What is Sexual Orientation?
In our ongoing Sex Plus Symposium training series, Dr. Karen Rayne joined our team to discuss sexual orientation in comparison with gender identity and how it plays into a person’s experiences throughout their whole life.
Dr. Karen Rayne is the Executive Director of UN|HUSHED, an organization dedicated to creating and implementing the highest quality sexuality education curricula possible. She is also an Assistant Professor of Instruction in the Educational Psychology Department at the University of Texas.
She is past editor and current board member of the American Journal of Sexuality Education, and is the author of a wide range of books, curricula and other professional resources, including:
She is frequently sought after to share her expertise through training professionals, consulting with schools, writing articles, radio and print interviews, and speaking with parents.
When it comes to sexual orientation, it’s difficult to keep up with the changing language and meanings around all the ways people can identify. People also often confuse sexual orientation with gender identity.
Let’s unpack why this confusion exists.
Components of Sexual Orientation
Sexual orientation about the space between us and other people. It’s about our connection or how we want to connect to other people. Sexual orientation is built on three things: attraction, sexual identity, and behavior.
Attraction
Generally speaking, attraction includes:
Sexual attraction: feelings of physical connection, desire and/or arousal
Romantic attraction: desiring a certain type of relationship with another person that involves emotional closeness and caring for each other in intimate, fulfilling and supportive way
While this is how many people think of attraction, in reality, attraction happens in many different ways. Attraction is basically why one person is drawn to another. This could be cognitive attraction, religious attraction, or dozens of other reasons why someone wants to be closer to another person.
Sexual Identity
These are the words a person uses to explain who they are physically, mentally and/or emotionally attracted toward engaging in sexual behavior with. A person’s sexual identity is how a person describes themselves or how they understand themselves inside their own head.
Behavior
This is how we express our sexual orientation outwardly. That could mean the ways in which we engage with a person sexually, romantically or otherwise. This is also the way we use our body both intimately and in public to aid other people’s understanding and connect with our own understanding of ourselves.
Sexual Orientation vs. Gender Identity
A person’s sexual orientation and their gender identity are not the same thing.
Gender identity is the way we identify our own selves, in the context of culture, but still independently. Sexual orientation is more about the space between us and other people. However, conversations about sexual orientation and gender identity have to go hand in hand, as these two things are often intertwined.
For example, words like gay and lesbian identify both who the person is and what kind of person they are attracted to. By contrast, the words bisexual and queer only describe the kind of person someone is attracted to and don’t identify the person’s gender identity.
Struggling to Identify Your Sexual Orientation
If you struggle to identify your sexual orientation, ask yourself this question: do you need to?
Language around sexual orientation and gender identity have been dramatically changing in the last decade, and that probably won’t be slowing down anytime soon. What’s more, many of the terms we use to describe sexual orientation have different meanings for different people.
If you aren’t sure a word or description of your sexual orientation fits, that’s ok. All that actually matters when it comes to your sexual orientation or gender identity is how you understand a word, how it’s important to you, and what it means for yourself.
Next time, we’ll compare more about gender identity and sexual orientation. We’ll also discuss coming out and how it’s a lifelong process, not a one-time event.
If you are struggling with your sexual orientation or gender identity and need support, we’re here to help. Our therapists attend these ongoing trainings with experts like Dr. Rayne in order to provide the support and healing you need.