Thought of the day inspired by a friend:

Our focus on which genders we are attracted to as the defining aspect of sexual orientation is ONLY because that aspect is currently a source of oppression. That oppression has a big impact on our lives which is why which genders we feel attraction to feels like such an important part of our sexuality.

But when you forget about that oppression for a while.. it’s clear that there are many other aspects to what kind of person we are attracted to, many aspects to what we look for in sex and relationships, many aspects to what importance we give to sex and relationships, how much and in what context, etc etc.

If you wanted to arbitrarily pick an aspect of our sexuality to form an identity around, you could pick from hundreds, maybe thousands of aspects. All potentially more fixed or fluid, important or unimportant to us than the gender of our partners.

Which aspects, in a world without homophobia and biphobia, would feel the most fundamentally important to our sexuality? How much does homophobia and biphobia stop us from knowing our sexuality as a whole? From looking at our sexuality as something incredibly multifaceted and diverse in which ‘which gender box does my partner identify with?’ is probably not the most important question for many of us to ask?

(Edit: if you’re going to reblog this PLEASE don’t immediately start talking about your kinks. Yes, kink can be an important aspect of your sexuality but I was kind of hoping for a little bit of a wider view of sexuality than gender+kink thank you very much.)