How Much Latitude Do You Get For Your Sexual Predilections?

What matters most is how it impacts other people

By now most people are on board with the idea that sexual preferences are just a part of you — something that people really don’t have much if any control over. For instance, whether you like boys or girls, or both is not a choice that you get to make. It’s just your inherent preference, one that you were born with, although it’s also possible that it’s remained latent for some period of time due to social programming and was only uncovered later in life.

But what if your preference is for children? It’s just who you are sexually attracted to and you say that you can’t help that. Most people would agree that although that attraction might not necessarily be in your control either, it is harmful and therefore unacceptable to do anything to act on such an attraction. Children are not able to understand the ramifications of sexual involvement, particularly with someone who is much older than they are, and therefore are not capable of consenting to it and any sort of sex without consent is wrong.

These are the two poles of sexual preference, but what about all of the possibilities in between? The other day there was a bit of a firestorm on Twitter when someone expressed a strong preference for cocks that are circumcised. She recognized that this preference was influenced by both culture and other sociological factors, but also said, it really is just what she likes. She’s not alone. Studies indicate that most women have a preference for cut men, whether or not that is a common thing in their culture.

In the overwhelming majority of studies, women expressed a preference for the circumcised penis. The main reasons given for this preference were better appearance, better hygiene, reduced risk of infection, and enhanced sexual activity, including vaginal intercourse, manual stimulation, and fellatio. In studies that assessed mothers’ preference for MC of sons, health, disease prevention, and hygiene were cited as major reasons for this preference. Cultural differences in preference were evident among some of the studies examined. Nevertheless, a preference for a circumcised penis was seen in most populations regardless of the frequency of MC in the study setting.

Those who were outraged at this expression of personal sexual preference expressed that infants do not have the ability to consent to the removal of a part of their body and that personal preference for circumcised men is often a factor in the decision of many mothers to make this choice for their sons — a choice which the boys had no say in.

“If you say you value body autonomy, you can’t support this practice,” said one angry commenter.

But circumcision isn’t only a cosmetic practice, it’s also a health-related one. My husband’s grandfather was circumcised in his late 70s for health reasons and parents make health-related decisions for their children without their input all of the time. In other words, I don’t think that there is one definitive correct position about the practice of circumcision, although I do understand some of the objections to it. But I also still believe that people have a right to prefer cut penises if that’s what they like.

After all, it’s not like women (or men) are forcing men to go out and have this done in adulthood in order to be deemed attractive, and people have all sorts of other sexual preferences. The choices that parents are making about this practice for their sons has many other components to it, including culture, and health and I think it’s a much larger question than sexual preference.

In general, I think it’s fine to like what you like sexually.

I prefer women who are on the curvy side. Most models look like stick people to me and I think that women with more meat on their bones are a lot more voluptuous. I also think that redheads are sexy. I like guys with big arms and shoulders, and I too prefer men who are circumcised. But as I wrote a while back, I actually find all sorts of men attractive. In addition, my female lover has black hair and until she started working out, was probably a bit on the scrawny side. In other words, preferences are just that, and not the final word on who I want to be intimate with. I think that most people are probably a lot like me.

But what if you do have hard and fast rules, such as only wanting to date within your race, or only wanting to date blondes? Shouldn’t you be allowed to have those preferences? How do we know what is someone’s inappropriate cultural stance and what is genuinely their innate preference? I don’t think we necessarily can know that except in extreme circumstances. Unless you’re saying, “I’d never fuck a …. (fill in the blank)” you are probably OK.

I’ve never dated or had sex with a Black person. It’s not that I have a rule against that or find dark skin unattractive. I don’t have any opinions about Black people as a class. In fact, I can think of plenty of Black actors, as well as actual Black people that I’ve seen who are really hot, but in general, I’m more likely to be attracted to Nordic types. That’s just my preference. Where exactly does that come from? I could make some guesses, but it’s pretty hard to say for sure.

I once had a great flirtation going with a Black guy at the swinger’s club we used to attend. He’d lived in Sweden for a while and found that he was really attracted to tall blonds, but in addition, we just had a good chemistry going. The first thing he said to me is, “I need to go to the restroom, but when I come back, I really want to flirt with You! That struck me as both funny and charming, and I told him I was looking forward to it. Unfortunately, although his wife was enjoying dancing with my husband, she didn’t want to go somewhere more private together, and so nothing ever materialized on that front although I absolutely would have been into it if it had.

But what about when a preference becomes a fetish? Is that still alright? How much choice does someone have in that instance? In general, a fetish is imbuing someone with certain characteristics which may have nothing to do with their individuality. For example, if you think that all Asian women are naturally subservient, or that all redheads are sexual dynamos, without getting to know the person as a person, I think that becomes a problem because it’s turning a human being into an object of desire rather than a person you are interfacing with.

A foot fetish or a tattoo fetish is another thing because all sorts of people have tattoos or pretty feet, although if that is pretty much the only thing you like about that person, it’s probably not such a healthy thing. The more you are attracted to a whole person who has qualities that you like or admire, the less problematic these preferences become.

So, after thinking this topic though, I’ve come to the conclusion that in general people have the right to be sexually attracted to whomever they are attracted to — or are not attracted to. The caveats arise when your preference is negatively affecting someone else, particularly a demographic or category of people, which admittedly can be a little bit tricky because it’s not necessarily a clear line about what those are. It’s a bit like the doctrine that you can fire someone for a good reason, a bad reason, or no reason at all, as long as it isn’t an illegal reason.

No one owes anyone else anything when it comes to sex. You aren’t wrong or discriminatory for not being attracted to certain people, but we should still do our best to treat people as individuals and to get to know them for themselves rather than lumping them into whatever categories we think they fit into. Of course, culture tries hard to shape our preferences, and through the decades certain desired looks for both women and men have existed. It’s good to observe where that cultural standard is too narrow or too exclusionary and to challenge that with greater diversity and inclusion.

I appreciate how the pressure to do just that is beginning to see some results, particularly for what female body types are now being represented as attractive, but it also applies to things like disability, which is important as well. All sorts of people are sexy, for all sorts of different reasons, which is a good evolutionary quality. If we all truly only wanted the same things, we either would have died out as a species long ago or we’d all look pretty much the same by now. Genetic diversity is healthier and stronger for the species.

So, if you want to be a man who wears women’s lingerie or a woman who loves to call her man Daddy, have at it. As long as you aren’t harming anyone or disempowering an entire category of people with your preferences by shunning them for problematic reasons, I think that people are absolutely entitled to their sexual preferences. What’s the exact definition of problematic reasons? I don’t have the answer to that for you, but it’s somewhere in the neighborhood of “I’m not attracted to that person,” rather than “I’m not attracted to people like that.”

© Copyright Elle Beau 2020 Elle Beau writes on Medium about sex, life, relationships, society, anthropology, spirituality, and love. If this story is appearing anywhere other than Medium.com, it appears without my consent and has been stolen.

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