Identity

I’ve known that I am attracted to men for as long as I can remember. I identify as a MSM or as “downe” rather than as bisexual. Being attracted to men didn’t bother me as much as how that attraction would play out. There aren’t many black MSMs in the media so it was hard for me to reconcile my race and my masculinity with my attraction to men. I felt as though I would be seen as weak or effeminate by others.

At age 17 during my senior year of highschool, I was at a crossroads. “Should I turn against my religious beliefs and how I was raised or should I listen to my heart and live the life that I want?” I chose to be a righteous Christian and a good daughter. Yet, I felt more disconnected with my Faith each time I prayed about my “ungodly” feelings.

I’m going to tell you a few things you probably already know, but they might be good ways to explain to anyone who doesn’t already know them. Heterosexual people are usually only or primarily romantically and sexually attracted to people of a different sex or gender than they are. That means that…

What’s it mean to be questioning, why would you or someone else identify that way, how do you deal in the process and how might you answer the question?

Our sexuality is about so much more than our genitals. Our genitals are actually one of the smallest parts of our whole sexuality and our sexual response and experience, believe it or not. Without our brains (and everything that goes on in them), our neurological, cardiovascular and endocrinological…

I don’t think it’s very realistic to expect most of us to feel the exact same way, or “equally,” about all men, all women or all people whose gender is outside of that binary. I’m not even sure, I have to say, what feeling “equally” about people, period, would be. People are so radically different…

There is little in the world that varies as much as human sexuality does. So, even when we have a couple common variables – let’s say all 18 or 19-year-old women: both an age and a single sex or gender there – we are still going to see a huge variety within that group based on all the other…

(pagangirl’s question continued) To me, my boyfriend had been the perfect picture of masculinity–what I wanted in a man. After this revelation, I feel an aversion to him. I see him differently, and more than anything, I can’t get the thought that he’s gay out of my mind. I know I should be more…

There is no one, unilateral stance on feminism and BDSM, whether someone is being dominant or submissive; whether women have partners who are men, women, both or neither. For decades, there has been a lot of feminist conversation around it and other aspects of sex with a lot of varied opinion…

If I only had a dollar (heck, even a quarter) for every time a young person wrote into Scarleteen to ask us if we think they might be [fill in a sexual orientation here], I’d be pretty freakin’ wealthy. This is in no way to make light of your question to us, more just to let you know that this is…