How do you describe your sexuality?

Do you ever run across something, and after seeing it you realize that while you were off, living your life, the world kinda changed? This is what happened to me today while I was investigating online how people describe their sexuality.  

I have been thinking a lot recently about the words that people use to describe their sexuality.  I think it really started when I heard my friend Kim describe herself by saying, "I'm not gay, but I'm not straight either.  I like to think I'm curvy!"  I loved that moment.  I loved hearing the individuality and play that went into describing this wonderful woman's sexuality in a unique and personal way.  I thought about how once, in a class with Buck Angel I had somehow found the courage to raise my hand and say- I'm awesomesexual I guess.  If you're awesome, I'll probably be attracted to you.  This week on the ScrewSmart facebook page I asked people how they described their sexuality.  I loved hearing back, "Lady Luva", "Pansexual", "twisted and bent", "Open to Suggestion", and "homoflexible" among others.  

I could almost hear the cardboard boxes labeled [L] [G] [B] ripping at the seems as people slowly demand that even the words used to describe their sexuality be seen as more individual to them and their experience.  I started looking around the big wide web- and I found so many things.  Little bees are really busy putting their thoughts about gender and sexuality out there.  This person denies that anyone can really say they are straight or gay or anything without being cisexist.  Now, I'ma be honest- I'm in the sexuality field and I didn't know what cisexist meant.  It sounds/looks like cis-exist...but turns out it's more cis-sexist in actual meaning. Ok, ok.  So Donkey the slow poke is catching up with new lingo.  Cool.  But then I found a website/project called The Sexual Fluidity Project.  This is what really took my mind and just blew it.  There are so many videos (I focused on the ones labeled, "How do you describe your sexuality") done by YOUNG folks talking all about the unique and personal sides of their sexuality.  It is both wonderful and slightly painful to watch in the same way that teenagers are often fantastic and painfully awkward.  As I flipped through the videos it took this one of a very charming and sweet 16 year old who says multiple times and with such earnestness, "I'm a pansexual" to finally break through my natural tendency to feel distaste for teenagers.  I stopped being a judger (it's a bad habit I'm trying to break, even in the privacy of home) and realized that there are a whole generation of kids who are feeling free to explore a wide landscape of sexual possibilities.  

This is the point! Right?  The reason ScrewSmart is in business is to encourage people to think openly about sex.  The kids (almost everyone I saw taped for this project seemed pretty young, right?) in these videos are doing this all on their own- because something in our culture educated them about it, and motivated them to give a damn.  It reminded me of my blog post about pondering whether or not being a freak is becoming cool.  To these young folks- it seems like owning a sexuality that is typically logged under the freak heading is at least worth enough social capital to video and put up on the web for strangers like me to wonder at.  

So this week, my tip of the Donkey Cap goes to the generation born in the 90's.  You're not that much younger than me- but I think you're living in a different world than the one I came up in.  You will change what typical is with this brazen openness to explore, your willingness to put yourself out there, and by diving into conversations about such a complex topic so eagerly.  You've certainly made me believe for this moment (oh, how the pendulum swings) that there are really important changes happening. Thanks!  And keep making those awkward and charming videos!!  Here are a few more:

Love!

Donkey