Friday, 20 July 2012

• Sexual Flexibility: The Flexuality Test

  
  Flexuality, James W. Hicks, M.D.'s blog about human sexuality, offers an anonymous Flexuality (or Sexual Flexibility) Test. The test, "assesses your attitudes, feelings, experiences, and desires." Although most of us are familiar with the Kinsey Scale or the general idea that sexual orientation isn't rigid or binary, this particular test is unique in that, "...Your answers will be automatically analyzed to generate a sexual profile, with reference to a dozen sexual types [including Heteroflexible, Supersexual, Ambisexual, Asexual, Flexamorous, Metamorphic, Transitioning, Restrained, Gay or Lesbian, Queer, Versatile, Macho, or Straight]."
  
  Click here to enter the site and take the Flexuality Test!

   

  At the beginning of the test, when asked to identify as "gay," "straight," or "bisexual,"

   I identified as "straight."

  If the subject of sexual orientation ever comes up in conversation with friends or acquaintances, I half-playfully/half-seriously refer to myself as, "Heteroflexible" or "Predominantly Straight." Flexuality defines Heteroflexible as, "open to fooling around with someone of the same sex, even though you generally consider yourself straight." Yep. Sounds about spot-on. 

   

  Simply put: Although I occasionally find myself sexually attracted to a woman and would consider acting on that attraction if an opportunity to do so presented itself organically, mostly, I crush on dudes. I dig (and crave) virility -- deep voices, facial scruff, height, shoulders, the smell of men's cologne and aftershave. In the past, I've only ever had -- and only ever wanted -- boyfriends. When I envision my future long-term partner, he's consistently a he.   

   

  So I was surprised and admittedly, a little taken aback when my Flexuality Test Report suggested that I'm Ambisexual, as opposed to Heteroflexible. According to Flexuality, "If you are similarly sexually aroused by both women and men, then you are ambisexual. This is the simplest, classic type of bisexuality: a 'Kinsey 3' on the heterosexual-homosexual seven-point scale.
  
  The prefix in the word ambisexual puts the emphasis more specifically on the equivalence of desire for both men and women, as distinct from other manifestations of bisexuality, though you may also feel comfortable calling yourself bisexual. The term 'AC-DC' has been applied to those who derive equal sexual satisfaction from both sexes, or you might refer to your desires as '50-50.' Ambisexual is probably the most natural condition, the one that would emerge most commonly if society did not so strongly encourage heterosexuality and pathologize homosexual desire, skewing the bell curve that would otherwise define a population’s erotic tastes." 

  
  What interested me more than the results themselves was my knee-jerk reaction to them (something along the lines of, "HUH? No. No way. This is definitely wrong..."). I think of myself as an extremely broad-minded person, especially when it comes to matters of sex and sexuality.
  
  My friends would unanimously agree that I deem no topic taboo. A number of my family members are gay. A handful of my closest female friends identify as lesbian or bisexual. I had no problem answering the Flexuality Test's questions honestly and uninhibitedly; indeed, these results are based on thoroughly truthful, uncensored responses. That said, I experience a bit of cognitive dissonance when I try the identity of someone who, "derives equal sexual satisfaction from both sexes" on for size in my mind. My self-definition doesn't quite align with my most authentic self.  
  
  All I can say is this: My fantasies are my fantasies. My attractions are my attractions. My behavior is my behavior. I'm willing to own it all, but I'm ultimately more than the sum of my thoughts, feelings, actions, and proclivities. When it comes to being put in any sort of quantifying box -- even if that box is less confining than the traditional labels of "gay," "straight," or "bisexual" -- I immediately become uncomfortable.
  
  In the same vein, although I write poetry and take writing poetry seriously, I feel uncomfortable calling myself, "a poet." I'm a lot of things, for that matter: a reader, a blogger, a walk-taker, a yogini, a dancer, a friend, a daughter, a driver, a phone-chatter, an errand-runner, a movie-watcher, a tooth-brusher, a mascara-applier, a laundry-doer, an email-checker, a salad-maker, etc., etc., etc. A few lines from Anne Sexton's The Interrogation of The Man of Many Hearts come to mind: "I called her the woman in red. / I called her the girl in pink / but she was ten colors / and ten women / I could hardly name her." Like everyone else, I'm a complicated, continually evolving being. Please, don't try to name me.  

  
  The test results and my response to them have given me a considerable amount to reflect on -- not related to my sexual identity so much as the chasm between how we, as humans, CHOOSE TO *DEFINE* OURSELVES and WHAT WE *ACTUALLY* THINK, FEEL, AND DO.  

  
  How do you identify sexually? What do your Flexuality Test results indicate? What was your reaction to your results? 
  
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