Well how are you Dorothea?

I’m good how are you?

I’m pretty good! 

Well are you gonna transcribe this part of the interview too?

Yeah I am.

Okay, so every part of the interview? So I could just say some random shit and you’d have to write it down?

Yeah, I will literally write down every single word and sound. It doesn’t matter what it is, even if it’s background noise. 

Poo poo pee pee!

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Is there anything that you’d like to say outright about how you identify in any regard?

I guess I’ll just cover the basics. I identify as female; I am straight so… I like men. That’s pretty much the basics I guess. …Like, in the past, I’ve thought, could I be bisexual? And I’ve tried to entertain the thought of it but I don’t know, I think I just like guys.

Can I ask why that thought occurred to you?

In middle school, a lot of my friends were coming out as bi, and I was like, well, could I be bi? And I never did anything— I’ve never physically done anything with a woman, but I’ve thought about it before, like, “Would I ever want to be with a woman?” You know, just out of curiosity. But after thinking about it and stuff, I don’t know, I guess I’m just straight.

One time I was asked the question: “If you had to assign a percentage value with how straight you are, what number would you give?” and I didn’t really know how to answer that. How would you answer that?

That’s a great question. I always answer with 95% straight. I believe everyone’s kind of on a spectrum of sorts and I think even just the fact that I am curious about dating a woman, even though I’ve never done it and I’ve never had sexual urges towards a woman— the fact that I’ve thought about it and I’m curious— I think that puts me at a 95%. I probably wouldn’t ever date a woman but it’s something that I wouldn’t be 100% opposed to. 

Many people distinguish between different types of attraction, including but not limited to sexual attraction, romantic attraction, sensual attraction, and aesthetic attraction (among possible others) so let’s talk about what all of those mean to you. How do you define any of these that I listed or different types of attraction for yourself?

Can you go through them one at a time?

Yeah, let’s just go through them. So, sexual attraction.

Oh gosh… how do I define that? 

If somebody asked you what sexual attraction is, how would you explain it to them?

I’ve never really thought about this before… I don’t know, for me it’s like, you’re with someone that you happen to want to do certain things with that are sexual in nature. And you know, it doesn’t even have to be someone that you’re with. You could look at them and be attracted to something that is a physical thing on them— it doesn’t even have to be someone you know. But you look at them and you just start imagining things that you could potentially want to do with them, just like, for fun. I feel like it’s different when you’re just looking at someone versus when you’re with someone, because it is definitely a more meaningful thing when you’re with someone and you’re feeling that in the moment. I don’t know, I guess that would be my explanation.

Romantic attraction?

For me personally, I feel like the lines get a little blurred. I know for lot of people, it’s a hard definitive line, but I do think sex is something that kind of goes with romance. I guess things like kissing and stuff— that goes more into romance, but it also can go into the sexual aspect of things as well? So there’s some gray area between those two topics I think. For romantic attraction specifically, it’s when you’re with someone. You can be sexually attracted to anyone but not want to be with them, you know? And romantic attraction is when you want to be with that person and you want to spend time with them and have a relationship with them and you want to go and dates and do all this fun cute stuff and have movie nights and cuddling and whatnot. Physical affection I feel is romantic but it can get sexual too so it’s kind of a gray area when I get into that. I guess it’s how you express the physical affection that defines if it’s romantic or just purely sexual. 

Okay, well that’s a great segue into sensual attraction. Have you heard anybody use this phrase before? Because this is not that commonly talked about, at least in my experience.

To me they’re the same— do they have different meanings?

I mean, potato potahto, it’s all just semantics. Some people use sensual attraction to refer to the attraction that people feel towards others that they don’t want to be sexual with but they do feel inclined to be physical with. It doesn’t have to be explicitly intimate— for example, it might be what distinguishes someone that somebody wants to hug or cuddle as opposed to somebody they don’t, like a stranger. Like, I might be experiencing sensual attraction to my friend when I feel inclined to want a hug from them, and that makes me more comfortable hugging them then hugging somebody off the street. But you know, I’m not sexually attracted to my friends just because I want to hug them, but I still feel inclined to want or seek touch. 

