Setting out on a new path is always tenuous, and you arrive at Singer Performance Horses with more than a little uncertainty about your new job as an apprentice. But when you receive a less-than-warm welcome from the head trainer, things seem insurmountably difficult. Can you prove your worth and establish a place for yourself? Or will you pack up and head home empty-handed?
Part 1: Coming Soon!
If you’d like to know more about the setting for this series, I’d recommend watching “Down the Fence” on Netflix. It will give you insight into the world of reining cow horses as well as some incredible horsemen and horsewomen - aka real life cowboys.
Among the best DIY house decorations I’ve seen was a string hung across my friend’s back door. Each roommate’s name was written on a coloured triangle of paper that could be hung from the string by a miniature clothespin. Above the string were the words, “Where are you on the Kinsey Scale today?”
It was all very twee. I liked that the names could be moved to a particular place on the string every day, precisely located on a scale. But, really, you can’t be that precise if you’re only measuring in one dimension. I think we can achieve much more emotional precision if we add more dimensions. My suggestions:
Heterosexual-Homosexual (the Kinsey Scale)
This is perhaps the most obvious dimension. When we think of sexuality it’s often with words like straight, queer, bisexual, gay. One thing I like about the Kinsey Scale is its granularity between a 0 (exclusively heterosexual), a 3 (bisexual) and a 6 (exclusively homosexual). I can think of people who I’d assign a 1; they identify as mostly straight and occasionally pursue homosexual interests. Similarly, I know people at the 4 level who find they have a preference for homosexual relationships, but a well-established interest in heterosexual ones 1
For the remaining dimensions, I found that assigning myself a 0-6 à la Kinsey Scale required informative thinking and I encourage you to do the same. However, feel free to mark an X if you really feel orthogonal to one of the categories 2.
Asexual-Sexual
How much sexual contact do you want in your relationships with the people you find attractive? For example, the Slate Star Codex post Polyamory is Boring has the quote:
I’m sort of borderline asexual. I like cuddling people, kissing people, falling in love with people, petting people’s hair, writing sonnets about people, and a few things less blogaboutable, but having sex isn’t an especially interesting experience for me.
This sounds like someone at the level of a 1 (incidentally sexual). I have some friends in the 2-3 range who go, “eh, being sexual isn’t a big concern for me, but it’s something I enjoy at times”. I have found (to my mild embarrassment) that I can go from feeling bleak frustration to sunny optimism about a relationship via a single night of excellent sex; I assign myself a 5.
Polyamorous-Monogamous
How exclusive do you prefer your sexual or romantic relationships to be? Do you want multiple partners? What about your partners seeing other people? People in the 5-6 range probably experience the flavour of jealousy described by Thing of Things where they:
… feel that having their partner fall in love with or have sex with someone else lessens their relationship somehow or takes away the specialness. Even the thought of their partner going on a date can make them extremely upset to the point of hating their metamour. This is true even if all of their emotional needs are met, their partner is being honest, and their partner is not going to leave them.
On the other end of the scale, one of my friends realized that he would rather have no relationship at all than a monogamous relationship. I can only reasonably assign him a 0 (exclusively polyamorous).
Conservative-Opportunistic
This scale was proposed in the John Scalzi blog post that got me thinking about the dimensions of sexuality, with the example:
A guy who is largely straight but highly sexual and somewhat opportunistic might not turn down a same-sex encounter because, hey, sex; another man who is gay but closer to asexual and conservative might turn down the same opportunity.
Someone confessed romantic interest to one of my friends and she physically ran away from the conversation despite liking this friend back. That style of practically working against opportunities probably indicates a 0. I tend not to pursue romantic interest unless I’m sure it will work out, so I’m looking like a 2-3.
Initiating-Responsive
I felt like the four scales above were missing some of the important variance in sexuality. I thought of a series of pictures in a Kate Bornstein book, each of which shows a pair of people with the caption, “if you were in this picture, who would you be?”
The question points at some others: Do you prefer to hold someone or to be held? Are you happier asking someone out or being asked? Does your desire feel more spontaneous, where you occasionally just think “hey, I’d like to have sex!”, or responsive, dependent on context and sensation? 3 Do you prefer dominant or submissive consensual power dynamics?4
I find this scale a bit difficult to describe, but I think initiating vs. responsive distinction is very similar to lead vs. follow in partnered dancing. The lead decides on a sequence of steps, suggesting a turn here and inviting a side-step there. The follow interprets the lead’s tightened arms or twisted hips and responds, translating the steps into a fluid dance. If you were out dancing, who would you be?
These are the principal components I’ve been able to extract for my sexuality; I’m curious to know if they align with important dimensions of other people’s sexualities. I’ve found it really informative to ask friends to assign numbers to themselves. So: where are you on the principal components of sexuality today?
Where one lies on the Kinsey scale on a given day is not necessarily an uncomplicated, intrinsic fact about them (see: elsewhere on this blog). ↩︎
Attempts to bring up the Kinsey Scale with a partner lead to him irritably declaring “I date people, not genders, dammit!” Respond with an X if thinking about a scale makes you irritable. ↩︎
If you’re more of a 0-2 on the asexual-sexual scale, feel free to substitute “have sex” with “be romantic or intimate”. ↩︎
I thought about calling this scale dominant-submissive but wanted to avoid it being seen as overly kink-related. ↩︎
