I'm confused about my sexuality.

[Horst]

I'm a 14 year old guy who's never been in a relationship. I think I'm bisexual, but I'm not sure; you see, I'd much rather have sex with a woman than a man, but I'd much rather be in a relationship with a man than a woman. For example, there's a boy in my class who I'm crushing on, but I don't think I'd want to have sex with him. I think this is bisexuality, but my friend who is bisexual says that I'm supposed to feel sexual attraction to both genders, if I'm actually bisexual (If that makes sense). What do you think?

[Sam W]

Hi Horst,

One of the neat (and sometimes frustrating) things about bisexuality is that it encompasses a lot of different experiences. While there are some bi people who feel attraction exactly the same way, at the same level, to each gender, it's far more common for bi people to experience attraction to different genders, well, differently. This advice column does a really good job of explaining why that is: https://www.scarleteen.com/article/advi ... _and_women.

Too, the basic definition of bisexuality is about being attracted to multiple genders. There's nothing in there that says how that attraction (and wanting to date someone counts as attraction) has to look, or how much of it you need to feel, in order to "count" as bisexual. If bi feels like the identity that matches your feelings and experiences, then you get to say you're bi. Does that all make sense?