I thought I might share this as I've been thinking about it a lot lately. Take from it what you will. Previously, I identified as bisexual after grappling with what attraction actually was. These days I'm definitely confident in my attraction to girls. My only real long, emotional, crushes have been on girls and looking back, it was attractive women that sparked my "sexual awakening". But this year, I was faced with the opportunity to actually date guys and that just totally did not appeal to me. It's like the only reason I thought I felt attracted to guys was in an attempt to hold on to heteronormativity in some way. I desperately wanted to grow up and have a suburban house with a picket fence, 2.5 kids, a dog, and a good Christian husband. And in my brain falling in love with a man was essential to the future I was supposed to have, so of course I told myself I was attracted to men. Never mind that at every sleepover at a friends house, I would try to find some boy in our class to tell everyone I had a crush on, since all the other girls had crushes on boys. Never mind that I told myself the reason I didn't want to have sex with a man was because I was just really good at the whole chastity thing. I've just been thinking that I may have been a lesbian all along. Heteronormativity is a powerful thing and denial is not just a river in Egypt.
In grade school, I can remember at the beginning of the school year, kinda surveying the room to figure which girl I would like that year. There was one girl I really felt head over heels for as a teen, but looking back I definitely see that any crush on a guy has been much more organic and pure. I didn't have to think "why" I liked them, I just knew I did.
Huh. That's such a great way to explain it. I had the same experience in school and never really could figure out how to put it into words. Thank you!
You're totally right! When everything we see and hear is about hetro couples it's hard to see our true selves! Yeah sure, we have some gay parts in tv shows and films now, but no where near what it should be! It's very damaging to queer kids growing up...
