Few months ago, when one of my close friends having connections in the glam world in a shh shh moment mentioned that one of the hottest actor in Bollywood, who is straight and married, occasionally goes out with men, I couldn’t believe my ears.
However being an insider nothing that he has ever said went wrong! Made me wonder whether my ‘once upon a time’ crush is bisexual (as mentioned by my friend) or did he all of a sudden turned gay from straight.
Is sexuality a choice? came the first thing in my mind. However, we all know it isn’t. Then came a moment of confusion and curiosity – whether sexuality doesn’t follow binary paradigm and, is not as simple as gay or straight, but a complex mosiac of many such categories? And then, I came to a strange conclusion after reading about similar experiences on various websites – “Perhaps Sexuality is Flexible!”
Further, after scrutinizing a lot on sexual orientation along with human psychology there came a moment of euphoria when I realized my inference wasn’t strange but close to something which have been already discovered by scientist and discussed from ages –
Yes, Sexual Fluidity is the correct term!
Not so uncommon, sexual fluidity going by the current paradigm of the society is something where the identity/orientation or habits/desire may not be same all the time. In simple terms, Sexual fluidity is a phenomenon where the person gets attracted to both, men as well as women. However, the person who experiences sexual fluidity is not labeled as bisexual because the characteristics differ.
Transnational novelist Margaret Mascarenhan in Jaipur Literature Festival in conversation with Bachi Karkaria in an event with the same name as that of her novel – Casualties of Love and Sex – The Gender Fluidity explained sexual fluidity as a feeling of love with a person, and not with his/her gender.
In the same talk session, renowned Marathi filmmaker Sachin Kundalkar who has made movies on gay theme humorously mentioned, “I love people and I hate them, but only for who they are, and for that only.”
An attraction to a person irrespective of their gender, change in attraction, and non – exclusivity in attraction are three major attributes of sexual fluidity. The attraction as they say evolves mainly in appreciation of the personal traits of another individual – thereby allowing individuality to bridge gender in sexual longing.
Perhaps that is the reason why Portia Di Rossi, currently married to Ellen DeGeneres was married to Mel Metcalfe for a period of 3 years, and maybe sexual fluidity is the reason why Sir Elton John who came out declaring himself as a gay – Even though he was earlier married to Renate Blauel for a good period of 4 years.
In addition, comes the two greatest examples in history who came out as “Bisexuals” and “Homosexual” but Going by the changing norms, I think they were sexually fluid and not what they were labelled back in their era:
Academy Award winning director, Tony Richardson, came out as bisexual hardly 6 years before he died in the year 1991. Mr. Richardson was married to Vanessa Redgrave, an actress for a period of 5 years. The couple even had two daughters together. Don’t you think, it might be a case of sexual fluidity?
Also, Oscar Wilde, the great writer and playwright who was sentenced to something like sodomy (the then crime) in 1895 for a period of two years, has always been a mystery to many of us. He is often termed as bisexual, homosexual and even paederastic. I have a doubt.
Oh yes, he had a relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas, his junior at Oxford and also with other males including Robert Baldwin Ross. However, ever wondered at the fact that – Oscar Wilde married Constance Llyod, only because he fell in love with her? Also, the couple even had two sons.
Would that have been possible, if he was bisexual or simply homosexual? Don’t you think Oscar Wilde too like the Bollywood actor who loved his wife and children , was sexually fluid?
Lastly, while we all may wonder sexuality fluid might be a confused state of mind where the person his perplexed about his sexual orientation – Don’t you think the person experiencing sexual fluidity is fully aware of sexuality unlike you and me, as he knows precisely what he/she wants and when?
