If you're not 100% gay are you bi?

Eh, I'm kind of 90% gay, but a little bit attracted to some guys and I have been in love with a guy before even though he felt like a very big exception to my sexuality, so I call myself 'bi'... although it's hard to resist saying 'lesbian' sometimes because I find the majority of guys not attractive in a romantic way -_- (It's nothing against guys, I love them as friends, find them attractive etc. but kissing and intimate stuff usually feels... gross. And weird.)

I'll look at an attractive guy and think "Oh, he's cute", but I'll see an attractive girl and think "wow, she's cute! I wonder if she likes girls? How could I talk to her? she's so cute! no, she would never like me. I'm way too shy to talk to her. Wait, she just looked at me, but was that a look or just a look?" Errrr, et cetera.

Basically, without any emotional connection to a guy I don't feel anything past objective attraction at all but if that emotional connection is there I know from that one experience of being in love with a guy that I definitely can.

I think that sexuality is fluid, yeah. Some days the attraction towards either gender is a bit all over the place even from hour to hour, but I tend to think of myself mostly as gay, but if it came to love I would make an exception with my preferences. Hence, the bi label I've known a few 'straight' people to come out once I started talking to them when I was questioning my own sexuality really as bisexual or bi-romantic but it's just easier/more comfortable for them to identify as straight which was really suprising! I read somewhere too that more people are inbetween either being straight or gay than one or the other, but I'm not sure... it's an interesting question

 

I'm primarily gay, about 80% for guys, 20% for girls/other genders, and it changes, with some days being more fluid than others.
But I solely do not think labels are that important, its what you want from life that is important. You might be theoretically bi if you are 95% attracted to girls as an example, but wouldn't it be far more practical to say gay? Its all to common for people to think bi people are open to dating either genders, and considering most bi people prefer the opposite gender (considering bisexuality is a spectrum, and the closer to straight, the more populated that part of the spectrum is), you would probably be pressured into being with men. Unless more and more people embrace the diversity of bisexuals, it would probably be more practical to identify as gay/lesbian- Unless you really like men enough to date and have sex with them.

 

I can understand where you're coming from, but identifying as lesbian or gay really doesn't fit me even though I have a strong preference. Even though I prefer relationships with girls I've been in love with both a girl and a guy before; it's not that I'm adverse to being in a relationship with the opposite gender, it's just less likely that I'll be attracted to them past a certain point. I know that there are things though that I find attractive across the genders, and if a guy or girl has these things then in my eyes they are attractive, and I would date them. My ex-boyfriend I loved being intimate with, because I had really deep feelings for him, and that matters a lot more than gender to me. I wouldn't miss being with a girl, or vice versa. I'm not going to deny that there are SOME guys that I'm attracted to sexually and could also happily be in a relationship with :icon_wink it's just a lot more rare. So yeah, I think of myself as bi, just with a strong preference. I see myself most likely with a female in the future, but I could easily be with the right guy too :rolle: As for people pressuring me to be with a man just because I'm bi and they assume I like the opposite gender more, well, nobody has done that, but they certainly can't make me :dry: (although being hit on by male friends [who I love only as friends because, well, they're my friends] is annoying :eusa_doh

 

I don't think there is such a thing as 100% gay. Gay means that a person is sexually attracted to other people of the same sex, and a person's sex is determined by their chromosomes. So, what exactly is the meaning of "100% gay"? Is it someone who is exclusively attracted to other people that have the same set of sex chromosomes (either XX or XY)? Since we don't perceive the chromosomes directly, this cannot be the answer. Without genetic testing, we can only determine sex indirectly through the appearance of genitalia and secondary sexual characteristics.

Consider the fact that genitalia come in many different shapes and sizes. The appearance of genitalia varies greatly and there is even a grey zone of people whose genitalia is sexually ambiguous. It, therefore, stands to reason that there is some flexibility in sexual attraction towards genitalia. Appearance of genitalia is one factor that determines sexual attraction, but I would argue that the secondary sexual characteristics hold greater importance. Here is my argument. Picture a human that has primary sexual characteristics (i.e. reproductive organs), but is stripped of all secondary sexual characteristics. Would you find this person to be sexually attractive? I believe that the vast majority would answer "no", because the type of human I have described is called an infant.

The secondary sexual characteristics are the other factors that determine sexual attraction, and they refer to bodily changes that develop during puberty. This includes breast and muscle development, deepening of the voice, growth of body hair, behavior etc. These sexual characteristics vary greatly from one person to the next and there is significant overlap in these characteristic between the sexes. For example, some women are flat chested; some men have breasts; some women have deep voices; some men have high-pitched voices; some women have a square jawline; some men have a small jaw. With so much variety in secondary sexual characteristics, one would expect sexual attraction to be sufficiently flexible to accommodate such variety.

So, coming back to the original question, I don't see how the idea of "100% gay" can exist, since there is no such thing as "100% male characteristics" or "100% female characteristics". I would say that anyone that is significantly more attracted to the same sex than the opposite sex is gay.

 

Yes there can be fluidity in people's sexualities but there are also people who are solely gay, lesbian, and straight. To say that there is no such thing as being 100% is simply not true.

 

I don't believe all gay people are 100%. I consider gay to be kinsey 5 (mostly gay) or 6 (completely gay). If you're a 4, you'd be more bisexual with same sex preferences.

This also depends on what mostly gay means. I believe that a woman who finds men good looking or enjoys porn with men is still gay. If you actually enjoy relationships and sex with men to the point of attraction, you're bi with a preference, unless of course the sex is because you're bored/horny (but not really attracted), closeted or a prostitute. And gay women can enjoy relationships with men if they've been victimized by compulsory heterosexuality. Just depends on the situation.

