My name is Sofie and I am a pansexual virgin.
‘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.
Because I have wanted to be with a woman. My first love was a girl called Nicole who wrote her diary in poetry-form, was a tortured teenage-soul, who ‘hated being beautiful’ and said she loved my brain.
Also, she had really long hair. As soon as I fell in love with her, I ignored her until we both left school and I never saw her again. (Is this how you flirt?)
Then there was Theresa who played handball, always wore trainers and had enormous red hair and freckles.
We kissed during a drinking game of Truth Or Dare when we were 16 and I planned our wedding. I had a boyfriend at the time who thought it was hot that I’d made out with a girl.
There were a few more boyfriends, then a month-long relationship in my early twenties with another woman with red hair who shouted at me in Italian and made me break into houses and drink until I passed out.
It was an exciting month – but we never had sex. And now, to be honest, I’m scared it’s too late.
I know, being a pansexual virgin is unusual… and boring, frankly. Some would argue that it’s like going to a buffet and only eating the dry slices of cucumber when there are chicken thighs, moussaka and all-you-can-drink slushies on offer.
It’s not like I’m only dating cis-men at the moment, either. Or dating anyone, really.
I’m not looking, held back from dating by the millennial classics: social anxiety, cis-men’s masculinity no longer being attractive but instead slightly pathetic-seeming, and frankly a bigger desire to be in bed with Netflix and a weighted blanket than out amongst people.
And it’s not that I haven’t had the opportunity. A woman asked me out on a date a few years ago and I embarked on a 10-minute rant: oh god, really? Oh no, I don’t know, I mean, yes, I mean, I’d like to, obviously, you’re very cool, I mean, you’re pretty, or, I mean, sure, but also I don’t know how to do it, I mean, I’ve not done it before with — I’ve only ever – um, could you give me a few days to think about this?
We didn’t end up going out. But when it comes to women or people with vaginas, 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?’
Look, if a friend of mine had told me all of this, I would know exactly what to say: There is no shame in being a pansexual person who has only ever slept with cis-men.
Yet 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.
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 (which I really hope is what women want).
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.
The homophobes always say that if gay people are allowed to get married, what will be next is people marrying animals or objects.
In which case, my weighted blanket can consider this an official proposal. At least I know exactly how to sleep with it.
Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing rosy.edwards@metro.co.uk
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source https://metro.co.uk/2020/10/02/pansexual-only-slept-with-men-not-less-queer-13320599/
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