I hope I'm posting this thread in the right section. This has less to do with sexual issues than with attitudes toward them, I guess. Along with my own confusion about some of these attitudes.

I am a heterosexual woman. Bi-curious to some degree, but with a strong lifelong preference for cis men. Given a choice, that's who I naturally gravitate toward. (At the risk of sounding crass, I just really, really, really like penises and prefer to include them in my sexytimes for maximum satisfaction.)

But now, people are telling me that simply being heterosexual means that I'm misogynistic and transphobic.



I don't understand this argument. Can anyone help me understand?

I mean, I always thought that sexual orientation and sexual attraction were beyond our voluntary control. That sexual arousal isn't something we can "make" happen if it isn't happening naturally. That being gay, straight, bisexual, asexual, or any other orientation isn't something we can choose. Am I wrong?

Every time I try to argue that people therefore shouldn't be judged or shamed for not being pansexual, I get called a bigot.

I had a particularly rattling encounter on Fetlife today, and now I'm freaking out to the point that I disabled my account.

I'm so confused. How does being straight make me a bigot??? I'm not a TERF, I'm not a transphobe, I'm not a misogynist, and I'm sure as heck not down with denying people human rights based on any aspect of their identity (which is what I understand a bigot to be). So why am I being accused of these things just because I stated a personal sexual preference? How does me not hooking up with someone violate their human rights?

Here's the thing. I genuinely want to be a good person. I'm also a total people-pleaser, and it's extremely upsetting when people call my goodness into question, because I spend every day striving to be a better and more conscientious human. Some things I can't help. Like who I am and am not attracted to sexually. If my sexuality itself makes me a bigot, and I can't change my sexuality, that means I can't avoid being a bigot, which means that I'll never truly be a good person in other people's eyes no matter how hard I try. And that's an awful feeling. One that seems ludicrous and wrong in the first place, but which I'm increasingly being confronted with.

I'm trying to grow, and I'm trying to be open minded. I'm just having a lot of trouble with this one.

Seriously: is someone automatically a bigot if they're not pansexual?