Give It To Me Bi: Is Unfulfilled Potential Enough?
At this point, we're professional bisexuals. Give It To Me Bi is an advice column where your favorite Bisexual Killjoys answer your questions about being bi+.
Q.
Dear Bailey & Jace,
Before I came out as nonbinary, I identified as heteroromantic and asexual. But exploring my gender made me question everything, especially how I experience attraction. Even though I’ve only felt romantic attraction once, I started identifying as biromantic because I could imagine myself with people of any gender. Eventually, I dropped the “romantic” part and started calling myself bi, especially after feeling a strong pull toward a nonbinary person I saw dancing on TikTok. I confused that moment with sexual attraction but later realized it was more sensual or aesthetic. That’s when I started identifying somewhere on the aromantic spectrum and using terms like “bisensual.”
Lately, though, I’ve been wondering if that label still fits. I haven’t had an “I want to make out with you” feeling in a long time, and I’m not sure if I’d act on it if I did, even if I weren’t in a relationship. I’m starting to wonder if my pull to people is just a strong aesthetic attraction. I feel like the bi+ community often overlooks non-sexual, non-romantic forms of attraction, and I try not to internalize that, but it’s hard. Is that “whatever-attraction” and the “potential but never happened and probably never will” attraction enough to call myself bi or am I just clinging to a label that isn’t mine?
Sincerely,
Losing My Label
A.
Dear Losing My Label,
Sometimes, I’m convinced that the most difficult aspect of the human experience is the inevitable movement of time. As we grow and experience more of the world, inevitably, we will also experience more of ourselves. This includes aspects of us we may not have known even existed, or that appear as a fleeting experience.
First, I want to applaud the work you've done with reflecting and unpacking gender. It's no easy feat to think deeply about what gender means to you as an individual, and that's an experience that often ripples out to other aspects of our everyday experiences.
Second, I'm not sure what kind of bi+ spaces you've been to or bi+ people you've spoken with, but bi+ spaces and people have a history of being welcoming to those who experience all kinds of attraction - including no attraction at all. Both asexual experiences and bisexual experiences exist outside of the incessant binaries we are forced to navigate, and bi+ folks are known for their refusal to engage in this divisive rhetoric. While there are bi+ spaces that focus on the experiences of multiple attractions, spaces with an alternate focus exist in tandem. I encourage you to seek them out, whether that be online or in person.
Third, and perhaps most important, I would argue that the most important characteristic of bi+ people and community is their fluid, expansive, ever-changing nature. While monosexuals may often “look back” to their younger selves and try to redefine what those experiences meant, bi+ folks are always recognizing that there is a future to look towards. There was messiness before, which led to bi+ identification, and there will be messiness after, which will be supported by bi+ community. Attempting to “look back” and establish a “consistent” set of experiences works to undervalue your wholeness. You, as a human, will experience a number of different things. Some of these will build on each other. Others will feel directly contradictory. None of them work against all the self-reflection and discovery you've achieved so far. They merely reflect the moment you find yourself in.
You felt attraction for a person, not a gender or an aesthetic, that led to a relationship and that's beautiful. If you recognize within yourself the possibility of being attracted to an entirely different kind of person, including gender-wise, in a partnership kind of way, our bi+ community is here with open arms. The possibility need never “fulfill itself” to be true or real.
Human experience is messy, so of course attraction is also messy and sometimes confusing. Being bi+ is about embracing that process, without trying to hurry out of it or solve it for the sake of ease. I'm proud of you for writing this and embracing the Liminal space that comes with questioning our socially constructed reality.
With love,
Jace
PS. You may want to check out our previous advice column Give It To Me Bi: Liar, Liar, Queer Pants on Fire? for more exploration on the experiences of being both Bi and Ace.
A few resources on asexuality that may be useful on your journey: Asexual Outreach, The Asexual Visibility and Education Network, and Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: A Black Asexual Lens on Our Sex-Obsessed Culture by Sherronda J. Brown.
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