Three letters are the charm — and the norm — today in “Ask Tiggy.”
Dear Tiggy,
As a bisexual, is it normal to be attracted to one gender more than another?
-Kaitlyn
Yes, this is normal. Also, being equally attracted to two or more genders is normal. For both of these things, there’s nothing weird about it, there’s nothing wrong with it, you are one of manymanymany humans who feel this way, and neither makes you less bisexual.
Dear Tiggy,
I see myself as a bisexual or pansexual girl. My friend and I were discussing what type of guy looks hottest shirtless. She said she liked the lean type with not too much muscle. Meanwhile, I just couldn’t think of any type I liked most. They all are just shirtless to me; I can’t see anything else and I don’t have a preference.
When it comes to girls, I feel I can be more specific with what I like. Why am I so indifferent to shirtless guys? Is this normal?
-Aleksandra
Yes, this is normal. Your personal trigger-point toward men might be their other parts, physical and otherwise. But your friend is normal, too. Whether or not you are turned on by shirtless men in general is not a litmus test for bisexuality or female heterosexuality.
Attraction is complex: it involves physical, emotional, and behavioral catalysts, and it might change according to your experiences and/or your biology. It all fits under the “normal” tarp. Analyzing it to the hilt will drive you mad, though.
Dear Tiggy,
Is it normal to have attraction to both genders? If I do have attraction to both genders, does that make God angry? Is there any religion that allows such a thing? Are there other people like this, or is it something abnormal that only a few people experience?
I am totally lost. Our society thinks that those who are attracted to their own gender are sick people who should die.
-Bees
Yes, it is normal.
I solemnly, absolutely, positively, 100% guarantee you that it does NOT make God angry.
Yes, there are religions that accept people like us: Metropolitan Community Church, Unitarian Universalists, Quakers, Wiccans, Reform Jews, United Church of Christ, New Age, Reconstructionist Jews, Episcopalians (American Anglicans), Old Catholic Church, Community of Christ (USA, Canada, and Australia), Lutherans, Moravians’ Presbytarians, United Church of Canada, Uniting Church of Australia, United Reform Church of Great Britain, Unity School of Christianity, and Swedenborgian. Buddhists and Hindus vary.
There are many other people all over the world who experience attraction to more than one gender. The bisexual community exists everywhere and we interact with each other regularly in friendship and love.
Bees, please read all of my previous columns. I mean it, read them all. If there are weblinks, click on them. Where they refer you to the Bisexual Resource Center (BRC) website, go there. These are the first, safest steps you can take to grasp a lifeline from the bisexual community. We’re here for you and we know that you are not a sick person. What you’re feeling is not bad, you should not die for it, and God still loves you. I hope as you read my columns you can move toward connecting with the bisexual community in person.
Now, you too can embrace that coveted status, NORMAL, through the most middle-of-the-road trend to hit the middle of the fashion runway: normcore! Let’s all look the part!
Oh, Wild Deuces, do I have some fun for you this bi-week. Instead of answering the latest question all by my lonesome, I’ve teamed up with Lorelei Erisis, a bisexual trans woman who is the brains and beauty behind the Ask A Trans Woman column in the Rainbow Times! Dust off your ear trumpet and listen in on our conversation about this bi cis woman and her trans girlfriend…
Dear Tiggy,
I hate to ask the age old “Am I bisexual if…” question, because I know I’m the only person who can answer that for myself, but here goes.
When I was younger, I was emotionally/romantically attracted to boys, but rarely felt sexually attracted to them. My friends would talk about how “hot” certain guys were and I just never got it. However, I’ve always felt emotionally/romantically and somewhat sexually attracted to girls, though in the past I didn’t understand these feelings and didn’t talk about them.
In high school, I started dating. I ended up dating this one guy for two years, and I really loved him, but I never felt a sexual attraction toward him. I just wanted to snuggle and maybe kiss. I felt guilty for not wanting to take things further because I know it hurt him. I guess now I realize I couldn’t control that.
A while after we broke up, I started dating someone else. After a few months of dating, my new “boyfriend” came out to me as a trans girl (who isn’t out to everyone/hasn’t started transitioning yet). I actually asked her and knew for a while before that, but when I knew for sure, I felt so happy!
We’re still together, and I’m very much in love with this girl. This is the first time a relationship has felt right for me, and I can’t help but wonder if part of that is because she’s a girl, or if it’s just because we’re good for each other in general. I have a hard time imagining myself with a guy now or in the future, not because I don’t think I have the capacity to love them romantically, but because that guy would have to be willing to keep sex to a minimum.
