“The vast majority of people are straight, with their sexual identities, attractions, and behaviors lined up like ducks in a row. A small percentage of people aren’t straight, and their sexuality is far more complicated.”
The Daily Beast wrote this in a recent article on a study by researchers at Washington State University. The study supposedly debunked the idea that sexuality is fluid, at least between those who identify as straight and those who are not straight.
But as someone who fits in the “not straight” category, all I have to say to the fact it’s apparently more complicated is: Yeah, no shit.
I had a major internal battle when I started coming out as bisexual. I went back and forth for years. I think I knew it all along, but denial is a powerful thing, especially when you can hide behind heterosexual privilege. While in some ways it was easier, it sometimes made me miserable.
The problem was I had no real way to sort through it. Most of my friends in high school were straight or gay. I was somewhere in the middle. I could talk about liking guys, but I never talked about the girls I absolutely needed to be friends with or the cravings for a different kind of touch.
And so many times when I said I was straight, I knew I was lying.
So I tip-toed around it for a while. First, I was 100 per cent straight. Then, I was bi-curious. Then I was bisexual, but preferred men. And now, I don’t have a preference. I just like people—I don’t care what gender they are, and I’ve never been happier.
But through this I have realized how little representation there is for queer people. I think the reason it took me so long was that I had no idea what being bisexual meant or even looked like. Heterosexuals have plenty of representation and scripts to follow as to how to be heterosexual. A lot of these are problematic and sexist, but that’s another topic in itself.
Once I came out and embraced my bisexuality, the lack of social scripts was freeing. Whether it was with relationships, sex, or how I present myself, it was up to me because the media and movies certainly weren’t giving me any ideas.
And the ones they did present of the depraved and even demonic bisexual à la Jennifer’s Body were too ridiculous to even consider.
As Fleetwood Mac would say, you can go your own way. For me, that’s the bi way.
