I have an assortment of questions that I have been meaning to ask you but decided to refrain from writing in until I had gathered most of them up. They range from idle curiosity to more serious questions. Some background information about me: I’m a 21-year-old female, a mix of white and Latino, heteroish (?), and I admit I have had a slightly messed up childhood that has lead to the development of a few quirks. I’ve tried my best to identify these quirks and work on them and I’m making progress. My quirks pretty much now boil down to being shy/cautious of new people, having rather crappy social/smalltalk skills and this weird thing with feelings of abandonment/being a burden to my close friends. I have these pretty much under wraps and I feel that these quirks aren’t going to toxic to any potential partner at this point. So onwards to the questions.

1. What exactly makes up sexuality and how do people know? It just seems that everyone knows without a doubt who/what attracts him or her and are very outwardly lustful. It just seems that when other people look at someone else, they know right away if they are attracted but I feel that when I look at people I tend to see them the way one would when looking at art—find the nice curves and lines/ charming little details/personality cues. I am open with my sexuality, I get horny A LOT but I just have never seen someone and was instantly aroused and I can only recall once when I was attracted to someone to such a degree where I instantly thought “I want” and acted instantaneously to try and seduce him. I’m curious about my sexuality because I don’t have strong feelings for one gender/sex over the other so I think I’m at minimum probably heteroflexible but potentially bisexual. Any tips to help sort this out?

2. I know this isn’t your area of specialty but honestly speaking, does a healthy vagina have a smell? I just feel that there are way too many jokes about it for there not to be some sort of odor, I know the fishy smell means that there is something wrong happening in there but I also know that it is an acidic environment and I just can’t imagine such an environment not having an odor of some sort.

3. What does come and precome taste like? I know they are alkaline in nature so theoretically they should taste kind of bitter but never tasted it so I’m curious.

4. I want to know if this is fetishizing or merely a preference for Asians. I admit that I find Asians to be very attractive, but I feel that it stems primarily from the fact that the features that I find attractive in someone are more prevalent in this ethnicity. My friend says that any preference for a certain ethnicity is fetishizing them but I just don’t feel that it is true, because its not because they are “exotic” that I like them but because they tend to not have prominent brow ridges, tend to have less body hair and tend to not tower over me. Thoughts?

5. Silly question, but when guys wear tight underwear like boxer briefs, where/how exactly do they tuck their penis? Do they just pull the undies up and let it stay wherever it gets stuck or do they purposefully tuck it in a certain way? I imagine that they pull the undies up and then rearrange because that’s what women tend to do with their breasts.

6. I was wondering if you could tell me if my standards are too picky for what the potential is in the other half of the population. I just want a guy to treat me as a human who is capable of making my own decisions when it comes to selecting potential partners. I don’t like it if a guy I just met is already trying to dictate what my behavior and basically want me to act like some floozy bobble headed stereotype of a woman. I just don’t tolerate it well when a guy is domineering to me when I just met him. I would like someone who is educated and open minded and preferably not trying to always prove to me how “manly” he is. I’m fine with guys who have feminine characteristics and usually find it to be more appealing if they do. I don’t have a problem with some drug usage (I like pot, and love shrooms). I’m lenient with looks because I try to stick with people in my own league and who match up with what I would be. I am not super toned and skinny so I don’t expect my partner to be, and I extend this principle to other physical categories. I plan to be honest about my hang-ups and the fact that I pretty much have no experience with guys so I want a guy who is willing and is okay with going at a pace I’m comfortable with. Is this too much to expect? I feel like its not, but my friends say differently.

7. How much of a turnoff is it for a twenty-year-old female to identify as a feminist? I don’t plan on hiding it but I seem to get this weird look whenever I mention it.

8. I’m not sure if you will be able to answer this question but I’ve been thinking about breaking my own hymen. I know that I’m going to have to get an OBGYN soon even if I’m not sexually active and I’m not looking forward to the exam because of my hymen. I can feel it and I can’t help but worry what is going to happen during an exam or the first time I have sex if its still intact because its tricky to fit two fingers in there even when I’m fully aroused. Do you have any idea how doctors deal with this during exam? I’m really very tempted to break it so I just don’t have to worry about it but I also have no idea what would be the best, safest and cleanest way to do it. Also, is there a better way to describe the process? The verbs always make it sound barbaric and painful when people talk about it (breaking, ripping, popping, rupturing, tearing, etc.)

