The American Psychiatric Association does not define atypical sexual interests as a disorder unless they cause personal distress, cause psychological or physical injury to another person, or involve an unwilling or incapable of providing legal consent. These distinctions were made to demonstrate that individuals who engage in atypical sexual behavior should not be inappropriately labeled as having a mental disorder. When we think of sexual orientation, we usually think of the continuum between gay, straight, and bisexual, but sexual orientation is a deeply held attraction to a certain type of person. Erotic desire includes attention, attraction, fantasy, thoughts, impulses, genital arousal, and behavior. It is further complicated by variations of dominance or submission, sadism and masochism, fetishes, and consent or non-consent. These interests can be single or multiple, exclusive or non-exclusive, idiosyncratic or opportunistic, stable or fluid. Possible legal consequences, lack of opportunity, and unwillingness or inability to act all contribute to limiting our behavior. The sooner we learn this about human sexual behavior, the sooner we will gain a deep understanding of the realities of sex. The reasons for our sexual choices are obsessively analyzed, placing an excessive emphasis on categorization rather than accepting the great diversity of same-sex attractions. But the act of classifying all these atypical sexual attractions does not mean that acting on them is legal or morally acceptable or unacceptable. The explanations for all elements of our sexual attraction are complex and probably unknowable. All research runs the risk of reductionism, but when sexuality research focuses exclusively on genital sexual activity – to the exclusion of considerations of attraction, affection and affiliation – it fails to understand our sexual lives.