Is it still worth identifying as bisexual if I lean so much toward one side of the spectrum? Would it hurt my girlfriend’s feelings, who still hasn’t started transitioning yet, if I told her I was lesbian? I am very attracted to her and I think she’s beautiful, even if just by her mere spirit and femininity alone. And is it possible for sexuality to change over time, or does sexuality stay the same throughout life? Is it wrong for me to say that experience has shaped my sexuality?
~J
TU: Hi, Lorelei! Are you ready?
LE: Yeah, fo’ shizz. Let’s lesbian! (That’s a verb meaning “discuss.”)
TU: Hee! OK, so since I, Tiggy Upland, am cis, I wonder if you’ll indulge me as I posit how her girlfriend might respond to her identifying as a lesbian. Then you can tell me, O Wise Trans Woman, whether I’ve totally missed the mark. Up for it?
LE: The Wise and Powerful Trans Woman will answer your query!
TU: MOST EXCELLENT. So, I feel like everyone in this world just wants to be seen. We want to be acknowledged and, ideally, appreciated for how we really are. It hurts when we’re seen incorrectly or not at all. So for the letter-writer (LW) to say, “I’m a person who loves and is attracted to only women, and I love and am attracted to you” to her girlfriend who is just on the cusp of transitioning…I mean, I have to think that the girlfriend would feel really loved for who she is. Is that on point or maybe not?
LE: Yeah, I think that’s very on the mark. For a transwoman to have her cis lover identify as a lesbian can be very affirming. Personally, I don’t think the LWs girlfriend would very much object to the LW identifying as a lesbian because, well, they both identify as women. So, “lesbians” is fine.
TU: Generally speaking, lesbians is always fine. Particularly, fine lesbians.
LE: When I came out and began my transition, I was in a long-term relationship with a cis woman and I sort of kept finding myself being identified as a lesbian by default.
TU: Oh, interesting. Were you OK with that or not really?
LE: Well, I never really considered myself a lesbian. But it didn’t bother me either.
TU: You’re so easy-going. It’s hard to use you as a litmus test for whether behavior is offensive because The Erisis Way is just water off a duck’s back, baby.
LE: What was fun was to watch people’s reactions go from, “OMG, a giant trans woman!” to “Sweet Jaysus, she’s a lesbian, too!”
TU: People’s reactions are often the funniest part about life.
LE: Definitely. It’s one of the things I enjoy most. Now, of course, there is the issue of bisexual erasure. People identified me as a lesbian, but I identified as pansexual/bisexual and very, very queer.
TU: Well, here’s the tricky part of this letter: I wonder whether the LW is bi, only because she is wondering whether she’s bi. So is this really a case of bi erasure?
LE: Oh, possibly not. I think she’s actually acknowledging her journey more than anything else.
TU: I agree. You’ll notice that she didn’t want to give me the ol’ “Tiggy, tell me whether I’m bi” gambit because she knows that I’m going to say, “Only you know that.”
LE: Preach! I know my own sexuality has changed radically over the years.
TU: Oh, let’s dig into that part of the letter: whether your sexuality can change, and whether it’s OK to publicly acknowledge that if that’s your experience. I think this philosophy is often seen as a ticking time bomb because it’s a slippery slope from “My sexuality changed” to “I can change my sexuality” to “I can change from queer to straight.”
LE: Politically, it’s a very slippery slope. Personally, I think that attraction and sexual preferences are incredibly complex and subject to a whole host of influences.
TU: I feel about it the same way I feel about God, the universe, etc. (I’m UU/agnostic): I don’t know how it all works and neither does anyone else.
LE: For me, I have found that the best way to assure I will find myself attracted to a type of person is to swear I would never be into that type of person!
TU: Ha, oh that’s so true.
LE: I was raised UU and I’m a practicing Discordian. My goddess, Eris, likes little more than to mess with what I think I know for absolute sure.
TU: She must be my goddess, too, then. Well, so, what’s the truth? Is it some people’s truth that their actual sexuality changes? And if so, can we control that? Is it “wrong” to admit that?
LE: I have personally found very little success in intentionally trying to change who I am attracted to. I think it is some people’s truth that their sexuality changes and I don’t think it’s wrong to admit that.
TU: It can be a very threatening concept to monosexuals.
