Ask A Character #7: Bennett
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Q: To Bennett: When did you start having the fear that you might be gay?
Bennett: What?! Gay? Who said anything about me being gay? Just because a certain male someone kissed me and I liked it, doesn’t mean I can’t still be totally heterosexual! Cybele, find something on the Internet to back me up, here!
Cybele: Yup, boss, this website is very clear! You can enjoy anything Cohen does with you — including having sex with you — and you can even be the one to happily initiate the enjoyable sex with Cohen! — as often as you like, for the rest of your life! — all without implying you are sexually attracted to Cohen. In which case, you are definitely heterosexual, and it’s offensive for anyone to call that into question.
Bennett: Aha! There you go!
Cybele: Lots of humans, having internalized toxic messages about sexuality, start getting scared and avoidant as teenagers when their own sexualities start to develop.
Bennett: That is a random offhand observation and it has nothing to do with me!!
Fffff
Too real boss, way too real.
I thought we were calling him bisexual? What with loving his now-deceased wife and all? Though, with a sample size of two, there are all sorts of other options, including hetero- or homoflexible, and demisexual.
because humans like labels XD I say, Bennett, don’t worry, just love the daylights out of whoever you like, and likes you back.
Cohen is bi. Bennett is just gay and repressed.
Also, “demisexual” is not an alternate sexuality, it’s just an extra adjective! You’re still gay/ bi/straightike/etc based on your preferred gender(s), and it gives more detail about your interests within the preferred gender(s). (Same as terms like “submissive” or “really into muscles.”)
fair enough. So he didn’t feel any physical attraction to his wife, just an emotional connection? *Feels empathetic pain for the couple…that’s a rough haul*
I’ve seen demisexual used to mean a sexuality that mostly ignores gender as a factor, but emphasizes interpersonal relationships as the paramount consideration to sexual interest…and I haven’t heard a better label..do yo know one? (honest curiosity here, not trying to challenge)
Pretty much.
“Pansexual” and “bisexual” are both perfectly valid labels for people who are capable of being attracted to anyone, without gender being a factor! And anybody, of any sexuality, can be disinterested in casual sex with people they don’t know well. Does that need to be collapsed into a one-word label? “Not interested in casual sex” is already succinct and easy to understand.
“Demisexual” is kind of a dodgy label, honestly. Some people use it to mean “my sex drive doesn’t kick in at all with strangers, even if I might want it to” (similar to the way Bennett’s sex drive doesn’t kick in with women at all, even though he really, really tries). Buuuuut then there are people who use it to mean “I want LGBT street cred, and the only way I can get it is by claiming to be marginalized because I only want to have heterosexual sex within the context of a heterosexual relationship.”
And I’m afraid any label people come up with for the former category is inevitably going to get co-opted by the latter category =/
Demisexual is an orientation on the asexual spectrum. Just because some heterosexuals have co-opted it does not invalidate it, and it is not fair of you to imply as much. Please don’t. Thank you. Ace and ace spectrum people deal with enough erasure.
Yo, reread the comment. I said the *label* was dodgy, not that the asexuality spectrum doesn’t exist.
Oh, and, for the record? That page you linked…describes me! Shockingly, I am aware of my own existence without helpful strangers on the Internet giving me links about it!
Yes, and it describes quite a few people I care deeply about who took comfort in finding the label, thus my defense of it. Just because a label describes you and you feel like it doesn’t suit or you don’t like some of the people who use it does not mean you have the right to declare it dodgy and speak as if from a point of authority – it’s not a terribly kind thing to do to others who have sought it as a point of strength. Since you were doing that while addressing someone to educate them, I felt compelled to point that out. That’s all.
If you’re so insecure in your identity that you can’t handle sharing a label with people you’re uncomfortable with without nuking that label from orbit, and feel the need to react thusly to a random stranger on the internet telling you you’ve said something insensitive, then that would be your problem, not mine.
People take comfort in lots of things. Me, I take comfort in the knowledge that sexual attraction is also a spectrum, which people experience in a manifold of different ways. It’s a point of strength for me that I am not obligated to dissect all the particulars and figure out the appropriate prefix that disclaims each one.
Telling someone they must be “insecure in their identity” because they don’t use the label you want them to is…also pretty dodgy.
And quit exaggerating “that’s dodgy” to “that needs to be nuked from orbit.”
A source, in case you feel I’m simply being contrary https://www.asexuality.org/wiki/index.php?title=Demisexual
If labels that straight people claim for queer cred are dodgy, then we’re gonna run out of labels fast.
This is not an exceptional characteristic of demisexuality. Are you calling bisexual a dodgy label too?
Do we really need to sit down and list all the relevant differences, here?
First one that jumps to mind is that you appear to be talking about straight people who lie about being queer. That’s possible with any letter under the rainbow.
I’m talking about straight people who are being perfectly truthful — they do indeed fit the criteria of demisexuality — but are trying to use that in order to reframe their straightness as queerness. That does not happen with the “bi” label. Truthfully bi people are queer already, no reframing necessary.
This isn’t hard.
Poe and Reseda:
Plot lines have conspired to separate you from your respective masters by significant distances. Are you able to use being powers to teleport back to their sides if they need you? if so, would a battle be required to accomplish it?
This one I’ll just answer as-is — Beings can’t teleport, even within the confines of the battle-dimension.
Miranda: Having successfully saved the day, Sparrow and Reseda, how do you feel?
Does knowing that you managed to cock block your father’s budding relationship with Bennett in the process affect how you feel about it (being the hero)?