I agree with Judy that the continuum model can be more helpful than a 3 box model. But like any model, it also has weaknesses and should not be taken too far. I don't think we can sort out everyone just by identifying their position on the continuum - everyone's sexual orientation is slightly different, and in more than one dimension.
I also don't think it is particularly helpful to conceive of there being a continuum, say, within the heterosexual range, that might lead us to think of the Marlboro man as being "more heterosexual" than Mr Bean. I think that is confusing sexual preference with many other aspects of sexuality (not to mention making inordinate suppositions on the basis of appearance in this example). So if "strongly heterosexual" just means "exclusively heterosexual" then OK, but if it means something else then I think it is misleading.
On another level, the distinction between sexual orientation and practise is also somewhat artificial, having been largely created by the church to deal with the church's problem. So it is no surprise to me that we find times and places where the distinction is blurred, confusing or unhelpful. Which seems to be where the GLBT? thread had ended up in many respects.
Kind regards, Lindsay Brash.
At 05:59 PM 26/08/03 +1000, Judy Redman wrote:
I have only been reading doing a cursory reading of this thread lately, but I think one of the problems is that the literature on sexual orientation draws a continuum with strongly homosexual at one end and strongly heterosexual at the other end and doesn't actually draw any lines that say "at this point you stop being homosexual and are bisexual and at this other point you stop being bisexual and are heterosexual". Many people working in the area talk about inclinations and tendencies and tend to allow people to label themselves. They have nice, fluid labels such as strongly hetero, basically hetero with some bi leanings, strongly bi, basically homo with some bi leanings and strongly homo. They would also argue that the way people label themselves depends signficantly on how the society they live in accepts various expressions of sexual orientation.
Andrew (and many others) doesn't seem to be seeing sexual orientation along a continuum, but rather in three discrete 'boxes' . It might be easier for the purposes of our current debate if we can do this, but it probably doesn't reflect the research findings which may well be a more accurate description of reality.
Judy
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