Early on in my time here, I wrote about sex and sexuality. I shared that I am bisexual, and someone popped up in a comment and asked me how I know. The assumption was that it is "normal" to be heterosexual but abnormal to be bisexual. It was also heavily implied that my sexuality is an active choice I make rather than a state of being.
Um, no.
I know I like men because I have always liked men. I had crush after crush growing up on boys and then men who torched my mind and body with desire.
I know I like women because I have always liked women. I had crush after crush growing up on girls and then women who torched my mind and body with desire.
I can't remember not liking men or women. What I do clearly recall is receiving the message that wanting to be with another woman was bad. So I stuffed that info about myself deep down where it was extremely hard to access and went on with my life until my early thirties when one day I started having sex dreams about a female friend of mine.
For awhile I wondered whether I might be a lesbian who had actually forced herself to like men because liking women would have seen me homeless after a severe beating. At the time, I didn't greatly enjoy sex because I was never honest with myself about what I wanted from it. I was afraid of my body. It makes sense. I was taught that my interest in women's bodies was bad and had applied that to my own.
One day I decided to follow the fantasy instead of shoving it aside. I allowed myself to imagine being with a woman. If it hadn't been clear that was what I wanted, it now was. It also became clear that I wanted men too. The areas of my sex life I'd thought were broken began to repair. Sex became fun and desirable. I was lit up from the inside, and I was aroused all the time because, oh my god, there are women everywhere. I suddenly had an intense understanding of what it is like to be a teen boy.
My sexuality is not aberrant, fabricated or wrong. It just is. I was born this way and I am okay with it. My response to being asked how I know I'm bisexual is how do you know you're not? Is it because someone told you or because your body told you? Maybe reflect on how you know your own truths before debating someone else's.
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