One thing that I've been mulling over in my mind lately is the fact that women and men oftentimes interact with each other differently (i.e., men interact with women differently than they interact with men, and vice-versa.) I expect that when this happens, part of it is sexual attraction, which is why I titled the thread "intersexuality interactions", because I suspect it might occur between two homosexual individuals who may not otherwise have interest in actually dating.
At the very least in my case, I can't help but interact with women differently than I interact with men. I'm more likely to pursue a friendship with a woman than a man, for example. Part of this might be my sexual attraction for women, and partially the fact that I relate to women far more than I relate to men.
I have noticed a difference in how I bond with men and women, on average.
First, I'm kind of a "tomboy" as far as people see it, so while my visible appearance would be considered "feminine", I'm an engineer with mostly male engineer friends, I'm way into DC super heroes and some other commonly male interests (except professional sports) and can talk about Batman with a guy for an hour, and I'm also tolerant of a lot of "guy" humor having spent so much time with guys. Maybe the fact that I was raised by a single father contributed to this; I don't know. I don't think male and female interests are very biologically driven any more than a limited extent, I think it's mostly cultural, and I ended up on the culturally "male" side due to my particular circumstances.
Second, since I find handsome males attractive, I can't help but relate to them a bit differently than I do with other women. I'm more flirty with them and I think about them positively a bit more. I can get little crushes on them even if I'm not actually going to have a relationship with them. Plus if I'm one of the few women (or only woman) in a group of men, which is often the case due to many of my friends being men, I sort of end up getting showed favoritism and flirts back at me. So it's like, if I spend time in a group that consists of me and four men, then I get a lot of attention. With women, I think we are more likely to feel like competitors in terms of looks and social status, even if I'm trying my best not to do that. I have several friends that are women, and while we are friends, I think we're comparing ourselves to each other from time to time, which is not the case with me and my guy friends. It's like, a woman is classified in the "same" category and can feel like a competitor, while a man is in the "other" category and is not a competitor, except in much more limited circumstances like a sport or applying for the same promotion. So I'll compare my looks to another woman's looks, but not to a man's looks. I think for the most part I've gotten over this, but I still have to be conscious of it and tend to be aware of them doing it. Just being honest here, from observations of myself and others. I tend to think of things in evolutionary terms first anyway, and most mammalian species do have differences in behavior between the genders, especially as far as competition goes.
Third, I observe that men like to hang out in groups of men, and women like to hang out in groups of women. So you and I may be an anomaly here, with you being a man that likes to hang out with women, and me being a woman that likes to hang out with men. I do observe that with a group of women, we feel in a safer space, share more emotional stuff, etc. And guys I know tend to have a sort of "bromance" that they don't quite have with women.
So, what I wonder is, then, how much of this is acceptable and how much is too much? When does it go too far? When actions defined as "too far" are extremely easy and natural to perform, what can be done to fight them?
Anyone else feel this? Or am I alone in this and this is just part of me being socially challenged?
I don't see much of a problem with it. I think it's unrealistic for sexual beings to view men and women as absolutely identical. We are a species that primarily consists of two sexes with only limited biological middle ground, and we're basically
designed to treat them differently like all other complex species do.
As long as people are being respectful and are not acting on prejudice, I think it's all okay. I think the best that one can do is to be conscious of their interactions (with everyone, for all reasons), and to identify areas where they could better express the person they want to be. It's wrong (or more precisely, unskillful) to make up negative and false "facts" about the sexes, it's wrong to suppose that a person can or can't do something because of their sex, it's wrong to assume that all people of a certain sex have a certain quality, it's wrong to suppose that since people of a certain sex statistically appear to have a certain quality that a person of a certain sex will definitely have that quality, and so forth.
(Just playing around.)
