I’m not the first, nor will I be the last, to propose that the socially acknowledged terms for sexual orientation leave a lot to be desired. I’m a woman and on the Kinsey scale (which I consider far more user-friendly) I would fall somewhere in the range of a 2. It’s taken me a while to get there and understand what that means for me.
Only in the last few months has the memory surfaced of the first I thought I might like girls. I remember very distinctly standing in the enclosed back porch of my cousin’s house. I was, perhaps, seven or eight and we were taking a brief break before foraging back into the pool. She, six months my junior, had always been a bit of a bully, but I tried to make due with my lone playmate. Being an only child with overprotective parents lent me to very few excursions outside the house, so I knew to enjoy the time I had while I had it.
Somehow it came to me in our conversation that day that I might like girls. I didn’t understand the social ramifications of the information, I hadn’t been given the ‘gays burn in hell’ speech yet, I only knew that, for some reason, I sort of liked girls the same way I liked the freckle-faced boy at school. I shared this information with her and she, giggling and wide-eyed, accepted it with no more issue than had I told her I sneaked an extra cookie before dinner. At least, that’s what I thought.
Later that afternoon I decided to exact my new-found power of using the telephone on my own. We took the cordless phone from its holder in the kitchen and dialed the number of my aforementioned freckle-faced crush. I don’t remember what we talked about (what does one talk about on the phone at that age?), but I remember the absolute shot of panic that ran through me when she snatched the phone and declared, “I’m going to tell him what you told me! I’m going to tell him you like girls!”
I somehow managed to talk her out of it, and I’m not beyond wondering if I actually grabbed the phone out of her hands and hung up on him. I know there was a brief period of begging, of desperation, but she never did say anything and I never spoke of my vague interests again.
I liked boys well enough and, as single digits turned to double and upward, I tended toward boys almost exclusively. In fact, I don’t remember the thought of girls crossing my mind for several years after that. I can only guess I must have severely pushed the information away. During those years I also came to understand that God thought same-sex intimacy was abhorrent, and that those engaging in sexual immorality would be permanently cast out. Between you and me, looking back now, I think Paul was just bitter he wasn’t getting any.
In the mid-late years of puberty I came to the realization that the idea of sex with a woman was not only interesting to me, but desirable in the right circumstances. I realized I was watching women more than men when I was out in public. I didn’t know what to make of it, I was a little afraid of it. I remember driving home, on the interstate south of Richmond with my mother, and telling her that I thought I might like girls too. I came out and said, “I think I might be bisexual. I sort of..like…girls?”
She gave me an odd sort of look from the driver’s seat and laughed, “No you don’t! You wouldn’t want to kiss a woman, would you? Gross!” This, followed by another sort of finial laugh was enough shut me up entirely.
Since then, I’ve shared the information with only two people: my best friend (who doesn’t care, particularly given I’ve never been attracted to her), and my male partner. He is a solid 3 now, perhaps a leaning 4 on the Kinsey scale. He had predominantly (nearly exclusively) male partners before we found each other and, for some reason, we fell in love. We work well together, we have a great sex life, and when I told him about my interest in women he laughed and said, “Fantastic. Now we can really look at people together.”
I don’t know if I’ll ever have sex with a woman. If our relationship continues as we both foresee it doing (that is, marriage and children), I have no interest of bringing other partners into the picture. It may be that I quietly admire from the sidelines and enact fantasies on my own or with him when the mood strikes.
I know this for sure, though: whatever gender preferences or interests our children have, we will never, ever, laugh at them.
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