Oh hun! You are a human being, and from the sounds of it, a very good one. (I say this because you come accross very empathetic in your post) I FIRMLY believe that if you are not attracted to someone for whatever reason, that's your right. You shouldn't be trying to fit a square peg into a round hole in any aspect of your life.

I wouldn't tell a lesbian she should be attracted to men, any more than I would tell you that if overweight people isn't your thing you need to get over it.

To each their own.

You don't have to be attracted to fat people, but you could refrain from calling them "unhealthily overweight".

I enjoyed reading your essay; thanks for posting it. Here are some thoughts:

"I also don't find unhealthily overweight partners attractive. Am I doing bodilyharm to these folks by not giving them a chance?"

As long as you do it in a respectful and kind fashion, you are not harming them. You may be harming yourself, though. I know that society pressures us to fit ourselves into different boxes: "I'm a femme bi-curious," "He has an Asian fetish," "I'm a Red Sox fan," as though they are mutually exclusive packages that form the sum total of our experiences and desires. And this may streamline our mate selection process, but it also limits it.

As someone who went out with her current (and most serious) partner on a lark, never thinking I would be attracted to him, only to later feel a slow-kindled attraction, I strongly advocate stepping outside one's "type." And that includes gender.

I believe social norms play a huge role in who we are attracted to; as a social anthropologist, I can tell you that in most cases around the world, social constructions trump the so-called "biological" ones, or those construed as biological. I'll spare you a very long commmentary on the reasons why I and some others in my field believe the sociobiologist/neo-evolutionist camps' days have rightly passed. Suffice it to say, it is certainly possible to re-condition onesself to learn attraction to people your society has discouraged you from--very short men, for example, or members of your own gender, or fat people, or very fair-skinned people.

But I think you're going further and asking whether one *should* feel obligated to learn new attractions. Well, I think of it like this: no one needs to or "should" give themselves more options. But more options can be a wonderful thing.

Very few people find partners who are "all things" to them--who are at once posessed of Chiseled Physique and Face of an Angel AND who are kind AND whose politics match yours AND whose neuroses you can handle AND whose family you can tolerate AND who meet your educational or employment preferences AND who are faithful AND.... Most people end up "settling" in some aspect.

But I am not suggesting "settling." I am suggesting going out with one or two or three of these overweight--or blonde or short or tall or crooked-teeth--people you have previously avoided. You should have the expectation that anything is possible, and not put limits or ultimatums on the experience (such as "If I don't feel attracted within three dates, I'll stop.") Just get to know the person; hopefully, it will have been someone you picked because they have other qualities you DO admire.

Just see if, like me with my partner, you end up pleasantly astonished to find yourself slowly reacting to them. The worst that can happen is that you will have opened doors for yourself and the other person that you chose not to walk through.

I'd also like to respectfully point out that unless you know a person's eating and exercise habits and at least some of their medical profile, it's unlikely that you can say with a certainty who is "unhealthily" overweight. If you have a specific visual cut-off for the type of body you are attracted to, feel free to express that-- "I've never been attracted to men plump enough that their breasts protrude," [although keep in mind many average-weight men have large breasts], or "I find women with flatter abdomens more attractive." Just don't couch it in "health" terms.

Good luck,

I strongly advocate stepping outside one's "type." And that includes gender.

I think that's more harmful than anything else. Imagine if someone said to you: "I find you repulsive, but I'm hoping that someday, I might eventually find you attractive.".

Ouuuch. I wouldn't want that, not at all.

I won't even touch the gender thing, because going after someone outside of your gender preference isn't like dating someone with blue eyes, when you prefer green.

I wouldn't consider heterosexuality/homosexuality to be things that society causes in people, or that can be socialised out.

You can't ex-gay homosexuals, and you can't un-straight heterosexuals.

Anyway, it still comes back to my initial point. I think dating someone you aren't attracted to at all is more cruel than telling them you aren't interested right out.

