Sometimes you have heard theories like that all people are born bisexual. But you wonder: how can a baby know if she is bisexual? And a little girl? At what age is a person’s sexuality defined? And how is it defined? Can children experience sexual desire? Can they know what their sexual orientation is? And how many orientations are there? You will find the answer to all these questions in this Psychology-Online article.
What is sexual orientation?
Sexuality is a very broad concept that encompasses various aspects of the human being such as sex, sex identity, gender identity, sexual orientation, eroticism, reproduction, etc. In this article we refer to sexuality as sexual orientation.
To understand what sexual orientation is we must first understand the concept of sexual desire. Sexual desire is a psychobiological energy that precedes, accompanies and tends to produce sexual behavior. Desire has three components of different nature:
- Momentum, biophysiological in nature. It is genital arousal, sexual excitability.
- The desire, cognitive in nature. It is the desire, the disposition regardless of impulse.
- The motivation, of an emotional nature. It is the resolution of sexual attitudes (decision and consent), and such resolution is influenced by the context, attraction…
Sexual orientation refers to orientation of a person’s sexual desireand has four basic dimensions:
- sexual attraction: towards whom (or what…).
- sexual fantasies: sexual images or stimuli that cause excitement.
- emotional bonding: feelings of tenderness, affection, intimacy… towards another person.
- sexual behavior: sexual practice.
When is sexuality defined?
Human sexuality develops from the moment we are born. During childhood, different forms of sexual expression and behavior usually occur that are usually spontaneous, the result of curiosity and exploration, and autoerotic, that is, they seek their own pleasure and do not desire other people erotically. Sexual behaviors in childhood cannot be interpreted from an adult perspective.
During pre-adolescence (9-13 years) sexual desire may appear, and it is at that stage when a person’s sexuality begins to be defined (understood as orientation). During adolescence and pubertya phase that begins with the appearance of secondary sexual characteristics, the first erotic fantasies and the first shared sexual experiences are usually had, while the orientation of sexual desire is being defined.
Is it normal to have doubts about sexuality in adolescence?
Having doubts about one’s own sexuality during adolescence and even in other stages of life it is normal. During adolescence it is especially common since they are in a phase in which sexuality is still in the process of being defined. Here you can see.
The person is still in the phase of experiencing what and who excites you, what and who provokes desire, who appears in your erotic fantasies, etc. Furthermore, there is a strong sociocultural component in the development of sexuality, since not all sexual orientations have the same social acceptance; it may be more difficult to experience or accept one’s own sexual orientation when it deviates from the hegemonic one.
Sexual orientation definition process
There are many theories that try to explain the causes of sexual orientation, from purely neurohormonal or genetic hypotheses, to more integrative theories such as EBE. Bem’s EBE (Exotic Becomes Erotic) theory attempts to explain the development of sexual orientation by combining biological and sociocultural factors, based on the assumption that sex/gender differences are cultural. According to this theory, in the process of defining sexual orientation these factors must be taken into account in the following order:
- Biological variablessuch as genetic and hormonal factors.
- Childish temperamentsuch as aggressiveness, confrontation, activity level…
- Typical or atypical sexual activity and playmate preferences, whether they do the same as those of the same sex or not.
- Feeling different or similar to the same or opposite sex. If you feel different from people of the same sex, you may see them as “the exotic.”
- Autonomic awakening not specific to partners of the same/opposite sex. It triggers the physiological activation, physical attraction. In the homosexual case it would occur before people of the same sex, experienced as “exotic” in childhood.
- Erotic/romantic attraction towards people of the same/opposite sex. The sexual impulse during adolescence becomes sexual orientation.
Types of sexual orientations
If until now you thought that there were only the typical ones (homosexual and heterosexual), and at most bisexual, keep reading because the list of major types of sexual orientations It has lengthened a little more. The main types of sexual orientations are the following:
- Heterosexuality: desire towards people of the opposite sex.
- Homosexuality: desire towards people of the same sex.
- Bisexuality: desire towards people of the same sex and the opposite sex.
- Asexuality: absence of sexual attraction towards another person. The opposite of is allosexuality.
- Pansexuality: desire oriented towards people regardless of their gender and condition (hetero, homo, trans, intersexual, agender…). It surpasses binary categories.
- Grisexuality: flexible orientation that includes those people who may or may not feel attraction under different circumstances. This term acts a bit as an umbrella for other sexual orientations that are not the main ones.
- Others: demisexuality,…
This article is merely informative, at Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
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Bibliography
- Bem, D. (1996). The exotic becomes the erotic: A theory of the development of sexual orientation. Psychological Review, 103 (2), 320-335.
- Levine, S. B. (2003). The Nature of Sexual Desire: A Clinician’s Perspective. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 32, 3.