{"id":17644,"date":"2018-10-27T01:00:42","date_gmt":"2018-10-27T08:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/datemixstaging.wpengine.com\/?p=17644"},"modified":"2021-05-31T10:49:09","modified_gmt":"2021-05-31T17:49:09","slug":"bi-curious","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zoosk.com\/date-mix\/dating-advice\/bi-curious\/","title":{"rendered":"What Does It Mean to Be Bi-curious"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Bi-curious is a complicated term. Mainly because it\u2019s not one thing, it\u2019s many different things. It\u2019s earned an unfair reputation and some people are afraid to admit that they feel they are bi-curious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because of all this, it\u2019s important we break down the term bi-curious and get a better understanding of how the concept came to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sexual Orientation as a Scale<\/strong>
\nSigmund Freud once posited that everyone is innately bisexual. It\u2019s only through psychological development, both internal and external factors, that someone becomes monosexual. Their bisexuality becomes dormant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019ve disproved many of Freud\u2019s theories<\/a> over the years, from his ideas on the stages of development to why the clitoris is only used by immature women. But his ideas on bisexuality have never fully been proven or disproven.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If anything, it was Alfred Kinsey who truly created the term innate bisexuality. While Freud\u2019s hypothesis was based on a few of his patients, Kinsey\u2019s research<\/a> was based on interviews with thousands of people on their sexual history. Based on his team\u2019s research, they found that people\u2019s sexual behavior, thoughts, and actions towards the same or opposite sex were not consistent over time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They created a 7 point scale to determine how someone identified in their sexuality. 0 was exclusively heterosexual. 6 was exclusively homosexual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Kinsey scale determined that people aren\u2019t so exclusively heterosexual, bisexual, or homosexual as was once thought. In fact, several more scales have been created since then that have tried to expand upon sexual identity and expression. The Klein Sexual Orientation Grid adds in time as a factor. The Storms Scale plots eroticism on an X and Y axis. Today, there are more than 200 different scales to measure sexual orientation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bi-Curiosity as a Scale<\/strong>
\nSo where does bicurious fall on these scales? Well, it doesn\u2019t. Or at least, it doesn\u2019t show up at one single point. It\u2019s all over it. Any point that\u2019s not 0 or 6 is technically bi-curiosity because being bi-curious is just about being interested in someone of the same gender or someone of the opposite gender.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We often equate bi-curiosity as someone who is straight but \u201cexperiments\u201d with someone of the same gender. There\u2019s plenty of pop culture jokes about the girl who kisses her roommate in college. That\u2019s bi-curiosity but it\u2019s certainly not the only form of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Someone who has been an out lesbian for thirty years might suddenly find themselves attracted to a man. Or a straight, married man might find themselves attracted to a new guy at work. Or it might not be brought on by another person, but someone just finds themselves fantasizing about being with someone of the same sex, without it being someone specific. It happens, and these are all forms of bi-curiosity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Questioning and Other Terms<\/strong>
\nSometimes bi-curiosity isn\u2019t called that. When we talk about people who haven\u2019t fully discovered their sexuality, like teenagers, it\u2019s likely that what they are doing is referred to as \u201cquestioning\u201d since they aren\u2019t fully labelling their sexuality yet. Other people call what they are \u201cheteroflexible\u201d or \u201chomoflexible.\u201d Several dating apps have started using these terms so that potential partners know if the person is open to someone of the same or opposite sex.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s important that we pay attention to these terms as well, particularly questioning. During their formative teen years, it\u2019s important that teenagers know that questioning is okay. It\u2019s good even.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Labelling Bi-curiosity as Just a Phase<\/strong>
\nOne of the most dangerous things about bi-curiosity is the phrase that unfortunately goes along with it. \u201cIt\u2019s just a phase.\u201d This goes back to the concept of bi-curiosity just being two college girls making out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bisexual people experience bi-erasure every day. When you\u2019re dating a man and suddenly you\u2019re told you can\u2019t be bi because you chose a man. When you\u2019re dating a woman and then you\u2019re told you must not be interested in men at all. When you say you\u2019re bi and people say it\u2019s not real or that you\u2019re just going to realize you\u2019re gay or straight later. Or when people say that being bisexual is just your excuse for cheating, as if all bi people are cheaters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bi-erasure isn\u2019t limited to bisexual people. Bi-curious people can experience it to. If you\u2019re currently identifying as bi-curious, you\u2019re probably learning about yourself. Maybe in time you\u2019ll find that you\u2019re bisexual or maybe you\u2019ll find that you\u2019re really gay or straight. Or maybe you feel bi-curious or heteroflexible or homoflexible suits you better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The important thing is that you make the choice for you. But wherever you fall on whatever scale, you exist and deserve to be seen. Choose to label, choose not to. We are constantly learning about our sexuality and we are learning more and more that it\u2019s a fluid thing. Embrace the fluidity!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wherever you fall on whatever scale, you exist and deserve to be seen. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":156,"featured_media":17645,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[884,887],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dating-advice","category-gay-dating-advice"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhat Does It Mean to Be Bi-curious<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"it\u2019s important we break down the term bi-curious and get a better understanding of how the concept came to be.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.zoosk.com\/date-mix\/dating-advice\/bi-curious\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta 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