Then you have someone who is getting their hopes up, who is most likely attracted to YOU, and when the time comes for more physical parts of it, you find you still can't do it, and then they're crushed, because the person they were really getting to like, and are attracted to, suddenly reveals they don't find them physically appealing.

That's way more hurtful than being told "Sorry, not interested".

"the guy is devastated because the female made no mention of an extra 100 lbs."

"thick folks need to wear it like they own it. Be healthy, find that balance of being happy AND healthy"

If these two quotes are related, I'm sorry but 100 lbs extra is not healthy. That's a whole lot of extra weight.

You wrote: "Imagine if someone said to you: "I find you repulsive, but I'm hoping that someday, I might eventually find you attractive."

I'm not sure why someone would say that to me if they were taking my "open door" suggestion above. Perhaps you and I are thinking about different types of relationship. I'm not thinking about one-week encounters based entirely on sex; those have their place, but they're certainly not compatible with the type of slow exploration I emphasized in my post.

I'm speaking rather of people interested in a courtship that may lead to a longer-term relationship or partnership. For such people, there is more time to focus on the individual across from you and see whether you are beginning to develop an attraction to them. This is a common strategy of people in societies in which marriages are largely set up between two recent acquaintences by family. The difference is, many of those people did not have a choice to make a love-marriage. Because *choice* and *options* are paramount in my schema, I suggest that people in dating/love-marriage societies can adopt some of these same strategies that have worked for *some* people in arranged marriages.

But this is only for people, like the original poster, who are questioning their own preferences. It's all about options. If you, Black Thirteen, are satisfied with all your options, and don't feel that you would benefit from broadening your dating pool to see whether or not you could find a different type of person, then you don't have to.

But to categorically state that all people *must* onnloy date people to whom they are immediately attracted seems to me to be more harmful then an open-minded person dating someone to whom they are not initially attracted and then, after getting to know them, deciding to part ways.

IN regards to your other points:

I do believe that socialization is indeed tied up with heterosexuality. Socialization touches almost everything we do and why we do it. I have not found the country where it does not. And U.S. societies, for example, have certainly socialized many people into hetero patterns that they later, after many years of dating or marrying members of the "opposite" gender, realize do not fit them.

I deeply regret and decry that anyone might have entered into a relationship because socialization guided them into it. But this does not mean that an exploration borne of *choice* would be equally harmful. I think, rather, that people--especially people just starting their dating lives-- choosing to date members of both their own and other genders would be rather a healthy thing.

Imagine a society in which people were not coached by media and role models into knee-jerk defensiveness ("I like you, but not that way!" "Not that there's anything wrong with that!") and were encouraged to meet a variety of people and attempt to relate to them as individuals. I think we would see (1) a decrease in the emphasis on simplistic categorization i.e. "Straight" v. "gay" v. "bi," and (2) an increase in same-sex relationships in general. I say "relationships" because I believe desire is often very individual. For example, I self-identify as "heterosexual" because that is what society calls women whose only dates or partners have been male. Yet I HAVE been attracted to individual women. But our language has not developed to reflect the gradations of desire.

Still, for those who don't share my more fluid conception of sexuality, it is possible to keep sexuality and physical attributes separate in our discussion of "attraction," and at least agree that some individuals can benefit from choosing to go out with someone they had earlier written off in the attraction department.

I'm not sure why someone would say that to me if they were taking my "open door" suggestion above. Perhaps you and I are thinking about different types of relationship. I'm not thinking about one-week encounters based entirely on sex; those have their place, but they're certainly not compatible with the type of slow exploration I emphasized in my post.

I'm just saying, humans are visual creatures, and we tend to build romantic relationships off of initial physical attraction.

I'm speaking rather of people interested in a courtship that may lead to a longer-term relationship or partnership.

Without that initial spark, you may very well not go any farther.

I wouldn't attempt to pursue a relationship with someone I wasn't attracted to (physically).