Oh, like a chemistry thing? Like you have chemistry with that person or you feel comfortable around them?

Uh yeah? Like a level of physicality that isn’t inherently sexual. Like, being inclined to want a hug. Do you experience [that]?

Yeah— it depends. For me at least, when I’m comfortable with hugging people and being close to them physically but not in a sexual/romantic nature, it’s usually someone that I’m pretty good friends with or they just have a certain personality type that I’m drawn to. Usually I have to have known them for a while. I’m not a very touchy person, so a lot of times it boils down to the other person and what their personality is like. Usually I’m not touchy with friends that are similar to me and more reserved or if they’re not comfortable with that stuff as much either. But if I have friends who are more into hugging everybody all the time and more outgoing, then usually after a little bit of time I do get comfortable with hugging and stuff. It honestly just depends on the person and like their personality. It’s weird because I have a lot of really good friends that I don’t want to go up to and hug, but then I would have people that every time I saw I would give a big long hug. Like my old roommate Dallas— every time I saw her on campus, I would just give her the biggest hug ever. I don’t know why. She just had the personality that drew me to want a hug.

If you had to give that type of attraction a different name, what would you call it?

I don’t know, I guess physical chemistry? 

Yeah, I think that one is the hardest one to label.

Yeah, I never thought about that before but it’s interesting how some people are just more drawn to having those interactions with others. 

Yeah, I feel like I don’t think about it when it’s there but I notice it when it’s not. The last one I listed was aesthetic attraction.

[When you like someone’s] physical appearance on top of their style, like the way they present themselves so the world. I guess that would be the definition for me.

Okay. So— how often do you feel sexual attraction? I’m asking about how often you experience looking at someone, interacting with someone, observing someone— anything that relates to a different person, externally, resulting in you feeling something sexual, or whatever you described earlier as sexual attraction to a different person. Throughout your life, how often have you felt that?

I honestly don’t even know how to answer that cause it really just depends. Not very often? I feel, inherently, I’m not a super sexual person. Like a lot of times I won’t look at someone and think of something sexual because I have to know the person pretty well. Sometimes I see someone, maybe a celebrity crush or something that’s super attractive and is attractive to me, and I’ll look at a picture then be like, “Damn,” but it doesn’t happen a whole lot. I feel like with sexual attraction, I’m not too visual, so when it comes to just seeing something, I don’t really feel a whole lot of sexual attraction. So for me I feel attraction when I’m in certain situations. 

So would you say that you say that sexual attraction that you feel towards a person can develop over time as you get to know them?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean I’ve dated people in the past where the attraction was just there instantly, but I feel that’s the type of thing that can easily fade away because as I get to know people, their personalities are what make me attracted to them or not. I can be attracted to someone for their looks, but when it boils down to it, I’m really just going to be attracted to them based off of their personalities. I have to get to know someone and get more comfortable with them before I can even get in a situation where I would feel that sexual attraction. Cause a lot of times, when I’m in a romantic situation with someone, at least in the beginning of getting to know someone, I don’t default to the sexual stuff so it’s not what’s on my mind until I get more comfortable the person.

I really enjoy hearing the answer that question because I find that they vary a lot, especially in regards to the flexibility of sexual attraction in regards to how people perceive others.

I’ve never been the type of person that could just hookup with someone that I just met. Like, I just can’t do that.

It seems like a fixed variable for some people where either they find somebody sexually attractive or they don’t, and if they don’t to begin with, they know that they never will, and for others, it’s way more fluid than that.

