Aurelia Magazine – When I am Loved It’s Never Quite Enough

One of the things I was scared of when I was a little girl was being a lesbian. In particular, I was scared of people finding out about me being a lesbian. So, you’re a lesbian now? asked the smiling women modelling bras in the Next catalogue. After studying them I would force myself to turn to  the bulging underpants of the men’s section but they had no faces, no smiles and so I didn’t like them as much. I would be lay there on my top bunk, then panicking, thinking, “I’m a lesbian, I’m a lesbian and I don’t want to be.”

Now, I am ashamed of my childhood lesbophobia. I tell others I am bisexual, my mum says I go on about it. To myself, I think, ‘sexually fluid!’ but then I remember that sex can be difficult for me and the word fluid seems too simple to properly represent how I feel. So I worry, am I straight, am I straight and I don’t want to be?