Obsessive bisexuals — and obsessive Lil Nas X fans — may recall that back in January 2023, the artist also known as Montero posted a tweet suggesting that he might be, ahem, “a little bisexual,” leaving it to the masses to wonder what, exactly, “a little bisexual” might mean.
Well, wonder no more, because he’s offered clarification:
i feel emotionally attracted to girls but rarely ever sexually and i kinda hate it because i often will have a lot of feelings for a girl but never be able to act on it
You could, if you wanted to, say “ah, I see, he’s a biromantic homosexual.” That’s certainly a conclusion that one could draw. And if it’s a conclusion that gives Lil Nax X peace; a conclusion that allows him to think, “Ah yes, I am a type of person who exists and this is what I can call myself,” then great. As a wordsmith I am aware that there is a power in naming; there’s a reason why one of the first things Adam does in the Torah is name all the animals.
And as someone who once found comfort in declaring myself to be a homoromantic bisexual, I get it. But as someone who is also nearly four years out from that day when I stood in my kitchen crying because, whoops, I wasn’t just bisexual, I was a really queer bisexual who felt monstrous to other women, I find that I no longer take the same comfort in words — or rather, that I find words can be something of a prison.
Am I still a homoromantic bisexual? I mean, in a way, sure: the reason I gravitated to that label was because I was trying to communicate my doneness, my dissatisfaction, with men; as well as my intense attraction to women. It was, in a way, a form of manifestation: and to the extent that it got me to start going on dates with women and reevaluate my relationships with men, it worked.
But to the extent that it made me hesitant about an emotional attraction I felt towards a male friend, to the extent that it made me convinced I was somehow letting myself down if I “backslid” and dated a man again? Well. That does not feel useful to me.
So this urge to slice and dice and more accurately name ourselves — it has its uses, don’t get me wrong. And yet: every knife has two edges, you know? The blade we use to free ourselves can also be used to deal our own death blow.
But, again, if realizing that language exists for “only want to bone dudes but powerful emotional attachment to women” helps Montero (or anyone else), then… sure, it’s a net win.
However.
I would be remiss if I did not mention, also, that it’s not lost on me that “I’m emotionally attracted to women but only sexually into men” is the kind of thing that only men can every really get away with saying, the same way that “I’m into fucking all kinds of people but strictly heteroromantic” is only cool and queer and edgy if you’re a man. “I love women so much but only men turn me on” is basically the default status for straight women, you know? And yet most of us aren’t rushing to tell those women they’re just biromantic heterosexuals, you know? We just kind of shrug it off and say, “Stop trying to pretend that you’re special, that’s just how women are.”
I suppose there’s something to be said here about the queerness of a man having feelings for a woman without desiring sex in return. And yet, again: the further I dive down the rabbit hole, the more I find myself just wishing we could, you know, stop caring. Just wishing we could feel things and be attracted to people without having to police or explain or worry about the “normalcy” of it all.
To just own how we feel about people — whether we’re drawn to them sexually or emotionally or both or neither — without feeling the need to justify it. We’re just overly smart monkeys with a bizarre cocktail of brain chemicals, you know? We’re at the behest of a crude combo of hormones — one that changes more frequently than many of us want to admit — and that’s all we can know.
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