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Tuesday, October 8, 2013

5 of 5: EcoSex @ U Conn - Diamond's Sexual Fluidity - Student Responses: Rihann's Take

Dear Earthlings:



The EcoSex course at U Conn is complete.  It was a great experience.  We spent time reading amazing books.  And here we resume posts to be shared with you.  Thinking out of the box and across disciplines.  Students had been sending their responses in, with discussion questions.  In class, we did connected the dots: a holograph of what we've read together, the "required readings."  Multiple perspectives and good synergy.  Here, we offer a glimpse.  Lisa Diamond's Sexual Fluidity was one of two cultural-theory theory books.  We got five responses: from Adam, Michael, Alissa, John, and Rhiann. 

Here is Rihann's take:


 
The section I chose to respond to in Sexual Fluidity regards attraction as unbiased by gender schemas. I’ve always thought that I was more attracted to people’s souls and the mental connection
that I have with said person. However, I had never listed the things I like about my intimate partners before and analyzed the characteristics in terms of gender neutral. Many of the characteristics I consider myself attracted to are gender neutral as well as personality based. However, I have never found myself sexually or romantically attracted to a woman even though the things I like about the men I’ve been with are not specific to men. This concept really made me think. In my life time, could I one day find myself interested in a woman? I had never contemplated this before. To be honest the question makes me a little uncomfortable that I do not know the answer. I wonder if my peers had similar reactions to this section or have experiences with being attracted to the person not the gender.
            Additionally, Sarah’s story really struck me. There’s something special about female best friends that live together. I do have a very deep connection and relationship with my roommate. Although, I have never been attracted to her sexually, the things I like about my lovers and intimate partners I also like about her. I also recognize that she is an attractive woman. It’s weird to think that these premises match the premises of Sarah’s story. Again, it makes me uncomfortable to relate our relationship to Sarah and Nadine’s. I assume that this is because I come from a very heteronormative background and have never considered being anything else. Ultimately, their story made me think and look at my relationship with my best friend and roommate. I noticed how much our relationship resembles as dating relationship minus a sexual aspect. It’s interesting to me to contemplate our bond in concordance with attraction. These were my reactions to the text and I look forward to elaborating on them. I’m very curious to hear about my peers relationships and attraction to their best friends and lovers.

Rihann Peterson
Published with permission

WGSS 3998 - Ecosexuality and the Ecology of Love
Prof. Serena Anderlini-D'Onofrio
U Conn, Storrs, Spring 2013

Dear Earthlings:
Let "nature" be your teacher in the arts of love.  Education is the heart of democracy, education to love.  Come back for more wonders: Students Responses have resumed, to appear now every Tuesday.  More Book Reports to be scheduled soon, every other Thursday.  

Namaste,
 
Serena Anderlini-D'Onofrio, PhD
Gilf Gaia Extraordinaire
Author of Gaia, Eros, and many other books about love Professor of Humanities
University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez
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Tuesday, October 1, 2013

4 of 5: EcoSex @ U Conn - Diamond's Sexual Fluidity - Student Responses: John's Take

Dear Earthlings:



The EcoSex course at U Conn is complete.  It was a great experience.  We spent time reading amazing books.  And here we resume posts to be shared with you.  Thinking out of the box and across disciplines.  Students had been sending their responses in, with discussion questions.  In class, we did connected the dots: a holograph of what we've read together, the "required readings."  Multiple perspectives and good synergy.  Here, we offer a glimpse.  Lisa Diamond's Sexual Fluidity was one of two cultural-theory theory books.  We got five responses: from Adam, Michael, Alissa, John, and Rhiann. 

Here is John's take:




