[freya]

Thanks for sharing that, Nandm!

I, too, have found this to be true -- at least insofar as the entire range of human experience as related to sex and gender is concerned. As far as any given individual goes, it seems to me like the level of "fluidity" can vary hugely from one person to another and can also change over time for any one person. In other words, some people seem to authentically be able to express a wide range of sex and gender behaviors and others seem able to express authentically within a much narrower range. Of course, due to the tremendous baggage that our culture attaches to issues of sex and gender, it's also very, very difficult to know when and how much of the "narrowness" is related to things like fear, conformity and/or ignorance and when and how much of the "wideness" is nothing more than an over-reaction against those same cultural limitations.

Like for instance, I would be willing to bet my last dollar that most people would be open to a lot more sexual experimentation/exploration, at least early on in their lives, if the culture was more sex-positive...while, on the other hand, I have also known more than a few sex-and/or-gender activists who were so over-the-edge when it came to having any kind of consistent sex and/or gender identity that they struck me as being more about shocking others and creating chaos than about discovering, expressing, and being anything fundamentally real and true about themselves.

There's a really fun sex and gender continuum excercise that I know I shared with some other members on this site several years ago. I can't figure out how to format it so it looks right when it shows up on the thread...but it lists 7 catgories like sex, sexual orientation, gender expression, etc..... with continuum lines beneath each category, so that people can think about where they personally fall in the continuum for each category. (If anyone's good at the tech stuff, I could e-mail it to someone as an attachment and maybe you could figure out how to get it to post properly???)

It's just kinda interesting and thought-provoking to take a highlighter and highlight the ranges in each section that are true for you -- and it's even more fun as a conversation starter if you get a bunch of people to do it together -- almost as much fun as talking about religion or politics!!!!!!!

freya