"Why do I really want to kiss one of my female friends all the time?" is a question Harleen found herself asking as she entered adulthood. Ah, the classic sapphic experience.
The 29-year-old, who now identifies as bisexual/pansexual and non-binary, has been on quite a quest to uncover the truth about her sexuality. From dreaming of being with women as a child to reading gay erotica in her teenage years, she exhibited the typical indicators of queerness early on. Yet, she didn't even consider that she could be queer until much later in life.
The 'Q' in LGBTQIA+ stands for the umbrella term queer, but it also stands for questioning, as in, questioning the default sexual orientation and/or gender expected from you by society. While questioning is an intrinsic part of any queer person's journey of growing into their authentic self, one facet of questioning that's fraught with stigma is bicuriosity. Understood as someone who is interested in exploring or experimenting with bisexuality, a bicurious person is just responding to the heteronormative world. While it has been increasingly 'normalised' to experiment with your sexuality in your youth, first in the free love era of the 1960s but more so in India in the current wave of sexual liberation, bicurious people face othering both within and outside the queer community. Within the community, they're not taken seriously and asked to make up their mind'. In cis-het circles, bicurious women are especially vulnerable to fetishisation by straight men - most of us are familiar with the trope of the 'drunk straight girl who makes out with other girls at parties' just for the spectacle of it.
IT'S NOT A WATCH PARTY
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Denne historien er fra July 2023-utgaven av Grazia India.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Under The Needle
With filler-face phasing out, we are embracing the natural aesthetic but not how you might expect it
BUILDING A LEGACY
Driven by passion and a commitment to quality, this brand is making a mark in the luxury furniture market with a perfect blend of local artistry and global design
A WALK DOWN FIFTH AVENUE
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NO SEX, MO' PROBLEMS?
At a time when sex seems to be everywhere, women are experiencing a dip in their sexual desires. We find out why
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TABLE FOR ONE, PLEASE
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THE DREAM CANVAS
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LUST-WORTHY LUXURY LABELS
To Light Up This Wedding Season
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The new Dell XPS is designed for new age content creators and suave C-suite
