I found out I was bisexual on the internet…
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Patriarchy is a particularly vile poison, one that seeps into every crevice of our lives to taint it with the binary. We must be a good or bad, we must be a man or a women, we must be gay or straight. The binary narrative gives birth to so much confusion and joylessness, stealing away the joy that lives in the in-between.
Throughout my teens, and most of my 20’s, I thought I was ‘straight, but weird’. This is how I thought of myself. Straight. But. Weird. I always knew I was ‘weird’.
I was straight because I didn’t know how to act around boys. I was weird because I didn’t know how to act around girls I was attracted to either.
I was straight because I wanted to look at boys bodies. I was weird because I didn’t know where to look in the girls changing rooms, but knew EXACTLY where I wanted to look.
I was straight because I wanted to kiss men on nights out. I was weird because I wanted to kiss women on nights.
I was straight because I wanted to make-out with men when I was sober. I was weird because I wanted to make-out with women when I was sober.
I was straight because I did more than kiss men. I was weird because I wanted to do more than kiss women.
I was straight because I was heteronormative porn. I was weird because I watched lesbian porn.
I was straight because I thought of men to make me cum. I was weird because I thought of women to make me cum.
Despite having identical reactions to women and men, I didn’t know I wasn’t straight. I didn’t know I fancied girls. I didn’t know there was something other than being gay or straight. The binary narrative was embedded so deep within me that I maintained the mentally that my sexuality was ‘normal’ but there was something wrong with me. I carried the mantra of being ‘straight, but weird’.
This mentally was something I maintained throughout my current relationship. I married a man when I was 25. We’ve been married 5 years and I love him just as much if not more, actually yes, so much more, than ever before. I know it’s cliche but he’s my best friend. He gave me a stability and joy I have never found elsewhere and I can’t imagine a life without him. But I still felt this weirdness about me. I had once thought my attraction to women was a phase, something all girls went though and something I would grow out of. But even after I was married to a man, I never stopped being attracted to women. I still felt ‘straight, but weird’.
One day, I was scrolling instagram and came across an article, published by @Saly.world, about queer and bisexual women who were in long-term committed relationships with men. Reading through the article and the comments was the first time I felt my sexuality was seen, validated and enabled into existence. I was suddenly not alone. Not weird. I was seeing other married women, married to men who also felt the bonds of heteronormativity and the straightness imposed upon them by society because they present in a heteronormative relationships. My attraction to anyone not identifying as male was suddenly ok and slightly less confusing. It was the first time I realised I was not weird, I was bisexual, and with it came a release of joy. I suddenly knew who I was and how my sexuality fit in the world.
I was 28 when I discovered the joy of knowing my sexuality. I am glad I know now but I can’t help but wonder how my life would have been different had I known and understand earlier. Would I have been less depressed? Less anxious? Would I have loved myself more and hated myself less? What joys could I have had if only I had known, if I had grown up with bisexual representation that went further than pleasing the male gaze?
But there is hope. Over the last few days I’ve hungrily consumed the Netflix show, Heartstopper, primarily about a gay teen and another a boy discovering his bisexuality. There are hard moments, joylessness in the form of bullying, homophobia, loneliness, patriarchy. But there is so much joy, so much that I felt warm and fuzzy after every. single. episode. It is unequivocally queer joy and I am thankful it exists for younger generations so that they might know the joy of their sexuality sooner.
When you assume you are straight others do too, so most people who know me, including most my family and some of my friends don’t know I’m bi. I don’t talk about my sexuality often because I’m not in a queer relationship, which makes me feel like a fraud and worry people won’t ‘get it’. It is just easier not to talk about my sexuality. I don’t want to have to explain myself, how you can be bisexual AND be married to a man. And I don’t want to have to try to explain the sadness I felt at not knowing who I was for 28 years. I have only one word to describe the joylessness of a society that teaches people to think they are weird to the point of hating themselves. That word is violence. But how to even begin explaining that the depths of the harm caused is violence to people who have known their sexuality and had it accepted, by people who have never felt weird because of their sexuality?
I don’t know how we transition away from the joylessness that lives within a society that makes us think we are weird for not being straight, but I do know it can begin with representation and shows like Heartstopper.
