Love & Relationships

The Complexity of Sexuality

By Dee Close

Last night I argued about sexuality, or rather the complexity of sexuality. Trying to put forth that nothing is fluid or linear and depending on a person, sexuality can be akin to the strength of a lattice with thousands of connections. Adversely, to another, sexuality crumbles under duress, just like the human body.

We are reared to perceive sexuality as a two-tone sheet of glass – easy to see through and simple to judge. Then there are those, who at some point in their lives discover the multi-faceted jewel that refracts feelings, thoughts and actions across prisms of judgement, hatred and a lack of knowledge. One might argue that it is better to live with a simple lie rather than a complicated truth, personally, I disagree with this but for each their own.

We live in a world where society has evolved towards naming and classifying everything, but half the feelings we feel never fit into a particular class or if they do, these naming words are not words used in everyday language and therefore are not in the average person’s vocabulary. At that point, one is pressurised into using a classification that does not fully explain their endogenous idea of their sexuality.

It bothers me that unless Steve is heterosexual, he has to define where he stands, and the only two choices given by the average person are bisexuality and homosexuality. I will not go into the dozens of classifications not understood by the general public, but will just mention that they exist.

To be fifteen again, trying to convince myself that anything other than heterosexuality is sick and try to compress the one part of me that makes sense, would probably kill me. Six years later, having defined and redefined, having unlearned and relearned; only now, six years later can I say that I truly understandstand the complexity of sexuality. With time and growth, the definition of one’s own sexuality has the potential to change – nothing is linear.