When it comes to YOUR sexuality and sexual tastes...

[Emiliano]

...where do you think it comes from?

This question is inspired by a recent conversation and some comments in another thread. Im just curious how each of us, speaking only about ourselves, feel about the origins/development of our own sexuality and sexual preferences.

And I'm not just talking about being gay/bi/whatever else...
I'm talking about your preferences in a partner, physically or otherwise, your sexual role (top, bottom, vers), your kinks, your fetishes.

Were you born this way? Or has your experiences played a more influential role? Have your desires changed over time?

As with any of my threads, feel free to answer all, some, or none of these questions, and to add your own or talk about whatever comes to mind.

[Cuddly]

My theory is that my sexual orientation stems from my childhood. My father worked a lot and was away for whole weeks when I was 1-5. At 6 my parents got divorced. For no good reason I didn't like my stepdad.

I really liked the fathers in the Disney movies I watched. King Triton. The Sultan of Akrabar. Mufasa. The cute bear from the jungle book. The gummy bears.

At age 10, I think, an older man inappropriately approached me in the showers for the swimming hall. He just stood unnecessarily close to me and stared at me for a while. I was wearing my bathing shorts and my brothers were with me.

Now I have my own daddy husbear. With a beautiful white beard and cuddly belly.
It kinda adds up? I guess??

[Emiliano]

My theory is that my sexual orientation stems from my childhood. My father worked a lot and was away for whole weeks when I was 1-5. At 6 my parents got divorced. For no good reason I didn't like my stepdad.

I really liked the fathers in the Disney movies I watched. King Triton. The Sultan of Akrabar. Mufasa. The cute bear from the jungle book. The gummy bears.

At age 10, I think, an older man inappropriately approached me in the showers for the swimming hall. He just stood unnecessarily close to me and stared at me for a while. I was wearing my bathing shorts and my brothers were with me.

Now I have my own daddy husbear. With a beautiful white beard and cuddly belly.
It kinda adds up? I guess??

Just to be clear - you think your orientation, like you being gay, might stem from your experiences with your father and how you view other father figures?
Or did you mean its what might be behind just your attraction to older, fatherly figures?

[Cuddly]

Just to be clear - you think your orientation, like you being gay, might stem from your experiences with your father and how you view other father figures?
Or did you mean its what might be behind just your attraction to older, fatherly figures?

It's one theory. I don't know if it's 2 parts, first gay and then chaser, or if they're one.
I'd guess they're one, as any other bodytype is absolutely unattractive to me.

What's your theory?

[Genersis]

I haven't the foggiest why my sexuality is how it is.

I've noticed beards and facial hair in general is probably one of, if not the biggest factor in me finding someone hot. To a point where I even feel a bit bad about it.
Couldn't really say why that is...maybe that's how my brain instinctually recognise someone as a sexually matured male? *shrugs*

Perhaps androgyny is something I am not attracted to; which is weird because I love how visually striking androgyny can be, I often find such people beautiful.
I have huge respect for anyone who embraces their androgyny; refusing to bend to fit gender binaries. As I do with most people who refuse to bend to societal pressure to fit norms.
It seems my instinct that decides who are viable sexual partners just doesn't trigger when it comes to androgynous folk in the same way as it fails to trigger with women, which...sounds kind of bad...sorry...

Other than that...I don't have any other major preferences when it comes to physical appearance.
A few minor ones.
I don't have a preference for a specific body type, but I'm generally not attracted to skinny men. But at the same time, I am attracted to lanky men(the difference to me being that of body proportioning). Also, I prefer hairy men, but both of these can be easily over looked.

When it comes to personality my preference is for people who share the same values as me, and is into some of the same stuff as me. I have more of an interest in shy folk, as I feel we could relate to each other a bit better. That's it really.

In summary, I'd say I'm probably pretty...vanilla? if that's the right way to say it?
My attraction mainly comes from instinct, I really don't think there's been much in the way of influencing forces. So I'd say I was born this way.

[Emiliano]

What's your theory?

When it comes to being gay, I can't think of anything in my childhood that would have caused it, and I've felt attracted to other guys since I can remember feeling attracted to anything at all. So I'd say I was born gay, or at least whatever that could have influenced my sexuality happened early on without me being conscious of it.

In terms of the type of men I'm attracted to, and what I'm into sexually, and all that, I think those things have very much been shaped by my experiences. The way I viewed sex and some of the men I found attractive before I had any experience is pretty different from how I feel now.

[ursa445]

I sort of knew I was gay, it hard to pinpoint, maybe around middle high school. I started to realised i was different ( I was "slightly" femininine back then- and probaly still now, loved to hang out with girls instead of boys, developed crush on some handsome actors) and officially confirmed after watching gay porn in 11th grade. I had just watched straight porn before, sometimes i did notice that men are the one who turned me on, but it was very confusing and I lied to myself that happened to everyone.
It took more than 5 years of dramma denial to come around. Now i'm out to my lgbt club, a best female friend and planning on comming out to other friends & family ( but it might take time). As for my preference, it varies. I was raised to care about personality over physical apperance, all of my crush (in real life) aren't good looking, they're just so nice.
I think I was born this way, it's just the society makes us lied to ourselves we're straight. I personally don't believe someone who claimed they just know they gay after haing a girlfriend of xxx years/marriage/30, they just lived in denial.

