I'm so happy I came across you. Been struggling with this for quite sometime. I relate to everything you've said. Ive been back an fourth between labels and I've got myself worked up in so many different ways because of labeling myself and now I've got the point I just go with the flow. Thanks for this video.
Yes! Same for me! I practically thought that i was worrying about theses that I was making up in my head and like thoughts that wouldn’t even happen thinking about shit that I shouldn’t be thinking about was so strange lol. Being in the present is way better. Overanalysing is crazy !
Really good video, my feelings about my own sexual fluidity have taken some turns too. A couple years ago when I came out to my Dad I used the word bi because it felt simultaneously the most simple and honest definition of how I felt. Since the age of about 17ish I have identified as some variation of sexually fluid/ bi/queer and it's only really since I've come out to that last person in my life that I have really been thinking about my patterns of attraction. Which led me to realise that I think I'm almost entirely attracted to women except for 1 instance of person based attraction. For ease, I'm still using the terms either bi or queer to describe myself partially because I think that I might well experience person based attraction again. But yeah I've recently started to think about using the word lesbian in the future which is a little bit scary. The words lesbian or gay feel so much more final than bi/queer. But with more and more people talking about their own sexual fluidity/history of identity it's getting easier for me to imagine using a label like lesbian and it not being that big of a deal if it doesn't still fit me a years down the line. I'm still not there yet but discussions like this are so helpful, thank you
Thank you! I've recently found the term "fluid lesbian", which I think is the most accurate way to describe my orientation, though I can't really ID as a lesbian of any kind while dating a guy. But it is how my attraction plays out: towards women, except for person-based attraction. And I definitely feel like labels are there to describe how you ID/feel at the moment, not something that needs to describe you for the rest of your life. It's totally fine to discard labels when they don't fit anymore.
I had a step-sister which went through pretty much the same changes. So I basically grew up with that and always thought it was quite... logical and normal.
This is such an important thing for people to understand. My own sexuality is super fluid and I'm lucky that I have some people in my life who are supportive and don't try to invalidate me. But not everyone has that, not everyone understands. So @ everyone, It's ok to have this fluidity in your life. And it's also ok if labels don't fit you completely.
Yes, people in my life have been very supportive (though some people online have been awful). It's really something that's not talked about, which is a shame, because it could be a big relief for a lot of people to know about.
We have such similar experiences up to a certain point. As a kid and growing up I only had crushes on guys. I spent a lot of time wondering "what if I am gay" but still felt 100% straight. Only looking back in the last week have I started to wonder if maybe I had a small crush on one of my girl friends, but even now I'm not sure. Then in high school I fell for one of my girl friends (and we're still together). I still only found myself attracted to guys though, even though I know I obviously had the capacity to be attracted to women. It wasn't until a few years ago that I found myself finding random women attractive. It all feels like a bit of a moot point to me sometimes though since I plan on being with my current girlfriend forever, but I still think about it all a lot.
That's really interesting! I'm not sure why my orientation changed so drastically after being with my high school girlfriend. Maybe just once I was open to being attracted to women, I preferred them? I don't know. Sexual fluidity can happen in so many different ways. It's cool to hear about how other people experience it!
This actually helps me to understand. I'm bisexual and have been hearing "sexuality is fluid" a lot lately, and to me it just sounded like people didn't want to say the word bisexual because of stigmas and had internalized biphobia. I didn't understand. Thank you for this video. I've identified as bisexual since I was 13, i'm 28 now...it's never changed for me so I didn't get it. I have Ramona blue but haven't read it yet, i'm glad I saw this video first. :)
Thank you! I do love that bisexual as a label and the bisexual community is so accepting of so many different experiences of attraction, but I do think sometimes it's helpful to have a label that's a little more specific. Sexuality is such a huge spectrum: there a lot of variations.
