I Love Tea And Being Bi

The the standard definition of “demisexual” is “someone who only feels sexually attracted to someone they have close emotional bond with.” I’ve also heard the description “it doesn’t exist, it’s just called not being a hoe.”

The latter belief comes from a misconception that “feeling sexually attracted to someone” and “actually wanting to have sex with someone” are not the same thing.

I am a person who struggles to connect with and trust people in general. Because of this, I don’t like the idea of having sex with someone who I don’t feel emotionally safe with. But, despite this, I still have plenty of experience with feeling sexually attracted to celebrities and hot strangers. Due to this, I am definitely not demisexual.

Not wanting to have sex with people I’m not bonded with is an intention/belief.

Not having sexual attraction to a person one is not bonded with is an innate feeling.

Hear me out, okay? Generally people use the terms “succubus” and “incubus” to determine whether this hypothetical sex demon is female or male. Two problems with this:

Enforces gender binary (what would we call a genderless sex demon??)

The Latin roots roots have kinda misogynistic implications

If you didn’t know, in Latin, “succu-” means being under someone else’s power (e.g. “succumb”). “Incu-” means being the one in power (e.g. “incumbent”).

See what I mean? Not quite fair to imply that women should inherently be controlled.

It’s self expression until it becomes a necessity in your life and you can’t go outside without it.

Turquoise eyelashes can be self expression. Concealer is not.

Glittery, colorful highlighter can be self expression. Contour is not.

Thickly winged eyeliner can be self expression. Natural lipstick is not.

Nothing is wrong with the latter mentioned things. The problem is the compulsion to wear them every single day. It’s the perspective that one’s face without makeup is their “bad face” and their face with makeup is their “good face”.

I identify with the experience of growing up as a girl and being “treated like a girl” for my entire life, but I’ve come to the conclusion the word “girl” is pretty meaningless and is based on societal roles and expectations that shouldn’t exist.

Different people view gender differently, and that’s okay. It’s an intricate cultural phenomenon that’s deeply rooted in much of our society as we know it, so it’s not like it’s something we can just get rid of.

To do that, we’d first have to untangle it from so many other aspects of culture that it is tightly tied to, and not only is that super difficult, a lot of people don’t understand how to untangle it from anything at all, much less from themselves.

Although coming to this conclusion was a relief because I was finally able to understand something that I’d been agonizing about for a while, it brought up a few issues.

How am I supposed to identify myself if I don’t even consider gender a relevant or necessary part of my identity?

What do I tell other people?

How do I separate myself from the idea of gender without feeling like I’m betraying the oppression I experience as someone who is socially viewed as a girl?

“Girl” isn’t a term I hate, because it doesn’t mean anything. What I hate is the standards and expectations and prejudice that comes with it. But wanting to get rid of those things doesn’t mean I’m not a girl.

If gender isn’t defined by sex, but also isn’t defined by appearance, presentation, or stereotypes, then what does define it?