What is Lesbianism Really?? Drop Your Confusion Below <3

[Anya]

Hi folks,

I've been noticing a lot of people talk about feeling attraction to women/non-men recently and feeling confused about what to call it. As someone with extensive experience being confused about my own attraction I thought I'd share some things with y'all and see if anyone resonates or wants to add!

In 2018 I came out as bisexual. This was the first year I had even heard that term and eager to explore my sexuality for the first time, I jumped at the opportunity to label myself.

In 2020 I did a major gender/sexuality remodel (shout out below if you did too). This was spurred by reading the Lesbian Master Doc (LMD readers also give a shout below) and was my introduction to the concept of compulsive heterosexuality. Comp-het is a term used to describe the phenomenon of false attraction resulting from the cultural expectation of heterosexuality. This made a lot of sense to me as someone just basking in the warm glow of my attraction to women and non-men.

After Identifying as lesbian for a long time I started to develop feelings for men again. This was SCARY because to me at the time, it meant the end of my claim over the title of lesbian and all of the community spaces it gave me access to. I thought, "well the literally definition of lesbian is someone who has no attraction to men" and because I did, that I must then give up the all my queer spaces and connection with the word.

Its been several years since this, and now when people as me my sexual orientation I usually just say I like who I like. When I date women I sometimes say im a lesbian or just gay because that feels true and genuine, when I date men I usually remain open to all genders and might name drop pansexuality or general queerness, and when I date other non-binary people it does depend on the vibes but its pretty much just super gay lol.

Since allowing myself to be much more open to complexity and nuance in my experience I've felt much more comfortable in my relationships. Do others have similar experiences or ways they've been able to help themself out of an orientation rut?

Drop down below your experiences with shifting orientations, alternative terms you use, LMD readers, 2020 identity spring cleaning experiences, ways you self-validate, or anything else!

[Heather]

I thought, "well the literally definition of lesbian is someone who has no attraction to men" and because I did, that I must then give up the all my queer spaces and connection with the word.

Thanks for bringing this topic up, Anya!

I do just want to say that that actually isn't the definition of lesbian, and while some people think it is, as I was just saying to another user the other day, that's not actually how homosexuality (and then, secondarily, heterosexuality) frameworks were constructed historically. Instead, homosexuality was defined as someone who only OR MOSTLY found themselves attracted to people of the same gender. From a sexology standpoint, these both were never defined as who people were NOT attracted to, but as who they were, and they also were not defined as being about people only ever, in a whole lifetime, being attracted to people of a certain gender.