I mean I can use an example. I’m dating Olaf, right? And I knew Olaf for a year-and-a-half before we started dating. And I never really thought of him as a romantic or sexual partner until we started dating and I got to know him more. It just never was something that crossed my mind. But as I get to know him and date him more, I obviously had sexual attraction towards him, but that came after getting to know him. And then there’s people that I see and I’ll be like “I could be sexually attracted to them,” and then I get to know them and it’s like, “Yeah I would never do anything with you.” A lot of it is personality I think.

Have you experienced meeting or seeing somebody that you know for sure you could never be sexually attracted to? Can you ‘rule people out’?

I can, but a lot of is personality. I am attracted to certain personality traits— like, I like people who show some level of confidence or people with a sense of humor. Those are the things I find attractive. I know that sounds pretty vague. But there are cases where I’d meet people and be like, “Yeah, I don’t think so.” 

Do you have a physical “type”? 

So I always thought that I did until I met Olaf because before I dated him, I always dated the same types of guys. They were really extroverted and always lead the conversation and they were I guess what you would say conventionally pretty attractive— they didn’t all look the same, but similar personalities and vibe. And then I started dating Olaf and I was like, “Okay, maybe I don’t really have a type, cause I’m attracted to him and he’s not like anybody else that I’ve dated.” I think Olaf is attractive, but I didn’t really think about that before I got to know him. But yeah, if anything, the only thing that is kind of like a deal-breaker I guess is if someone is shorter than me. I know it’s kind of bad, but like, I don’t know, I can’t date people that are shorter than me. I know it sounds pretty vain, but that’s always been a thing for me. That’s probably the only thing I would say there is, in terms of physical appearance, in my type. They have to be my height or taller. That’s all.

What is the earliest that you can recall experiencing sexual attraction/your sense of libido (if present)?

I think the libido for me actually came before sexual attraction. It’s hard to explain— as young as probably 9 years old I would start feeling what I would describe as libido and not really knowing what it was. When I first recognized I was sexually attracted to another human being, that’s probably sometime in middle school. I want to say probably like 13, 14?

How do you feel, if you have any feelings or thoughts, about your sense of libido in general?

In terms of libido, that’s the one that’s weird for me because it depends what kind of week I’m having. Sometimes it’s a more, like, regular regular level where I want to do things more often, like every few days or so, and then sometimes I’ll go weeks without wanting to do anything, and I don’t know if that’s just cause I have depression or what, but sometimes it’s just not there. So it really just varies. It’s a weird thing. Like, how do you control that?

How do you feel about your sexual education you received?

1 out of 10.

*laughs* Do you want to talk about that at all?

Well, I had two sex ed [classes] actually. One was in 6th or 7th grade at my first middle school and that one was actually a bit better because I was in [redacted state name] and they did talk to us a little bit about condoms and stuff, but they were mainly telling us the dangers of sex and about STDs and getting pregnant. They didn’t go into birth control options at all. They talked about condoms and they said, “You should have safe sex,” but they didn’t give us information on that. The second time I had sex ed was 8th grade in my middle school in [redacted state name] and this was a mess because this religious group came to the school and told us ‘sex is bad you should never have sex until you get married’, and they explained all these reasons why you should keep the purity of marriage and how if you have sex before you get married then it’s just going to ruin your marriage. They didn’t go into any birth control options at all— they just said ‘don’t do it, don’t have sex or else basically, your marriage and your life is going to be destroyed’. They made us all sign cards saying that we would be abstinent until marriage. 

Purity pledges?

Yep. So that was like, one out of one hundred is the rating I would give. 1 percent. Actually, negative 1 percent. It was just the opposite of helpful.

No assumptions here— do you feel that that’s wrong? Do you disagree with those notions?

