Dear Wenger,
A little hard to ask, but how do you know your sexual orientation for sure? I’ve always been attracted to guys, but lately I’ve been giving girls more attention too?
Best,
Anonymous
Dear Sexually-Unsure,
Just so ya’ll know. Sexuallity takes time. It takes time especially because we were raised in a society where all around us, we see only one kind of dating. Men and women kissing, touching, dating, and so on….
Its called heteronormativity and everyone needs to know this word because it sums up the plight of the LGBTQ+ community. The idea that there is only one “true” sexuality (straight) makes straying from that “truth” incredibly difficult.
Like anything, being/identifying as something other than the norm takes strength. It takes resilience, and like I already said, it takes a lot of goddamn time.
The difficult part of being a non-straight/non-cis human is that you are on a path as-of-yet unpaved. You are treading trails no one has tread (is that correct past tense?) before. Even within the LGBTQ+ community everyone’s path is their own. One bi-sexual person will describe their experience differently than the next. If you were to take a survey of every self-identifying lesbian across the world asking them to define what their sexuality means to them, you will get a crazy range of answers. Some will say, “I like women only,” others, “I like to sleep with women but not date them,” or “I like to date women, but I also like to date men.” They’re all (self-identifying)lesbians, they just own their lesbianism differently.
That’s because no one sexuality is precisely like another. So… please, please, please don’t try to fashion for yourself a sexuality from the cloth that others have cut, you’ll end up in an ill fitting get-up.
Listen:
On top of the range from person to person, there is the range in sexual-definition throughout the course of your own life.
Coming out is a process as is defining yourself. You will call yourself by many things and that’s okay. It’s all ok. It’s even okay to keep one foot in the closet and dangle yourself out until you’re comfortable (as long as it’s a metaphorical closet and not the closet of a stranger).
In summary:
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You do not have to label yourself unless that makes you feel more comfortable.
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Your sexuality could change throughout your life, so don’t get scared if one day you feel like making out with a dude at a bar and the next find yourself desperately in love with a non-binary individual. That’s life.
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At the end of the day all that matters is that you’re happy. We never truly know ourselves. Our perceptions of the world, our politics, our height, our preferences of food and drink and people are all constantly changing.
My advice: just go with it. *finger guns*
Best,
The always reliable, always misinformed, Wenger