Demi, bi, sapio. Adjectives, connotations, prefixes.
My fix is you.
I prefer to remain closed. A door has lost its handle.
A candle glowing softly seen through the crack in the curtained window.
Is someone there?
It doesn’t matter who knocks.
No emotion or intelligence means the door remains closed; sealed shut until one pries it open.
Even as such…the curse has been laid and just maybe the right antidote
will see the sweet candle light the hidden room. ||
I grew up in a Christian household believing that a female belonged with a male, a man and his wife, that’s how things were supposed to be. I didn’t know what it meant to be anything other than straight.
The first time I remember discovering my sexuality I found myself aroused by another girl at age 10. I was confused by my body’s reaction and felt immediately wrong. I tried to stop the feeling and the reaction but it persisted. What the hell?! How could my body betray everything my mind knew to be right?
The anger and confusion ate at me. Everywhere I looked I saw boys with girls and didn’t understand why my body wanted something different. I didn’t know what to believe or who to talk to, so I prayed to God to remove the feelings. I blatantly avoided other girls and hated them for making me feel wrong. I prayed and prayed to feel more like a normal girl.
Middle school came and I was relieved when I found that my excitement applied to boys. But not just cute boys, they had to be smart too. The ones who would raise their hand in class to answer the toughest math questions and the ones who read eloquently caught my attention.
So I didn’t tell anyone but God about my attraction.
I pushed the uncomfortable feelings down into the depths of the darkest corner of my mind and pretended they didn’t exist. I felt some normalcy throughout middle school, yet it lingered… In the back of my mind like cigarette smoke.
I dated boys. Liked the way they made me feel. But I couldn’t face myself. I had no idea who the hell I was carrying this big secret around.
High school drifted into view and I learned for the first time what it meant to be gay. I didn’t feel like I fit that either. I liked boys after all. I started having normal hetro sex in high school. No emotions attached of course. I didn’t care. I hated myself so how could I care for anyone else?
Then I met a bisexual girl, and I felt the reigns on my secret slip. She understood! She got it. I felt relieved. But they teased her. Called her a freak. I wanted to console her. I stuck up for her in the locker room when the other girls wouldn’t go near her. I wanted to scream how much I understood her, but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t…not yet. I wasn’t sure.
I got drunk my junior year in high school. A girl was there. My friend. She was beautiful. We kissed and I felt the rush. It was honestly better than any hetro sex I’d ever had at that point. The relief, the understanding… I never questioned it again. I knew exactly what I was and I was okay with it. I came out to my closest friends soon after and they didn’t even flinch. I was still the same girl, they said. Sweet relief for the first time.
Until college… “God hates the gays. You’re going to hell.” They would shout with bibles in hand confirming my fears. “Faggot! Dike! Sinner!”
The blood drained from my face. I already told God… I couldn’t even attempt hiding it from Him. I panicked momentarily. Hell wasn’t a place I wanted to go. The wrongness settled again. Why would they think that a loving God could hate anyone?
Then clarity… I didn’t feel like God could ever hate me. How could God hate me for feelings He gave me? That didn’t make sense. Maybe I didn’t believe in the same God as them anymore. I decided that it was people who were inherently hateful not God. So I went searching for who or what God meant to me without their influence. (I found God btw in the greatest way, and I’m completely in love with God and myself.)
***
In my youth, I felt lost in my desires to be normal. I denied myself the right to feel my true feelings for years. I developed a callousness towards sex and relationships and longed for someone to understand everything that I was, without judgement. Empty sex plagued me. Empty feelings and denial was my norm.
I need more to feel fully aroused. It’s not as simple as a single touch. I can’t handle the emptiness that follows sex with someone I don’t know nor love. I can appreciate the exterior and not feel the pull of sexual desire. I need mental stimulation. I need to feel emotionally close. I can’t function sexually without it.
In an adult dating pool filled with overly sexual people I crave intimacy. It seems a foreign concept, so I choose celibacy. I don’t want just anything from just anyone. I haven’t lost hope, I just don’t want to be used and manipulated by the highly sexual people that surround me.
I guess that makes me demi, bi, sapio… celibate.