Young & Warm & Wild & Free

Sexuality.

Your laws do not apply to me.

In the words of the great Billy Bragg.

I’ve thought a lot about gender and sexuality recently, largely due to my increased prescense on the PostSecret Community LGBT forums again. I’ve tackled the subject of gender and gender identity thousands of times in thousands of ways, but I’ve never really discussed sexuality in any blog, vlog or essay before.

Maybe I should start with saying that I’m pansexual. I’ve heard this defined in numerous ways, eached tweaked to its owner, but for me, in the shortest form, I’d say that to me, gender is irrelevant. I find manly men attractive, I find feminine girls attractice, I find butch girls attractive, I find effeminate men attractive, I find androgynous and trans people attractive. It doesn’t matter the content of their underwear. After all, no one can say who they’re going to fall for.

I do tend to announce myself as bi when asked, however, simply to avoid having to give such an explanation, and there isn’t a vast difference between the two in the first place. So although I respect and to some extent understand people who are exclusively straight or gay, I don’t completely grasp it. My respect is higher for those who are out as gay simply because they have had to go against societies norms to reach that conclusion and become comfortable in themselves, but either way, any sexuality is valid.  That’s not to say I don’t respect straight people either, of course I do, particularly those who have genuinely thought about their sexuality.  People are people, no matter what.

On those rare occassions I find myself being “chatted up” and my sexuality is questioned, I tend to get a little frustrated. There are a millions reasons why I find you unattractive (or maybe attractive) but your trouser furniture is never going to be one of them.

Really, I long for a day when parents aren’t alarmed to hear their children are gay, or straight, but for people to be able to bring home whoever, and they be judged on their personality and character, not the duo’s genders. The same goes for style and looks. It would be fantastic to see people wearing whatever they wanted, because they feel comfortable in it or because it looks good on them, regardless of it’s percieved gender relation. We assigned them in the first place, we can still take them away.

Nor is there anything ‘wrong’ about being gay, bi, pan, whatever. Yes, you can choose who you sleep with, but you can’t choose you fall in love with.