Like most bisexuals (at least, most of the ones I have talked to), my attractions are not equally spread across all the genders I am attracted to. I’m also not always attracted to people of all genders in the same ways. There are differences – not hard-and-fast rules, necessarily, but trends – and for a long time, those differences made me secretly doubt my own bisexuality even as I was yelling on the internet about how all self-identified bisexuals are valid. It’s funny how the things you most believe to be true are often the things you have a hard time accepting are true about you.
Compared to my relatively frequent crushes on men and people whose presentation floats between androgyny and masculinity (insofar as gender presentation can be simplified that way, which ultimately it kinda can’t), my crushes on women and feminine people are rare. This hasn’t always been the case for me – I skewed much gayer in high school, an inexplicable swing of the pendulum toward a side that I’ll probably swing back toward one day – but it’s been this way for several years now. In some ways it’s a blessing: my infatuations with women are uncommon enough that when one does happen, I notice it – hard.
It’s fairly predictable, the way it happens, and the people it happens with. They tend to be brunettes, with bold personalities and excellent boundary-setting skills. They have smoky voices and great laughs. They have strong opinions about whiskey or gin. They’re comfier in leather boots than in luxe heels. Many of them are Jewish, like me – perhaps because I love a broad with a big, strong nose and a commanding demeanor. (#NotAllJews, for sure. But a good number of them!) They love rock music or experimental theatre or arthouse films. They overflow with passion and conviction.
There is something about a dark-haired woman in heavy eyeliner and a leather jacket that just… sends me. I struggle to piece together my sentences like a ruffled ceramicist holding out a broken vase in cupped hands: Is this what will make you like me? The women I like seem to transcend words like “feminine” and “masculine,” embodying one on some days and one on others, and sometimes both at once, side-stepping categorizations and mostly just not giving a fuck.
The women I like are braver than me, more decisive than me, and (crucially) more dominant than me. I’m a submissive through and through, and sometimes it feels so infused into my bones that it feels like it is my sexual orientation. Certainly, a partner’s dominant energy (or lack thereof) is typically more of a deciding factor in my attractions than their gender identity or presentation. The women I like almost always look like they would gladly beat me up if I asked, and would sweetly request bruise pictures the next day. They probably don’t know how to cook a pot roast or sew a button, but they do know their way around bondage cuffs and a heavy wooden paddle.
The women I like are usually well-spoken if you can discount all the curse words (and let’s not forget that creative and colorful swearing can be, itself, a type of well-spokenness). They speak before they think, which sometimes gets them into trouble, but they’re humble enough to apologize when they know they’ve fucked up. They get a little blushy and flustered when they have a crush, but not as much as I do – because I love a woman who can confidently push my buttons and let me feel like the smaller, gigglier, frailer one among us.
The women I like usually self-identify as gay, with that word specifically. There is something about it that piques my interest immediately when a woman uses it, maybe because the first person I ever dated (who then identified as a gender-weird girl and is now, last I checked, nonbinary) called themselves “extremely gay” the first time I ever saw them, and their surety in that sentiment made me feel extremely gay too. It’s a shame that so many gay women see bi women like me as automatic write-offs, but at the same time, I’m glad that the biphobes self-select themselves the hell out of my life.
The women I like have usually seriously questioned their gender identity at least once – and I’m focusing this post on women because many of them have chosen that label after a fair bit of self-reflection and consideration, which I respect very much. My crushes on nonbinary and genderqueer people are a different topic entirely and I don’t want this post to come across as though I’m lumping those folks together with women, because I’m not and I don’t. I do love the self-knowledge and boundless curiosity it takes to examine the gendered label society gave you, whether or not you eventually decide it fits, and many of the women I like have done exactly that.
The women I like will tell you to shut the fuck up if you say something transphobic or racist or ableist or biphobic. They will also not judge you if you call yourself a not-strictly-P.C. term (like “crazy” or “dyke” or “slut”) because they respect your right to self-identify as you wish and reclaim words that feel good.
The women I like tend to pride themselves on their sexual skills, whether that’s oral or fingerbanging or strap-on fucking or all of the above. They pack dildos in their handbags or slide lube packets into their jeans pockets for later use. They ask questions about my likes and dislikes and don’t assume that us having a gender label in common means we enjoy all the same things. They, in fact, relish the differences between us, those electric points of contrast that make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
The women I like are chivalrous because they’ve chosen to be, not because society tells them they ought to be, the way it does with men who date women. They may get a bit flustered when they bring me flowers or open my car door for me, but it’s not because they feel silly doing those things – it’s because they like doing those things so much that it’s slightly embarrassing. I try to compliment them all the way through so they can step into their deliberate chivalry with backbone and verve.
The women I like make me wonder what they’re into in bed, in a way I never feel quite as intensely with men, even men I desperately want to fuck. The comparative lack of social and sexual scripts for queer relationships means that my queer infatuations are even more of a blank slate, even more of a choose-your-own-adventure erotica novel, and my lady-crush du jour could just as easily be into floggers or knives or vintage stockings – it’s a mystery I’m always excited to solve.
The women I like are few and far between. But when I meet one, I know it. I feel it in my heart and my stomach and my cunt. I feel it in the way I start sweating, giggling, and trying to seem impressive. I feel it in the way she shakes my hand, or bumps my shoulder with hers, or offers to buy me a drink. It’s a special kind of magic somehow made all the more special by its rarity. I wish, and wait, and wonder what her lipstick would look like intermingled with mine.