BEING BISEXUAL: The Neverending Fight Isabella Bobrowsky
While watching Transformers for the first time, I was introduced to Meghan Fox, a beautiful and talented woman, which had my little 12 year old heart racing.
My Experience with Bisexuality: Conforming to Society’s Standards
A book my friends and I commonly refer to as our bible is Glennon Doyle’s Untamed, which discusses how women are supposed to perfectly fit into tiny categorical boxes like In the following years, I would come to then lock myself in ‘skinny’ and ‘perfect’. my bathroom at my parents’ house, cry, and pray that I wasn’t attracted to women and that these feelings about finding This is the same when it comes to women and their sexuality. women attractive were just false intrusions. I worried about what I would do and how the world would look at me if these Women are expected to grow up, go to college, meet the feelings were real. I didn’t want to be different and I most perfect guy, and live the perfect life. If women struggle definitely didn’t want to be seen as different. with mental health issues, question their sexuality, or fall into any other category that is not seen as ‘normal’, society My most distinct memory from before I came out is feeling disapproves and invalidates the different feelings and like I had this huge secret that I constantly had to suppress experiences. As a result, women exploring their sexuality feel further and further within myself until it became so small as though they longer fit in those boxes. that it wasn't real. Looking back on this, I ask myself why I had these feelings as my parents were liberal and accepting Being bisexual, I find myself unable to conform to society’s people and I considered myself to be an ally to the LGBTQ+ standards and I began to seek a form of unachievable community. validation. People around me always expect me to be in a relationship with a man, and when a man is removed from Why is it that when some women are faced with questions the idea of a relationship, people begin to question, create about their sexuality they instinctively suppress it? assumptions, and invalidate. This is why, more often than not, the phrase “who is the man in the relationship” or “who wears the pants” is heard by women in same-sex relationships. Common assumptions are always brought up like, “you will end up with a man” or “you’re just experimenting.” When a relationship does not include a man, he is inserted into a relationship by hypothetical means. This was my first realization that I was bisexual.
My struggle with conforming to society's standards is nothing new. Growing up I thought people could either be straight, gay, or lesbian; and when I had crushes on girls I thought that I must be lesbian. When I had crushes on boys as well, I confused myself even more. It wasn’t until I was a freshman in high school that I discovered the word ‘bisexual.’
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