I have a couple questions for NYCindie, if you don't mind:
You said you wouldn't want someone who is specifically (or only) attracted to plus-size women, because that would be a fetish, someone objectifying you for being plus-sized. But how is that different from someone just having a preference for a particular body type?
Well, someone can have a preference without it being a fetish. I think of a fetish as something you can't live without, and that you won't consider any other possibilities. Like that guy I saw on Strange Sex (tv show) who can only get off when his sex play involves balloons. There are guys who will only go out with superfat women - they look for only fat women and will not pursue any other kind of body type (don't get me started on feederism). It's like, the fact that the woman is fat is the only reason they want to be with them. Which is just the same as only seeking models or rich guys, and writing off anyone who isn't that.
Is that different from someone with a preference for femme lesbians, or for men with big cocks, or for boyish-looking men, or...? I mean, ideally, everyone would be attracted to personalities and be able to see past physical characteristics, but there's a strong physical component to sex & attraction, and people have their preferences, stuff that just turns them on.
I see a preference as something that isn't as set in stone as a fetish - for example, I prefer dark-haired guys but will and have dated fair-haired.
Another question: how would you feel if a man you were already involved with confessed that he is bi? (Or that he wants to have, or has already had, same-sex experiences?) I doubt you would stop liking him. It sounds like mainly, that when a potential interest of yours turns out to be bi, you use that a process of elimination not to pursue him. Would it be different if it was someone you knew well and/or someone who really liked you? Would you want to work past your preferences in that case?
Just curious. This stuff is all way more complicated than it appears!
I have been with a man who had had sex with men a few times in his life, that didn't matter. But I think if a guy told me he was bisexual after we started going out, I don't know how I'd react. If it was something he was keeping from me for a long time, I'd probably see that as a negative. It was something he discovers while we're together, I might stay or I might start emotionally pulling away because my attraction to him would lessen. As it is now, I just don't find myself attracted to bi men.
Lately I've been trying to learn more about my own preferences and figure out if men can be sexually compatible with me without being the type of people who radiate sexual energy at all. (Since there must be men who are dominant in bed but don't exude it out of every pore, like men who are introverted or reserved in public, etc).
And then there's also smell and pheromones as markers of attraction. That's not something I have any control over. I have never met a woman who exuded the chemical smell that I am attracted to.
Attraction does not conform to logic. There are chemical reactions, pheromones, etc., and then there is the questions we ask ourselves about whether someone is a good potential mate. Neither one is necessarily logical. Once, many years ago, I was attracted to a guy whom I thought was handsome. We went to dinner and he bent his head down and I saw plugs. I was instantly no longer attracted to him. Now, did I make up my mind beforehand that I would never date or be attracted to a guy who'd had a hair transplant? No, but the attraction died instantly when I saw his plugs. No way did I want to run my hands through that hair.
If I was attracted to someone whose life goals would be to travel the globe in a sailboat for months at a time, and I was a homebody who knew I'd just spend most of our relationship pining and worrying and missing him, I would not consider him an ideal mate. I would then disengage emotionally and eventually be less attracted to him. I've never been the type to hold onto an attraction or long for someone who would be impractical or to impossible to be with.
For whatever reasons, in my mind, a bi guy is not my ideal mate. I am straight and am into straight guys, and somehow in my mind I associate a man's attraction to women as being a masculine trait, and attraction to men as being less so. I don't know where that came from. I suspect it has to do with my sense of femininity and self-worth being tangled up in how attractive to men I am. If a guy is into guys,I don't believe he will validate my sense of who I am in relation to men, as well as a straight guy would. I am not attracted to a guy who is bi. I have dated guys I was not attracted to before, so I'm not saying I would never be with one, it isn't a fetish. But I'm just talking about what I consider attractive and that isn't a logical decision, it just is.