Questioning My Sexuality

KISS CHASE 

As a young girl I was very aware that I found other girls cute. One doesn’t like to kiss and tell (at least not on a blog to be read by many), however I recall a number of play dates consisting of playing ‘mum and dad’, ‘doctors’ and of course, good old fashioned kiss chase. I guess compared to most, I became aware of my sexual attractions at a moderately young age. According to a 2016 Buzzfeed article, the average age people have their first kiss is at 15 years old. If memory serves me correctly, I had mine around 6-8 years old. I was aged 10-11 when I was first ever asked by a girl to be her girlfriend and I remember how upset she looked when I said no because I had a boyfriend at the time.

Vanessa*: “My sexuality I think was something I couldn’t come to terms with in my mind because I was never exposed to a world (aka my immediate circle of family and friends at the time) that being ‘not straight’ was okay. From the age of 11, I knew I didn’t just like boys. I also liked girls and experimentation with girls was one thing I always told myself was okay as long as no one knew about it while I was a lil teen. I think now that I’m comfortable with my sexuality and looking back at how I almost liberated myself by surrounding myself with people I admired who were already ‘out’ and proud about their sexuality made it easier for me to come to terms with it and accept it was part of my identity, regardless of people’s opinions or society’s view of me or my peers.” 

DOES GOD REALLY ‘HATE THE GAYS’

As I grew into a scrawny teenager, my parents enrolled me into an all girls catholic school. I smile while writing this because how cliche is that shit. Blackberry phones, tooth gems and the all boys school across the road was the talk of the town. I’d watch as more and more of my peers would change their MySpace statues to ‘in a relationship’ and their display pictures to cute couple photos. I wanted what they had. During secondary school I had three heterosexual ‘relationships’. Each one…only lasting a month. Now this had absolutely nothing to do with my sexuality but rather that I got bored easily and only dated to fit in.

Saleha: “I remember we were all sitting on the green next to the sports hall. There were three circles of girls. I was standing among the spectators on the outer circle. The second circle consisted of the jury. The inner circle, the accused. A rumour had spread around our year group that the girls sitting in the inner circle were gay. Feeling that these girls needed to answer for their sins, the jury pressed them and questioned their faith. “You know God says it’s a sin?!” “How can you be catholic and gay?”. As I stood, silently spectating, I felt like my knees were going to cave. I wanted to shout at them to back off but in fear of being outed I stayed silent and continued to stay silent as progressively more girls were outed and made to feel like dirt“.

QUESTIONING MY SEXUALITY 

I enrolled into a college on the other side of London in the hopes of leaving a lot of my past behind. Cue old punk rock, shitty rolled joints and cans of K cider. I came out to my family, first to my brother, then to my sister and finally my mother. I was finally once again comfortable in my sexuality. I had friends in the LGBTQIA+ community and was quickly introduced to the streets of Soho. Crushes came, crushes went.  There was never a time I tried to convince myself I was attracted to one gender over the other. It was never a big deal to me. I dated who I wanted, I made out with whoever I liked. I used to cringe when asked “but which are you more attracted to”. I’d confidently answer “I like both genders equally”. That was until one day, in conversation someone pointed out “so, you’re bisexual but you’ve never been in a relationship with a girl?”. It was sort of a ‘hmph’ moment. At this time I hadn’t been in a real relationship with anyone and had zero interest in doing so. But for some reason, this sent a chill down my spine. Why hadn’t I ever pursued a serious relationship with a girl? 

Jahan: “I think a general misconception is that if you settle down with one gender you automatically lose your attraction to the other. That’s not true. I’ve had boyfriends and been attracted to girls, had girlfriends and been attracted to boys. It does not matter! I think I realised I was bi when I was 16 for a brief period of time where I identified as lesbian and then I had sex with a guy and thought maybe I need to rethink my position on the spectrum. It took me a really long time to come to terms with my bisexuality and realising I was not a lesbian. 

EMBRACING THE SPECTRUM

For a long time this made me wonder whether I’m only sexually attracted to women and not romantically or emotionally. If that’s the case, can I still be considered bisexual? Should I label myself as bicurious? (It eventually came to light that it wasn’t the case at all and in fact I just have trouble forming romantic connections with anyone but that is for another post). What I now wished I said was “if a straight man has never dated a woman does that make him gay and while we’re at it how is this any of your fucking business?” 

 I can’t pinpoint when exactly but I came across the term ‘pansexual’. When I heard it I immediately thought, that’s me. I find myself (like many others) interchanging between the two and I feel very comfortable doing so. I’m beginning to understand that sexuality is a spectrum and labels don’t really matter. Just words formed together to create a blanket term in an attempt to describe an individual’s sexual attraction. If you ever find yourself questioning your sexuality, hey that’s okay. Explore that. But try to remember that you don’t have to have every little detail figured out. 

Denise* : “For the longest time I didn’t acknowledge my own bisexuality.  Even up until recently I avoided labelling myself as bisexual.  I told myself it was because I didn’t want to put myself into a box and limit myself to the ‘checklist’ of being Bi. But really I think it was because Identifying as bisexual would mean that I’d have to admit that I was sexually attracted to women and I couldn’t hide behind it just being a ‘girl crush’, and that felt really daunting and scary. But in actuality it’s been really wholesome to embrace my sexuality and all the insecurities that come with it”.

COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS: 

• Bisexual people are more likely to cheat/there’s twice the danger of them cheating 

Wrong. If someone cheats it’s a choice they make as an individual and it has absolutely nothing to do with their sexual orientation. 

• Bisexuals are always up for threesomes and orgies

Wrong again. I’m not even going to entertain this one. Just know it’s wrong. 

• Bisexual men aren’t really bisexual. They’re just in the closet 

Okay, so this can be said about any bisexual individual but I hear it more often about men and it really gets under my skin. Mostly because not only is it said by straight people but I hear it in the queer community too. This is incredibly wrong. You do not have the right to dismiss someone’s sexuality, point blank period. 

• Bisexuals only date cis gendered individuals

Wrong. This is not the case for everyone at all. 

• Bisexuals are just greedy 

Shit, maybe.

• If a bisexual person is in a long term heterosexual relationship, they’re straight / if they’re in a long term homosexual relationship, they’re gay 

As Jahan stated, that is wrong. Get your head out your ass.