 

I don't believe there really is such a thing as "100%" gay, just levels of physical and romantic attraction that varies between each individual person; and the label that one perceives themselves to hold depends on where these levels are.

For the record, I consider myself a Kinsey 2; or a bisexual with a preference for the opposite sex (so.. 65-70% Straight and 35-30% Gay?)

 

Also can people please stop saying there is no such thing as 100% gay because there is (as rare as it might be) and it contributes to erasure/discrimination to half of our members

 

Fair point, I didn't mean my post like that through.

 

I'd like to suggest the opposite. People should stop claiming that there is such a thing as 100% gay without even giving a consistent definition of what it means to be 100% gay.

 

Genitals + Gender identity for me. Women identifying people with vaginas makes me 100% gay in my mind, as I'm sure it does for many others.

Your definition of what being gay is makes no sense, and quite frankly is insulting to me as a soft butch woman. You're implying that any woman who is attracted to me is not 100% gay (or is bisexual) which invalidates my identity and biological SEX as female. Yeah, I have masculine features but I still have a vagina, breasts, and a female gender identity which is what people exclusively attracted to women generally like.

Yes, I also happen to also like some "masculine" traits like body hair, flat chests, and deep voices myself, but that doesn't make me a different "so called number" if those things still belong to women (and yes those same traits are unattractive to me if you put them on a man). And just because someone puts on makeup, a dress and walks around swaying their hips isn't going to make their penis or male identity desirable to me or to most lesbians, ever. Because It's not femininity I'm attracted to, but female genitals and hormones (which excludes trans men as well because of their masculine scent).

After all, It's called homoSEXuality, and SEX happens through your genitals not your gender expression.

 

Firstly, gender identity is not something would determine sexual attraction. I say this because in order to determine a person's gender identity, you would need to ask them otherwise you are just making an assumption. Countless couples have been sexually attracted to each other without ever having a discussion about gender identity. How many straight women found Bruce Jenner to be sexually attractive even though she had feminine gender the whole time? If it's "genitals + gender identity" then by your definition, any heterosexual female that had a crush on Bruce Jenner was actually partially homosexual.

And if it's genitals, then why is it that straight men, rather than gay men, are more likely to be sexually attracted to transsexual women? It's the same reason why many straight men find female bodybuilders to be unattractive - because secondary sexual characteristics matter just as much and probably more so than genitalia.

I implied no such thing. I am also gay, so I take offense at baseless charges of gay erasure or identity invalidation. If it were substantiated, that's one thing, but I don't like it when those terms are thrown around and misused with the intention of shutting down discussion.

Re-read the last line of my first post about what I consider to be gay. I never wrote that everyone is bisexual. I wrote that there is no such thing as "100% gay" because no one has come up with a consistent definition for what that means. We know what gay means - it means being sexually attracted to a person of the same sex. But if we are to qualify the term "gay" with percentages, then we need to be more specific. We have no built-in detectors for directly identifying whether a person has XX or XY sexual chromosomes, so the only possible clues we can go by are sexual characteristics. And if these sexual characteristics are not neatly divided into male and female groups (i.e. some characteristics are shared), then how can we possibly define what it means to be 100% gay? Your definition of 100% gay with respect to genitals + gender identity is not consistent, which is illustrated by the counterexamples in my first two paragraphs. Both straight and gay people can be sexually attracted to transgender and transsexual individuals.

 

I can relate to a lot of these posts! At last I am no longer confused about the fact that I'm definitely not straight, and I know who I like and why I like them, but I am still confused about how I would label myself, if I chose to, or what percentage of me is gay. That is a really hard question. For instance, I currently fancy 3 people, one is a girl and two are guys, which could sound like I'm 33% gay at the moment and 66% straight. This is probably quite an average example of my general position in the spectrum, but my feelings for each of those three people are different.with one of the guys it is based on lust becaus he is so gorgeous, although he's a really nice guy too, but it's lust based. The other guy I could fall in love with, but I also could fall in love with the girl and my emotional feelings for her are the strongest out of the three of them. The love for the guy feels very similar as I love them both for their personalities, but for her I feel so much more. If she is in a mood or not talking to me, I feel so depressed like the world is ending, and so high when things are going well. So on that basis you could say I'm more gay. Just because you could love one person doesn't mean you couldn't love someone else more.

 

To be 100% honest for me I have trouble defining myself too. I would say I'm 90- 95% gay. The thing that throws me off is sometimes I'm curious about guys but I'm not 100% sure every I want anything relationship wise with them mostly b/c I'm not even sure I'd be into having sex with them. I used to say I can't define myself as bi because it doesn't feel me, like the way people in the world see it- I haven't had the same amount of attraction to men as have with women. Yet a the same time, I can't say I'm 100% gay either so I think of myself as fluid more or less. Sometimes I wonder if I've completely turned off my attraction to men b/c I've crushed on two women but then I realize it's always been more intense with women so then I kinda accept this is me, this is who I am.. regardless.. I know I just want to be happy with whoever I fall for

 

I'm in the same boat as you. Not 100% gay, but my preference is strong enough to say "gay" for simplicity.

I wouldn't let labels define you. Labels are a shortcut to let others know your sexuality, but sexuality is a complicated thing. Very few people are 100% gay or straight. Follow your heart, listen to your inhibitions and go with what feels right. Maybe you never develop feelings strong enough to have anything happen between you and a man, but it's perfectly fine & normal to have a mini crush, if that is indeed the case.

Trying to make your sexuality & your feelings toward others fit inside a prepackaged box only messes us up further because love & feelings are not clear-cut and binary.

 

In regards to the people posting their attraction percentages, how the heck do you figure that out?

 

I suspect many of them are simply guessing. Unless there's some hidden percentage machine, at which point, somebody needs to share this knowledge!

 

Indeed.