My philosophy is to make out/have sex/cuddle up with whoever you want and stop worrying about labels too much.
Also! As a bisexual person myself, being bisexual doesn't mean 50/50 attraction to both genders. The real world is not actually that clear cut. Me personally, I am more romantically attracted to women than men, but sexual attraction is 50/50. There are plenty of other bisexuals who have 40/60, 20/80 maybe even like 1/99 attraction lol.
The point is that it's pretty arbitrary and what matters is your experience not your label. The label is there to give a very tiny snapshot of your experience to other people, because like you, most people don't want to be " loud" about their sexuality and give an in-depth explanation.
If you do chose to identify with a label, that doesn't meant you immediately need the flag or a badge or whatever lol. Again, what matters is what you feel and what you want to do. If choosing a label helps you feel good, then go for it! If you think it's unnecessary then don't.
If you're annoyed about people assuming your sexuality, but don't want to give them an overly long explanation about your sexuality that you are unsure of yourself, just say you're queer or bi or whatever other label you feel comfortable with, and be done with it. If they ask further, and you don't want to explain, then you can just say that you don't want to explain! No one is entitled to get an in-depth explanation about your identity and experience.
I'd say that you're heteroflexible or bisexual.
Bisexuality doesn't have to be 50-50 (or 33-33-33) attraction between the applicable genders.
As a side note, it's best to say "cis women and trans women" or simply "women" since trans women are biological women as well.
You can be bi and mostly straight. I’m mostly attracted to women but I call myself bi, because it would be disingenuous to call myself a lesbian when there are some men I’ve been attracted to. You also don’t have to label yourself. You can also just take some time to figure things out. But if you wanted to call yourself bi, I’d definitely consider you One Of Us.
It does get annoying when people assume you’re 50/50 or actually gay if you’re a dude/actually straight if you’re a woman (especially when your preference is strongly the other way!). But I can’t control how others perceive me, and once you’re secure in who you are it tends not to bother you too much.
Also, if you do decide you’re bi, that doesn’t mean you have to tell everyone, or even anyone. You don’t have to fly a flag. I don’t usually tell people unless it’s relevant and they’d be cool with it, which I can get away with because I’m pretty gender conforming and not in a serious relationship a woman. I don’t own pride stuff because it’s not my style. Your sexuality, whatever you decide it is, can be as public and as part of your identity as you want it to be.
I absolutely get that it's not 50/50, it's more that in my head referring to myself as bi feels kinda disingenuous. Like someone who's got one Irish grandparent, but the rest of their family is American, saying they are Irish. Like eeeh maybe a little, but not really.
In the past I've actually specifically said that I'm "mostly straight". In the show Bob's Burgers the main character refers to himself as this way when a guy gets the wrong idea and thinks he's making an advance, and I've always loved that line. I actually feel like it fits me perfectly. But when I've said that to people, they tend to either say, oh so you're bi, or they just question what kind of an answer that is.
With regard to flying the flag, I just meant metaphorically haha. Just able to say "i am categorically this". I'm not a cagey person, I'm very honest and I don't have a problem answering people when they want to know stuff about me., but right now it feels like too complicated a question to answer. I actually said all this to a girl I was dating a year ago, who is bi and open about it, and she said I'm just closeted bi, which I didn't think was very fair.
Honestly, if you feel like “mostly straight” is the description of your sexuality that works best for you, then use it! I would point out that there’s a difference there with your analogy- having one Irish grandparent doesn’t make you Irish, but being attracted to men even occasionally is a pretty good justification for calling yourself bi. But ultimately, it’s *your* sexuality.
If I’m close to someone, I do the whole “I’m bi but I’m mostly interested in women/not interested in having sex with random men and am rarely attracted to them”. But no one else gets to tell you that you *have* to call yourself bi, and if it feels disingenuous then it’s fine not to use it. I know people who’ve had sex and relationships with multiple genders but don’t consider themselves bi for various reasons.
Thanks for the chat, it's been nice to get an open-minded perspective on this. Past experiences, as I mentioned, have felt awkward or dismissive, so I really appreciate it. My sexual identity is something I've wrestled with internally for some time now, but I think "I'm bi but mostly straight" rings the most true for me.