Yes! You shouldn’t— I mean, they used their religion to push it on us, and it’s like, there’s people at the school who don’t believe in the same religion as you and don’t care about the sanctity of marriage. So that’s just wrong to push that on people and make them think that is what is the all-knowing truth. Like no, give people options so they can make their own goddamn decision and be safe about it, cause that’s just going to make people not be safe. If they don’t know any other option, they’re just going to have sex without protection cause they don’t know. People are going to have sex anyway is my thinking. You can’t tell someone to just wait till marriage. Or they’ll get married really young into a bad marriage that they didn’t want to be in just so they can lose their virginity. I’ve seen that happen with people— they rush into it and that just makes things worse for everybody.

Next category: how do you feel about your body and what you wear, and how does it relate to your sense of identity?

I mean, I feel fine about my body. I don’t really give it much thought. I don’t know— I’m skinny, I have a decent amount of curves; I feel like it’s typical for people with my body type to be objectified a lot. Something actually happened recently at work where some guy just came up to me and was like, “Are you single?” And I don’t know if it’s just cause of my body or what but… I like my body the way it is, but I also don’t like the way that people with my body type get treated. I feel like a lot of people look at it and… Like I said, it gets objectified. But I don’t have a problem with my body. I just wish people would stop being annoying about it.
In terms of what I wear, I just wear whatever I want. If I’m just chilling around the house, I wear what’s comfortable to me. Right now I’m wearing sweat pants and a baggy shirt and a beanie, cause that’s comfortable, and I went to the store and I wore that, and it’s like, cool, I’m chillin. I wear a lot of like baggy shit just cause it’s comfortable. I’m not trying to hide anything— it’s nice and warm and comfortable and that’s what I like to wear. If I’m going to a special event or throwing a party or something, I want to look cute so, you know, I’m not ashamed of my body or anything so I’ll wear form-fitting clothes. I like those times when I can wear something that’s form-fitting. I usually feel pretty confident about it so yeah, I just wear whatever I want. I’m not doing anything with an agenda or trying to impress people or trying to cover anything up.

How do you feel about your gender identity if you have any feelings or thoughts?

I mean, I’m a cisgender female and I’ve never felt the need to identify differently. I know people that do identify differently from their assigned gender at birth, and after having things explained to me and [hearing] how that is, I know I’ve never felt any of that. If there’s anything I do have issues with, it’s the notion of how women are supposed to be perceived and how women are supposed to act and are supposed to dress. Like, I’ve never viewed myself as a very feminine person, and that doesn’t mean I don’t identify as a woman. That is something that I have struggled with before and still do a little bit. Even though it is a societal thing and no one has to follow it, there are times when I’ll compare myself to other women and be like, “Why am I not like as ‘feminine’ as them?” So for me at this point, it’s just about accepting where I fit in terms of how I express myself. I do like to wear makeup and stuff and dress up nice, but to me, those aren’t feminine things. Anyone can do that. I just feel like the societal standards of how women should act, how women should look— it’s just not something that really resonates with me. I’m starting to learn that pretty much any way you express yourself doesn’t necessarily have to be defined to whether its feminine or masculine. Just do whatever you’re comfortable with and what you feel like works for you.

So that makes me think to ask a similar question as the one in regards to your orientation— if you had to assign a percentage value to how closely you feel you identify as “female”, what would it be? 

I don’t even think I can answer that, cause what does that even mean, you know? What does it mean to be a female? There’s no hard-pressed right answer to that. In some aspects of life, I can be feminine, but I don’t even know what that means. That’s something I’ve been thinking about recently—  I can’t even come up with the number for that cause to me, it’s just such a…

Construct?

There shouldn’t be defined lines of this feminine vs. masculine. The lines to me are so blurred at this point, so I don’t know.

How comfortable do you feel talking about sex, sexuality, etc. with those close to you: your friends, and/or your family?

Usually I’m pretty comfortable with it. I was comfortable with all the questions today, but there were a lot of things that were like, “Huh, I don’t know.” In terms of friends, I have to be close friends with them to talk about this stuff but they have to be in the best friend tier. I’m not just going to go up to like a co-worker or something and be like, “Sexuality!” but I’ll talk to close friends about things. In terms of family, mainly just my siblings, but I won’t talk to my parents or my brother.

