I’m not going to start this article by saying that everyone is bisexual. That would be absurd (some people are pansexual). I’m increasingly of the opinion, however, that there is no such thing as “straight”. For more and more people, “straight” and “gay” are labels for the extreme ends of a spectrum that we’re all on, and each of us is capable of moving up and down that spectrum at different times in our lives. Sexuality, like gender, is rarely a binary. It isn’t uncommon for people living in same-sex institutions such as boarding schools and prisons to have sexual encounters with one another, and in which they form relationships – and then never revisit those urges again after they leave that institution. Are those people gay or bisexual? They might say no, and I respect that. But can they say, in all honesty, that they have always been “straight”? By definition, not really.
Bi-curiosity and opportunistic same-sex attraction, however fleeting, still pushes you slightly away from the extreme end of the scale. No one can say for sure how their sexuality is going to evolve. You can spend your entire life being attracted to one gender of people, never dreaming that you might ever be interested in the other side… and then the right person could come into your life and suddenly you’re not so exclusively tied to gender preference after all. Maybe there’s only a handful of people in the whole world who would turn your head away from your ostensible preference, and maybe you will never meet a single one of them – but that potential still exists in each of us. Prove me wrong.
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