What is your sexual orientation?

[curl-6]

vivster said:

curl-6 said:

While I cannot comment on sexuality labels, I must respectfully disagree that labels in general are bad. They can be, but they can also be very helpful.

When you're very different from most other people, belonging to a community you have a lot in common can bring with it immense benefits, I've seen this firsthand in my job as well as experiencing it myself. Similarly, diagnosis and the "label" that comes with it is often a revelatory and very positive moment for many neurodiverse people.

I don't hate or feel antipathy towards those who are different from myself. These differences already exist, independent of labels, putting a name to it simply makes it easier to navigate.

Without a label to help others understand the needs of myself and those like me, I and countless others would not have received the support that we require to live a normal-ish life.

I realize this is veering quite off topic from the issue of sexuality, sorry about that, all I'm saying is that while an "us vs them" mentality can definitely arise from labels, they can also do a lot of good. At the end of the day, while the name itself has something of a negative connotation, it's ultimately just a way to make things easier to understand.

The positive things you said about labels are exactly the problem.

Yep, it makes people feel good to have some sense of belonging. Which will then screw up everything because it becomes like a drug, people crave acknowledgement from within their group and then from outsiders until it spirals out of control and we have a mess like the current trans community. I don't think the small benefits labels bring are worth the detrimental effects. You will have a similar effect if you go about it differently to be recognized.

The second part is labels make things simple. That will also have disastrous effects in both directions. First it boils down a complex thing into something binary, robbing it of many important distinctions within that group. It'll lead to prejudice and lack of important information, which will draw animosity towards the group and at the same time will limit the support it can get because the support will be on the same basic level as it is understood under the label.

Labels feel good and make things simple. You know what else does? Heroine.

Basically all the worst things that happened in human history happened because of group thinking and it's today as bad as ever.

A degree of simplification is necessary, essential even, otherwise nothing practical can ever be achieved in terms of providing support requirements.

The benefits it brings are certainly not small. Without a label I would probably not have been able to ever live independently or find proper employment. I owe both my livelihood and my quality of life to the fact that we can categorize people's neurology and use that as a basis to give them the help they need. 

Differences between people exist. People form groups with those they have things in common with. That's just human nature, and it's never going to change regardless of whether we use "labels" to describe said groups.

I expect though this is just one of those things where we will have to agree to disagree.

Last edited by curl-6 - on 23 October 2020