Hi Hi Hi Attraction

Okay, so my past bi bi bi bisexual post was not so much bye bye bye as I thought. Maybe I wrote something about not being able to call myself bisexual anymore because I only fall in love with women… and then fell for a cis man. Sue me, gays. I am still a halfsie whether you like it or not and there are always exceptions to the rules. (Crosses fingers I am still allowed to say “gays”– I am not sure when my subscription runs out!) 

I guess that’s the thing about attraction. It is unpredictable. There are people that just hit you in a way and there’s that. Chemistry. It’s science. I didn’t write the book on it; just piecing together my own chapters and observations. 

Anyway I started this piece about attraction before this guy made me say hi hi hi to my bisexual mind again, but it is still worth sharing so here goes– 

What is attraction anyway? 

  • Sexual 
  • Sensual
  • Physical 
  • Intellectual 
  • Humorous  

Where does it start?

What makes us attracted to one person over the other?

Which is the most important?

I am not really sure, but I have made what I call my personal bisexual guide to attraction. This is my personal memoir rating scale all the types of gendered people I am and have been attracted to.  

Attraction

I’m going to talk about attraction in general first. I have always found attraction to be immensely interesting. The thing about attraction for me is it’s so strong and comes on so quickly. Others have told me it is more slow burning for them, something that builds and turns.  

Chemistry and attraction are different from actually being into someone or actually wanting something with someone. I think when you are actually into someone you are into everything about them. That means heart to spirit to brain and the works! But attraction isn’t like that. Attraction doesn’t take the entirety. Attraction can be quick and can happen with anyone. Attraction can be nothing and everything at the same time. Attraction is just the spark.

For me personally, attraction has always been interesting because it is not typically gendered like most of the other people around me, which led to my long term bisexual label. I always had a crew of lesbians to roll with to discuss our attractions. I also had a whole separate section of straight friends to connect about attractions we felt. Bisexuals, pansexuals, and the likes of us were not a big group I could pull information or shared experience from though. There wasn’t this group of shared experience, but rather different groupings of friends that paired with different sides of me. It was always the straight side vs the gay side. I never had a true bisexual identity as much as a paired, dual or maybe dueling identities. 

This is what pulled me to write about being bisexual or having bisexual feelings in my life. I never truly had friends who felt the same as I did about attraction. Even people who identified as bi never understood the facets of attraction and the changes in attraction I have understood in my life. 

Attraction has also been interesting for me because it is not always undoubtedly laced in sexuality even. Attraction could be sexual or not, or both, or in between. Attraction is confusing and beginning and ending. Attraction could lead to a blossoming friendship or more, or nothing at all. 

For me, attraction has always surprised me unlike my friends who seemed to fall in a similar realm of genders with their attraction. As I have grown older I have naturally created a rating system of attraction of the different gender expressions I have been exposed to, as my mathematical brain naturally makes lists. I often wonder if non-bisexual people have this kind of rating system of attraction in their brain files, but then again I don’t think there are really 50 shades of straight. 

Masculinity 

When it comes to physical or sexual attraction, I am inherently attracted to the masculine form and masculinity. I have always been attracted to masculine features, to feeling like I have a strong person to hold me kind of thing. I long to be the dainty little in this big strong person’s arms. That is what I am physically attracted to. I like short hair, big arms. I like taller than me, bigger than me. I typically just find this to be attractive in a way I can’t pinpoint. 

Femininity 

When it comes to a lot of other non-sexual forms of attraction, I am attracted to feminine characteristics. I am not attracted to feminine features per say. I like sweet; I like kind. I like the natural femininity that comes through even the butchiest of lesbians. I like the softer arts and discussing ideas and writing, some things really somewhere in between masculine and feminine– but often not seen or allowable socially in men. I like strong on the outside and soft on the inside. I like people who exist in a secret realm of what I see as the feminine, or the nurturing, those who maybe hold you more closely in private than others would think. Maybe my love language was written by Aphrodite herself. 

Masculinity is to sexual attraction for me as femininity is to romantic attraction.