Has anything about those feelings changed over the course of your life in regards to how comfortable you are?

Oh yeah. I never talked about anything sex related until probably college. I was just always really awkward about it.

Do you know why that is or what changed?

I mean, I’ve always been an awkward person in general, so to talk about topics like sex related things was just scary and I knew if I talked about it, it would just be an awkward conversation. I think what changed was just experience honestly. When I started doing certain things, it was easier to talk about cause I was like, “Okay, this isn’t like as scary or taboo as it had seemed for my whole life. This is fine.” But even when starting college, I had lots of friends that would talk about their sex lives and I couldn’t talk about it because for one, I didn’t have experience with anything and two, I was just awkward as hell. And I never understood why people always wanted to talk about it— even now, I don’t talk about things a whole lot because I don’t feel like it’s something that people need to be talking about all the time. I don’t think it’s a taboo subject at all, but I feel like a lot of my friends will just brag about stuff a lot and it makes me uncomfortable.

You’re talking about specifics in regards to sex lives?

Yeah. But if we’re talking about sexuality, like gender expression and sexuality, that’s a different topic. I’m down to talk about that. I just never understood why people felt the need to talk about [their sex lives] all the time. That’s what a lot of my friends would talk about and I was like, “I never feel the need to express these things to people but other people do. What separates me from other people wanting to talk about this stuff?” Cause even now that I have experience with things, I still don’t feel the need to go around telling my friends about it.

Do you feel like your feelings about it have anything to do with how you were exposed to it, e.g. your sex ed experience, etc. early on, or do you feel like it’s completely unrelated? 

I think it’s unrelated. I think for me, I just don’t really want to talk about it cause it’s my private life. Like I said, I don’t think it’s taboo thing— do whatever you want. But I’m very private about those things, so when people start opening up that conversation, it’s like, okay, I don’t really want to talk about this. I guess I don’t understand why other people wouldn’t want to keep those things private, but to each their own. 

We’re getting into the vague ending section. Over the course of your life, have you observed any changes and or made any discoveries that stick out to you in regards to your sexuality?

In terms of how I identify, it’s always been the same. I haven’t made any discoveries in recent years. If anything, I discovered that I do prefer to get to know someone before doing anything but that just came with experience I think. In terms of other stuff— and this is just with experience as well— I’ve learned more about things that I that I’m into, things that turn me on, things that probably don’t turn me on. But I’d say probably the biggest thing is realizing that it’s not about looks at the end of the day; it’s about if you’re compatible.

Is there anything(s) about sex, sexuality, gender identity, etc. that you’d wish you learned earlier than whenever you did?

Hm.. That you don’t have to please everyone that you’re with. If you don’t want to do something and you’re with someone who does, it’s okay to stand your ground and be like, “Okay, maybe not.” I’ve dated people in the past where I wasn’t sure about things and still went through with them— not that I was in any dangerous situations or anything, but there were some things I was like, okay, maybe I could have not done that just because I wasn’t really feeling it. I think I always viewed it as a much bigger deal than it really is; it’s okay to have your own opinions on things, and you don’t always have to please your partner. I think in the past, I always viewed that as top priority over my own and what I wanted, and that resulted in… Mistakes being made. So if there’s anything that I would have told myself, it’s that you don’t have to please everyone, and that at the end of the day, it’s about what you want to do and what you’re comfortable with. Another thing— probably the bigger thing is: don’t rush into doing sexual things. If you’re a virgin, there’s no rush to lose your virginity. That was a huge thing for me because there was one person in particular that made fun of me for it, and there was a lot of pressure to lose it. And that was a mistake that I regret because I just gave into the pressure of [thinking], “I’m getting older, I need to lose my virginity because everyone else has.” I would just tell myself it’s not that big of a deal. It’s not required to lose it at a certain age— don’t pressure yourself into doing that if you’re just not ready yet.

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