The book of cool pointless facts

Understanding your sexuality-part 1

In fact, the sexual orientation and relationship-orientation dynamics of "transsexuals" is far more varied. Most transsexuals are bi-sexual (desiring sex with men and women, as well as other transsexuals) but their relationship-orientation is varied, some prefer relationships purely with men, some feel an equal emotional attraction towards men and women, some are only attracted to other transsexuals, while some have no specific preference with respect to the sexes. One can imagine the challenges of being in a transsexual body where you have to navigate purely on your own self-understanding along with handling the constant pressure of being different from the majority. You can see how the aspect of sexuality, in a human body, can allow a soul to have the experience of growing in self-awareness and developing the courage to stand true to one's individuality in the midst of pressure to conform.

One may question if paedophilia (desiring sex with a child) is a sexual orientation, or a preference, or if it's just an imbalanced sexual expression. The way I see it, a child is someone who is yet to have a clear sexual awareness, who is yet to have the physical/mental ability to make "independent choices", and hence, for an adult, to involve a child in a sexual act is purely an act of "force", and thus is an act of exploitation. In a state of balance one does not partake in actions that exploit others, and hence paedophilia, from this perspective, is an imbalanced sexual expression - I don't see it as a sexual orientation, it's a preference that's rooted in imbalance. Of course, it's true that in the animal kingdom paedophilia is a common occurrence, especially among certain species like pigs, but that doesn't make it a balanced act, in fact a lot of imbalances exist in the animal kingdom because of low-awareness functioning. A human-being functioning at the level of an animal (without the capacity for deeper emotional intelligence), purely driven by physical drives, is prone to imbalances, and his/her actions would need to be regulated through external force (like law and order), in the name of wisdom, for the sake of maintaining harmony and protecting the freedom of others.

Whatever be your sexual orientation, or sexual preference, you must understand the basic principle of balanced living which is that you can't force your will upon someone - non-censual sex is an act of severe imbalance.

It's very important to understand that inner freedom is just the "foundation", it's not supposed to be the "end-point" - a lot of spiritual teachings confuse people into believing that finding inner freedom is the end-point of some sort, and hence propagate some ambiguous pointers on "detachment" as some ultimate goal. Inner freedom is simply a foundation towards balanced living, it gives you the required "ground" to start enjoying the expression of your nature in a balanced manner.

A couple of common myths and questions

A person is either straight or gay.

When it comes to sexual orientation, many people are neither 100% straight nor 100% gay. Indeed, recent research indicates that, when given the option, many males and females would describe themselves as "mostly straight" rather than "straight." Thus, we need to expand the number of categories we use when we think about the diversity of sexual orientations. The categories of straight, mostly straight, bisexual, mostly gay, and gay more accurately represent the diversity of sexual orientations than the categories of straight and gay.

Might you be confused about your sexual orientation because you are neither 100% straight nor 100% gay, but somewhere in-between?

A bisexual person is equally attracted to both men and women.

Although some bisexuals experience equal or nearly equal emotional and physical attractions for both males and females, this is usually not the case. As researchers reported in their book Dual Attraction, there are at least three other "types" of bisexuals.