“For a lot of people, it’s nice to imagine that humans are simple, and that you can know a person’s sex, and then you will know all sorts of things about them deeply and clearly. And if you don’t fit into this nice little box people who do can get really confused and sometimes even angry—and if you yourself don’t fit into one of these nice little boxes and you think that people should, then you end up hating yourself. And that’s probably even worse. I think the best and maybe only way to solve this problem is for people to understand that there are no nice shiny boxes. Or, if there are shiny boxes, there are an infinite number of them, enough to put all of the people who currently exist, have ever existed, and will ever exist. So, together, let’s understand.” – Hank Green

What is sexuality? This is a complicated question. Wrought with personal, societal, political, religious, familial, cultural—we could go on and on—ideas and expectations. It’s not simple. It’s personal. And it’s incredibly complicated. Sometimes in our attempt to find enlightenment, we find a video that tackles answering a question like this so much better than anything we could write here.

In the following 3:48 video, Hank Green breaks down the complex differences between sexual orientation, sexual attraction, sexual behavior, romantic attraction, biological sex, gender roles, and gender identity. How we define ourselves is a unique combination of where we we fall in all of these independent categories.

http://youtu.be/xXAoG8vAyzI

But, as Hank reminds us, “Many people move across these spectrums, sometimes from year to year, sometimes hour to hour. But what’s really important is that we trust ourselves, and we understand ourselves, and we love and respect ourselves—and we grant that same understanding and respect to the people around us.”

Photo by Meggyn Watkins

Special Thanks to Nerdfigheria Wiki for the transcript of Hank’s video. Watch more Vlogbrothers here.