[MikeW]

Why is the sky blue? No, seriously ... what is "blue"? Yeah, you and I may agree that it IS blue, but so are a lot of things... but they don't look like 'the sky' at all. So what ARE we talking about?

I can get VERY philosophical about all this... and may yet... but I haven't the time at the moment to fully address these very complex questions.

But we really need to ask ourselves "What do we mean?" Really, what ARE we talking about? What turns us on, lights us up, makes us feel driven yet more fully alive, causes desire and passion, the need to engage with ourselves and/or others toward a release of energy that the French have called, "La petite mort":

"The little death" is an expression which means "the brief loss or weakening of consciousness" and in modern usage refers specifically to "the sensation of orgasm as likened to death".

This is no small matter! Hopefully, I'll have time in the next day or so to flesh this out!

[TwisttheLeaf]

Sexual Orientation

Lets see.... I started out as a young child with crushes on only men. This continued when sexual interest came into play until I was in my mid-teens, when I also started to notice girls and be curious about them as well.

I've been with [MENTION=20938]Gideon[/MENTION] since I was 19, but between 14 and 19 I had a good deal of experience. It wasn't until after I was with Gid and he pointed out -how- I look at people that the realization came that I wasn't bi but pansexual. I would say it was probably a progression of maturity in mind that brought me there, so it developed over time.

Partner Preferences (physically and otherwise)

Prior to Gideon, I preferred men to be on equal footing with me or perhaps a bit less dominant. I preferred the women I was with to be fun and lighthearted. This allowed me to control the dynamics of the interactions, making sure nothing got too serious.

Physically, I chose partners that, for the most part, were my ideal at the time, primarily because I was looking for temporary bed partners only... NOT anything serious or even lasting past a night or two. Hairless (or minimal hair), svelte/lithe women, men that are a bit larger than I am but without a lot of excess body fat. I required my bed partners to be able to keep up with me physically, which means they need to be somewhat fit, but other than that age wasn't particularly a factor.

When I met [MENTION=20938]Gideon[/MENTION], something changed. I reacted to him in a way I had never reacted to anyone in the past. His stare made my stomach clench and flutter, his presence made me feel..... small in a very "precious" and "prey" sort of way. I RAN from that reaction for quite a while, not understanding what it was. And thus we flow down into........

Kinks and Fetishes

When I first met Gideon, I didn't realize what I was experiencing was in response to his dominant nature. Having a dominant nature myself (although not as aggressively so as Gideon), and having never met anyone that brought up submissive urges in me, I had no experience with having a submissive reaction in my attraction to another.

At 19, I hadn't yet had any "official" BDSM or Dominance/submission experience other than some light bondage. I didn't realize I was dominating my partners all along... until Gid and I got together and I started experiencing the other side of the coin.

So essentially, I was doing the dominating thing all along, but Gideon put a name to it.. and turned the tables on me, creating a new experience of the other side of things. He then began teaching me what that dynamic is, what it means, etc. He encouraged lots of research (of which I did copious amounts) and experimentation (of which WE did copious amounts). We discovered which stuff I like (violence as foreplay, asphyxiation, predator/prey dynamics, etc), stuff I'm neutral on (pretty much anything involving "toys" such as rope, paddles, etc), and stuff I have hard limits on (degradation being at the top of the fucking list, watersports, figging, etc).

Sexual Role (top, bottom, vers)

What we discovered (Gideon and I) is that although I'm dominant with other partners, and reside around neutral/dominant in my everyday life and with people in general, with Gideon... I'm submissive. There is something about him that brings that out.

Sometimes, I still need to exert that dominance in bed, though, at which point we'll switch the dynamic. I'll top, both sexually and in the D/s part of things as well. The urge will then pass after a time. Outside of the bedroom, though, he is and will always be the more dominant party in our relationship. It's just in his nature.

So there you have it. The development of sexuality, preferences, and kinks of a Leaf.

[Confuzzled4]

Oh a fun topic indeed, haha. Well I really do believe sexual orientation has a strong genetic, i.e. inborn, component to it. From what I have heard, scientists believe orientation is a combination of genetic and environmental factors. For me, my father passed when I was 12, so not having a father figure those few years may have contributed. Certainly when I was older it made accepting my sexuality easier because he was towards the conservative side. I also watched wrestling from the time I was 9 to 20, though I'm not sure if that necessarily contributed. In terms of preference for a guy, physically I'm just not attracted to emaciated or morbidly obese, I find men of all sizes can be handsome. Eyes are my biggest weakness, especially a green or hazel. I could go the route of science a bit more, though I'm not a geneticist. My best friend has a lot of experience in anthropology and genetics and would better be able to elaborate than I. Lastly, my interests since finishing puberty have not changed.