Bisexuals of Unusual Size, I don’t think they exist.

That’s not actually true, I really just wanted to use a Princess Bride reference.
When I was younger, I used to listen to Loveline with Adam Corolla & Dr. Drew on the local radio station. It was one of the few places I knew to look for sex advice. I wasn’t actually having sex at the time, but that’s not the point. At any rate. I don’t know why I remember this, but I distinctly remember Dr. Drew saying he didn’t believe that bisexuality really existed. It was around then that I started to think he was full of it. Even though I was a virgin, I had enough experimental friends to think that he was somehow off base. Why do I bring this up? On Sunday, Alice wrote a fantastic post on sexuality outside of the norm, in relationship to heterosexuality, homosexuality, and bisexuality.

She writes

It took a while to realise that it’s ok to exist outside the boxes. Public figures who refuse to identify as either straight, bi or gay are few and far between, so it sometimes feels like you’re flying blind. But I’m so optimistic. By the time I’m fifty, I fully expect the young ones to be either bypassing the vocabulary of sexual preference entirely, or at least using a new, far more fluid version - more a river than a set of boxes.

thoughts. projects. also posted on the topic.

I don’t relate to that, no. Not in the slightest. Although, I think I’m coming to it from the other side of the spectrum.

If ever I’ve had an identity, it’s always been as straight. All of my partners to date have been male, and my preference and comfort level with intimacy has always been with men. Hell, in college, I was the designated token straight girl in my circle of friends…. They were very supportive of my alternative sexuality. However, whenever I’d go out drinking, the running joke was that I’d turn gay. To this day, my friend from college swears up and down that I hit on her girlfriend when I got drunk. She wasn’t jealous or anything, just highly amused. I’m a highly affectionate person, and on the occasions that I drink, those tendencies magnify and I’m not really picky to what gender I direct that level of affection.

I went out for drinks with another friend from college last month to catch up while we were both in town. “So, have you started dating girls yet?” was one of the first things she asked me. It was in jest, but still shook me off kilter a bit.

I don’t know if “heterosexual” is the right designation for what I am. Neither is bisexual. And Kinsey 2 is way too clinical. It’s funny. I became what Victor calls a “college lesbian” well after college… In that I’ll kiss pretty girls and I’ll play with them. In December, a girl went down on me for the first time, and I didn’t exactly object. It’s that level of bisexuality that the passive observer would turn their nose up at. It’s been insinuated by some acquaintances that similar displays of bisexuality is the hip thing to do, so now everyone’s jumping on the bandwagon. And part of the reason that I’m so skittish about embracing this experimental side of me is I don’t want to face the stigma of doing something because “all the cool kids are.”

Last week, for example, I was out with a boy I’d met at a tea party. We were talking about our relationship with the BDSM scene, how we got into it, how we see it, etc. My dinner partner made some comment to the effect that the scene has suddenly become glutted with bi poly switches, and somehow that’s become the assumed norm. I don’t know if I agree with that statement necessarily. Then again, my sample size is little more than anecdotal.

I get the distinct impression that people are comfortable with someone else’s sexuality if that someone else sticks to it wholeheartedly. This could be why bisexuals have had such issues in the past. Please correct me if I’m wrong. It’s easier to deal with things that you can put a comfortable label on or somehow quantify.

I can’t put myself in those boxes yet, mostly because I don’t have it figured my own self. I’ve dabbled with women not because it’s the “cool” or expected thing to do, but out of curiosity and self exploration, just as I’ve dabbled with switching. I don’t know what that makes me yet. And I’d like the space to figure that out without other people doing it for me. My sexual identity far from fixed. It’s still flowing down that river Alice so beautifully referenced, looking for the right depth and temperature. I’m trying to figure these things out without taping myself shut in one particular box or another, because I know I’m just going to have to unpack myself and find another damn box. No pun intended.

To quote the ever fabulous Margaret Cho, “And then I realized, I’m just slutty. Where’s my parade?”

Please make a donation to RAINN. (reference: GBBMC2008 + my name with your donation.) The Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network is the nation’s largest anti-sexual assault organization. RAINN operates the National Sexual Assault Hotline with a nationwide partnership of more than 1,100 local rape treatment hotlines, providing victims of sexual assault with free, confidential services around the clock. The hotline helped 137,039 sexual assault victims in 2005 and has helped more than one million since it began in 1994.

~ by Sascha on April 16, 2008.