"Which I know is not as snappy, but it is more true." Those are words for our times haha! I'm late to this video but I just wanted to tell you I appreciate it a lot, and I think it's so important to do as you say: believe people when they express who they are and what they feel, and keep believing them, even if people change over time. It costs nothing to do.
i know this is an old video and you probably won’t see this but thank you so much, ive been struggling a lot with grappling my sexuality, i think this idea relates most to me
I'm so happy it was helpful for you! Finding out more about fluidity really explained a lot for me, so I wanted to be able to help more people access that info. It's so confusing when you're taught that sexuality and identity is clearcut and unchanging
This is the closest I've ever heard to my own experience. 15-17 years ago, while in a very happy relationship with a man, I began having very strong, very real desires to be with a woman. My partner was older, he died, and to my great surprise my attraction to and interest in women has gotten slowly stronger over the past 10 years. I never expected this. I still like men but am also now greatly attracted to women. Thanks for what you say here, it really speaks to what I've been going through.
Thank you!!!! My dad does that. He'll make up a hypothetical that involves a woman and insert me into it. I'll often find myself making up hypotheticals and emphasizing words like "man" and "husband" to tell him that my sexuality is not fluid. Like your gay friend falling in love and having a child with a woman has nothing to do with me. His sexuality is not my sexuality. Certain family members do the same thing. And when I do it back, they look at me as if I'm crazy for saying that they (men) can then give a man a try🙄
Im a transgender women, I identify as a lesbian with a fluid sexuality. It took me a couple of years to understand it how it plays out for me. It was very confusing when I finally let it out and develope, and do its thing and become normal jut be the way it is.
I honestly think that we have way too many labels today and are overdiscussing these - especially at an age where you may not know who you are and what your preferences are. Then again I am older and think sexuality is a private thing and no one elses business but mine, and I am sure glad that there wasn't such a pressure to pick a label when I was young and literally not interested in anyone least of all sex. But maybe I am wrong and kids today find it helpful to have a label to cling to and identlify with.
Well, as this whole video is about, not knowing about the concept of sexual fluidity just made me feel like there was something wrong with me. Just because labels exist doesn't mean you have to use them, but I don't see how having a more limited vocabulary and less access to information would help at all. (Also, I didn't find out about the concept of sexual fluidity until I was 26, so I wouldn't say it's about "kids" today.)
My thoughts were not only from your video, but actually have been going through my mind for a few days, since I first heard about Ace, Aro and Grey, which I find not helpful when you are young and haven't got a clue about who you are. And I mentioned kids because at my age you don't talk about these things anymore (unless you explicitly want to, I guess, or feel the need to identify as something else to your surroundings than before) but in my opinion it is when you are young that people (today?) talk about this more and when I was a teen it was okay to say: "I am not interested in anyone" and that was that. But what if kids now want to know then if you identify as ACE/ARO/GREY/etc but you basically don't know because like you said, sometimes these things just make sense much later in life. I was wondering if that isn't adding more stress. Also it is so difficult for your surroundings to already accept if you change your opinion on sth trivial like food, how will they follow your sexual identifications if you need to decide before you actually now. This is me seriously having no clue, but from my perspective I am glad I didn't have to as a kid, as it would have made me feel less normal than just being left alone, as I was. Sorry, if that wasn't clear.
The confusion is only caused by the insistence on creating labels. People can be interchangeable and to be frank, who you sleep with or choose to love is nobody's god dam business so long as it's consensual and with another adult.
What do you think of cross orientation? For example those who label themselves as biromantic heterosexual or panromantic homosexual vs someone who is homosexual and homoromantic or heterosexual and heteromantic. Is it really possible to _fall in love_ with someone of that gender even though you _aren't_ sexually and physically attracted to? I'm very confused.
I think that's totally valid, though sometimes it can also be part of a journey to a different ID. Just like some people are asexual but are still romantically attracted to someone, I don't see why you could be sexually attracted to a gender but not romantically attracted to them (or vice versa). For some people, sex doesn't always overlap with romantic attraction. For myself, sexual fluidity has meant that I have fallen for someone romantically without feeling sexually attracted to them--though that changed for me over time.
