Are you gay, lesbian, straight? What if you are neither and are unsure, confused and or questioning where you fit in today’s labelled environment? What does it mean to be bisexual? Greedy or the best of both worlds?
I’ll be tackling both bisexuality and asexuality in this series of articles. When I started my research I came across some questions:
– Is the reason Bisexuality gets such a bad reputation because people can’t get their heads around it or just don’t understand it?
– Does coming out differ and what does it mean to be either Bisexual or Asexual?
I see bisexual as being bilingual. You master more than one language and it’s not a choice of knowing one or the other, you know both. Bisexuals are just that – bisexual. They are neither lesbian/gay nor straight, they fancy both men and women. I am married to a man and people always ask me “so, have you slept with woman before?” and the answer is Yes. I have. I sometimes still find women attractive. Maybe that means I’m bisexual too? Maybe if you give it a percentage and say you feel 80% attracted to men and 20% to woman, does that still make you bisexual or is that more lenient to being gay? If you happen to be sexually attracted to both men and women, doesn’t mean that you are turned on by just about everyone? I can understand that for some people it does matter how other people view you and they want to be seen and live their lives for who they are. Sometimes it’s safer to be given or know which box you tick. In India, they have now included transgender as an option in official government documentation, which is a great step forward, However if we had to fill in forms about our sexuality I don’t believe the options for bi or asexual would feature on there. They are almost forgotten.
When I first realised that I was gay and came out I wanted to make sure my friends knew that I was still attracted to women too or at least knew that I had been with women. I felt that it was more acceptable to be seen as bisexual, not given a definite box, almost using it as a go in between phase, a safer place where I didn’t have to commit as yet. I now understand that it truly is a separate sexuality and not just about keeping your options open.
Surveys and statistics from our community show that it’s actually harder for someone to come out as ‘bi’ as it is to come out as lesbian, gay or transgender due to many preconceived misconceptions that are ‘out there’. Bisexuals are often not liked in many societies as some people think that they are just in it for the sex . . . ‘greedy or the best of both worlds’ is a phrase often cited, yet we can’t help it if we are attracted to both men and women. I guess society thinks that the LGBT community is all about sex but they are slowly coming around now and see that we can have regular relationships like everybody else does. One might wonder if straight people are jealous of the fact that we are so open and free about this subject?
