Don't know how I can accept being bisexual?

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I'm pretty sure I'm bisexual: I like men and women in a different away, but both sexually and romantically (it just feels different for each gender, but still definitely sexually & romantically), with a preference towards women.

I just can't deal with not being 'definitely straight' or 'definitely gay'. I like polar extremes and for things to be definite and exact, definable. I keep looking for excuses for being straight or gay (I'm with a guy: I'm straight! I'm more attracted to women: I'm gay!). Also, I was brought up with strong "Gay and straight are fine and real. Bisexual is just for people who are confused before they choose, it's just a phase and isn't a real sexuality" message, I think my parents were a bit bi-phobic (or they didn't seem that way, just that they didn't believe it existed). And it feels confusing and horrible to be something that just doesn't exist, which I still kind of believe deep down.

Advice please? c=

I'm bisexual; I see being bisexual as not discriminating between genders. I look at the individual, and not the genitalia. It's kind of hard to explain, but it would be analogous to being attracted to both black and white people. I base my attraction on the person and who they are, not what what our society represents them as.


Aside from that, I worked with a bisexual that said she thought there were "more fish in the sea". More options, more chances of being happy.


I hope you can be happy with who you are all the time, and not care if other people are happy for you. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, though I think some socieites are genuinely being more open to diversity.

i don't know what to say except that sexuality isn't a rigid thing and its not black and white. it's fluid and it's a spectrum and loads of people either define themselves as bisexual or pansexual or they have experienced same sex attraction before or have experimented but dont identify as queer. some people might also identify as gay but be attracted to the opposite sex every once in a while. (tom robinson, one of my favourite singers was like that. he wrote a song about it. there was a large outcry back in the day over his shift from exclusively homosexual to gay guy who likes women.) and some poeple start out bi but end up straight or gay. it doesnt mean confusion or that it isn't a valid sexuality, it's just complicated. and just because you shack up with one sex it doesnt mean your feelings for any other die. its kinda hard to say dont worry about the labels and just go with the flow if you like being defined but the labels arent so important. i suppose you could just identify as queer.

I prefer girls to men, but I'm with a man. I don't feel 'bisexual' is accurate and I usually call myself queer.

I know what you mean about feeling non-existent/invalidated and sometimes craving a nice label with which to identify.

It's like this:

I'm definitely straight
I'm definitely gay
I'm definitely bi. <--- This one. ;p

To be bisexual does not mean you can't make up your mind, it means you know you like both, yeah? Sure, it can be a phase for some people, but for others it's not. I identified as lesbian first, but eventually a gave in and admitted I was Bi. XD I felt the same way you do, but it's honestly not a middle ground - it's a sexuality in it's own right. Not half gay, half straight or indecisiveness or whatever.

There's behavior and then there's orientation. You could choose to date just women. This would be lesbian behavior, but you would not stop liking men simply because you were dating a woman, just like a stright man dating another man (for whatever reason) would not suddenly become gay.

It sounds sort of like you have a little internalized biphobia, but I figure if you work through that you'll be fine. Just hang in there. ^^

/twocents

I will agree with Ria1989. It just means you see them as people, not sexual beings. I am bisexual as well and have a low sex drive, which is very odd according to the status quo. I just think people matter more than sex overall.

Maybe it's the same for you.

I look at the whole "definitely straight/definitely gay" paradigm as little more than a false dilemma. It wasn't until I eschewed labels that I realized that I was, in fact, pansexual.

In your case, there's absolutely no shame in identifying as bisexual. After all, you have stated by your own admission that you have romantic/sexual feelings for both genders. It's certainly logical to classify that as bisexuality.

The notions of "gay" and "straight" are largely social constructs. I read a review of a recent book titled "Straight: The Surprisingly Short History of Heterosexuality" which talks about the fact that the sexual behavior binary was created, fairly recently, as a means to police sexual behavior. Unfortunately, some segments of the "GLBT community" accept that prejudice because they fear the ability of bisexuals to move between men and women undermines the whole "born this way" argument which is one of the cornerstones of the queer rights movement . Personally, I think Kinsey's notion of a scale of human sexuality with people occasionally shifting their position on that scale, makes a lot more sense than the notion of gay vs straight.

Among some species, animals engage in bisexuality in that they may behave sexually with members of the same gender but also engage in reproductive activity with the opposite gender. I doubt that other chimps, for example, shun those who do this, telling them in chimp-language to just make up their minds and choose gay or straight.

Your parents, like many people, have unconsciously taken in a general culture prejudice. Accepting socially popular preconceptions is sort of like the mental equivalent of the common cold--something that everybody's passing around and it's easy to catch if you don't build up your mental immune system through a course of thinking, reading and talking with people who have freed themselves of the virus.

People who are born a bit different, whether aspie or queer or whatever else, usually have to go through a period starting in their teens of gradually perceiving and then recuperating from all the little mental colds their parents gave them. This can be in the form of religious beliefs that don't suit you; wrongheaded ideas about race; notions about sexuality or even little things like which brands are OK to buy at the supermarket and what colors are acceptable to use when decorating the dining room. It's part of the process of becoming yourself rather than just your parents' child but it takes time and a bit of courage. The more people who do this, the more the culture gradually evolves to become at least a little more accommodating with each succeeding generation of those who are different.