Thanks A Bunch

My responses after the jump...

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1. Here's how the Free Dictionary defines sexuality:

1. The condition of being characterized and distinguished by sex.
2. Concern with or interest in sexual activity.
3. Sexual character or potency.

But what you seem curious about isn't so much "sexuality," broadly defined, but what triggers sexual desire—a.k.a. that urge to fuck the holy living shit out of another human being.

Some people are pretty visual—the way another person looks (pretty visuals) triggers desire—and this is the kind of attraction we typically see portrayed in movies and television, written about in novels and memoirs. Many people assume that "lust at first sight" is the way sexual desire works for all and that there must be something wrong with them if it doesn't work that way for them. But there are just as many people out there who need more than pretty visuals—or need something other than pretty visuals—in order to feel desire. Some folks—gasp—actually need to get to know someone before that sense of desire kicks into gear. You may fall into this latter camp, TAB. And there's nothing wrong with that.

Please note: some folks who typically respond to pretty visuals have been known to fall for people they weren't attracted to at first (after having gotten to know that person), and some people who typically need to get to know a person before attraction kicks into gear have been known to have lust-at-first-sight experiences (as you did, TAB, with that person who instantly made you think "I WANT").

2. A healthy vagina—like a healthy dick or a healthy armpit or a healthy asscrack—has a natural scent. If you're into someone, if you find them physically, chemically, and emotionally appealing, you'll probably find their natural scent(s) to be a turn-on... even when they're a bit funky. "I love the way you smell" is something you're likely to hear from a person who's really, really into you, and it's something you'll find yourself blurting out to someone you're really, really into.

3. Precome doesn't taste like much and it leaks out so gradually—and in such small amounts in most cases—that you'll hardly notice it as it mixes with your spit and slides down your throat. Come, on the other hand, can taste salty and sharp and the taste is highly noticeable, TAB, as a whole load of come floods into your mouth in three or four spurts. But both come and precome are acquired tastes. It may help to think of it this way, TAB: no girl likes the taste of Guinness the first time she has a pint, right?

4. Your friend is full of shit. We need to be thoughtful about the types of persons we find attractive; we need to think about why we find certain types of people attractive; we need to ask ourselves if we're actually not attracted to some other types of people because we really and truly aren't attracted to those types or if we aren't attracted to them because a shitty culture or shitty parents or a shitty peer group convinced us that we weren't attracted to them (or that we weren't allowed to be attracted to them); we need to avoid being needlessly cruel to people we don't find attractive once we've examined our biases and motives and upbringings and settled on our "types"; and we need to keep an open mind because you never know, right? But we are allowed to have types and preferences and so long as we see people who are our types—and people who are not our types—as people too, not just as collections of physical traits or manifestations of stereotypes, we're not fetishizing them. We're fucking them.

5. Bingo.

6. Is not being bossed around by some domineering douchebag too much to expect?

Yes, TAB, it is.

That doesn't mean you have to settle for a domineering douchebag. It's just that we all inevitably encounter bossy assholes over the courses of our dating-and-mating lives. Some people are crazy and controlling and not all crazy and controlling people are courteous enough to reveal those traits on the first date. So you'll encounter some guys—and some girls—who'll tell you they love you for you and five minutes later start asking you to change everything about yourself. They'll want you to be someone you're not; they'll insist that you conform to their ideas about what a girl/girlfriend/wife/mother is supposed to be. You can't control that—you will date your fair share of domineering assholes—but you can control what happens after someone reveals himself to be bossy and domineering and crazy: you kick his domineering ass to the curb.

7. Identifying as a feminist will turn some folks off, TAB, but it'll turn off all the right folks, i.e. folks you don't want bother with, folks who don't deserve your time, folks who are likelier to want to boss you around. People who give you a weird look when you tell them you're a feminist are doing you a favor—they're letting you know that you don't have to waste another second of your time on 'em.

8. Doctors don't bust hymens during routine medical checkups. But don't take my word for it: talk your fears over with your doc before your exam. I'm sure she'll set you at ease, TAB, and she'll probably have better advice for you about whether or not you should break your own hymen before you become sexually active.