen.com.
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