I found a similar tribe to this one, but with people exchanging ideas. One member raised a few questions I chose to answer. I'm repeating my response here, for those who are interested. Challenges welcome.

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"Is there really such a thing as a "Straight" person? "

I was talking to a friend about this yesterday, who happens to be involved in a sexually-exclusive str8 relationship. We're both involved with a men's group and post-event poll indicated that the men who attended almost fit a bell curve of sexual orientation. A very small percentage described themselves as exclusively str8 or gay, with many fitting the "primarily" category and a full third describing themselves as bisexual or "don't like labels." To an extent, the sample was skewed because that's why we get together--to be men without labels.

You'd think that if sexual stats fit other human patterns, preference would fit a bell curve. Clearly, it's skewed by the reproductive imperative, but maybe not. It's just that half of the behaviour in a balanced world might lead to babies, the other half not. In an over-populated world, that wouldn't be a bad thing. As an aside, some find emotional safety and physical safety in exclusive sexual relationships, so a bisexual person can make a choice about the resonant energy he or she wants to make a commitment to.

What might have skewed the bell curve more than a reproductive imperative is heavy conditioning. I was reading earlier this week that while sexual relationships were fluid in early history, the collapse of Rome was blamed on "moral" excesses of all kinds and this led to a pro-family, anti-same-sex sentiment. Most major religions need fodder to wage wars against each other, and reproduction for the war machine is given high priority. "Go forth and multiply" might have been an imperative to supply expendable bodies or overwhelm the enemy by sheer numbers, more than it was about the need to feed and otherwise care of each other. The religious right continues to fight this war, pumping out anti-same-sex relations propaganda based on assumptions and prejudices coming from the time when their rules were written.

Women have been redefining their Western roles since suffrage but men haven't questioned very much about who they are and how they might behave. Men, more than women, have been put into very small boxes about what is appropriate intimacy with one another. That’s clear at many underground parties where it’s considered erotic for women to embrace and kiss, but men usually remain into one camp or the other to protect a polar identity. I'm referring more to men's issues in this email because for one, I am one, and because men seem to have bigger challenges to face around this dichotomy.

Gay liberation emerged from the 60s sexual revolution with a certain vision that has furthered polarization rather than healing the rift. Gay culture has become an indulgent, commodity-modelled tangent that has little to do with male liberation, or true sexual liberation, for that matter. There are intelligent threads to be found, but for the most part, it has become a conformist culture where exclusively gay men consume each other for sexual satisfaction without creating spiritual bonds, competing by following the trap women became aware of--that is, having the ideal body, wearing the right clothes, flying to the best circuit parties. It's a 70s dream gone off the rails. And it certainly doesn't liberate men as a whole. The interesting thing to note is that there is a certain age gap in consumer gay culture, with younger men less comfortable with gay conformism. That’s encouraging.

Is there such a thing as a "straight" person? Kinsey's research from decades ago indicated that polarization of sexuality was primarily an illusion. Despite the appearance of stereotypical gay roles on screens, that illusion continues to be promoted by mainstream media, and religious states including the fundamentalist-supported US Republicans.

One important thing to consider, though, is what sex is. When is that line crossed between straight to mostly straight to bi to mostly gay to exclusively so? If a man gets an erection when another man gives him a backrub, does that make him bi? Maybe, maybe not. If a woman kisses another woman’s nipple, does that make her a lesbian. Is genital contact to orgasm required to say that two people are having sex? I'd say not. There are a lot of intimate possibilities in between.

Conditioned boundaries can’t simply be ignored because of the way our brains work. When boundaries are approached, anxiety appears, and for some that could be simply reading this email, and if breached, rage can show up. We need to respect our boundaries, but look at them. We can shift our boundaries a bit at a time without compromising our greater identity, but real movement might take generations.

What’s really important is to drop those labels about expressions of love between others. That’s a huge first step. Our culture desperately needs more nurturing intimacy and expressions of love based on resonant energy between people, disregarding labels about orientation. That much doesn’t require genital contact.

"What is problematic about Black/White as labels for humans?"

I believe that there is straight and gay just like there are black people and white people, but truly straight and gay people are much more rare creatures than we have been led to believe. If we didn't have labels for black and white people, or everyone was blind, there might not be black or white races. Labels ensure that labels persist. Gay and straight labels are cultural fabrications to support religious, that is, political, not spiritual, objectives. And as long as we use these labels, they will persist. And, so will a lack of balanced intimacy and love where men will fight men, but feel uncomfortable about truly embracing each other.