Here’s an example for you:
Sofie Hagen, whose comedy focuses on all things sex, gender and fatness, wrote a piece for Metro on being what they call “a pansexual virgin”.
They explained: “‘Pansexual’ means I am attracted to, and fall in love with, people regardless of their gender.
“‘Virgin’ means… well, in this case, it means something quite specific: I have never slept with a woman.
“In fact, I have only slept with cisgender-heterosexual men. If I remain a pansexual virgin for life, can I still even claim to be queer? I’ve decided I can.”
Hagen said they had kissed women, dated women and fallen in love with women… they’d just never had sex with a woman, and they said they feared it was “too late”.
“When it comes to women or people with vaginas,” they said, “the longer I don’t have sex with one, the more I start to worry: what if I don’t know how to do it?
“What if it goes wrong and I accidentally break something or plug something and then I’ll be too scared to try again and I’ll be destined to the beige and boring life of dating cis-men forever?
“What if my own vagina is super weird, and I don’t realise until I see someone else’s, and then I’ll be like, ‘Hang on, is that thing meant to be that small?'”
Hagen said they knew exactly what they would say if this was someone else’s dilemma: “There is no shame in being a pansexual person who has only ever slept with cis men.”
They continued: “If this was anyone other than me, I would climb across a table and slap them silly for even having the audacity to ask such a foolish question.
“‘Of course, you are queer. You don’t have to prove your queerness to anyone. You don’t have to sleep with anyone to be queer!’
“But it’s not anyone else, it’s me with all of my internalised biphobia, insecurity, social anxiety and self-doubt… there is always the fear that the queer community will have a big meeting and decide to strip me of my LGBTQIA+ identity and send me back to heterosexual hell.”
Ultimately, Hagen said, it’s about being okay where you are: “If I end up never sleeping with a woman or a person with a vagina, I guess that’s going to have to just be okay.”
. I just want to say - sshh now - consistently.
