Strawberries and Sex(uality)

"I just don't get it," she tells me. "How can you be attracted to other women? How can you fall in love with one? I just don't see it!" 

"I just don't get it," I tell her. "How can you not be attracted to all genders? How can you not see the beauty of a woman's body, the lure of those curves, their eyes, their minds? How can you not fall in love with those? I just don't see it!" 

A conversation I’ve had a number of times now, with a number of people. The people around me, sweet and open-minded and smart, used to knowing and understanding, accept me for who I am: pansexuality and all. But when they try to understand, to empathise, they just can’t. The same goes for me. I just can’t understand how you do that. How you can not be attracted to someone, simply on account of their gender. It makes no sense to me.

So often, you hear people going on about how ‘everyone is a little bi’, or 'gays can be cured’, or 'bisexuals are just gay people unwilling to admit they’re gay’, or 'asexuals must be really traumatized’, or any other such nonsense. The thing is, I might’ve started understanding that a little bit.

Imagine your favourite food. Now imagine hating it.

Doesn’t really work, does it? Yet somehow, out there, there’s this person who hates your favourite food. Who just can’t imagine that anyone would eat that willingly.

The same goes for sexuality, I think. Only much more strongly. I think sexuality is wired so deeply into the brain that you just can’t imagine anything different. I mean, on an intellectual level I understand and accept that there’s straight people and gay people ace people and lots of other people whose sexuality isn’t the same as mine, but I can’t really feel as they feel. Just as I can’t imagine anyone disliking strawberries. My brother hates strawberries and even though I don’t get it, it doesn’t mean I’ll stuff them down his throat, right?