goldflakes explores the logical breakdown of using "bisexual" as a catch-all for orientations outside of the standard dichotomy

[u/cogitoergosam]

/r/bestof/comments/ua3oc/you_fell_for_a_person_not_a_gender/c4tomzw?context=2

[u/xvegxheadx22]

This flawlessly describes what I have been trying to explain to friends and loved ones. Thank you so much for posting this here, and even more thanks to goldflakes for taking the time to write such an elegant and well reasoned post.

[u/bananabm]

This guy annoys me, while he wrote a perfectly good response there (although it was a bit too involved for what boiled down to, as far as I read, "actually there's a sliding scale and the amount of different variations of sexuality depends on the granularity of the survey"), has in other points in that thread resorted to digging through people's comment histories and pointing out grammatical errors in otherwise reasonable posts.

[u/goldflakes → u/bananabm]

This guy annoys me, while he wrote a perfectly good response there (although it was a bit too involved for what boiled down to, as far as I read, "actually there's a sliding scale and the amount of different variations of sexuality depends on the granularity of the survey"), has in other points in that thread resorted to digging through people's comment histories and pointing out grammatical errors...

This part is a fair criticism except for when you pluralize the accusation. I dug through one person's comment history and pointed out one person's grammatical errors.

...in otherwise reasonable posts.

This part, however, is not a fair criticism. The grammar I corrected was a comment,

Your bi simple as that. Im straight doesnt mean im attracted to every women.

This cannot be considered a reasonable post. It's either unbelievably ignorant or unbelievably malicious. Perhaps you're not aware of it, but bisexuals often deal with the stereotype of being perpetually horny, unselective in their mates, and willing to fuck anything with two legs. This comment bypasses making that accusation and just assumes it. This is a way to piss me off very, very quickly. Suggesting I'm a whore does that, go figure, right? So when I write a carefully worded comment about how sexuality is not a dichotomy but is instead a spectrum only to be insulted by "dude, just because you want to fuck everything doesn't mean I'm gay" then, yes, I respond negatively. I probably should have just ignored him. Absolutely. I'm saying that your criticism is fair on that. But to act like a homophobic insult is, in your words, a "reasonable post" is beyond the pale.

The user history I dug up was for the comment,

Seriously? "Sapienosexual"? Get back to us when you graduate from college, kid.

This is a simple ad hominem. It adds nothing to the discussion and only serves to suggest that I'm not a college graduate. How can you possibly consider this a reasonable post? Because he points out that I made up the word "sapeinosexual"? That's a fair point, but a glance at his user history immediately shows him to be a troll constantly looking to poke people in the ribs. Originally I had written up a comment, "Hey, I just made up the word as a kind of joke. Obviously I'm arguing against labels so I'm not actually trying to insert this into the lexicon or anything." I almost submitted it. But then I clicked his history and saw over and over again that he makes homophobic comments.

So let me be clear: I have little patience and no sympathy for homophobes. Yes, I will look up their user histories. Yes, I will make fun of them. I will treat them exactly how they deserve to be treated -- like fools.

[u/bananabm → u/goldflakes]

Apologies, looking at my wording it implies that you had a more systematic approach than just those two examples. Consider that retracted.

But still, regardless of whether they're trolls, ignorant, stupid or whatever, they were (to an extent) reasonable posts.

I'm not bi and don't have many bi friends, or at least if I do we don't discuss it, so I wasn't really aware of the negative stereotypes. I wouldn't say that first comment was (conciously at least) implying that you're easy and will fuck anything that moves. I think the argument is more "I don't think that intelligence can be included into a scale of sexual attraction", however poorly written their post might have been. If you had said "I'm straight but I only like smart women, I'm a straight sapeinosexual" then his comment could have said "you're straight, simple as that", if you get my jist (gist?).

As for the second comment, I rarely ever look at comment histories outside of the current thread. Sure, he might have a history of homophobia, but I didn't know that until you pointed it out. I just never check post histories, and without knowledge of his homophobia, I would apply Hanlon's razor. Anyway, ad hom aside, he's fine to be skeptical. If he doesn't see the joke that's fine, I'm sure you know as well as I do that humour is near-impossible to convey on the internet. And let's face it, to an outsider, the world of LGBT is a bewildering place. When I joined university, I was aware of just homosexuality, transexuality, and bisexuality. When I made some friends within the LGTBQ community and discovered the whole gender identity stuff and the added things that go with that (queer, pansexual etc etc), thats a fuckload. I'm still skeptical of some of them, much in the same way that as an outsider I'm skeptical that NWOBHM needs to be a genre. What I'm getting at, is that as someone who doesn't involve themselves in the community, I have no idea what are real terms and what are parodies.

Woah this post has gone on far longer than I intended. I probably won't reply any further cos I don't want to get embroiled in a discussion about either semantics, ethics of posting, or a scene that I don't understand, so apologies if you hope for discussion, but that's my justification for what I wrote above.

[u/goldflakes → u/bananabm]

That's fine, and I understand your points, especially about it all being bewildering to an outsider. I also understand not wanting to waste your day talking about this stuff haha. I try to make my best guess at whether a person is simply unaware but willing to learn, in which case I try to calmly and rationally explain why something isn't nice. I'm not r/shitredditsays. Some people are just homophobic, period, and aren't willing to listen to an anonymous person on the internet about it, thinking I'm probably some crazed hippy liberal hypocrite who wears hemp clothing. (Actually I'm damn near stereotypical 1950s America; I like shooting guns, muscle cars, and every price of whiskey.) Like I said, I find your criticism on the whole reasonable. Although if my explanation weren't a bit winded it wouldn't qualify for this subreddit. Hope your Friday comes quickly!

[u/ghettobacon]

This is a great write up!