CHAPTER 6: SEXUALITY

Sexual Identity

Each person has a sexual identity, it can come from a person’s capacity for sexual feelings, their sexual orientation or preference, and their sexual activity. Even those with low or even no sexual feelings have a sexual identity.

While many do not know what their sexual identity is, one can begin to understand it by trying a few of the steps below:

  1. First look at yourself? Do you see more masculine or feminine features?
  2. Second how do you feel about your features? They may look masculine or feminine but do you want to still call them that?
  3. Third decide for yourself what you want identify as. Boy, girl, trans, etc…
  4. Fourth think about what makes you feel sexual. You can write it down so that you always have a way of remembering your favorite sexualities of yourself.
  5. Fifth Learn about your sexual preferences.
    • Do you like males, females, trans, others?
    Interesting Fact: Homosexuality is related to the structure of the brain—for example, research finds that it is associated with the degree of symmetry of the left and right hemispheres, as well as the number of nerve connections in the amygdala, a brain structure that plays an important role in the processing of emotional information.
  6. Sixth learn about your sexual preferences that others would call kinks or fetishes.
    • Having a fetish or kink is never a bad thing unless it harms the other person against their will, so feel free to explore the options out there.
  7. Seventh tell your close friends about yourself. Start small, but express yourself.
  8. Eighth find a group of similar people that you can connect to and talk about your identity and preferences with.
  9. Ninth believe in yourself. You are a unique person and you should be proud of that uniqueness.

Sexual Preference

Sexual preference, also known as sexual orientation, is a repeating pattern of romantic, sexual attraction, or a mix of the two to people of the opposite sex or gender, to both sexes, or more than one gender. These attractions are generally included under heterosexuality, homosexuality, and bisexuality, while asexuality —the lack of sexual attraction to others— is only occasionally identified as a fourth category.

Interesting Fact: Gay parents do not have a tendency to raise gay children. In fact, children raised by gay parents are no more likely to be gay themselves relative to children raised by heterosexual parents. (Fitzgerald, B. 1999)
Magnifying glass over a hart shape
Genders

The state of being male or female, these are usually used in reference to social and cultural differences instead of the biological ones.

Genders are a choice in the way that if people feel they are more feminine than masculine even though they were born with the biological traits of a male, they may choose to change their gender as a part of their sexual identity. While many may wish to identify as a different gender than the one they were born with physically, remember that society still holds norms and laws related to the biological gender. However, there are options out there to modify the biological gender into what the person feels more comfortable with.

Interesting Fact: Records of same-sex relationships have been found in nearly every culture throughout history with varying degrees of acceptance.
Sex

In relation towards biology, sex is the reproductive organs that people are born with. It consists of three categories Males with XY chromosomes, Females with XX chromosomes, or Transgendered which can be a mixture of different chromosomes other than the common male and female pattern for chromosomes. For more information on Sex in regards to sexual activity please see Chapter 5: What is Sex.

Sex Appeal - local & worldwide

Sexual attraction is the attraction on the basis of sexual desire or the quality of arousing such interests. Sexual attractiveness or sex appeal is an individual’s ability to attract the sexual or erotic interests of another person and is a common factor in sexual selection or mate choice.

Local sexual attraction changes by region, but can follow a similar pattern, below is a list of items that are considered locally sexually attractive.

Interesting Fact: In the US there was a analysis of woman using the ancient Greeks ‘Golden Ratio’ for proportions and some of the results were:
  • Johnny Depp’s estranged wife Amber Heard has the most perfect balanced/beautiful face.
  • Kim Kardashian came in second place according to the mapping system.
  • Kate Moss was third place, but was credited with a perfect forehead.
Body, body language and behavior for the U.S.
Multiple people showing body language while talking
Around the World Preferences

(based on information gathered by Dailymail.com, FoxHoundStudio.com, Cosmopolitan and more... for full documentation of sources provided here please see Chapter 15 References and Works Cited. )

Male sexual preference for females
Female sexual preference for males

Females had a more generalized outlook for body preference. Many sources showed bulkier men were the favorite regardless of whether it was muscle or fat bulky. The general consensus appears to be that women choose men's body styles based on nature’s built physique for defending and protecting.

Interesting Fact: For many women troubled by low sexual desire, too much of the world around them can derail sensuality. That turns out to be very fixable—but not by a pill.("Learning to Lust", Psychology Today. 2010)
Mixed sexual preference

Many groups have preferences of beauty that range from long ear lobe piercings to disks in their lips to different tattoo styles and much more, usually related to body modification.

Face and hair mixed culture style and color