Reflection About Sexuality

Since there was no one in my community I could turn to about my new found identity, I turned to the internet. I was expecting a support system, but was faced with nothing but hostility from all sides. A large portion of the LGBTQ community deems bisexuality as an illegitimate identity, like an excuse to still partially belong to the straight community. The straight community uses it as an excuse to hypersexualize bi-women and ridicule bi-men. As a 15 year old, I had seen or heard nothing about bisexuality accepting it, only pages upon pages of hate comments. I was embarrassed. I didn’t want people to think of me as a slut, or just a confused teenage girl, so I didn’t say

At the age of twelve I knew for sure that I was gay. I struggled with this internally because I knew that socially it was not normal. Many people made fun of gay people, and they made some people feel very bad about themselves. The first task of coming out was not to let people get to me in

Social aspects of my life would teach me that being homosexual or bisexual was wrong, but others (while living in Palm Springs, Ca.) taught me that it was completely normal to have such sexual orientations. I have lived in California my whole life which has always had heavy, heated debates about allowing same sex marriages, allowing homosexuals in the military, and fighting for homosexual equality, so the history behind my state has made me grow up to be comfortable around gays even with the disturbing things I had been subjected to while I was growing up in Palm Springs. This class has now taught me many things I did not know about when it comes to the psychological aspects of being homosexual or bisexual, but I am still a heterosexual, and comfortable with it.

For the next two years I struggled with the concept that I might actually be gay. By junior I was certain that I was in fact all the things that I was called in middle school, but because of the negative memories I decided it was a secret that I was better of keeping to myself. That was until the spring semester of my senior year in high school when I decided that I was going to live my life the way I wanted to. I would no longer allow people to scare me into being anything other then what I wanted to be I would live my life openly and honestly. On the evening of February 16, 2014 I came out as Gay on literally every social media platform I owned. The following morning, to my surprise, my classmates for the most part greeted me with open arms. As I walked from class to class I received a staggering amount of compliments and support. I was quite frankly overwhelmed when I did get a negative comment and a dozen people rushed to my

Around my middle school years, I knew something about myself was unique, but I could not quite put my finger on it. No one in my family was gay, the word gay was rarely spoken and I did not even know queerness existed. My family lived a very heteronormative lifestyle and I always assumed I would marry a girl and have children. I remember very clearly a day when I was in sixth grade, I was standing in the hallway after class and someone asked me, “are you gay?” I did not know how to react, I did not even know what the word “gay” meant. I immediately replied “NO” as the term gay was always used synonymously with stupid. After school that day, I asked my grandma what it meant to be gay and she described what it mean to be gay. In that moment,

My parents were struggling after my older sister came out a lesbian before fleeing to college. Seeing how hurt they were, I kept my support for her secret. I remember one night hearing my mom alone in her room, sobbing and crying to God. She pleaded with Him, begging “why me?” I could not come out.

There was an old friend that I knew back in middle school, named Daniel, who had learned that one of his best friends, Chris, was gay. Daniel questioned Chris, and seemed to criticised him, eventually getting him kicked out of his openly supportive friend group. The next year, Daniel turned out to be bisexual, and he tried to apologize for what he had said the year prior. I never knew whether he was purposefully ignoring his own sexuality, or if it was truly a new development into his real self. Diving into the concept of the real self, Kenji Yoshino, author of Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights, and the Chief Justice Earl Warren Professor of Constitutional Law at New York University, defines the

I identify as a straight female. Although in the past I’ve only had white partners, I am attracted to a spectrum of men. Throughout my life I have always told myself that I was only interested in men. As I approached college more and more I became slightly more interested in women. I have felt like being attracted to men is what’s considered to be socially correct and so I fit into the cookie cutter. These ideas and thoughts are something I’ve only shared with two people.

In today’s society things are being expressed and experienced at younger ages, than ever before in our time. Children and teenagers are discovering their sexuality at very early ages. Sexuality is the discovering of who you are and what makes you different from everybody else.

Growing up everyone is told that they are unique. “Be yourself,” “use your God-given talent,” and other expressions such as these impress the aforementioned narrative into our minds. Thus, when I was around thirteen years old, I thought my sexuality was just a part of me that only I had. I wanted to share this feature about myself; I wanted to take pride in it and show it off. Coming out to a close few friends showed positive and emotional responses. Riding on this high, I was ready to embrace myself in high school. Yet, my naivety took the best of me as I was going to an all male, religious high school. My sexuality has provided me with experiences that have and will continue to shape my life. These struggles, whether they are internal or external, have provided me with invaluable skills.

We were chatting about school and friends when suddenly they told me they were bisexual. Although I personally have not struggled with my sexuality, I understand the struggles of identifying who you truly are, and not what your family or society tells you to be. I was able to empathize and connect with them through my experiences. The Ted Talk about Sympathy vs. Empathy says, “rarely can a response make something better; what makes something better is connection.” Through self-examination and personal growth, connecting with others is what I believe to be my greatest strength.

Culture has a great influence on one’s sexual orientation. Different cultures hold different views on what is expected based on different histories related to sexuality. In ancient Greece, married Spartan warriors would engage in sexual relations with young training soldiers to ensure the young soldier acquires strength needed for the battlefield (De block and Adraiens 574). Same-sex relations between an older married lover also known as Erastai, and the Eromenoi was a traditional ritual that Greeks followed to ensure good warriors (De block and Adraiens 574). In addition, De block and Adriaens argue that in Japanese Samurai culture every warrior was “supposed

Some says that a person who has intimate relationships with both men and women doesn’t consider herself bisexual or of any sexual orientation for that matter. I think that today, we are seeing more people displaying an attraction to another individual based mostly on what their personality has to offer, rather then their ‘plumbing’. I find this an interesting concept and I think I do believe that what it boils down to is the love you have for the person despite their anatomy, though I have yet to experience feelings like this myself.One of the main problems that bisexual people face is the idea that bisexuality is not a “real” sexual orientation. This belief is held by not only the heterosexual community but by the homosexual community as well. Many people think of bisexuality as a transition into becoming gay or as a denial of oneself being gay. This belief is damaging not only because it refuses to acknowledge that bisexuality exists, but it also restricts a person’s love and affection to only one gender (either same-sex or opposite) and it refuses to take into consideration that someone could be attracted to or love people of

Sexuality has been an important part of me for as long as I can remember.  Recently in a class, we were asked to think about the one thing that no one could take away from you, no matter who whey were or what you were offered.  This had to be the one thing that defined your identity

Upon entering this course, my understanding of human sexuality was decent; I was aware of certain aspects of sexuality such as being straight, gay, lesbian, queer, transgender, etc. Nevertheless, I did not realize how expansive sexuality is; it never occurred to me that sexual health, prostitution, marriage, rape, sex trafficking, divorce, families, etc., all fell under the umbrella of human sexuality. Books and essays such as Renee Hill’s Walk Together and David Shneer’s “Out of School” showcased the multiple facets of human sexuality and how terms like queer are not directly related to homosexuality. While sexuality and homosexuality are linked, frequently, people mistake them as being synonymous; before entering this class, I was searching for a definition of sexuality, and often in the thesaurus section of dictionary websites homosexuality and or sexual orientation was considered a synonym of sexuality. Formerly, I too would have agreed they were the same, however, after taking this course, I concluded that homosexuality is just one topic in the broad discussion of sexuality. My understanding of sexuality now is that it