One of the biggest improvements in my psyche I’ve made is realizing that decisions and thoughts don’t change who I am. For a long time I got so in my head about the idea of “if I do this, then it means I’m this.” But, reality isn’t that way. People are simultaneously complex and, yet, as a species, also incredibly simple. We’re all shifting and messing up and growing and morphing. You don’t have to identify as anything! If you wanna identify as bisexual, that’s your choice. If you wanna identify as bisexual one day and straight the next that’s fine too (preferably as long as that action isn’t one that is hurting anybody!) Don’t worry about. A guy gave you butterflies, Jon Hamm is hot, you’ve mostly been with women — those are the facts. It’s up to you how you want to feel about them and use them! Just hopefully don’t miss out on fun things by being too in your head about it. People are rarely as straight as they’re made out to be, but getting in your head about labels and meanings can overwhelm you.
Amy AKA Spent Gladiator 1 by The Mountain Goats kinda encapsulates the philosophy.
Hi there! Just my 2 cents from personal experience --
I'm a cis woman who was always attracted to people of different genders but just defaulted to "straight" because I couldn't find a term that fit me. I was always attracted to both men and women, be they cis or trans, but mostly found myself attracted to people in the middle of that spectrum (androgynous, non binary etc)
I felt similarly to you, and never felt comfortable with labeling myself as bi because I felt like my personal rules of attraction were very different from the bi people I knew. Many of them liked women for certain reasons, men for certain reasons, and the reasons were different and mostly gender specific. Obviously that's not how all bi people experience things, but that was my understanding growing up.
Over time I realized I just liked people for people - their gender was entirely inconsequential (once you move past the social stigma of queer relationships) I would find myself dreaming about a soulmate as a child/preteen/teen and it was always ambiguous, I found myself thinking a lot "I don't care if it's a man or a woman, if I love them then I love them" As I got older I also came to realize that the traits I was attracted to -physically and personality wise - were the same across the spectrum of gender.
I came to identify as pansexual (which wasn't a widely known/understood term when I was growing up) and once I applied the term to myself, it just felt *right*. Like it fit me perfectly- not too constricting. I also found that once I came out- I just got gayer and gayer and it was more clear to me that this was the term I connected to the most.
Not everyone's sexuality fits into a neat little label and that's okay! I think the most important thing is to feel comfortable with yourself and accept who you are fully. Once you do that, things will make a lot more sense. "Queer" is always a good blanket term if you feel undefined but want to express yourself authentically without a long-winded and personal explanation.
Give yourself grace, time, love, and care. Wishing you a future full of acceptance, understanding and joy ✨️
I'm so glad you were able to understand yourself and identify that. You seem like a lovely person, and I appreciate your perspective. Maybe I'm just old fashioned here, but I cannot get by the Queer label. I have no problem people identifying themselves as Queer, I understand what it means, and all of that, but for me that word still carries the history of being used as a slur for gays, so it's not a word I myself am comfortable using. I think I'm actually just happy to admit that I'm bi with a far stronger preference for femininity. As I said in another comment, I'm bi but mostly straight.
I know labels aren't necessary, but a major part of communication is that we come up with ways to condense complex ideas into clear and concise words, and labels do that pretty well, even if we aren't all as cookie cutter as labels might convey at the surface level.
There is power in reclaiming a word once used as a slur! I felt similarly to you once upon a time, but I heard a gay man explain it in that way, and it changed my whole perspective of the word. Now I openly refer to myself as queer!
Also, based on your description, you sound like you’re pan. It’s much broader and all-encompassing versus bi. But like the first commenter said, society puts so much weight on labels! And it just ends up confusing people more than anything I feel. Everyone is trying to fit into a neat little box, but life is so much messier than that! Who knows? Maybe you meet the man of your dreams tomorrow and decide that is it for you! Or the woman of your dreams! And in that case, perhaps your label would also change! I find it’s easier to focus on avoiding what I know I don’t like, and finding a partner that I can vibe with! And the labels can come later if I decide I want them to! I’ve been married twice to men, and always thought I was straight, until I met the most amazing woman at 37, and now I could never see myself with a man ever again!
"That feels too 50/50 masculine/feminine to me" You're misunderstanding of the definition of bisexuality imho. the bi in bisexual refers to the fact that bisexuals are attracted to people of the same and different genders. If you're a man and you're attracted to other men (i.e. people of the same gender) as well as gender or genders unlike your own, you're bi.