Wait.....autistic here. Swooning, mooning...what was the word??? I don't quite get...some of this. (How to meet people, I know who I'm attracted to but...other people's attraction is weird to me...).
Hello, I'm someone who is struggling with a fear of becoming gay (let me start by saying that I am in no way homophobic, I have been an active supporter of the LGBTQ+ community and have many LGBTQ+ friends who I love dearly) my fear revolves however around losing my attraction to women and gaining attraction to men, despite never being attracted to men. Is there a particular way that you know that you are sexually fluid? Does this mean that I can lose my attraction to women? I'm sorry if I sound stupid or if I'm wasting anyone's time, I just need a better understanding of how this works.
These kind of sexually intrusive thoughts can be normal some time. So just chill take some time out ask yourself what you really want. And i also used to fear sometimes but now i dont bcuz i know theres nothing to be afraid of . And last but not least theres no fear that cant be conquered . Just ask your self and embrace this situation with right thoughts. 😊
@@kashishchugh6484 thank you, yeah, I have improved over the past year, I was in the space where I knew that I wanted women, but my brain was telling me something else. Now I'm better, I know that being with a man isn't right for me, and I can't comprehend what I was thinking 😂 I was just terrified that I would never be able to have a relationship with someone I wasn't attracted to because I had somehow turned gay or would turn gay or had "secretly been gay" my entire life. As the guy above said, this wasn't a sexuality problem, this was an OCD problem. Thank you for taking the time out of your day to reasssure me, but I am ok 😊
I'm so happy I came across you. Been struggling with this for quite sometime. I relate to everything you've said. Ive been back an fourth between labels and I've got myself worked up in so many different ways because of labeling myself and now I've got the point I just go with the flow. Thanks for this video.
Yes! I struggle a lot because i do not let myself "live in the moment", i pick it all apart!
Going with the flow is so much easier!
Yes! Same for me! I practically thought that i was worrying about theses that I was making up in my head and like thoughts that wouldn’t even happen thinking about shit that I shouldn’t be thinking about was so strange lol. Being in the present is way better. Overanalysing is crazy !
Really good video, my feelings about my own sexual fluidity have taken some turns too.
A couple years ago when I came out to my Dad I used the word bi because it felt simultaneously the most simple and honest definition of how I felt. Since the age of about 17ish I have identified as some variation of sexually fluid/ bi/queer and it's only really since I've come out to that last person in my life that I have really been thinking about my patterns of attraction. Which led me to realise that I think I'm almost entirely attracted to women except for 1 instance of person based attraction.
For ease, I'm still using the terms either bi or queer to describe myself partially because I think that I might well experience person based attraction again. But yeah I've recently started to think about using the word lesbian in the future which is a little bit scary. The words lesbian or gay feel so much more final than bi/queer. But with more and more people talking about their own sexual fluidity/history of identity it's getting easier for me to imagine using a label like lesbian and it not being that big of a deal if it doesn't still fit me a years down the line. I'm still not there yet but discussions like this are so helpful, thank you
Thank you! I've recently found the term "fluid lesbian", which I think is the most accurate way to describe my orientation, though I can't really ID as a lesbian of any kind while dating a guy. But it is how my attraction plays out: towards women, except for person-based attraction. And I definitely feel like labels are there to describe how you ID/feel at the moment, not something that needs to describe you for the rest of your life. It's totally fine to discard labels when they don't fit anymore.
I had a step-sister which went through pretty much the same changes. So I basically grew up with that and always thought it was quite... logical and normal.
This is such an important thing for people to understand. My own sexuality is super fluid and I'm lucky that I have some people in my life who are supportive and don't try to invalidate me. But not everyone has that, not everyone understands.
So @ everyone, It's ok to have this fluidity in your life. And it's also ok if labels don't fit you completely.
Yes, people in my life have been very supportive (though some people online have been awful). It's really something that's not talked about, which is a shame, because it could be a big relief for a lot of people to know about.
