What is "straight"?

Once again a question from Silvia-Mckenzie elicits a long response from me (meanwhile @Poohbear98188 summed things up rather succinctly). Silvia asked, "What is 'straight'"? I've thought about this a fair amount over the years, initially triggered when a big burly manly lumberjack-like (although he was a computer programmer) friend of mine introduced me to his gay lover. While completely ok with me, I didn't "get it" from a chemistry standpoint. I tried imagining them having sex and it was kind of like trying to imagine your parents having sex. My brain just would not go there (and I finally watched gay porn just to see what my mind refused to conjure up images of). And so, as I've explored my own sexuality and observed the many variations on sexuality (thank you WWW!), I've had numerous thoughts about the topic. Today was a perfect day for Silvia to have posed this question, because today an acquaintance let me know that he was transgendered and working his, or rather her, way to GRS. More on this later.

I know how my body and brain react (from the subtle to the more obvious that @Poohbear98188 mentions) when I see a beautiful woman, smell her, interact with her, etc. Indeed, my body even reacts that way (though perhaps more on the subtle side) with an unattractive woman. My body and brain have no such reactions to any man. To take @Poohbear98188's point a little further, I can't even tell a good looking man from a not very good looking man. (And on a side note, when some "I'd never have sex with anyone other than my husband" woman tells me she'd violate that rule to have sex with Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Denzel Washington, or some other hunk of the moment, I am indeed baffled about why that particular male elicited such a reaction). I'm just not programmed to react sexually to men. And thus "straight" to me is not about what acts one does or does not participate in, it is about what chemical reaction occurs. Opposite Sex only reaction = Straight. Same Sex only reaction = Gay. Both Sex reaction = Bi (to varying degrees, just to complicate things).

Of course life can never be that simple, and so for many years I have been struggling with a conundrum (triggered by a particular movie whose name I forget). Let's say I meet a woman who is beautiful and sexy. She seduces me and we retire to someplace private for sex. We kiss passionately and I am super turned on. I remove her bra and bury my face in her gorgeous breasts, kissing them and sucking on her nipples. I kiss down to her navel and slip off her panties. And out springs a penis. Do I recoil in horror and run for the hills? Or, do I live in the moment and pop it into my mouth? And if I did the latter, would it be a sign of some latent "gay" tendencies or just an acknowledgment that a "chic with a dick" is first and foremost a chic? I don't think I want to know the answer, just in case it is different from what I think it is. Note that I will likely never face this sexual "kobayashi maru" because it requires that I not know (nor suspect) that the chic has a dick until after I am super turned on and in the midst of foreplay. But certainly this scenario throws a monkey wrench into my otherwise simple answer for "What is 'straight'?"

Of course there are other complicating scenarios. What if you are a submissive with no interest in men whatsoever, and your mistress orders you to suck another man's cock? Perhaps she is doing it precisely because she knows you find the idea revolting and the only reason you will do this is to demonstrate your deep submission to her. And you do it, because the alternative is to acknowledge you can't submit to her at the level she (and probably you, before reality struck) desires. Sorry, you forgot to mention to her that was a hard limit. So you suck. By my chemical reaction theory you are still straight. However, if you actually tell a femdom you want a "forced bi" scene then it isn't so clear. Perhaps you find it degrading and you are into degradation. Or perhaps you are bi-curious but could never bring yourself to do something about it, so you abdicate responsibility to the dominant but still get to try it out. Ah the complications of sex!

Which brings me back to an interesting complication I never would have thought about had Silvia not posed her question, the TG acquaintance. As expected I have never had any sexual reaction to this person when he was living as a male and I can't imagine having any reaction to her now that she is wearing women's clothing, taking hormones, etc. Now fast forward a few years to Post-Op and a well faded memory that she was once a he. Plus make the assumption that he turns out to be a fairly attractive she (which thinking about his build, facial structure, etc. is actually not a bad assumption). He will be a she in every externally detectable (to everyone except a forensic anthropologist) way, but it is the same person. Why is it that having a sexual reaction to that person two weeks ago would have been classified as "gay", while having a sexual reaction to that person two years from now will be classified as "straight"? It is enough to make your head really hurt.

So what does this all mean? Well, not much. Except maybe we should all stop worrying so much about labels and just enjoy ourselves.