Submitted by BrowseDuringClass1917 in Queer (edited )

I’ve been seeing an increasing amount of people go through crises with their sexualities because they’re attracted to people which their rigid label says they shouldn’t be. It feels extremely odd to me that this should even be something to worry about, why put yourself in such a constricting box if it’s just gonna give you a stressful identity crisis? Maybe it’s because I was raised by extremely progressive marxists so I never had to even come out or feel the need to have a label for my sexual preferences.

It would just be so much easier for people if they just accepted that sexuality is a fluid spectrum and abandoned all their restrictive labels and just loved whoever they felt like loving regardless of their own preconceived ideas of sexuality. Labels just close off so many doors, I don’t get the point.

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kore wrote

I think about this all the time. Not just in terms of gender and sexuality, but in the more general terms of trying to label anything. It's totally impossible, language is always in flux and anytime you try to pin down a meaning it just slips from your grasp.

my so-called "identity" or lack thereof is informed by these sorts of inquiries. it confuses me that people who claim identities of "non-binary" dont go further and think about breaking down every binary, including the most fundamental ones of "it and other" or "being and not being"

this is where i find world philosophical traditions so helpful. particularly those informed by buddhism, but the presocratics, plotinus, and even nietzsche have stuff to say about this.

"The name that can be named is not the true name"

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onymous wrote

Yes. Yes, I believe they do.

It's ironic, isn't it? To spend so long escaping from one restrictive concept of sexuality, just to waltz right into another one! :/ The more I think about it, the more insidious it feels.

If you're interested, I found this essay in particular reallllly insightful: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/ignorant-research-institute-how-to-destroy-the-world. I've found gender nihilism as a concept eye-opening, really

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rot wrote

If a label is defining and not describing who you are then it's not a label anymore, it's a burden

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jahnu wrote

I agree fully. I am in my 50's, and too often in life I have found myself isolated from different groups because of labels. I mostly like men, but sometimes I like women, and sometimes whatever. It;s about connecting with people, not being part of a system.

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