i agree with holo

Imagine a situation where people did not have the need to define themselves as straight, gay, or bi. What kind of a situation would that be?

For me, it would be a totally normative situation. I see those words as essentially useless.

Yeah.. the point of the thread is not to take it as a serious thing, but as a thinking excercise.

I think banning such words is a little overboard. That being said, such labels, like political labels, tend to have little meaning when actually applied to real people. I could be called straight, but only because i haven't chugged my first cock yet. Who knows if i ever will? I don't consider myself straight because to do so would be totally inaccurate.

Well you're delving into something that's outside of the scope of the original question. This is the sexuality board, where it potentially could be rather important to identify your sexual orientation.

Now, just because someone may need to explain "I'm straight" or "I'm gay" in here doesn't mean that it's necessary for them to go running around in the real world announcing their orientation to everyone they see.

It's not like I go up to people and say "Hi I'm Shakran, and I'm straight."

On a side note, I love how we all refer to ourselves and each other by our screen names.

Bingo.

I'm intrigued by this. What exactly is the advantage of eschewing the labels in favor of longer descriptions?

I don't think that eliminating words for these designations will really alter the way people think about them. Hal, you mentioned yourself that you can get around the word by talking about it another way; if the idea of sexual orientation remains part of our society and identity, then how does removing the labels change the way we think?

The words are just a shortcut for a much deeper issue. I don't think removing them would effect any real change.