Just because it’s innate (and I do believe that–homo/hetero isn’t something you learn), doesn’t mean it’s clear cut for everyone. That’s all I’m saying.
Sorry, I should have said I think it’s innate for me. I didn’t mean to imply that it is a binary situation for everyone.
Heh, yeah I meant “had”. But maybe that was indeed a Freudian slip, since I was unsocial and very frustrated!
And then, sometimes you go through life, fall in love, get married, have kids, are as happy as can be expected, and love your spouse…and then you meet someone, and it’s like a thunderbolt.
And sometimes that person is the same gender as you.
Happened to my cousin. She’d only dated men, always thought of herself as straight - then she met The One, who happened to be female. And there was no way she could deny what they had, even though it cost her dearly.
When Kinsey was researching his infamous Report, he determined, thru many many interviews and case studies, that a label for sexuality was only appropriate for a given period in a person’s life. Whether it was because of the culture of the time or because of innate biology, he found that both men and women could be straight, bisexual, gay or asexual during one time, say college, and another label would better apply at a different time, say during military service or marriage.
For myself, I can say that I had one Sapphic Summer, when I was attracted to and slept with several female friends. Yet all my sexual relationships before and since have been with men. I don’t know if it was a hormonal shift, as I didn’t have any testing done, but it’s as good as hypothesis as anything.
Actually, my fiance (male) and I were discussing this last night. I don’t feel like the term “bisexual” applies to me, not because I share the widespread bias against bisexuals, but because I’ve never been in *love *with a woman. I’ve never been *romantically *interested in a woman. I can’t fathom myself having a girlfriend or wife. But yes, I’ve slept with women recreationally, all of whom I cared about quite a bit as friends. I enjoy women’s bodies and the different physical and energetic feelings I get from making love to a woman (it’s indescribably different from making love to a man), and I don’t rule out having sex with one again, but the best term I have for that part of my life is “bi-curious”, a term which pisses the hell out of a lot of lesbians and gays.
I’m not at all confused. I identify as straight. A straight woman who may once again sleep with a woman, someday, perhaps.
Aren’t labels fun?
Why would “bi-curious” offend anyone? It sounds like a solid definition of the situation to me. 
Beats me. The whole “bisexual” label is hated by a lot (but not all) of gays and lesbians (generally older ones), same as it’s hated by straights. Bisexual people receive a lot of flak for being whores or sluts, or flighty and capricious, instead of simply being people who find love with either set of genitals attached.
“Bi-curious,” I think, shares some of the bisexual stigma, with an added dose of scorn generally reserved for GUGs (“Gay Until Graduation”).
Some people, no matter their orientation, want easy, unchanging labels they can slap on people so they don’t have to view them as individuals, is my impression. “Be gay or don’t be gay, you can’t have it all!” is something I’ve actually had hurled at me.
Equally, it’s nice that since you never spoke to her the rest of the semester and have no knowledge of her, or her circs that you just know she must’ve been mentally ill.
Admitting of course that your co-worker doesn’t know what motivated this woman to do what she did sure is a useful “reality check.” How nice that since she wasn’t there and has no knowledge of you at that time, or her, or the circs - that she’ll just know… :rolleyes:
I was really confused about my sexuality as a teen, both before and after having sex for the first time (with each gender). I liked both. I wanted both. Then a guy really hurt me (not getting into details here) and I convinced myself that I was a lesbian. Then I met a great guy… and wasn’t so sure anymore. It took me just shy of a decade *after *losing my virginity to come to grips that I was out-and-out bisexual. I couldn’t just pick one side.
No, but she is a good friend of mine and human behavior/gender issues/social issues are all things we discuss.
I said she may have been mentally ill. It is truly bizarre behavior. If she wasn’t acting out in some way, then she’s a class A jerk. I’d rather think that someone was acting out or having a VERY odd day than write her off as a jerk, but as we all know, life is full of jerks. YMMV.
Well it’s nice to know that your human/gender/social behaviorist co-worker/good friend will be able to put to rest this 30-year mystery of the Unnamed Woman of 30-seconds of Truly Bizarre Sexually Confronting Behaviour. With intense discussion, no doubt you will both reach a fair, confident, qualified, and conclusive diagnosis of her mental health. Somehow, somewhere, one Class A Jerk will surely be vindicated.
Yes indeed elanorigby; life is FULL of jerks and it’s nice to know you’re doing your bit.
How is **eleanor **being jerkish?
Something weird happened to her years ago and she’d like to talk about it with someone who has insight into human behavior by training and is also a member of a social group **eleanor **isn’t, but the weird acting person might have been. Makes sense to me. I mean, I don’t expect it will be very illuminating, but it’s not jerkish.
Fair comment WhyNot if post #s18, 27 31 aren’t taken into account.
I’m confused by your comment that the ‘weird acting person’ may have been part of some other social group related to the friend - elanorigby never knew her name, and had no further interaction with her other than the alleged event in the '80’s.
And if it slipped you by, elanorigby’s “…but as we all know, life is full of jerks” comment is aimed at moi. (Sacre bleu!)
By “social group”, I meant lesbians. I know, I know, not the best choice of words. Perhaps “demographic” would have been a better word choice.
Maybe ‘lesbian’ would have been a better word choice. 
Even so, can’t see how a lesbian of indeterminate age, given biased information based on assumption and a 30-year memory (that apparently caused some trauma at the time) is able to assess the mental well-being of someone unknown (but for gender) by a single, fleeting, and non-violent action.
