What Does It Mean To Be Sexually Fluid

wow

[Applause]

the night of my college graduation

changed everything in my life

little did i know i was about to break

up with my boyfriend

of five years come out to my father as a

lesbian

and move clear across the country to

berkeley to explore my sexuality

so was june 1999 i had just graduated

from college and my boyfriend andrew

said

frankie i’m not able to make it but you

should go ahead go and be with your

friends celebrate

well when i got to the party i was

approached by a woman named nicole

and she had the biggest warmest smile

and a ton of confidence

and she said you’re frankie right and i

said

yeah and i smiled right back at her

and she said well since you’re about to

move

across the country i’m going to take a

risk and i’m going to tell you a secret

i’ve had the biggest crush on you since

freshman year

say what i had never been approached

by a guy like that before and i’d never

met nicole

or even had a conversation with her

before that night

we flirted all night long and i couldn’t

believe what i was feeling

i was surprised i was attracted

i was flattered and i so appreciated her

bold move

and yes i spent the night with her the

next morning i woke up

and i had this feeling like something

really big

had just changed inside of me i thought

i liked men

but i just cheated on my boyfriend with

a woman

i was excited and euphoric and at the

same time

i was so perplexed by my sudden change

in sexual desire that’s what i want to

speak to you about today

this switch that i had made that abrupt

yet meaningful change in my sexual

attraction

it turns out there’s a name for that

it’s called sexual fluidity

sexual fluidity is the concept that your

attraction is less about who you’re

attracted to

overall and more about who you’re

attracted to

at a given time let me say that again

it’s about who you’re attracted to

at a given time sexual fluidity means

that a person’s erotic responsiveness

may change but it doesn’t mean that it

will change

you know have you ever experienced

someone who seems to contradict the

label that they were given

like a lesbian who ends up getting

involved

with a man or a straight woman who ends

up having a long-term relationship

with another woman these are examples of

sexual fluidity

i’m a psychologist and a lesbian

matchmaker who is also married to a

woman

and we have two awesome kids and no it’s

not nicole

and i can tell you that sexuality is so

much more complex

than we once thought in order to

understand a human’s potential

for sexual fluidity we must look back at

the past

one of the reasons why sexual fluidity

is so perplexing

is because it contradicts what we’ve

been told

that sexuality develops early and is

consistent over time

or we may have been told by our

faith-based families

that being anything other than straight

is a sin and not an option

until now we haven’t even had a word

that describes this concept

the idea of sexual fluidity is a

contradiction

to the gay rights movement and position

that we were born this way

but is it the gay rights movement about

being born this way

or is it about equal rights no matter

who you love

so let’s go back to my time with nicole

it was the end of the summer and i was

ready to tell my dad my secret

dad i need to tell you something i’ve

been dating a woman

and we’ve been together for a few months

now

really frankie but you’re so

beautiful and feminine you have such

long beautiful hair

i know you can’t help it and i’m going

to love you no matter what

but it’s like a disease like you have a

sickness

i know my dad cared about me and i

know that he was worried that my life

would be harder because i had this

sickness

throughout the years i’ve had clients

come to me say that they feel strange

and they feel different like there’s

something wrong with them

they too felt like they thought that

they were straight and then all of a

sudden

they’re finding themselves attracted to

somebody of the same gender or it’s like

the flip

where somebody is queer

and all of a sudden they’re finding

themselves attracted to the opposite

gender

it can happen both ways and it can

happen at any time

so i’d like to propose that instead of

us saying

that we’re born this way with a fixed

sexual orientation

let’s instead say that we’re born this

way with the potential for sexual

fluidity

that frees us to follow our desires and

make different choices over time

let’s acknowledge that humans are born

to love throughout a spectrum

in 1997 ellen’s coming out episode was

revolutionary

it was such a big deal that it actually

was banned in certain parts of the

country

and today millennials and generation z

folks

they get so much exposure thanks to

shows like

lee orange is the new black queer eye

for the straight guy

and will and grace a range of sexual

expression is so

normal to them there’s no more shock

value to them

they just get it they get that human

nature has sexual fluidity

unlike baby boomers and generation xers

like me

i have a bisexual friend who’s the proud

mom of a teen trans boy

we’ll call him matt like most parents