We have such similar experiences up to a certain point. As a kid and growing up I only had crushes on guys. I spent a lot of time wondering "what if I am gay" but still felt 100% straight. Only looking back in the last week have I started to wonder if maybe I had a small crush on one of my girl friends, but even now I'm not sure. Then in high school I fell for one of my girl friends (and we're still together). I still only found myself attracted to guys though, even though I know I obviously had the capacity to be attracted to women. It wasn't until a few years ago that I found myself finding random women attractive. It all feels like a bit of a moot point to me sometimes though since I plan on being with my current girlfriend forever, but I still think about it all a lot.
That's really interesting! I'm not sure why my orientation changed so drastically after being with my high school girlfriend. Maybe just once I was open to being attracted to women, I preferred them? I don't know. Sexual fluidity can happen in so many different ways. It's cool to hear about how other people experience it!
This actually helps me to understand. I'm bisexual and have been hearing "sexuality is fluid" a lot lately, and to me it just sounded like people didn't want to say the word bisexual because of stigmas and had internalized biphobia. I didn't understand. Thank you for this video. I've identified as bisexual since I was 13, i'm 28 now...it's never changed for me so I didn't get it. I have Ramona blue but haven't read it yet, i'm glad I saw this video first. :)
Thank you! I do love that bisexual as a label and the bisexual community is so accepting of so many different experiences of attraction, but I do think sometimes it's helpful to have a label that's a little more specific. Sexuality is such a huge spectrum: there a lot of variations.
I've seen so many great videos since the beginning of Pride month, it makes me so happy. Thank you for contributing
Thank you! I love the explosion of queer content during Pride.
"Which I know is not as snappy, but it is more true." Those are words for our times haha! I'm late to this video but I just wanted to tell you I appreciate it a lot, and I think it's so important to do as you say: believe people when they express who they are and what they feel, and keep believing them, even if people change over time. It costs nothing to do.
sending all the love to youuuuu!!
Thank yooouuu!
i know this is an old video and you probably won’t see this but thank you so much, ive been struggling a lot with grappling my sexuality, i think this idea relates most to me
I'm so happy it was helpful for you! Finding out more about fluidity really explained a lot for me, so I wanted to be able to help more people access that info. It's so confusing when you're taught that sexuality and identity is clearcut and unchanging
This is the closest I've ever heard to my own experience. 15-17 years ago, while in a very happy relationship with a man, I began having very strong, very real desires to be with a woman. My partner was older, he died, and to my great surprise my attraction to and interest in women has gotten slowly stronger over the past 10 years. I never expected this. I still like men but am also now greatly attracted to women. Thanks for what you say here, it really speaks to what I've been going through.
I'm glad it could be helpful for you! There's so little representation of this, but it's many people's experience.
Thank you!!!! My dad does that. He'll make up a hypothetical that involves a woman and insert me into it. I'll often find myself making up hypotheticals and emphasizing words like "man" and "husband" to tell him that my sexuality is not fluid. Like your gay friend falling in love and having a child with a woman has nothing to do with me. His sexuality is not my sexuality. Certain family members do the same thing. And when I do it back, they look at me as if I'm crazy for saying that they (men) can then give a man a try🙄
Im a transgender women, I identify as a lesbian with a fluid sexuality. It took me a couple of years to understand it how it plays out for me. It was very confusing when I finally let it out and develope, and do its thing and become normal jut be the way it is.
Thank you for making this video! It is a great explanation that I haven't found anywhere else.💖
I honestly think that we have way too many labels today and are overdiscussing these - especially at an age where you may not know who you are and what your preferences are. Then again I am older and think sexuality is a private thing and no one elses business but mine, and I am sure glad that there wasn't such a pressure to pick a label when I was young and literally not interested in anyone least of all sex.
But maybe I am wrong and kids today find it helpful to have a label to cling to and identlify with.
