It is such a hard concept to understand love. To understand why we feel an inexplicable attraction to someone. To understand the intrinsic need to vie for their attention and affection.
We all have to face forces in our lives which we have to resist. Forces which make us go through hurdles, and these hurdles give us strength to overcome unforeseen struggles.
One such hurdle I am currently trying to overcome, is understanding my sexuality. Most of us go through phases where we question or experience something unique in terms of relationships and the kind of love we accept. Especially queer individuals, where there is a lack of content to identify with in books and/or movies, which cater strictly to only one sexual orientation, can be quite jarring. Your mind stays muddled and stressed for quite long.
I was abused as a child, by a young teenage boy. When I grew a little older, my childlike crushes on boys turned towards women. I thought it was only because I was scared of men. I ran away to an all-girls college and met to real ‘actual’ people who openly identifies as queer individuals and not just abused synonyms of it seen on television.
These girls dressed like ‘boys’ and called themselves lesbians. That made sense to me since I was a girl that dressed masculine as well. However, over the course of a few months they had girlfriends who dressed like, well, girls. My brain was filled with questions. How can that be? Feminine girls can be gay too? Nobody told me about this possibility. Nobody educated me on this. I’d often sit and try to understand if this label truly does apply to me. It didn’t. It didn’t feel enough.
When I went to senior college, a co-educational institution, I came across people who identified themselves as bisexual. There were some who were exploring and called themselves ‘bi-curious’. I, too, couldn’t deny my obvious attraction to men either, but this label too, didn’t feel enough.
In my final year of college, I was introduced to the term ‘Pansexual’. It is a sexual and emotional orientation that identifies with having intimate and romantic relationships with any and every gender. It loves the spectrum so much that it can integrate itself with anyone on it. It can be alt-left, alt-right, centre-left, so on and so forth. It is an orientation that not just sees, but also embraces someone no matter how singularly placed or spread out they feel on the spectrum. The love pansexuals feel goes beyond one’s gender. No matter how you wish to define yourself, they love you for you.
This all-encompassing gender was like a shiny gold mine to me. It made so much sense and fit right into that little box of a heart I have. I am trying to embrace it and accept the fact that love is love, no matter the person’s gender and sexuality, but instead that mind and soul lie behind the muscle-and-skin exterior.