she

likes to fall along with her son’s love

life

well one day matt’s friend came over to

the house before matt actually came home

from school

and he was talking to matt’s mom

and he said hey you know there’s a girl

in class that

likes matt and you know she also liked

matt

when matt was michelle before she became

a guy

and then my friend said well does the

girl

consider herself queer straight

bi matt’s friend said

i don’t know she never came out or

anything

does she have to be anything i’ve been

asked that question a lot

why do we need to label people

especially when i was hired to be the

relationship and dating coach

on mtv’s first ever sexually fluid

dating game show society has a love-hate

relationship with labels

they create a sense of inclusiveness and

understanding

but at the same time they box us in and

they constrict us

and we’re living in a time where there’s

a heightened sensitivity

around labels labels can be stressful

they even stress me out i’m not perfect

and sometimes i feel like i’m walking

into a minefield when i’m talking to

clients in my community

i’m afraid that i might accidentally say

the wrong thing

i do this for a living and i still get

it wrong

who knows i may change my label i might

instead

call myself an lgbtq plus matchmaker or

a queer matchmaker let’s talk briefly

about pronouns

when they then pronouns first started

being used

in 2015. you just hear me say that 2015.

that’s five years ago can you believe

that

well i can’t tell you how many times i

got it wrong

somebody would tell me that they go by

they them pronouns and i would

accidentally

say he she

come on it’s probably happened to you

too right

i mean we definitely still have work to

do there

but i was so embarrassed i was ashamed i

felt like if i wasn’t getting this who’s

gonna get this and i don’t ever want

somebody to feel like

i didn’t care but we’ve got to keep

talking

even when the conversations get really

hard in order to better understand each

other

i’m part of the queer community and if

i’m anxious

about mislabeling i can only imagine

how folks in the straight community must

be feeling right now

damn uncomfortable so i want to play a

little true or false

and bust some myths around sexual labels

so myth number one fluid is the same as

the terms

bisexual and pansexual any guesses

well that’s false sexual fluidity refers

to someone who can move across an arc

of sexual attraction over time

the term bisexual refers to someone who

is attracted to more than one gender

and pansexual is a more recent label

where someone is attracted to another

person regardless of their gender

okay if you’re getting dizzy right now

trying to keep up with all these labels

know this you can be more than one at

the same time

and many of them overlap your sexuality

is truly up to you

you get to decide you get to decide

what’s best for you

and the switch can happen at any time

okay next myth

true or false folks who identify as

bisexual pansexual or fluid

are into group sex are kinky and

incapable of monogamy is that true or

false

false it’s an outdated belief that if

you’re anything other than straight

it’s a sickness come on people are just

into who they’re into

and by the way we all know there are

plenty of straight people who are kinky

or incapable of monogamy

i mean just look at billions on showtime

there are straight people who are kinky

there are bisexual people who are plain

vanilla

being queer doesn’t mean that i’m a

nymphomaniac

maybe since i’m tattooed and i have a

partially shaved head and i’ve got some

muscles

people feel like they can make

assumptions about my sexuality

i can’t tell you how many times i’ve

been invited to join a couple sexually

i’ve never been into that i’ve never

been a part of any swingers groups

or threesomes and yet i get these

requests

so often and why

just because i look the way that i do it

doesn’t even surprise me anymore

okay let’s bust that myth for sure on to

the next

true or false the term sexually fluid

may make the term bisexual outdated

true or false well i have to say maybe

i can’t predict the future but here’s

why i think fluid is becoming the new

term for bisexual teens are using the

term

sexually fluid or fluid as a possible

replacement for the term bisexual

they don’t even say bye they just say

fluid

we all know things are in flux right now

there’s a lot of cultural shifts

happening and like so many movements

there’s conflict and confusion while a

greater collective understanding is

being created

sexual fluidity is a label of

inclusiveness

understanding and liberation

the night of my college graduation i

didn’t know

i was going to meet nicole and fall in

love

i didn’t know i was going to have a big

secret to tell my dad

and i didn’t know my life was going to

change completely

overnight i wasn’t expecting this switch

but when it happened i had a choice

i could either be scared and run

or i could stay and be open

and i leaned into it and i discovered

who i

am i am sexually fluid and i

know who makes me happy at any given

time

i wish you all the same happiness

thank you