Duncan wrote about this before he was banned from Medium. He talked about his working theory of sexual orientation as comprised of not just positive attraction to the sex(es) you’re attracted to but also absence of attraction toward the sex(es) you’re not, and then within that degrees. Not that we need to give a different name to lesbians/gay men who are sexually repulsed by the opposite sex vs merely feeling neutral or closer to neutral. But I think it’s an important point of understanding and also is relevant to bisexuals but would love to hear the thoughts of our bisexual community members on this.

Sometimes I think that heterosexual people mistake their absence of attraction to the same sex combined with proclivity toward testing their boundaries, getting off to testing their boundaries, and/or some other sexual fetish as true bisexuality. I would cite the vast majority of the porn industry tor reference. And I’m not defining true bisexuality as anything other than being attracted to both sexes regardless of degree. Some people are really driven by the taboo aspect of same-sex sexual interactions. When I used to spend time on bisexual spaces on Reddit I noticed this. And this is very alien to me as a lesbian because when I’m with a woman, taboo is the furthest thing from my mind. I’m just attracted to the person I’m with and their body. Bi people, please feel free to weigh in on whether or not this distinction resonates with you. Have you witnessed other people claiming to be bisexual whose behavior reflects this pattern?

For reference, I am a lesbian who is very sexually attracted to the female sex and somewhere between neutral to mildly sexually repulsed by the male sex, but overall I would say I’m pretty neutral and the mild sexual repulsion is more situational. I used to think that some gay people exaggerated their revulsion and maybe some do but I now understand this is a thing and not uncommon. But I haven’t seen studies or statistics that try to identify the prevalence.

I’ve talked to some other gay people about it IRL and it’s an interesting topic. I was curious about it because since I was married to a man but I understood that there are a large number of lesbians that could not let their self-denial get to that point. It helped me understand my own story better. And not in a stereotypical r/LBL / Master Doc self-denial and self/indoctrination kind of way. And now it helps me understand better that there may be lesbians who are suspicious of me and will not let that get to me.