I’VE NEVER QUITE felt fully comfortable or at home within any one category of sexual orientation. I’ve tried on plenty of different labels, but none of them have ever had any staying power. I’m pretty sure that I’m not gay, but I’m clearly not straight either. Happily though, according to the results of a new survey conducted by YouGov, up to 49% of young people in the UK are in the same boat.
The 1,632 18-24 year olds who responded to the survey were asked to assess what number on the Kinsey Scale most accurately described their sexual orientation. The Kinsey Scale is a tool for categorizing sexuality that was first published by Alfred Kinsey in 1948. The scale rates a person’s sexual orientation as anywhere between 0 and 6, with 0 being completely heterosexual, and 6 being completely homosexual.
Like this 49% of respondents, I wouldn’t consider myself to be either a total 0 or a total 6. If I had to answer the question, I’d probably answer between 4 and 5. However, I’m not sure if I’d be able to provide that answer with too much certainty because I’m not sure if I even accept the parameters of the question. Unlike Alfred Kinsey, I don’t see straight or gay as two poles, between which all other sexual orientations must lie. I think that sexuality and gender are hugely complex. They are more complex than a finite series of categories that are supposed to account for an infinite range of human experience.
‘Gay seemed the only option available’
To me, the Kinsey Scale is outdated and reductive, in that it relies on the assumption that male and female are the only two possible genders, and that the sexual desires of all people are necessarily defined by their varying degrees of attraction towards the two. People can identify in all sorts of ways outside of male and female, and attraction to men, women or both doesn’t have to be the primary way that we define sexual orientation.
Growing up, I identified exclusively as gay, because that seemed to be the only option available to me. That was the only word I knew to describe someone who was assigned a male gender at birth, and who was attracted to other men. Even though my feelings might have been more complex than this, without the language to articulate those complexities, it wasn’t possible to act on them.
Now as an adult, I don’t make decisions about who I date based on gender, because for me, gender isn’t a mandatory determinant of attraction. I know that I can develop attraction to people of lots of different genders, and to devalidate these connections because it doesn’t fit within the parameters of my chosen identity seems counterintuitive.
‘Categories oppress and marginalise’
I don’t identify strictly within any category, because how I feel about it varies depending on place and circumstance, and on who I’m attracted to at any one given time. I recognise the vast complexities of gender and sexual orientation, how these complexities can shift and change across contexts, and for me, strict categories like male, female, straight, gay or bisexual, can’t always adequately articulate this.
Most of all, I don’t identify strictly within any category, because I don’t have to. Binaries of gender and sexual orientation have been used for years to oppress and marginalise people in all sorts of ways, to limit their behaviour in ways that are considered to be appropriate their given category.
If these categories are no longer fit for purpose, if they no longer accurately describe how we live are our lives, then we don’t have to keep them around. Language is a tool that exists to adjust and compromise to meet our needs, not vice versa.
People never identified as gay or straight, before gay and straight became terms that were in popular use. We identify with the words that we know and understand. Even if 49% of young people in the UK now identify as bisexual, that doesn’t mean there are any more bisexual young people today than there ever was, and there have always been young people whose sexual orientation is fluid depending on circumstances. Bisexuality wasn’t invented in 2015 and neither was the possibility of having a fluid sexual orientation. People now simply have access to a broader range of tools for describing their sexuality.
‘Female bisexuality is deemed to be a fashion statement’
This expanded access to a more diverse vocabulary has been obviously aided by the internet, which lends support and information that enable young people to identify in more varied terms, and by increasing amounts of celebrities who are identifying outside of traditional categories.
When you see a person in real life who is visibly acting out experiences you may privately identify with, it makes the possibility of you yourself acting out those experiences seem like a much more visceral potential. Clearly, many young people now have an expanded sense of the possible ways to identify, and are identifying outside of traditional labels more so than ever before.
I think this is a positive thing. There has long been a cultural erasure of bisexual and queer experience, within both straight and LGBT spheres, and I’m heartened to see young people resisting this erasure.
Too often, female bisexuality is deemed to be a fashion statement, and male bisexuality is deemed to be a fallacy that is undertaken before the man is ready to come out as “fully gay” – the media response to people like Cara Delevigne or Tom Daley are prime examples.
I’m excited to see such large proportions of young people not allowing their narrative to hijacked in this way, despite the efforts of both LGBT and mainstream media to reduce and dismiss their experiences. It’s important that we support people to identify in a way that feels right for them. We need to be wary of any attempts to categorise people with labels that don’t suit their needs.
I recognise that this isn’t everyone’s experience of gender and sexuality. There are clearly many people who identify actively and strongly within one category and I’m not trying to devalidate their identity or narrate their experience on their behalf. I recognise that identities are important for lots of reasons. They help marginalised people feel part of a community and empowers them by giving their oppression a name and a voice.
I’m not saying this is the definitive way to experience sexuality. What I’m saying is that there is no definitive way to experience sexuality, and that no tool, device or scale that could ever adequately categorise it. Any attempt to do so should be regarded with absolute suspicion.
Oisín is a writer, performer and producer from Dublin. He works as a staff writer at SpunOut.ie. He has written and performed two plays; ‘GRINDR / a love story’ and ‘Writer/Performer/Salesman’ and regularly performs spoken word at festivals and events throughout the country. He blogs at ifyounevermove.tumblr.com.
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