Well, as this whole video is about, not knowing about the concept of sexual fluidity just made me feel like there was something wrong with me. Just because labels exist doesn't mean you have to use them, but I don't see how having a more limited vocabulary and less access to information would help at all. (Also, I didn't find out about the concept of sexual fluidity until I was 26, so I wouldn't say it's about "kids" today.)
My thoughts were not only from your video, but actually have been going through my mind for a few days, since I first heard about Ace, Aro and Grey, which I find not helpful when you are young and haven't got a clue about who you are. And I mentioned kids because at my age you don't talk about these things anymore (unless you explicitly want to, I guess, or feel the need to identify as something else to your surroundings than before) but in my opinion it is when you are young that people (today?) talk about this more and when I was a teen it was okay to say: "I am not interested in anyone" and that was that. But what if kids now want to know then if you identify as ACE/ARO/GREY/etc but you basically don't know because like you said, sometimes these things just make sense much later in life. I was wondering if that isn't adding more stress. Also it is so difficult for your surroundings to already accept if you change your opinion on sth trivial like food, how will they follow your sexual identifications if you need to decide before you actually now.
This is me seriously having no clue, but from my perspective I am glad I didn't have to as a kid, as it would have made me feel less normal than just being left alone, as I was. Sorry, if that wasn't clear.
The confusion is only caused by the insistence on creating labels. People can be interchangeable and to be frank, who you sleep with or choose to love is nobody's god dam business so long as it's consensual and with another adult.
I love this video. Thank you for sharing your experiences :)
Thank you!
This is really helpful. Thankyou!
SAME THOUGH this is so good
Thank you for this
What do you think of cross orientation? For example those who label themselves as biromantic heterosexual or panromantic homosexual vs someone who is homosexual and homoromantic or heterosexual and heteromantic.
Is it really possible to _fall in love_ with someone of that gender even though you _aren't_ sexually and physically attracted to? I'm very confused.
I think that's totally valid, though sometimes it can also be part of a journey to a different ID.
Just like some people are asexual but are still romantically attracted to someone, I don't see why you could be sexually attracted to a gender but not romantically attracted to them (or vice versa). For some people, sex doesn't always overlap with romantic attraction. For myself, sexual fluidity has meant that I have fallen for someone romantically without feeling sexually attracted to them--though that changed for me over time.
Wait.....autistic here. Swooning, mooning...what was the word??? I don't quite get...some of this. (How to meet people, I know who I'm attracted to but...other people's attraction is weird to me...).
Thank you for this video but im curious can I identify myself as fluid?
Yes, if you relate to that! I identify as sexually fluid. (I wouldn't just say fluid, because people can also identify as genderfluid.)
Danika Leigh Ellis thank you so much
Hello, I'm someone who is struggling with a fear of becoming gay (let me start by saying that I am in no way homophobic, I have been an active supporter of the LGBTQ+ community and have many LGBTQ+ friends who I love dearly) my fear revolves however around losing my attraction to women and gaining attraction to men, despite never being attracted to men. Is there a particular way that you know that you are sexually fluid? Does this mean that I can lose my attraction to women? I'm sorry if I sound stupid or if I'm wasting anyone's time, I just need a better understanding of how this works.
You have HOCD
These kind of sexually intrusive thoughts can be normal some time. So just chill take some time out ask yourself what you really want. And i also used to fear sometimes but now i dont bcuz i know theres nothing to be afraid of . And last but not least theres no fear that cant be conquered . Just ask your self and embrace this situation with right thoughts. 😊
@@kashishchugh6484 thank you, yeah, I have improved over the past year, I was in the space where I knew that I wanted women, but my brain was telling me something else. Now I'm better, I know that being with a man isn't right for me, and I can't comprehend what I was thinking 😂 I was just terrified that I would never be able to have a relationship with someone I wasn't attracted to because I had somehow turned gay or would turn gay or had "secretly been gay" my entire life. As the guy above said, this wasn't a sexuality problem, this was an OCD problem. Thank you for taking the time out of your day to reasssure me, but I am ok 😊