Sexual Minorities

Sexual identity is a relatively recent and controversial concept. Common cultural practice and scholarly convention have each developed many of the ways currently used to define and categorize human sexual identity. Some of these focus on sexual orientation, defined as a person's gendered preference in the choice of sexual partners. Viewed in this way, an individual could be defined as asexual (having little to no interest in sex, and therefore no need for sexual partners), bisexual (sexual interest in both men and women), gay (preference by a male for male sexual partners), lesbian (preference by a female for female sexual partners), straight (preference by a male for female sexual partners, and for male partners by females), and questioning (still in the process of discerning sexual orientation). Other preferences with respect to choice of sexual partners include necrophilia (desire to have sexual contact with a corpse) and zoophilia, also known as bestiality (desire to have sexual contact with animals).

Another commonly used means of defining sexual identity is through the enumeration of an individual's concurrent sexual partners. Numerical categories of this kind include celibacy (abstinence from sex, and thus no sexual partners); monogamy (sex with only one committed partner); polygamy, of which there are two primary types: polygyny (sex between a male and two or more concurrent and committed female partners) and polyandry (sex between a female and two or more concurrent and committed male partners); and polyamory (sex with multiple partners, with whom one may or may not have committed relationships).

Still another means of defining sexual identity is to do so in terms of an individual's preferences regarding specific sexual foci and practices. There is a wide range of fetishistic interests, also known as paraphilias, which involve eroticizing parts of the human body, manufactured and natural objects, and sensations and situations not normally associated by most people with sex. Examples include erotic interest in such body parts as the ankles or hair, objects such as cigarettes or shoes, and sensations or situations associated with bondage (deriving sexual pleasure from tying others or being tied up), masochism (deriving sexual pleasure from receiving psychological distress and physical pain), fantasy and role play (e.g., discipline, dominance, submission), and sadism (deriving sexual pleasure from imposing psychological distress and physical pain). Fetishes can be as rareand, from the perspective of the sociosexual mainstream, as disturbingas such forms of “scat play” as coprophilia (deriving sexual pleasure from playing with or eating feces) and urophilia [Page 724](deriving sexual pleasure from playing with or drinking urine). Fetishes can also be relatively tame, per normative sociosexual standards, as for example an interest in having sex while dressed as cute, fuzzy animals, or as pirates, sailors, soldiers, Victorian school marms, or their students, and so on.

The broad sexual identity categories briefly outlinedsexual orientation, partner enumeration, and preferred sexual practicesare not mutually exclusive. For example, a woman might define herself as a monogamous lesbian sadist or a man as a polyamorous bisexual. In contrast, some, although not all, of the subcategories within each broader category are mutually exclusive. For example, it is impossible to be simultaneously monogamous and polygamous. At other times, several related sexual categories can be collapsed into an omnibus sexual identity, such as BDSM. The first two letters of this abbreviation, “BD,” stands for bondage and discipline (physical restraint and light pain); the middle two letters, “DS,” for dominance and submission (fantasy and role-playing); and the last two letters, “SM,” for sadism and masochism (heavy pain).

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