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nothorses · 3 months

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What do you think gay men are attracted to in men that they can’t be attracted to in women?

It can’t be anything about femininity or masculinity obviously. That’s both sexist, and cultural so can’t be what drives men-only attraction.

It can’t be anything about stated identity because someone could lie just as easily as they could tell the truth in such a statement, and it makes no sense because homosexuality and heterosexuality exists in other species with no stated identities. It’s not like other animals without gender are all pan.

Saying idk it’s the vibes or some indescribable trait men have that women can’t but “I can’t explain” is a nonanswer.

Soooooooo what is it? Or do you think any sexuality but bi/pan is just cultural performance or an identity rather than an inborn orientation?

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I think trying to find one perfect answer that applies universally is the critical mistake here. I mean, I am a gay man. I say this because as of yet, that's the clearest answer I have for myself personally; maybe there's a possibility I experience attraction to a woman at some point (maybe I already have???), but I don't really have clarity on that right now, and it doesn't serve me to shape or explain my identity around "maybe"s.

Trying to pinpoint exactly what it is that attracts me to other men, specifically, is also like... not that useful. I used to find myself really attracted to feminine men specifically; not feminine women, not masculine women, not masculine men, not androgynous anyone, but feminine men. Specifically, men who were feminine in a very particular, long-hair-certain-attitude kind of way.

Recently, I have found myself appreciating, more and more, a certain kind of masculine body type and gay masculinity that I was never really interested in before. I find it incredibly hot. A lot of that coincides with things I appreciate about my partner, too, and things I find myself appreciating more about my partner as time goes on- as well as things my partner expresses appreciation for about me!

And I haven't even touched on attraction to nonbinary folks here because, like, it's a massive spectrum. "Nonbinary" means something different for every individual nonbinary person. To my mind, of course there's a possibility I experience attraction to a nonbinary person; how they identity, present, and what attracts me to them are all even more impossible to know for certain than the "maybe"s and the "why"s around my attraction (or lack thereof) to men and women.

My relationship to my own orientation was vastly different pre-testosterone versus post-testosterone, too. I was much more reserved and uncomfortable with relationships and attraction before I started T, and the only dynamic I ever felt was even a little bit tolerable was one where I was the "masculine woman" in a lesbian relationship. I didn't realize until very shortly after starting T that, actually, I like men. A lot. I felt comfortable with my body and my masculinity in a way I never had been before, and I felt comfortable in relationships with men; I no longer felt like I was The Woman By Default in contrast.

And that's all just me! This is my personal, specific, individual relationship to attraction, and how gender- both others' and my own- factors into my relationship with orientation.

I don't think it's necessarily inborn, or completely unchanging for everyone. I also don't think the same factors apply for everyone. I think a lot of different things can be true for different people, all at once, and it's not really useful to try to pinpoint a specific, universal explanation for orientation.

Everyone has a different relationship to orientation and gender; everyone will be influenced differently by cultural factors, by their own ways of processing and understanding the world around them, by the ways different aspects of their culture, identity, personality, and inborn traits and how they all interact with one another, and sure, maybe even by biological factors and tendencies.

Trying to solve this puzzle for the entire world of diverse human beings isn't going to make it any easier to understand yourself. Focus on what this all means for you, personally, and accept that you will never, can never, fully and perfectly understand anyone else's internal world and workings. Things get a lot easier when you can let go of that & just appreciate the diversity of human experiences, y'know?

#advice #sorry if this isn't the answer you wanted anon #and honestly I recommend digging into some academic works around queer and gender studies #try some judith butler if you need a starting point #but like. people have been asking this question for some time & you will find so much more value in the answers of people whose whole lives #are dedicated to exploring the possibilities and diversity of experiences #and putting that in larger contexts with help and collaboration from a whole world of people doing similar work

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