WhyNot, I hasten to add - big deal. So a girl plants a big wet one on you in biology class. Maybe she was stoned and thought you were a frog. It’s such scant evidence on which to debate whether or not she was mentally unstable. And whether or not as a ‘screaming heterosexual’ you were emitting some kind of Lesbian Attracting Vibe…(that momentarily overcame a female of unconfirmed sexual preference).
I mean puhleeeeeese…
Speak for yourself. Do you go up to strangers and plant big wet kisses on them? Honestly? You consider this normal, conventional behavior for college students at 0900 in a sunny Bio Lab? And I’m the one who is out of line in querying this behavior?
The “weird acting person” may or may not have been a lesbian, which was WhyNot’s point and the reason I brought this incident up. The girl acting weirdly may have been confused re sexual attraction issues (or you’re right–she may well have been on something. She didn’t act that way. It was an isolated incident with no further behavior disrupting the class); I brought it up because she confused ME. Was I giving off some kind of vibe unknown to myself? That is the only way it has any relevance in this thread.
WhyNot got it right (no surprise there–since she’s both open minded and intelligent). And since (IMS) you have said you are a lesbian and consider this behavior to have been no big deal, my asking another lesbian about it isn’t all that odd(although you seem to take exception to it). Which is it? It can’t be both.
Why on earth would I know (or should I know) the “customs” of a demographic I am not a part of and have limited access to? IMO, you are attempting (and failing) to make this into some kind of lesbian issue and it’s not (not for me). We don’t even know if this girl was a lesbian–although I’ll bet the number of straight girls going up to strangers in Bio lab and attempting to French them is close to zero.
I don’t know if lesbians do this because I’m not a lesbian. I highly doubt they do–which is why I considered that this girl may be acting out and/or mentally ill. It’s not normal social behavior, unless you’re 6ImpossibleThingsB4Bkfst. Hey, your user name is just right!
Well, there’s only one guy in this situation I knew well. We were both in a game association, and having noticed his behaviour when he was around attractive boys, I was 100% positive he was gay. Plus he owned a shop with another guy and I just assumed he was his boyfriend. Never asked, though.
We lost contact, and then several years later I randomly met him on the minitel (sort of like the internet, to simplify), and he had an astounding information to share with me : he had a live in boyfriend :dubious:
Turns out that he never felt any attraction to men and had been living with a woman for years when we knew each other. He was in his late 30s when he met an homosexual guy who hit on him and fell madly in love with the guy. He just had discovered he was homosexual too, and note homosexual, not just bisexual. Honestly I never could grasp with 180 degree turn. I’m certain he was honest in his statement that he never had a clue before that he could feel attracted to guys.
The annoying part was that from now on, when he would drop at my place, for instance, he would only talk about homosexuality (famous people in the past who were homosexuals, for instance), and it got quickly old.
(Another thing I found weird is that he was physically about as unattractive as you can get besides looking much more than his real age, and still had this 20 y.o. OK guy who had a crush on him. I’d like to know his secret)
I just can’t help wondering what he had in mind, sexually-wise, during the 35-40 previous years (I can’t ask him, he unfortunately died not long after).
As for changing when you grew old, I would mention that as a teenager I felt bisexual. The older I got the less I was attracted to boys. Nowadays (I’m 45), I guess I’m 99% heterosexual, and it would take someone extraordinarily attractive (generally speaking, both physically and regarding personality) to spark any interest in me (last time was about 10 years ago). And even even it would likely be moire emotional than sexual. I add that I never had any homosexual relationship.
However, I had sex (and in fact a girl-friend) for the first time when I was 19. Twice before that (when I was 16 and 18) I was about to enter in an homosexual relationship, and it was aborted due to the intervention of other people. I’m still wondering the following :
Had my two first relationships been with boys, would have it made a difference? Would I have been involved in homosexual lifestyle, having homosexual friends and so on, joined the homosexual community and as a result continued on this course? Would I have also slowly lost interest in men as I did in real life? Would I have stayed bisexual? Would I have at the contrary slowly lost interest in women? In other words to what extent your life experiences can change your sexual orientation?
Yawn.
Yeah well, as far as username’s go, elanorigby died in a church along with her name and nobody came. She also kept her face in a jar by the door.
All I get from your latest rant (aside from ‘methinks she doth protest too much’) is that you are one tres confused individual. The green bit is the bit that made me laugh out loud (a change from the blah blah blah going on in my head over the rest of it).
At no point have I said I am a lesbian. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that…) I have not said I am a lesbian simply because I’m not. So where DID you get this fantastic idea, Oh Great Observant One? It can only be somewhere here in black and white…so do tell…
God help the poor woman for whose surreptitious diagnosis of mental stability lay within your astounding powers of observation and comprehension.
This is the other bit that made me laugh:
*“Why on earth would I know (or should I know) the “customs” of a demographic I am not a part of and have limited access to?”
*Firstly, (so you’ll feel open minded and intelligent) lesbians are simply women who are sexually attracted to other women. There are no strange “customs” to understand anymore than the general “customs” of sexual behaviour et al.
So given your argument of “Why on earth would I know (or should I know)…a demographic I am not a part of and have limited access to” then I guess you ARE well qualified to decide that the woman in question was undeniably unstable.
And for the record, “normal, conventional behaviour” for me does not include mind-numbing rants based on ignorance and assumption.
I sure as hell was.
Believe me, for several years before I had sex with a girl for the first time, getting a female to have sex with me was the #1 priority in my life. My sexual orientation was not something about which I had one scintilla of doubt. It was all chicks, all the time, every waking hour. Having sex with guys wasn’t something I entertained for a second. Guys are disgusting.
Of course, it is entirely possible that some people are unsure of their sexual orientation before (or after) having sex. Buut I sure was, so apparently it is indeed possible.