lesbian for now ?

[DarkLady]

Okay then, I'm twenty years old and have long dealt with confusion about my sexual identity-specifically what to call myself. The label I've become most comfortable with over the last few years has been lesbian, I'm a girl who is mostly interested in sexual and/or romantic relationships with other women, however I'm worried about how things might change in the future. For example what if one day I do meet a particular man who I do like, will I not be able to pursue this because of my identity, will that mean my identity has to change again (which it most likely will if the relationship goes anywhere).

Basically is it okay to call myself something despite knowing that it could change and that it might not have always been the case in the past ?

I know that sexuality can be a very fluid thing both from my own and others experience, and from reading a lot of books and webpages on human sexuality in general so I ultimately know I have to accept the fact that is no 100 percent certainty here but rather just the shoe that best fits.

[Johanna]

You know, we can't ever really count on any one thing that we identify as to always stick around and always be true. We grow and we discover new things about ourselves and we change and that's totally okay, because that is just how it tends to go for most people. The important thing to know is that we do not owe our identities anything - we don't need to be loyal to any given identity. Just because a label or identity feels true and real for us doesn't mean it will always do so, and if and when it stops feeling real and true to us, there is nothing wrong with acknowledging that.

Ultimately, we can't know what the future will bring for us, so there's little sense agonizing over what ifs. If you feel comfortable with the label lesbian right now, then that's great! And there's no label police that will stop you from doing so because of some thing that may or may not happen in the future. If there were, no one could ever use any label, because our identites are indeed often fluid and changing.

[DarkLady]

Thank you for your respone:). That's part of the reason why I'm kinda of hesitate about labels. If we are always changing and growing they is there any point at all in labeling ourselves as anything if labels are always going to be at least partial imperfect ?

[Heather]

We use lots of words to describe who we are and how we're feeling that describe things that are or could be temporary (which is nearly everything in the human experience). So, words to describe ourselves being about temporary things, no big.

But also up to you if you use any of them or not!