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- Junior Amelia Goldstein speaks during “Sexuality 101,” a presentation, which was yesterday G-block in the little theatre.
by Jay Feinstein
In twenty first century America, there are labels for everything—religious beliefs, ethnicity and even shoes.
In the Gay-Straight Alliance’s G-block presentation for Transgendered Bisexual Gay Lesbian Awareness Day, “Sexuality 101,” seniors Sam Kane-Gerard and Nellie Robinson and junior Amelia Goldstein explained the definitions of many sexual preferences.
First, they described heterosexuality and homosexuality as the attraction towards the opposite gender and attraction to the same gender, respectively.
Then, they described bisexuality as attraction to both males and females.
According to Goldstein, there are many stereotypes concerning people identifying as bisexual. “Contrary to what some people think, a bisexual is not a slut, is not going through a phase and is not just experimenting. A bisexual is a legitimate sexual orientation.”
Afterward, the presenters introduced pansexuality, which is the attraction to people regardless of gender. Pansexuality differs from bisexuality in that pansexuality can include gender neutral or gender queer individuals–not just males or females.
“Pansexuals are not attracted to someone because they are a boy or a girl. They are attracted to someone because they like them,” Goldstein said.
Next, asexuality was introduced as the lack of sexual attraction to any gender. According to Kane-Gerard, an asexual individual may be attracted to people, but just not in a sexual way.
He explained that someone can be romantically attracted or aesthetically attracted to a member of either gender even if he or she is not sexually attracted to that person.
A variation of assexuality is demisexuality, which is the sexual attraction to someone only after having an emotional relationship with that individual.
To end the presentation, Robinson said that not every member of the LGBTQ community wants to be labeled. She said that ironically, there is a label for those who want to avoid sexual orientation labels: pomosexual.