I found this book to be very interesting, albeit a little bizarre in the self-referential aspect. As a male, reading a book that declares its intention to broaden the horizons of female
sexual identity, it was hard for me not to read it with my own experiences in mind.
Pretty much universally, I liked reading it. Lisa Diamond has a nice voice that makes her concepts easy to understand, however they are a bit long winded. She makes a compelling argument for looking at sexuality, females in particular, as a fluid rather than an identifiable label such as heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual. Being the big grammar nerd that I am, I’m typically of the opinion that if you have sexual contact with only the opposite sex, you are heterosexual. If you have sexual contact with only the same sex, you are homosexual. If you have sex with both, then you are bisexual. I don’t see the problem with this classification linguistically, but the problem with “bisexuality” as a concept is that it is culturally understood as a transitional form of sexuality, rather than an actual category. I can’t find the page number, but there’s a section where Diamond asks the reader to identify which of her examples comes off as bisexual, and I would say all of them. I don’t find anything derogatory with saying that. It’s just the word itself for me. I identify as heterosexual because I cannot ever see myself in a sexual relationship with another man. In a world and in a life with so many uncertainties, I’m at least glad to have that down.
What’s the real goal of the book’s reorientation of labels? At the end of the day, if “the women who kept the same identity for the whole ten years proved to be the smallest and most atypical group,” (65), then aren’t we all really sort of sexually fluid? Or just the women? What’s the point of sexual identity if that’s the case? We seem to be moving in a direction of no labels: an area where identity is so entirely individual and personal that there’s nothing substantial there to replace it.
That being said, I can appreciate fully the value of her science and the book’s purpose. Because life doesn’t necessarily follow logical or clear-cut lines (like along grammatical boundaries) so why should sexuality? No one wants to be looked at as “developing” if they’re settled into a bisexual (or as Diamond calls it, non-exclusive sexuality) framework that they believe is a permanent state of being. Nor do they want to be stigmatized for being “confused” if “queer” will give them more credibility in the alternative sexuality community.
But I don’t feel satisfied with this book. It seems to be the inverse of Dr. Anapol’s “The Seven Natural Laws of Love.” Anapol’s Laws can really apply to any situation. All of her laws are applicable to family, friends, lovers, animals, even the Earth, but there’s a distinguishable difference between the love one feels for a parent and the love one feels for a lover. It’s pretty universally established that one cannot love a parent in the same way as a lover. Diamond’s “Sexual Fluidity” seems to follow this same path, just in a physical, rather than esoteric, way. For example, Diamond’s subjects have to “decide whether their sexual identity was better categorized by patterns of “love” or patterns of “lust,” and they had to fore- cast what sort of relationships they might desire in the future,” (77). She goes on to conclude that lesbian or bisexual identities are more about degree of attachment (love vs. lust) than about a personal commitment to one sexual exclusivity or the other.
I don’t even know how to formulate my question. Ok, so sex doesn’t matter when determining a mate. Or at least, it shouldn’t. I really enjoyed the chapter “Attractions to ‘the Person, Not the Gender,’” because it opened all sorts of new understandings about falling in love with a person, with their gender in the background as opposed to the conventional “boy meets girl” narrative. I think this is important, and it would be interesting to see a comparative study on men.
I think I’m in the minority of men in that I don’t typically like to hookup. The few times I’ve actually had sexual encounters that were short lived, they were unsatisfying and not experiences I was eager to repeat. I prefer to at least know my partners at some level. Once, I went home with a girl I met, and it was supposed to be a one-night stand. It was sex. Fine whatever. But we traded numbers, got to know each other, and while I don’t know if we fit all of Dr. Anapol’s laws, the sex certainly became more intimate because we were attracted to each other as people, not as sex objects.
I like the book. It was geared toward women as a study in women’s sexuality. It was very interesting, I’m just seeing how Chapters like 6 apply across the board. 

John Nitowski
Published with permission

WGSS 3998 - Ecosexuality and the Ecology of Love
Prof. Serena Anderlini-D'Onofrio
U Conn, Storrs, Spring 2013

Dear Earthlings:
Let "nature" be your teacher in the arts of love.  Education is the heart of democracy, education to love.  Come back for more wonders: Students Responses have resumed, to appear now every Tuesday.  More Book Reports to be scheduled soon, every other Thursday.  

Namaste,
 
Serena Anderlini-D'Onofrio, PhD
Gilf Gaia Extraordinaire
Author of Gaia, Eros, and many other books about love Professor of Humanities
University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez
Join Our Mailing List
   
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Tuesday, September 24, 2013

3 of 5: EcoSex @ U Conn - Diamond's Sexual Fluidity - Student Responses: Alissa's Take

Dear Earthlings:



The EcoSex course at U Conn is complete.  It was a great experience.  We spent time reading amazing books.  And here we resume posts to be shared with you.  Thinking out of the box and across disciplines.  Students had been sending their responses in, with discussion questions.  In class, we did connected the dots: a holograph of what we've read together, the "required readings."  Multiple perspectives and good synergy.  Here, we offer a glimpse.  Lisa Diamond's Sexual Fluidity was one of two cultural-theory theory books.  We got five responses: from Adam, Michael, Alissa, John, and Rhiann. 

Here is Alissa's take:










 The concept of sexual fluidity is not a concept I had been familiar with previously, but
the author explains the topic in a convincing manner than exposes many unknown studies and ideas that she has learned through her own longitudinal study. Lisa Diamond’s study I find to be very interesting because society is so concerned with labels and classifying people that people just assume sexuality is black and white, you like men or you like women. Society has trouble accepting that a person may not be sexually attracted to a specific gender or that they may be attracted to both. I like how the author was able to include quotes and bios about the various people in her study because it brought up scenarios that people would not necessarily have thought of.
The most important idea that I think this novel focuses on is the idea that each person defines their sexual orientation differently and that sexual orientation should not have parameters, but people should rather love who they love. Being confined to a label conflicts people more often than not because they do not feel that they are living up to what a true lesbian is or what a true homosexual is. Sexual fluidity allows people to change who they are attracted to and their orientation without having to put a label on their feelings. I never made the distinction that those people who considered themselves bisexual felt that it was not a right fit because it implied having an equal attraction to men and women. The average person in society with minimal knowledge of sexual orientation would think that bisexual, homosexual, heterosexual, and even pansexual would cover all the areas. On the other hand, putting any label on sexual orientation conflicts people for their circumstances may seem abnormal and they would just prefer if they were not categorized with a specific group.
A subject area covered in the novel that was new to me was the idea that men’s and women’s sexual identity can be separated further since they do not react in a similar manner. For example the author talks about how women tend to have more periods of fluidity throughout childhood and adulthood whereas men tend to be more settled with an orientation later in life. Another piece that was odd to me was how homosexual men and homosexual men would be sexually aroused by respective attractions, but in the case of women they responded to all of the videos that were displayed. This concept makes me believe that women are more open to other types of attraction, while men to have more stability in their orientation.

