How Identifying as Bi and Demi Helped Me Gain Confidence

At many of my friends’ high school graduation parties, after we’d played too much volleyball and eaten too much cake to move, we’d sit in a circle and play the lazy version of Truth or Dare: Truth or Truth. One person would ask a revealing question, and everyone else would answer.

The question I dreaded was “Who’s your celebrity crush?”

At 17, I had never had one. When someone invariably asked this question, I’d stare at the grass and panic. My friends named Taylor Lautner, Channing Tatum, Miley Cyrus, or Taylor Swift. I knew who those people were, sure. But I’d never felt any kind of attraction toward them.

As my turn approached, I tried to think of a celebrity. Anyone would do, but ideally someone no one else knew, whose name they’d quickly forget. I couldn’t let my friends know how broken I was. Most of my friends weren’t athletes, but I was a big tennis player, so I defaulted to my favorite, Rafael Nadal ― and having that stock answer made the game a little less scary. It didn’t make me any less of a liar, though. I didn’t yet know how to own up to the truth.

Before I had my first same-sex crush, I identified, begrudgingly, as straight. On the surface, it seemed accurate — I was a woman having crushes on men — but the label felt incomplete. Compared to my classmates and, later, my coworkers, I had significantly fewer crushes. Others were often attracted to strangers, but the ability to judge someone’s attractiveness on the spot was foreign to me.

In the late aughts and early 2010s, I hadn’t heard of labels like asexuality. Typically defined as feeling zero sexual attraction, the most commonly cited statistic is that 1% of the population is asexual, or ace. Even once I heard the term ace, it didn’t feel quite right. I’d felt — very limited — sexual attraction, so “ace” didn’t apply to me, and yet “straight” still did not feel right. Suffice it to say that I felt totally alone. In 2014, however, I came across the Asexual Visibility and Education Network (AVEN). There I learned that ace was more than a single, narrowly-defined thing — it was a spectrum. Within it were a number of identity labels, including “graysexual” and “demisexual”, or demi. Of particular interest was the latter. AVEN defines demi as “feeling no sexual attraction towards other people unless a strong emotional bond has been established.” The Demisexuality Resource Center notes that feelings of alienation are common, as is the sense of brokenness that haunted me.

Sitting at my laptop that day, I felt a flash of recognition. All of my crushes — all three of them, at the time — had been on friends. We’d known each other for years before I’d felt the pull of attraction. I hadn’t known there was a word to describe this. I started googling demisexual after that. What I found was disappointing: Demi wasn’t widely accepted as an orientation. Asexuality was on the fringe, but demi folks in particular were seen as overdramatic. Though the identity’s reputation has since improved, even Angela Chen’s 2020 book ACE noted that “Demisexuals […] are often mocked.”

The sense of belonging I’d felt on AVEN’s forums evaporated. I needed to do more research, I decided. I’d come back to this. But fear was stronger than curiosity, for a while. I tabled my self-exploration for years.

In 2018, I had my first same-sex crush. It was the character Gamora from Guardians of the Galaxy, as played by Zoe Saldana. My friends and I didn’t play Truth or Truth anymore, but some part of me wished we did so I could choose Gamora and mean it. Finally.

But like “straight”, the label “bi” also felt incomplete. The frequency of my crushes hadn’t changed. Five experiences of attraction was, for age 25, low. I had friends who saw five attractive people in a single day. What I wanted was a word that addressed that infrequency.

Was I bi? Demi? Could I be both?

In the years since 2014, asexuality as an identity has gotten more attention, both from academics and the media, including from outlets such as the BBC, Elle, and Men’s Health.

New research, including Chen’s book, which explored the lived experiences of aces. Chen made a distinction between asexuality and demisexuality that was particularly useful for me: “Asexuality is about who you’re sexually attracted to: no one. Demisexuality describes the conditions under which someone develops sexual attraction (after an emotional bond is formed).”

In short, “demi” didn’t replace “bi” but augmented it. I didn’t need to choose.

I had hang-ups, at first. I didn’t want two labels. It would be confusing, I reasoned, for my friends and family. I’d have to explain myself if sexuality came up in conversation, and did I really want that pressure?

Demisexuality was more accepted than it had been previously, but I still feared people might say: You just want to feel special.

It took a few months to unwind those thoughts. There’s nothing wrong with using multiple labels. Sometimes it takes two to be clear and precise. Naming our experiences gives us agency. It helps us feel powerful and in control of our lives. To this point, Meg-John Barker and Jules Scheele wrote in Sexuality: A Graphic Guide, “Labels help people make sense of their attractions, feel legitimate, find communities of support, and fight for rights.” In the very next sentence, though, Barker and Scheele note that labels aren’t always useful. They create an opportunity for discrimination, and may pressure people to “fit new norms.”

Labels can be helpful, but they can be damaging, too. For me, being able to name who I’m attracted to, as well as the frequency of those attractions, has brought me a surprising peace. Most of my author bios identify me as bi/demi. That works, right now.

Maybe my sense of myself will shift later on, and I’ll need new labels. That’s okay. So is changing, dropping, or otherwise adjusting those labels. Nothing is set in stone — I don’t have to lie anymore.

And that’s incredibly freeing.