Sexual Identity

I hear you that this is a tough situation to be in, turbo! It certainly may seem like the reverse of what most people face when they are questioning their sexual orientation. However, I assure you that it is actually much more common than one might think. For all the great resources there are about…

Our sexual orientation is about who we do feel attracted to, sexually and emotionally. It’s not about who we’re not frustrated with, who we are not attracted to, who might make do or what someone else’s orientation is. The organization Avert does a really nice job of laying out what sexual…

The only person who needs to be convinced they are gay, bisexual, lesbian, heterosexual or any other kind of orientation is that person. We don’t need to convince others of what our orientation is or prove our orientation to anyone. That girl you know doesn’t need to convince you she’s gay, nor…

Do you think you or your friends are too young to know if you’re straight? Hint: there’s actually no right answer to that one. If you say yes, people at 14 can know they’re heterosexual, then it only makes sense to posit that if a person can know they are one orientation at that age, they can know…

The next thing to do after a family member says that to you is simply to acknowledge what they have disclosed and honor that it can be scary to do that – such as by saying something like, “I’m glad you felt safe telling me about your bisexuality.” You can also reassure them that until they’re ready…

Any kind of sex between people of the same gender is as normal as sex between people of different genders as far as I am concerned. In other words, it is normal – and has always been relatively common – for people of all genders and stripes to have sexual intimacy or to explore sexuality together…

This is as fine a place to ask as any. :) You know, this is the case with most people with any kind of emotional maturity who knows that people are more than two-dimensional and sex is about people, not appearances or our ideas about people based on appearance. Of course, we can look at someone in a…

What if it’s not about her coming out of her shell, but about the fact that she is NOT strongly attracted to girls, or attracted to girls at all? A person’s gender identity doesn’t determine their sexual orientation. In other words, very “girly” girls can be and are attracted to women (or people of…

It is okay to have a desire to explore sex with the same gender; it is okay to have a desire to explore sex with people of a different gender. We also don’t need to view any of that exploration as an “experiment,” nor is same-gender sex somehow more of an experiment than mixed-gender sex is. I mean…

Hey there, Hartley. We DO know – experientially and statistically speaking – that young adults do tend to be less selective when it comes to their attractions and/or partners than older adults. Why is that? That’s where we don’t have such solid answers. By all means, you guys do have a lot more…