LE: Yes. People like to think everything is all laid out and neat. Done. Determined. Figured out. Not subject to change. Because change is scary.
TU: Perhaps a dynamic sexuality is a fact of life for some people, but not something that we can harness. [pause] I sure do hate a difficult harness.
LE: Yessssssss. I hate a difficult harness, too!
TU: [snicker] We’re terrible.
LE: Mwuahahahahhahahahahaaaa! But really, I think if you can be open to a dynamic sexuality, it can really be a wonderful thing.
TU: As much as I say that only you can determine your sexuality….well, she did ask, so I’m going to take the liberty of saying that maybe her sexuality hasn’t changed. In carefully reading the letter, one could make a case that she’s been homosexual but biromantic her whole life.
LE: Good call, Tiggy! So the only thing that has changed is who her partner is. And her partner is a woman; she just happens to be a trans one.
TU: I had a good friend who seemed to have a major personality change around the time when we were 18. I came to the conclusion that she actually hadn’t “changed,” she just expanded a part of her personality that I hadn’t noticed as much — or had ignored — before. Maybe that’s what’s happening with the LW: a part of her just became more prominent or developed.
LE: We show different faces to the world as we move through life. I was always Lorelei Erisis but I’ve worn different faces.
TU: I’m not necessarily saying that one’s sexuality can’t change. I’m just offering a theory that maybe hers didn’t become something different so much as her relationship brought out pieces that were always there.
LE: Indeed. Her relationship has allowed her to make new discoveries about what was already inside of her. I’m also guessing from the chronology that the LW is fairly young. At around that age, I had a lot of discoveries about my own self still many years down the line. I’m not saying she will change, but that she might. There is still a lot of life ahead for her.
TU: Of course, the feelings of so many young bisexuals are often dismissed because of their age/sexuality. But I think we’re just saying that there’s more to uncover. So, would you tell this LW how to identify? I still think I can’t but if you want to, give it a shot.
LE: Heh. Surrrrrrrrre! I would tell her that if “lesbian” resonates with her, to go with that. Labels, at least for me, aren’t all that bad. They are just a filter for understanding ourselves as we are in this moment. If she feels different down the line, she can change her identity as often as her clothes, if that’s what works for her.
TU: I had a column a while back that said your sexual identity is like a favorite shirt. If it doesn’t fit after a while, just get a new shirt!
LE: Oooooohhh, I love getting new clothes!
TU: Of course, some prefer to go topless and that’s valid, too. Rest assured, I will always validate toplessness.
LE: Some things find solidity in our lives. Who I’m attracted to has changed; that I value kindness has not.
TU: Some things are not at all dynamic, like my love of topless friends. Actually, this might be a good point to make a public service announcement: some folks fear that since they’re attracted to unhealthy people now, they always will be. And I’m here to say that is definitely something that changes as you grow as a person.
LE: Definitely.
TU: And thank goodness. And thank Eris.
LE: Hail Eris indeed!
TU: Yeah! Have we left anything out of the letter that we should address? Perhaps you have some final strokes of brilliance?
LE: I would tell the LW to enjoy the moment of being in love with her trans girlfriend. Try on the identity of “lesbian” if that is what resonates with you. Be in the moment. And if it all changes later on, then that’s okay, too.
TU: That’s so great. Yes, be in love! Get lost in the swirling vertigo of connecting with a fellow human. So rare, so ubiquitous, so unique, so yours. Hug her in the summer sun.
LE: Isn’t that what all this is all about anyway? Being alive and loving and experiencing and tasting the whole thing that life has to offer!
TU: You know, you shouldn’t have made this chat so fun because I’m going to insist that we do this again at some point. Until then, I’m going to be jealous of your long, luxurious hair from afar.
LE: I think that’s a glorious idea! My hair appreciates your jealousy. Slainte!
My ultimate vision for a collaboration with Lorelei is a queer version of “Girlfriends” talk show in which I’m the Morgan and she’s the Kyra, naturally.
I am a 17-year-old boy from India and I believe I’m suffering from HOCD: homosexual obsessive compulsive disorder. It started when I began obsessing on a mildly sexual scene in a movie and it developed into a fear of being gay. During this phase, I lost my attraction to girls even though I was seriously into them until then. I constantly checked myself for signs of arousal while thinking about boys (which did not occur).
After a few months of this, I consulted a therapist via computer and began treating myself with cognitive behavioral therapy. Now I feel better but I do still get these thoughts sometimes. The therapist told me that I had to coexist with such thoughts and let them flow. At this point, my obsession has changed from being gay to being bisexual since my attraction to girls is back.