The Ranks of Attraction 

Trans men

I realize that my most immediate, finger snap physical attraction has always been with trans men. The odds of me finding a trans man I am meeting attractive are close to one hundred percent according to my studies. There is something overtly masculine that I have found in the community of trans men I have met. This is something I am just so attracted to, the masculinity that radiates off of them. I think there is a difference in how trans men get to experience and display their masculinity. Something about that experience, maybe the struggle to be allowed to claim that masculinity, correlates into this part of their sexuality that I think is so attractive to me. I’m not sure what it is, but I am merely stating my observation. I have not met many people that fall into this category, but I know there is typically an immediate attraction reaction. I have also not had many experiences romantically with trans men in my life, but I believe this is more for lack of meeting. There is a distinctive difference in how I connect with trans men that is different from cis men, but that I can’t really describe as of yet.

Masculine Cis Women 

Most of the people I have been romantically attracted to and involved with in my life have been masculine women. There is something about a masculine woman that complements me. While physically feminine, I have many traits I would consider masculine. I think I get to feel more feminine in contrast to the person I am with when it comes to masculine cis women, which is what I like about them. I feel like the feminine in me becomes divine and the dichotomy between us is electric. We electrify each other’s natural masculinity and femininity just by being who we are. Masculine women usually hold me in a more intimate and romantic attraction. I connect with these women on a more intimate level than I find in men typically. Though stronger romantically, physical attraction with women was always different than with men, softer in a way. 

Cis Men

Now the next category of attraction is the strongest of the physical or sexual attraction category for me. I like masculine so it would make sense that my strongest sexual attraction would be for cis men. I am not sure exactly what it is about cis men that I like, I just know that I like a guy who looks like he would cut down some lumber. Cliché millennial lady, I know. Now moving past that sexual attraction, when it comes to being a “bro” with guys, I love guys– I’m just not in love with guys and for sure, they are not in love with me. I get along with guys after the fact. We can watch sports and burp the alphabet or whatever cliché things men do in their man caves in movies. I love it. I’m with it. The thing is men don’t typically date the men they burp with– but I guess they don’t sleep with them either.

For me, this fun relationship dynamic doesn’t typically correlate to someone I want to be sensual, spiritual, or actually romantic with either. Those attractions don’t always line up. Men don’t typically come with that for me, or not the men I have been sexually attracted to anyway. Men are not doting like women. They typically lack that nurturing nature that leads me back to women every time. They tend to be surface level, face value– in it for one thing. That typically leaves cis men in the typical category of FWB for me, which can be sticky even for the coolest of partners. 

Femme Cis Women

I am the femme woman or sometimes the chapstick lesbian, but for the sake of brevity let’s include these together. It is immensely rare that I find another feminine woman attractive because that is the role I seek. It has happened, mostly because of some bomb ass conversation later. I do not typically meet a feminine woman and BOOM, think she is hot though. I get to be the femme princess; this is why I think my psyche doesn’t even look at these women. Rarely, attraction will slowly build for these type women but again, I am used to attraction being a damn BOOM so this is pretty rare. When I did connect with women in this way, I found we were both continuously looking for a partner with more masculine features than us leaving us in an endless attraction loop where no one could fulfill the right roll.

Trans women 

I have only met a handful of trans women personally and have never found a physical attraction to come from either side. I think the trans women I have met have been so overtly feminine that they fall into the same cloud as femmes. I am attracted to the feminine in other ways, but not sexual, as I want to play the role of the fair maiden in my romance novel. 

What in the hell does it all mean?

I have no idea, but isn’t sexuality fun to think about? 

Okay, well maybe I have some ideas.

First of all, it means that my sexuality is my sexuality and unless somehow every word rung true for you– yours is yours, boo. It is specific and may seem odd to you but attraction is odd. I think we all find what other people are attracted to as odd in some way. We attract what is good for us, or what we think is good for us.

Next, learning about yourself makes dating so much more interesting and fun. Connecting with your own sexuality and attractions makes you aware of what you are and being aware of what you are makes you aware of what you want. The more you know what you are looking for, maybe the more you will know why you are looking for that– and maybe something will actually work out if you know what you want. 

I guess the summary could also include that you truly never know what attraction means for sure. Attraction could be a blip because there is a true babe in your midst. Attraction could also be something more and something extremely rare. Attraction could also be nothing, absolutely nothing. Life is bizarre and chemistry is fun.

The love story lies in the middle somewhere after that spark I suppose and where you go with that attraction and that, my dear readers, again is A WHOLE DIFFERENT STORY.