The Best Part of Questioning

I spent a lot of years hating, really hating, the fact that I was questioning my sexuality. A lot of that probably has to do with the reason why I was questioning, because I really wanted to feel the things that I was “supposed” to be feeling as a high schooler and college student (read: having crushes, experiencing sexual attraction). But I also just really wanted an answer. I wanted it now and I didn’t want to talk about it until then. A year ago, you could never have convinced me that there was an upside to this process. So if that’s where you are right now, I get that, and I won’t try to convince you otherwise.

But as I’ve grown more comfortable with myself, with other people knowing and finally being ‘out’ for some time now, I’ve realized there is at least one really fun thing about questioning: ambiguity. I just really like playing with the ambiguity and flexibility of it all.

It’s fun to hang out in the LGBT Center and make comments with sexual innuendo towards the same sex. And it’s fun to make similarly risqué ‘straight’ comments in other spaces. I get to go to gay bars and play up the potential that I’m gay/bi/queer, basically trying on that identity, if you will. But I also can easily go out to a place like Shooters and interact with men with the possibility of it meaning something, in a way I couldn’t in an LGBT space. Dancing with men is not limited to ‘straight’ spaces, though. There are few things more fun than playing heterosexual in LGBT spaces. I love dancing with gay men because these experiences are as pressure-free as they come. Dancing with guys at Lav Ball, for example, allows me to play the conventional social role of a woman without worrying about the “what-ifs” of the dance. And even better, there is no need for me to get down on myself when I’m not attracted to my dance partner.

Finding the freedom to explore and play with sexuality and traditional gender roles is just that—freeing. It's not just liberating, though. Pushing the bounds of conventionality and inhabiting this ambiguous space as someone who is questioning is actually quite fun.