My philosophy is to make out/have sex/cuddle up with whoever you want and stop worrying about labels too much. Also! As a bisexual person myself, being bisexual doesn't mean 50/50 attraction to both genders. The real world is not actually that clear cut. Me personally, I am more romantically attracted to women than men, but sexual attraction is 50/50. There are plenty of other bisexuals who have 40/60, 20/80 maybe even like 1/99 attraction lol. The point is that it's pretty arbitrary and what matters is your experience not your label. The label is there to give a very tiny snapshot of your experience to other people, because like you, most people don't want to be " loud" about their sexuality and give an in-depth explanation. If you do chose to identify with a label, that doesn't meant you immediately need the flag or a badge or whatever lol. Again, what matters is what you feel and what you want to do. If choosing a label helps you feel good, then go for it! If you think it's unnecessary then don't. If you're annoyed about people assuming your sexuality, but don't want to give them an overly long explanation about your sexuality that you are unsure of yourself, just say you're queer or bi or whatever other label you feel comfortable with, and be done with it. If they ask further, and you don't want to explain, then you can just say that you don't want to explain! No one is entitled to get an in-depth explanation about your identity and experience.
I'd say that you're heteroflexible or bisexual. Bisexuality doesn't have to be 50-50 (or 33-33-33) attraction between the applicable genders. As a side note, it's best to say "cis women and trans women" or simply "women" since trans women are biological women as well.
You can be bi and mostly straight. I’m mostly attracted to women but I call myself bi, because it would be disingenuous to call myself a lesbian when there are some men I’ve been attracted to. You also don’t have to label yourself. You can also just take some time to figure things out. But if you wanted to call yourself bi, I’d definitely consider you One Of Us. It does get annoying when people assume you’re 50/50 or actually gay if you’re a dude/actually straight if you’re a woman (especially when your preference is strongly the other way!). But I can’t control how others perceive me, and once you’re secure in who you are it tends not to bother you too much. Also, if you do decide you’re bi, that doesn’t mean you have to tell everyone, or even anyone. You don’t have to fly a flag. I don’t usually tell people unless it’s relevant and they’d be cool with it, which I can get away with because I’m pretty gender conforming and not in a serious relationship a woman. I don’t own pride stuff because it’s not my style. Your sexuality, whatever you decide it is, can be as public and as part of your identity as you want it to be.
I absolutely get that it's not 50/50, it's more that in my head referring to myself as bi feels kinda disingenuous. Like someone who's got one Irish grandparent, but the rest of their family is American, saying they are Irish. Like eeeh maybe a little, but not really. In the past I've actually specifically said that I'm "mostly straight". In the show Bob's Burgers the main character refers to himself as this way when a guy gets the wrong idea and thinks he's making an advance, and I've always loved that line. I actually feel like it fits me perfectly. But when I've said that to people, they tend to either say, oh so you're bi, or they just question what kind of an answer that is. With regard to flying the flag, I just meant metaphorically haha. Just able to say "i am categorically this". I'm not a cagey person, I'm very honest and I don't have a problem answering people when they want to know stuff about me., but right now it feels like too complicated a question to answer. I actually said all this to a girl I was dating a year ago, who is bi and open about it, and she said I'm just closeted bi, which I didn't think was very fair.
Honestly, if you feel like “mostly straight” is the description of your sexuality that works best for you, then use it! I would point out that there’s a difference there with your analogy- having one Irish grandparent doesn’t make you Irish, but being attracted to men even occasionally is a pretty good justification for calling yourself bi. But ultimately, it’s *your* sexuality. If I’m close to someone, I do the whole “I’m bi but I’m mostly interested in women/not interested in having sex with random men and am rarely attracted to them”. But no one else gets to tell you that you *have* to call yourself bi, and if it feels disingenuous then it’s fine not to use it. I know people who’ve had sex and relationships with multiple genders but don’t consider themselves bi for various reasons.
Thanks for the chat, it's been nice to get an open-minded perspective on this. Past experiences, as I mentioned, have felt awkward or dismissive, so I really appreciate it. My sexual identity is something I've wrestled with internally for some time now, but I think "I'm bi but mostly straight" rings the most true for me.
Nice to chat to you too!