So, have I been bisexual this whole time and didn’t know it?
-King123
For a therapist that you randomly found online, you sure got a good one. They’re absolutely right: just let the thoughts happen. Trying to control them is what’s heightening your anxiety. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is exactly what you need to practice. As I suggested in a recent column, I hope you’ve picked up a copy of the essential CBT book, Feeling Good by David Burns. You might also try the easier-to-digest and equally helpful Self Coaching by Joseph J. Luciani.
It will be nearly impossible to sort out your sexuality without first addressing your anxiety issues. In addition to the CBT, please seriously consider talking to your doctor about medication that could effectively address what may be a biochemical cause of your OCD. Few clinical anxieties can withstand the one-two punch of CBT plus proper medication.
Dealing with these obsessions through compulsions — including and especially constant self-testing for arousal — might make you feel better for a second but no more. Some psychiatric professionals encourage people with OCD to undergo exposure therapy. When you consistently face what you fear and no harm results, your anxiety should be quelled. To employ this method, start viewing gay movies, literature, and so forth in increasing amounts. As your therapist counseled, don’t monitor yourself to see if you’re aroused, just accept any reactions you have. Your goal is not to eliminate obsessive thoughts but to tolerate them without discomfort.
“Bisexuality” is just a label, and many people feel that all sexuality is a dynamic entity with a lifelong arc. You may never be able to pinpoint your sexuality label; your best shot at sanity is just to accept that. Additionally, please recognize that while you can’t control your thoughts or feelings, you always have agency in how you react to them. Even if you have sexual thoughts about men every day for the rest of your life, nothing will force you to act upon them, tell anyone, or label yourself as bisexual if you don’t want to.
King123, the only person who can tell you how you identify sexually is yourself. However, I want you to know that if you are, it’s OK. It’s shameful that the Indian government reinstated the ban on gay sex last December but there’s still a thriving, happy bisexual community in your country and far beyond. Obsessions typically alight on a trait that you think would make you a bad or sad person. Therefore, if you don’t think bisexuality is a negative attribute, you’ll likely stop obsessing on it. And lucky for you — lucky for all of us — it isn’t!
I’ve saved the best for last: Jezebel.com posted this great article on HOCD in 2010 and, for the first time in internet history, the comments are the most supportive part. Uniformly insightful and perceptive, they come from people who have been affected by HOCD in some manner. I hope that reading about their experiences feels to you like a thousand dollars’ worth of therapy! Here are some highlights that speak astutely on this condition — and in many ways, on bisexuality as a larger concept.
“I think OCD really seeks out the very things that are impossible to prove absolutely, as well as the things that have the potential to change your entire view of yourself.”
“Almost all of my obsessions boil down to the one concern that I may not really know who I am or I may be living a lie.”
“The anxiety came mostly from just not knowing, being constantly uncertain, and spending hours trying to figure out something that, I now know, doesn’t have a black-or-white answer anyway.”
Here’s a comment from a bisexual who obsesses over thoughts that they’re not bisexual: “I know instinctively that I am bisexual but anytime my brain perceives a challenge to that understanding, it kicks into overdrive and wants to prove it FOR SURE. Being bisexual, my brain is constantly being ‘challenged’ because any attraction to anyone, boy or girl, could mean that I might really be gay or really be straight. It can be never-ending and quite incapacitating mentally.”
“I think that no matter whom I’m in a relationship with, man or woman, my OCD brain would always question if I should be with the other… Would I be happier? Would it feel more ‘right’?”
“It is so incredibly hard to accept that it’s ok to not know because, oh my God, everyone else on the planet already knows, why don’t I?!” This commenter answers: “Actually, most people don’t really ‘know’ anything for certain. They just don’t spend endless hours trying to figure things out to scientific precision.”
This one is my favorite. “My partner, who has severe OCD, struggled for most of his adolescence with the fear/obsession that he was transgender. I suspect it was the same idea. He got past it by reaching out to transgender persons and making friends, and learning that he would have support and friends even if he was transgender (even though he would likely lose others) and eventually realized he is not transgender. As a result, he has many wonderful friends he might not otherwise have met, and one of my bridesmaids will be a pre-operative MTF transsexual.”
Flashback to Fashion Television on VH1
You gotta roll with what life gives you, whatever it may be. Bisexual, not bisexual — it just doesn’t matter. It just doesn’t matter.