Why do you think the term sexual fluidity applies more to women than men? Do you think this has to do with the personalities and qualities that are stereotyped as masculine and feminine?

Alissa Maus
Published with permission

WGSS 3998 - Ecosexuality and the Ecology of Love
Prof. Serena Anderlini-D'Onofrio
U Conn, Storrs, Spring 2013

Dear Earthlings:
Let "nature" be your teacher in the arts of love.  Education is the heart of democracy, education to love.  Come back for more wonders: Students Responses have resumed, to appear now every Tuesday.  More Book Reports to be scheduled soon, every other Thursday.  

Namaste,
 
Serena Anderlini-D'Onofrio, PhD
Gilf Gaia Extraordinaire
Author of Gaia, Eros, and many other books about love Professor of Humanities
University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez
Join Our Mailing List
   
Follow us in the social media
Poly Planet GAIA Blog: 
http://polyplanet.blogspot.com/ 

Be Appraised of Ecosex Community Project PostaHouse  Become a Fan: www.facebook.com/GaiaBlessings 
Author's Page/Lists all books: 
YouTube Uploaded Videos: http://www.youtube.com/SerenaAnderlini
 

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Tuesday, September 17, 2013

2 of 5: EcoSex @ U Conn - Diamond's Sexual Fluidity - Student Responses: Michael's Take

Dear Earthlings:



The EcoSex course at U Conn is complete.  It was a great experience.  We spent time reading amazing books.  And here we resume posts to be shared with you.  Thinking out of the box and across disciplines.  Students had been sending their responses in, with discussion questions.  In class, we did connected the dots: a holograph of what we've read together, the "required readings."  Multiple perspectives and good synergy.  Here, we offer a glimpse.  Lisa Diamond's Sexual Fluidity was one of two cultural-theory theory books.  We got five responses: from Adam, Michael, Alissa, John, and Rhiann. 

Here is Michael's take:





Overall, I found Sexual Fluidity to be a fascinating book to read. The early chapters discussion of the various sexual orientation studies were particularly interesting for me because I had
never realized the degree to which these studies had focused on male sexual orientation and excluded the experiences of women because they confounded the data. Similarly, I was also engaged by the books discussion of the genetics of sexual orientation and particularly the hormonal doses in utero and the effects these had. Given that all of this discussion was an application of epigenetics I found it to be particularly compelling from a scientific perspective because Diamond’s findings seemed to indicate there were a plethora of yet undiscovered interactions between which genes are activated by androgen hormones and what effect the over-expression or inactivation of these genes by differing levels of androgen have on the genetics of human sexuality. This early groundwork certainly helped direct me towards her subsequent research with curiosity and a more open mind, confident of its grounding in the biology underlying her research.
Once I had finished reading the book, I think I connected to the idea of the attraction to the person and not the gender. While I certainly agree with Diamond’s idea that certain characteristics that we may find attractive are gender neutral, I think there is a lot of truth to her claim that the individuals she studied could be attracted to the person and not the gender. I think this is true to a degree even amongst those who are less fluid in their sexuality, either because they are males or are not attracted to both genders. There is certainly plenty of anecdotal evidence of fleeting attractions by otherwise non-fluid individuals in a direction more analogous to the fluidity that Diamond investigates.

Do you agree with her general hypothesis regarding women’s sexuality being more fluid than males?







Michael Maranets
Published with permission

WGSS 3998 - Ecosexuality and the Ecology of Love
Prof. Serena Anderlini-D'Onofrio
U Conn, Storrs, Spring 2013

Dear Earthlings:
Let "nature" be your teacher in the arts of love.  Education is the heart of democracy, education to love.  Come back for more wonders: Students Responses have resumed, to appear now every Tuesday.  More Book Reports to be scheduled soon, every other Thursday.  

Namaste,
 
Serena Anderlini-D'Onofrio, PhD
Gilf Gaia Extraordinaire
Author of Gaia, Eros, and many other books about love Professor of Humanities
University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez
Join Our Mailing List
   
Follow us in the social media
Poly Planet GAIA Blog: 
http://polyplanet.blogspot.com/ 

Be Appraised of Ecosex Community Project PostaHouse  Become a Fan: www.facebook.com/GaiaBlessings 
Author's Page/Lists all books: 
YouTube Uploaded Videos: http://www.youtube.com/SerenaAnderlini
 

Find us on FacebookFollow us on TwitterView our profile on LinkedInView our videos on YouTubeVisit our blog