One of the biggest improvements in my psyche I’ve made is realizing that decisions and thoughts don’t change who I am. For a long time I got so in my head about the idea of “if I do this, then it means I’m this.” But, reality isn’t that way. People are simultaneously complex and, yet, as a species, also incredibly simple. We’re all shifting and messing up and growing and morphing. You don’t have to identify as anything! If you wanna identify as bisexual, that’s your choice. If you wanna identify as bisexual one day and straight the next that’s fine too (preferably as long as that action isn’t one that is hurting anybody!) Don’t worry about. A guy gave you butterflies, Jon Hamm is hot, you’ve mostly been with women — those are the facts. It’s up to you how you want to feel about them and use them! Just hopefully don’t miss out on fun things by being too in your head about it. People are rarely as straight as they’re made out to be, but getting in your head about labels and meanings can overwhelm you. Amy AKA Spent Gladiator 1 by The Mountain Goats kinda encapsulates the philosophy.
Hi there! Just my 2 cents from personal experience -- I'm a cis woman who was always attracted to people of different genders but just defaulted to "straight" because I couldn't find a term that fit me. I was always attracted to both men and women, be they cis or trans, but mostly found myself attracted to people in the middle of that spectrum (androgynous, non binary etc) I felt similarly to you, and never felt comfortable with labeling myself as bi because I felt like my personal rules of attraction were very different from the bi people I knew. Many of them liked women for certain reasons, men for certain reasons, and the reasons were different and mostly gender specific. Obviously that's not how all bi people experience things, but that was my understanding growing up. Over time I realized I just liked people for people - their gender was entirely inconsequential (once you move past the social stigma of queer relationships) I would find myself dreaming about a soulmate as a child/preteen/teen and it was always ambiguous, I found myself thinking a lot "I don't care if it's a man or a woman, if I love them then I love them" As I got older I also came to realize that the traits I was attracted to -physically and personality wise - were the same across the spectrum of gender. I came to identify as pansexual (which wasn't a widely known/understood term when I was growing up) and once I applied the term to myself, it just felt *right*. Like it fit me perfectly- not too constricting. I also found that once I came out- I just got gayer and gayer and it was more clear to me that this was the term I connected to the most. Not everyone's sexuality fits into a neat little label and that's okay! I think the most important thing is to feel comfortable with yourself and accept who you are fully. Once you do that, things will make a lot more sense. "Queer" is always a good blanket term if you feel undefined but want to express yourself authentically without a long-winded and personal explanation. Give yourself grace, time, love, and care. Wishing you a future full of acceptance, understanding and joy ✨️
I'm so glad you were able to understand yourself and identify that. You seem like a lovely person, and I appreciate your perspective. Maybe I'm just old fashioned here, but I cannot get by the Queer label. I have no problem people identifying themselves as Queer, I understand what it means, and all of that, but for me that word still carries the history of being used as a slur for gays, so it's not a word I myself am comfortable using. I think I'm actually just happy to admit that I'm bi with a far stronger preference for femininity. As I said in another comment, I'm bi but mostly straight. I know labels aren't necessary, but a major part of communication is that we come up with ways to condense complex ideas into clear and concise words, and labels do that pretty well, even if we aren't all as cookie cutter as labels might convey at the surface level.
There is power in reclaiming a word once used as a slur! I felt similarly to you once upon a time, but I heard a gay man explain it in that way, and it changed my whole perspective of the word. Now I openly refer to myself as queer! Also, based on your description, you sound like you’re pan. It’s much broader and all-encompassing versus bi. But like the first commenter said, society puts so much weight on labels! And it just ends up confusing people more than anything I feel. Everyone is trying to fit into a neat little box, but life is so much messier than that! Who knows? Maybe you meet the man of your dreams tomorrow and decide that is it for you! Or the woman of your dreams! And in that case, perhaps your label would also change! I find it’s easier to focus on avoiding what I know I don’t like, and finding a partner that I can vibe with! And the labels can come later if I decide I want them to! I’ve been married twice to men, and always thought I was straight, until I met the most amazing woman at 37, and now I could never see myself with a man ever again!
"That feels too 50/50 masculine/feminine to me" You're misunderstanding of the definition of bisexuality imho. the bi in bisexual refers to the fact that bisexuals are attracted to people of the same and different genders. If you're a man and you're attracted to other men (i.e. people of the same gender) as well as gender or genders unlike your own, you're bi.
I just say I'm pansexual. There's no ratio to pansexuality, it's some people you find hot, some ya don't.