My Sexual Identity
I don’t feel like I owe it to you to talk about my sexual identity, but something happened this Pride Month that made me change the way I think about myself and I wanted to share. Also every since I started writing this I have had Craig David’s “What’s your flava” stuck in my head but “label” instead of “flavour”.
I am already having a physiological response in anticipation of writing this story down so let’s do some content and trigger warnings shall we? Biphobia, denial of self, coming out, high school kids being idiots, grown up people being idiots, all kinds of people being idiots… I myself, am a bit of a dick.. just be wary of this whole thing please.
I am not going to go into the ins and outs of biphobia because honestly, I don’t have the wherewithal. I just want to talk about my experience with my sexuality.
In high school one of my friends told our group she was bi, the reaction? “She is just looking for attention”, “she is making it up”, one friend was more annoyed that she was “being selfish and couldn’t make up her mind” saying “bi people are just greedy”. My personal reaction? I don’t know if I had much of one… She explained to me what she felt and I thought.. Isn’t that how everyone feels? Because that’s how I feel, but I’m not bi? I believed she believed she was bi, but I just didn’t see how she was.
I mean, we just didn’t fit into the mould I believed bisexuality to be. Sure, I had some pretty intense crushes on boys and girls alike but when it came around to it, I had only ever “dated” boys. So I couldn’t be bi. Side note – I didn’t actually have a real boyfriend until I was 18, could imagine if someone had said “well, you’ve never had a boyfriend, how do you know you’re straight?”
I know now sexuality has no bounds, but this was over 10 years ago (at a Lutheran high school I might add), when the conversations and ideas of sexuality were completely different. THIS IS WHY AWARENESS DAYS, WEEKS, MONTHS ARE SO IMPORTANT.
Anyway, shortly after someone else in our grade came out as bi and the excitement was gone and that was it. Though now the seed had been planted.
Now I am going to skip through all of the initial internal struggles and questioning etc and go to 2018. I’d still only been in serious dating relationships with men, but I was pretty comfortable with the label of “bi”. Though I had some major guilt, thinking that LGBTQ spaces weren’t really for me because I am “straight passing”. Not other bi people though, they were probably “more bi” than me, of course this was their space, their community. I just hadn’t earn’t the right to be a part of it.
Ok 2018, my partner at the time and I used to go to The Beat (Brisbane’s Gay MegaClub), a lot, it was his favourite club. We could go and dance and be completely free for a while. One night out in the smokers section, there was a person that was, I guess, just unhappy that we were there. If it was any other club we would have thought, it’s just an asshole being as asshole, and we would have ignored them. But because it was an LGBTQ club we assumed our “straight passing” presence was making them feel unsafe. We didn’t want to make anyone uncomfortable, so we got up to leave and as I was walking away I turned and apologised, to which they snapped “how do you identify?” kind of thrown, I replied “um, bisexual I guess” and immediately they responded “Ew. Fuck off.”
That was the last time I went to The Beat and the last time I identified myself as bi. If the topic of sexual preference came up, no matter the environment, I would just say “I dunno” and then my brain would go into a tailspin. Maybe it would just be easier to say I am straight. Does the word straight feel comfortable on me? No but… why should that matter?
Then the word queer was reclaimed and bought into the mainstream vernacular. And it felt better. It felt good. I can proudly say I’m not straight without people having an “in” to interrogate me. Or if they did ask “what does that mean?” I could respond, “it means I’m not straight”. Because I didn’t know! I didn’t feel comfortable or safe trying to figure it out.
Somewhere around this time I met my wonderful group of friends, my Kink Family. My relationship having ended and me not making the healthiest choices when it came to sexual encounters, they were my safe space to explore myself, my sexuality, and my relationship to kink. And you know what was amazing? If it turned out I wasn’t as gay as I thought, if I wasn’t as kinky as I thought, if fantasy didn’t translate to reality – it didn’t matter. Because they loved me as the fluid, ever changing, ever evolving human I am, and reminded me, no matter what, I am valid.
Fast forward to Pride Month 2021, my beautiful angel A, the one who introduced me to the Kink Family, was hosting a Pride Party. We had stickers we could write our names, pronouns and whatever else you wanted, your sexual identity, a fetish… one woman had “switch” but I thought it said “snitch”. A man I made friends with had “single. Anxious. Awkward.” But he had run out of room for awkward, so it was all bunched up together and hard to read… it was perfect.
This was my name badge.. and after all of the “I just don’t get a cunty vibe from you” reactions to it, I was inspired to make a wholesome(?) meme…
I digress, being in this room full of people, I felt so much love, I felt like it didn’t matter if I used the label bisexual or queer, or even if I turn around tomorrow and labelled it something else. Something I preach but clearly haven’t been practicing, I held myself to the same level of respect I give everyone else. Sexuality is warm oozing energy, not a scale of straight to gay with bisexuality in the middle, so why was I still trying to place myself on it?
I stopped thinking about my sexuality, and just let my sexuality be. And for the first time in a long time, I felt like I was home.
I know I am privileged in my experiences but that doesn’t invalidate my existence. So I leave you with this my loves, maybe not calling myself bisexual is still rooted in fear and biphobia, maybe it just doesn’t fit, maybe queer is my true crown. But right now, it doesn’t matter. I am a heavenly ball of warm, gooey, glowing sexual energy filled with love. And that is how I identify.
Just quickly, I want to thank my Kink Family, I feel so incredibly blessed to know you all. Words cannot express (the love and tenderness) the amount of love and joy you have bought into my life.
