Can you please notice that you (ok, most of you) have no intention of sharing your masturbatory activity? AND YET we are in a society where people are ASKED to choose labels for their sexuality, or with whom they have sex. As if others should know...as if it's their business....and more importantly....as if they should be given the opportunity to judge.
I've been reading books on the various labels of sexuality, and there are a LOT of labels. Can I assume you've heard that sexuality is in fact a spectrum with MANY different types? Some we've heard of before - like people who only have sex when there is a romantic connection, and those who will have sex with a large range of candidates as they like the act and enjoy participating in it at multiple levels (what we used to call, derogatorily, a "slut"...which btw shows not THEIR issue in being free, but (potentially) OURS in limiting ourselves and judging others). The "new" labels look at people that have zero interest in sex, people who only have sex if it's kinky...I could go on.
Here's the thing - how many labels do there need to be before we decide we really don't need labels? And honestly, WHY are we labelling in the first place?! You meet someone, and either you want to play with them or you don't, and you consent to play, or you don't. Beyond that, IMHO, everything else is irrelevant.
So please contemplate two things
- That the less we label, the less we judge, the closely we ally with each other, and the more peaceful our planet becomes.
- In the meantime, yes, learn the labels, and if you just can't keep track, be kind and genuinely interested when you need to ask someone how they identify. And again... ask yourself why it matters?
In the meantime - here's a GREAT book for understanding some of the newer terms and how they evolved.