You're making not just one, but several assumptions with this. Number one, "doing something I wouldn't really mind" does not necessarily apply, and it also isn't necessarily ruled out just because one of them is fully heterosexual. As I said up thread, it is possible to have sex with someone you aren't attracted to. To go further, it is even possible to enjoy that sex and still not be attracted to the person you're having sex with. I didn't actually think these were secrets, but live and learn.Spidrift wrote:But it seems to me that the difference is between "Doing something that I don't really mind with someone who I might not like very much if I knew him better" (comedy) and "Doing something that contradicts my core emotional self-image" (traumatic).
That said, it can have consequences. I mean, it doesn't for me, not anymore, but for other people it can. That's where your second assumption is coming into play. You are positing that having sex with someone that has the correct genitals won't have the second, traumatic, consequence. I am here to tell you that it can. Just because, if the circumstances were right or with a different person, you might choose to engage in an act, doesn't make feeling like you were forced into the act any more tolerable. To paraphrase a meme: "If I'm told to do something I was planning on doing anyways, the odds of me doing it drop to zero." It's the being forced that is traumatic, not the act itself.
As to my crack about gay panic, I'll unpack it for you. Bear in mind, I am about to throw around the phrase "heterosexual male" like its a swear; please know in advance I am not actually accusing you personally, or anyone else on this board, of anything, since I can't actually read everyone's mind. For a certain segment of heterosexual men, one of the worst things they can conceive of happening to them is having gay sex. Not necessarily being forced to have gay sex, just having it is a terrifying concept in and of itself, so bad that it precludes any ability for them to choose to do so willingly, however unenthusiasticly. One of the few things worse is the thought of someone else finding out about it, and thinking that the heterosexual male liked it. For that segment, anything approaching either of these situations is expected to be reacted to with violence, or at least vehement disagreement. Its considered weird when it isn't, even when it involves fictitious characters, and even though literally every other combination of gender and sexuality is currently expected to dabble in something that crosses over into something they aren't interested in, if for no other reason than to test to see if they're REALLY what they say they are. Asexuals and pansexuals are not exempt from that, by the way. I assume heterosexual women aren't expected to test themselves, but they aren't expected to get bent out of shape over it either.
So yeah, no, I can and will look askance at a heterosexual male being expected to be more traumatized by Nathan hitting on him than Yvann hitting on Zi, simply because of their relative sexualities. Zii is less traumatized because she's much less hung up about sex than most people anyways, because she chose to be in that situation, and because knew how to get herself out of it. A lot of that applies to Ray in this situation as well, which is why I don't think he'd be very traumatized, even if he turned out to be straight as a ruler. It can be traumatic, yes, but its not the guaranteed thing you seem to be assuming it will be.