Sexuality is Fluid

and I'm water, baby!

the legendary Samantha Jones, year 2000

I was interviewed for a job recently - I didn’t think I’d get it; it was a big job, and I have a complex relationship with feelings of personal inadequacy. I decided to do the interview anyway - after all, the experience is worthwhile within itself, or so my mum says. I logged into the Zoom meeting wearing a smart polo neck that clashed garishly with my polka dot fleece pyjama bottoms and reminded myself not to stand up during the interview. Smoothing my hair down before a panel of ladies filled my laptop screen, I gave my deepest, fakest grin and clenched my fists in anxiety under the table. The interview was okay, actually - towards the end, the woman I’d be directly reporting to asked me what worldview I could bring to their content. How could I diversify their narrative? 

I laughed. “Jane, if I may refer to myself ,” I said like an arrogant prick, but maybe justifiably so since the company was 98% white - “I’m bisexual, muslim, and a woman of colour. I could bring a diverse worldview by implementing my own narrative into your content to start.” I went on and on about diversity and inclusion, and when the Zoom call ended I climbed up the stairs on all fours, took the polo neck off in exchange for a white XL t-shirt and crawled into bed for a nap. I know I’m not alone in feeling like lockdown under a pandemic is now mentally kicking my ass. My friend and I spoke about it in our recent podcast - about how exhausting it is, feeling like we’re constantly on the edge of a cliff as we live in fear, isolation and uncertainty. We’re gripping onto mounds of earth that are crumbling under our fingers and our muscles are burning from hanging on. At some point, we’re going to have to let go and hope there’s a trampoline at the bottom.

Anyway, the next morning they called and said I’d got the job. I was pretty surprised since my answer to at least three questions had been “I have to be honest, Jane, I don’t know,” - apparently, candour is more valuable than knowledge sometimes and I since it worked for me, I respected it. 

A week or so later during a Monday morning meeting on Zoom, I said I needed to take some leave as my partner and I had some appointments to go to. “How is she?” Jane asked, and she must have caught the confusion on my face. “How is your partner? Has she been keeping well?” As some of you dear readers will know, my present partner is actually a (wonderful) man.

Yet I found myself muttering “yeah she’s great thanks,” as I aggressively yanked at my own fingers under the table, my anxious trigger. I didn’t remember ever telling her my current partner's gender for her to be making assumptions and I couldn’t be bothered to correct this 50-something English lady from Shropshire on the gender of my partner at 10am over Zoom when I’d only had one cup of tea. Anyway, what was I supposed to say? “Oh, I know I said I was bisexual in the interview and I am; don’t worry, I wasn’t lying! But I’m actually with a man now!” No thanks.  

Definition of pansexual

Of, relating to, or characterized by sexual or romantic attraction that is not limited to people of a particular gender identity or sexual orientation.

I said I was bisexual in the interview with Jane, but I’d define myself as pansexual. The prefix of ‘pan’ comes from the Greek meaning of ‘all’. Of course, ‘bi’ means two. So what’s the difference? 

Pansexuality is alittle more fluid - you fall for the personality, not the gender. That doesn’t mean bisexuality excludes nonbinary people - far from it, many nonbinary people identify as bisexual - but there is often the thought that pansexuality allows wider breadth for interpretation.   

It threw a lot of people off, when I went from a same-sex relationship to a hetero relationship. Many people think bisexuality is a hop, step and skip away from announcing you’re gay, and that’s fine. It’s not true, but I’m bored of fighting the case that it isn’t, so it’s fine. Men joked that they would have asked me out if “they’d known I wasn’t a lesbian” - firstly, I would have said no and secondly, as fabulous as they are, I never once said I was a lesbian. But people have to box you in under a label they understand so their simple minds can process it and you know what, that’s on them. Nevertheless, it can feel a little lonely being in what often feels like an unrelatable situation.

Instagram: adamfdrawsthings

The difference in dynamics between two women in love and a man and a woman in love were huge and unavoidable for me. I was used to guiding the way, buying flowers, planning trips, carrying the shopping, gently touching the small of a back. My fingers learnt how to replicate the delicacy of butterfly wings. I learnt firsthand that the “I give up on men, I should just be a lesbian” phrase is incredibly stupid. Sure, women are compassionate and wonderful beings, but love is love, and love can be a son-of-a-bitch. The same old toxic relationship traits can creep in - games are played, people get hurt, arguments are had. Love makes people do crazy things, love hurts, love is not always kind but sometimes manipulative, jealous and rageful. There was no kumbaya because we were both women.   

Don’t get me wrong, there are things that were great - like when your periods sync up and so you buy mounds of Cadburys to ease the pain and curl up on the couch together. There is the human experience, and then there’s the female experience. Being in a relationship with someone who directly understands that specific experience is a comfort. You get to be very human and there is no unhealthy glamorization of femininity. Also - pretty key - there is far less orgasm inequality in same-sex relationships with women. In a publication called the Archives of Sexual Behaviour (by the International Academy of Sex Research) it was reported that a whopping 95% of heterosexual men climax during sex - here’s where it gets scary - lesbian women climax at 86%, and heterosexual women at a measly 65%. 

Going from that relationship to a heterosexual one set me up nicely, in many ways - the orgasm gap wasn’t something I could even comprehend. I felt unapologetic about being realistic about my human anatomy - period pain, subsequent constipation, stray chin hairs - I couldn’t comfortably exist with a partner who winced at the reality of my existence unfiltered. 

I’m still working on buffering away the hard edges you build in a same-sex relationship, though. In a way, we both had to take turns cosplaying in traditionally masculine roles because we had to learn how to navigate a man’s world as a team of two women. It sounds old fashioned of me to say and I still want the patriarchy to burn and die, but these days I’m learning to let myself take the back seat, and it’s nice. I’m teaching myself to relinquish control, to take the weight off my own shoulders and let someone else take the lead, to resist the urge to be stubborn and put up resistance.  

When I was single post same-sex relationship, people told me not to feel pressured to date men if it wasn’t what I wanted to do and while their intentions were likely pure, it is frustrating. The advice felt like the erasure of identity - despite claiming bi/pansexuality, it was ignored and renamed as lesbianism.

Thinking back to my boss assuming that if I identify as bisexual I must be currently dating someone of the same sex, I guess the only advice I’d give is this - if you aren’t sure of someone’s orientation or gender of someone’s partner, just refer to them as ‘they’ until they clarify for you. Now, if only I was brave enough to tell my boss that...

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