What does "biaffectionate" mean, technically?

Isn't that someone who pays for cuddly-style sex?

The whole "affection" thing is a way of getting away from the "sexual" in bi-, homo- and heterosexual. There is also a move to change the phrase "sexual orientation" (which began as "sexual preference" 20 years or so ago) to "affectional orientation."

While it hasn't caught on yet in many places, proponents of using "affection" say is a way to move away from defining gay, lesbian or bi on the basis of sexuality alone.

I applaud taking out the concept of SEX from the whole issue, but the gay folks I know are affectionate to everyone.

Maybe another word... attracted? affinity?

confuses people. I have straight friends who are very huggy-touchy-feely, towards males and females, whereas 'tho I am bi, I am not much of a hugger. I do understand trying to move away from the idea that it's all about sex, and that's an important thing to do.

Get away from the "sexual" reference, I mean.

It seems to me that sexual preference is the sole difference between any given gay man and myself. Pick a gay man at random, and I guarantee you will find a straight man who is just like him in every way, with the exception of who they cuddle up to at night.

I thought the whole point of gay rights is that being gay, lesbian, or bi is specifically defined on the basis of sexuality alone. And that therefore, gays, lesbians, and bis have the same virtues, hangups, etc. as the rest of us.

It's an identity that shapes your perception of the world.

Think about it for a minute. Are you a heterosexual only during the times who are engaged in sex with an opposite-sex partner? Of course not. It's something that in many thousands of subtle and not-so-subtle ways is part of your identity.

By the same token, being gay is something that profoundly shapes my perceptions, values, beliefs, etc.

I many ways it's true that "gays, lesbians, and bis have the same virtues, hangups, etc. as the rest of us," but that comes from the universality of HUMAN experiences. Straights, gays, whites, blacks, wealthy, poor, etc., etc., have many, many things in common. But those common experiences are all filtered through our idetities and how we perceive the world and our places in it.

I did think about it, but I just can't see that my sexuality has any bearing on me except during those times when I am thinking about sexual things or engaging in a sexual act.

Would you be so kind (seriously, this is not sarcastic) to illustrate some perceptions, values, beliefs you have that have been specifically impacted solely by your being gay and not as a reaction to society?

Understand, I realize that you as a gay man will see lots of things differently than I as a straight man, but how much of this will be due solely to the differences in our sexual orientations, and how much will be due to the fact that society treats us differently because of those differences?

The point of my post, which I may have worded inartfully, is that the sole difference between you as a gay man and me as a straight man is our sexual orientation, which as a practical matter has no bearing on whether we are good at our jobs, or beat our dogs, or drive safely, or anything not related to sex.

I suppose it may be impossible to separate the two, but I would appreciate your thoughts anyway.

Maybe it's possible that you don't see it because you are part of the dominant culture. The vast majority of things you see are already reflected in terms that relate to a straight male perspective which is the dominant perspective in this culture.

For persons outside that cultural perspective, we have to pass things through "filters" of sorts to relate it to our experiences. For most of what you see of the world around you, you don't need these filters, because it's already understood in your own terms. For an "outsider," most of what we see reminds us were are on the outside.

Think of it this way: You and I could see the same exact movie. Chances are you will follow it as a complete narative. I would see and understand the same basic narrative, but there would be a sort of "subtext" to the narrative that would be apparent to me, but probably not to you. To give you a concrete example, have you ever seen the play or film "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" Most heterosexuals will see only a play about a destructive, dysfunctional relationship, but gays have long called the play "a gay play in straight drag" because characters like George and Martha can easily be interpreted as "gay."

Now imagine that most aspects of your life exist on two levels: the constant messages, images, etc., feed by the dominant culture and the translation of that same information into a subtext for you as an outsider to the dominant culture. That will certainly play a major role in how you perceive the world around you.

I hope this helps a little bit. I could write on and on about this, but that would require getting into all sorts of side issues like Foucault's theory of the social constructs of identity that would likely put anyone reading this to sleep ... and yet the best sort of explanation I can offer is that we see things different than you because were are different from you in how we see things.

But the examples you gave are not based on your sexuality per se, but your sexuality passed through a social filter. When the social filter is added to the mix, you and I are on the same page.

I think my basic point was that the social filter itself needs to be changed, and the best way to accomplish that is to stress that, in the absence of the social filter, there is fundamentally no difference between gays and straights except sexual orientation, and not try to paper it over with euphemisms like "affectionate." Once the social filter is altered to minimize the importance of sexuality, any other perceived differences will disappear.

Of course, just rereading my last paragraph, I've got more windmills to tilt at. I'm actually arguing to remove sexuality from human culture. Don't hold your breath.

Peace.

Back in the '70s and '80s portions of the LGBT movement promoted the idea that "we're just like you, except for what we do in bed." That school of thought became know as "assimilationism."

A different way of thinking about it began as separatism where we began to see the formation of self-chosen "gay ghettos" in the late '80s and '90s. They tended to be of the opinion: "Hey wait a minute! We're not just like you (and even if we are it's because we're only immitating heterosexual culture)."

You can see echos of both these types of thought in a lot of LGBT issues today. For instance, the marriage issue reflects assimilationist ideas, ie: wanting to "immitate" heterosexual marriages (at least to the separatists). On the other hand, gay price festivals and the whole idea of "pride" is based in separatism because it's meant to draw attention to our differences from heterosexuals.

Maybe you are right that we should talk about how much like straights we are. We have jobs, pay taxes, make car payments, worry about getting older, have the need to love and be loved, etc., etc.

Personally, I lean more toward the separatist side in that I see LGBT folks as very different from heterosexuals because we have a shared history of oppression, common experiences (such as "coming out"), a shared "language" and elements of a culture that exist beneath the radar of the dominant heterosexual culture.

Perhaps all those things that make us "different" will disappear as society becomes more accepting. At least that was the premise of the book "The Rise and Fall of Gay Culture" by Dan Harris.

Maybe in 50 or 100 years there won't need to be such a concept as "sexual orientation" and the people who identify as LGBT won't be living in two worlds. But I know we have a long way to go before we reach that point.

Peace.