Not only is it unfair to them, it'd be unfair to me. Why should I attempt to force myself to be attracted to someone, when I can just find someone I *am* attracted to?

Physical attraction is what separates friends from lovers.

I do believe that socialization is indeed tied up with heterosexuality.

I don't. If heterosexuality was only created via socialisation, we wouldn't be much of a species, would we?

I liked girls before I even knew why I did.

The vast majority of heterosexuals feel the same way.

I think, rather, that people--especially people just starting their dating lives-- choosing to date members of both their own and other genders would be rather a healthy thing.

Well, you can't force someone to be attracted to a member of the same sex, if they're heterosexual, or opposite, if homosexual.

Just like I don't believe in "ex-gay", I don't believe sexuality is so fluid as you'd hope, for heterosexuals.

The only close male friend I have happens to be gay, and while I can appreciate he's physically beautiful, I'm not attracted to him in the least, in that respect. No matter how much I value him for his friendship, I don't ever have a desire to do anything physically.

and at least agree that some individuals can benefit from choosing to go out with someone they had earlier written off in the attraction department.

I just think it's unfair to both individuals involved. Especially if you're dating with the intent of finding a relationship, why embark on dating where you aren't even physically attracted? That's just asking for trouble down the line.

Black Thirteen,

We can agree to disagree on how fluid sexuality is. I'm not suggesting that it is equally fluid for all people, simply that if society's emphasis on "check your box" sexuality, binary gender, etc. were to diminish, there would be significantly more young people who grow up feeling and acting on attractions to members of all social genders, their own included.

Incidentally, although I am not suggesting you would have felt homosexual attractions in a less binary society, the fact that people have preferences since "as long as they can remember" is not evidence against socialization. In fact, in many cases--the binary gender roles, for example--it is often an indication of early socialization.

That aside, I do see what you're saying about the potential pitfalls of dating people to whom one is not initially attracted. And if I thought of sexual attraction as funtionally different from all other elements of a partnership, I would certainly agree.

But I don't see it as functionally different. Perhaps because of my own experience, and the experiences of some of the people I've interviewed in my research, I've come to view sexual attraction as something that can, in some people, develop over time, like any other element of a partnership-- like trust or shared habits or love itself.

Your concerns seem premised on the idea that sexual attraction is something that one either has or doesn't have at the outset of a relationship, and that it must be there during the first stages of courtship. But do you think the same thing about love? About trust? About emotional intimacy? Doesn't this society expect that the latter grow over time? After all, few people I know go into a first or second date thinking, "I don't feel like I love or trust her/him now, so why get involved in the first place, knowing I don't?" Yet the same people might say, like you, that a relationship has no hope if sexual attraction is not there like a lightning bolt at the beginning.

Your concern over eventual break-ups related to attraction could be extended to other reasons people break up. Just as it hurts to tell someone, "I love you more as a brother or sister than a lover," it also hurts to tell someone, "I love you but I haven't grown to trust you." (This is even assuming that the person breaking up feels called to be brutally honest as opposed to tactful and gentle, as many people choose to be).

Because I no longer subscribe to the lightning-bolt theory of attraction, I've come to view it as something that needn't be present at the beginning of every successful relationship. Just as some relationships never develop love or trust and then dissolve, attraction may never follow, and the union may come apart. But for others, attraction, like love, will follow, and how great then will the rewards be. As with love, one can never know if one doesn't try.

Original poster, what are your thoughts?

Still, the reason I use physical attraction as such, is as I said. Humans are visual. Strongly so. What makes someone approach a stranger, what makes them try to kiss someone who was previously "just a friend"...is physical attraction.

Would I go and approach and attempt to flirt with a woman I found repulsive? No. Hoping you eventually find someone physically attractive is unfair to both parties, I think. Especially you. Why settle for someone you have to teach yourself to be physically attracted to? Or someone you have to purposely overlook all the things you find repulsive, effectively placing a proverbial paper bag on them?

Why not just seek people you're actually physically attracted to in the first place?