The Need for a Vaginal Sherpa

I’m about to talk about bi-ness and we’re all going to have to deal with the fact that it’s coming from someone who knows very little about it (that’s more for me than for you).

I’ve known I was bi since I was 17.  I was the stage manager of the school play and we were doing a rehearsal during tech week. I was up in the booth, and across the auditorium on stage, a girl was performing a song and dance number and I was transfixed. I suddenly felt butterflies and I couldn’t take my eyes away from her. When I noticed these sensations, I thought “Oh shit I know this feeling. This is how I feel when I like a boy. I guess I like girls, too.” And that was that.

I thought that since my acceptance of it was so logical and swift that the rest of it would be easy. Though, as I’ve come to lament severely over the years, logic and emotions are about as great at working together as the executive and legislative branches (I am so, so sorry that that’s the comparison that came to mind).

Logically, it makes so much sense to me that people can be attracted to all kinds of people. I wouldn’t have felt the way I did about that girl in high school if it weren’t possible. I also have very strong feelings about the fact that bisexual people remain bisexual regardless of who they are or aren’t dating. Some people seem to think that a bi person is straight when with the opposite sex and gay when with the same sex which is fucking ridiculous. You don’t become asexual when you haven’t gotten laid in a month. Or maybe you do, I don’t know your truth. I’ve even heard gay people say they don’t think bisexuality is real which I find equal parts insane and offensive. Like maybe they went through a phase of saying they were bi before accepting themselves and that’s why they feel like it’s fake and I get that I guess? The point is people are fucking stupid and bisexuality is real.

So after my brain defiantly states these things and I feel confident about my opinions, here’s what I’m actually dealing with:

Do I really like women or did I just decide I did to be “interesting” because I’m white and came from a wealthy background and want to have street cred? How would I even go about hitting on a woman? How do I even know who’s interested? God it must be so hard for gay people to know who’s gay. Or is it? There’s such a community around it all now it’s like its own world. I don’t know anything about that world. Can I even say I’m bi if I’m not a part of the community? What if I’m one of those straight presenting women who just wants to kiss women for fun and then run back to the comfort of a heteronormative lifestyle, leaving my gay brethren behind? If I even managed to hook up with a woman, I bet I would be terrible. I’d have no idea what to do and I’m used to knowing what I’m doing and I don’t like the idea of not knowing what I’m doing. I say I’m bi and I’m extremely liberal but am I actually comfortable with the idea of walking hand-in-hand with a woman in public? I don’t think so and that’s so fucked up. What’s wrong with me? Am I even liberal?

It’s a bit of a mess.

Something that should be so simple (I like men. I like women, I will do as I feel accordingly) becomes at once a crisis of identity. I don’t know why I struggle with it so much. If someone said to me “Am I allowed to call myself bisexual? I’ve never hooked up with a woman and I’ve only been to two pride parades and I left early because my back hurt.” I would say “Of fucking course, you idiot. You are genuinely attracted to both genders and your identity doesn’t need to fit someone else’s fucking standard or your idea of what someone else’s standard is and you don’t need to pay dues to gain membership to The Community.”

Except that was SO FUCKING HARD TO WRITE because for some reason I truly do feel like I should pay dues. I’ve had an extremely easy life as a straight presenting woman in a world that makes it nearly impossible for anyone who isn’t straight and cis to love freely and openly. I can imagine it sucking for someone who lives life as an out gay person to see people occasionally hooking up with people of the same gender but mostly living a life that is the norm and therefore getting all the benefits while suffering none of the unjust bullshit.

I can try to present this as being socially conscious all I want, but my fear of being party to oppression is actually just making me oppress myself. Which, like, props to The Man for the inception level brainwashing.

I definitely need to just get the fuck over myself and own my shit but it also has made me realize how not far along we are in terms of actually accepting these kinds of differences. I was at one of the women’s marches (“one of the women’s marches.” This is good journalism.) and I came upon a booth for an organization whose entire mission statement is essentially to spread the word about how bisexual people are still bisexual no matter who they’re with. Reading their sign felt like crying while accepting a hug you didn’t know you needed.

I don’t actually have much wisdom to offer here because I’m still very much in the thick of this identity crisis. Some of the best evidence of that, in fact, is the title I decided on before I even started writing this thing. I was talking about all of this with a friend moments ago and I said “what I really need is a vaginal sherpa,” the idea being that if someone shepherds me through an encounter with a woman, I’ll have done the hard thing and will finally feel confident claiming bi-ness. But that’s some fucking bullshit. I mean don’t get me wrong, it’s a great title and I’m basically the Shakespeare of our time. But I am what I am regardless of circumstances. When (or if) the time comes that I feel ready to act on female attraction, I’ll find a way to do it just like I’ve found a way to do everything else in life that I somehow managed to make 100 times more complicated than it should be and I won’t be any more or less bi after the experience. And I’m not any less bi simply because I haven’t fully found comfort with it.

Identity is weird and hard like a dick, but you are who you are. You’re going to have to tell your brain that that’s the case whether or not it agrees all the time (she said to herself). Since our brains are idiots, let’s all support each other as we find ways to be our own vaginal sherpas, kay?

Thank you.